US officials say strike in Libya hit target, but uncertainty on fate of wanted al-Qaida leader ADVERTISING US officials say strike in Libya hit target, but uncertainty on fate of wanted al-Qaida leader CAIRO — Pentagon officials say they believe
US officials say strike in Libya hit target, but uncertainty on fate of wanted al-Qaida leader
CAIRO — Pentagon officials say they believe they hit their target — the one-eyed, al-Qaida-linked commander who led a deadly attack on an Algerian gas facility in 2013. But uncertainty still surrounds the U.S. airstrike in eastern Libya, and whether Mokhtar Belmokhtar was actually among the militants said to have been killed in the bombing.
Libyan officials say Sunday’s airstrike hit a gathering of militants on a farm outside Ajdabiya, a coastal city about 530 miles east of the capital, Tripoli, but there were conflicting reports on how many died.
An initial assessment shows the bombing that targeted Belmokhtar was successful, and “post-strike assessments” were still underway Monday to determine whether the Algerian militant was killed, said Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman.
“But we’re not prepared to confirm that because we haven’t finalized our assessment,” he said, adding that the strike had hit a “hard structure.”
Kurdish militias seize large parts of IS-held Syrian border city
BEIRUT — U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters captured large sections of a strategic town on the Syria-Turkish border on Monday, dealing the biggest setback yet to the Islamic State group, which lost a key supply line for their nearby self-proclaimed capital.
The seizure of Tal Abyad threatened to flare tensions between Kurds and ethnic Arabs, who accused the Kurdish militia of deliberately displacing thousands of people from the town, which has a mixed population.
Redur Khalil, a spokesman for the main Kurdish fighting force, known as the YPG, said Kurdish fighters entered from the east and were advancing west toward the town’s center amid fierce clashes with pockets of IS resistance.
“We expect to have full control over Tal Abyad within a few hours,” he told The Associated Press by telephone. A few hours later, the YPG announced on its Facebook page that it had liberated the town.
Jeb Bush vows to stay true to beliefs in opening ‘16 race that will test his conservatism
MIAMI — Vowing to win the Republican presidential nomination on his own merits, Jeb Bush launched a White House bid months in the making Monday with a promise to stay true to his beliefs — easier said than done in a bristling primary contest where his conservative credentials will be sharply challenged.
“Not a one of us deserves the job by right of resume, party, seniority, family, or family narrative. It’s nobody’s turn,” Bush said, confronting critics who suggest he simply seeks to inherit the office already held by his father and brother. “It’s everybody’s test, and it’s wide open — exactly as a contest for president should be.”
Bush sought to turn the prime argument against his candidacy on its head, casting himself as the true Washington outsider while lashing out at competitors in both parties as being part of the problem. He opened his campaign at a rally near his south Florida home at Miami Dade College.
“We are not going to clean up the mess in Washington by electing the people who either helped create it or have proven incapable of fixing it,” he said.
Young beachgoers lose limbs in shark attacks on same day in North Carolina
OAK ISLAND, N.C. — Beachgoers cautiously returned to the ocean Monday after two young people lost limbs in separate, life-threatening shark attacks in the same town in North Carolina.
A 12-year-old girl lost her left arm below the elbow and suffered a leg injury Sunday afternoon; then about an hour and 20 minutes later and 2 miles away, a shark bit off the left arm above the elbow of a 16-year-old boy.
Both had been swimming about 20 yards offshore, in waist-deep water.
A shark expert says the best response after one of these extremely rare attacks is to temporarily close beaches that lack lifeguards. Local officials acknowledged Monday that they didn’t make a concerted effort to warn people up and down the town’s beaches to stop swimming until after the second attack.
Theater shooter kept psychiatrists in the dark about his massacre plans
CENTENNIAL, Colo. — The person closest to the murderous thoughts of James Holmes before he carried out his attack on a Colorado movie theater is someone he tried very hard to keep in the dark.
Dr. Lynne Fenton saw Holmes five times in 2012 and prescribed him drugs for anxiety and depression, concerned he had a social phobia after he confessed to thoughts of killing people, according to testimony in his death penalty trial.
Her own testimony is highly anticipated, because despite their tense relationship, she was the mental health professional closest to Holmes before the shooting.
But Holmes said he pointedly kept Fenton uninformed as he plotted his attack. He never told her about the arsenal of weapons he was assembling. His elaborate schemes and to-do lists were kept in a journal that he didn’t send to her until hours before his assault, and it lingered in a campus mail room for days thereafter.
His list for their sessions included: “Prevent building false sense of rapport … deflect incriminating questions … can’t tell the mind rapists plan.”
Minnesota archbishop’s downfall follows claims he didn’t protect children from abusive clergy
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Archbishop John Nienstedt’s leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis unraveled over a painful two years.
A church archivist accused him of leaving abusive clergy in parishes and church jobs without warning parents or police. A task force he appointed to investigate confirmed the archdiocese had been negligent. Around the same time, he faced allegations of his own inappropriate sexual conduct, but he didn’t reveal specifics.
Through it all, Nienstedt rejected calls for his resignation. Then, less than two weeks ago, a prosecutor brought child-endangerment charges against the archdiocese, and on Monday, he stepped down.
“I leave with a clear conscience knowing that my team and I have put in place solid protocols to ensure the protection of minors and vulnerable adults,” Nienstedt wrote in the announcement.
But the Rev. Michael Tegeder, a Minneapolis priest and frequent Nienstedt critic, said the archbishop “came into this diocese without really any empathy” and “undermined so many of the good things that were going on here.”
By wire sources.
