BEIRUT — As the Obama administration tries to prod Congress into backing armed action against Syria, the regime in Damascus is hiding military hardware and shifting troops out of bases into civilian areas. Syria may be hiding weapons, shifting troops
Syria may be
hiding weapons, shifting troops
BEIRUT — As the Obama administration tries to prod Congress into backing armed action against Syria, the regime in Damascus is hiding military hardware and shifting troops out of bases into civilian areas.
Politically, President Bashar Assad has gone on the offensive, warning in a rare interview with Western media that any military action against Syria could spark a regional war.
If the U.S. undertakes missile strikes, Assad’s reaction could have a major effect on the trajectory of Syria’s civil war. Neighboring countries could get dragged into a wider conflict, or it could be back to business as usual for a crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people over 2½ years.
The main Western-backed opposition group says that during the buildup last week to what seemed like an imminent U.S. attack, the army moved troops as well as rocket launchers, artillery and other heavy weapons into residential neighborhoods in cities nationwide.
Car bomb blasts kill
at least 67 in Baghdad
BAGHDAD — A series of coordinated evening blasts in Baghdad and other violence killed at least 67 people in Iraq on Tuesday, officials said, the latest in a months-long surge of bloodshed that Iraqi security forces are struggling to contain.
Many of those killed were caught up in a string of car bombings that tore through the Iraqi capital early in the evening as residents were out shopping or heading to dinner. Those blasts struck 11 different neighborhoods and claimed more than 50 lives in less than two hours.
The evening’s deadliest attack happened when two car bombs exploded near restaurants and shops Baghdad’s northeastern suburb of Husseiniyah, a Shiite area, killing nine people and wounding 32.
A row of restaurants was also hit in the largely Shiite eastern neighborhood of Talibiyah, killing seven and wounding 28. Another car bomb hit the nearby Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, killing three and wounding eight, according to police.
Cleveland kidnapper found hanging in cell
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio corrections officials said Ariel Castro, who held three women captive in his home for nearly a decade, has committed suicide at a state prison facility.
Spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said 53-year-old Castro was found hanging in his cell around 9:20 p.m. Tuesday at the Correctional Reception Center. Prison medical staff performed CPR before Castro was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The three women disappeared separately between 2002 and 2004, when they were 14, 16 and 20 years old. They escaped May 6, when one of the women broke part of a door and yelled to neighbors for help. Castro was arrested that evening.
Castro was sentenced Aug. 1 to life in prison plus 1,000 years following his guilty plea to 937 counts, including kidnapping and rape.
Ku Klux Klan, NAACP leaders meet in Wyo.
DENVER — A meeting between the Wyoming chapter of the NAACP and an organizer for the Ku Klux Klan over the weekend is believed to be the first of its kind.
The meeting between Jimmy Simmons, president of the Casper NAACP, and John Abarr, a KKK organizer from Great Falls, Mont., took place at a hotel in Casper, Wyo., under tight security, the Casper Star-Tribune reported.
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the United Klans of America said Tuesday that the meeting is a first.
Abarr told The Associated Press that he met with Simmons Saturday and ended up filling out an NAACP membership form so he can get the group’s newsletters and some insight into its views. He said he paid the $30 fee to join, plus a $20 donation.
But Abarr said he didn’t ask anybody at the meeting if they would like to join the KKK.
By wire sources
