NucNews July 29, 2006 -------- NUCLEAR -------- security Seattle Shooting Suspect Worked at Hanford Nuclear Reservation Saturday, July 29, 2006 http://holycoast.blogspot.com/2006/07/seattle-shooting-suspect-worked-at.html This might keep you up at night as more information comes out about Seattle shooting suspect Naveed Afzal Haq (h/t Little Green Footballs): Yousef Shehadeb, 46, a member of the Islamic Center of the Tri-Cities, recalled Haq as quiet and something of a loner. Shehadeb said he and Haq's father, Mian Haq, both work at the Hanford nuclear reservation, as do many members of the area's Muslim community. As Charles tells us, Hanford is the largest nuclear waste dump in the country. Why does this story give me images of Homer Simpson walking out the door of the nuclear power plant with a piece of plutonium in his pocket? -- Security increased after Seattle shooting By TIM BOOTH, Associated Press Writer Sat Jul 29, 2006 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060729/ap_on_re_us/seattle_shooting_26 SEATTLE - Officials stepped up security at both synagogues and mosques Saturday as authorities investigated a shooting at a Jewish organization that killed an employee and wounded five others, including a pregnant woman. Police arrested Naveed Afzal Haq, 30, after the shooting Friday afternoon and he was booked for investigation of homicide and attempted homicide, police said. They were investigating the shooting as a hate crime. Haq was expected to make an initial court appearance Saturday afternoon. The gunman forced his way through the security door at the federation after an employee had punched in her security code, Marla Meislin-Dietrich, a database coordinator for the center who was not at the building at the time, told The Associated Press. "He said `I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel,' before opening fire on everyone," Meislin-Dietrich said. "He was randomly shooting at everyone." Police would not confirm the account. Pam Waechter, 58, an assistant director at the federation, died at the scene, said Nancy Geiger, the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle's interim chief executive. "This is just an extraordinary shock. We lost a really wonderful colleague, a wonderful friend. It's hard," Geiger said. As employees fled the center, a SWAT team raced to the scene and cordoned off several downtown blocks. The gunman surrendered moments later after speaking with a 911 dispatcher. That conversation led police to believe the shooting was a hate crime, authorities said. Five other women were shot, including a 37-year-old who is five months pregnant and was hit in the forearm. She was in satisfactory condition, along with a woman who was shot in the knee. Three others were shot in the abdomen and were hospitalized in serious condition. Mayor Greg Nickels and Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske said officers were moving to protect synagogues and mosques around the city, but said there was no evidence of a broad conspiracy. "This was a purposeful, hateful act, as far as we know by an individual acting on his own," Nickels said. Authorities have been advising synagogues and Jewish groups to be watchful in the weeks since hostilities erupted between Israel and Lebanon. Assistant Police Chief Nick Metz said the warning was not in response to any specific threats. Kerlikowske said police were protecting mosques "because there's always the concern of retaliatory crime." When asked if the suspect was Muslim, Kerlikowske said at a news conference, "you could infer that that was his background." Laura Laughlin, special agent in charge of the Seattle FBI office, said Haq was a U.S. citizen. Haq's lawyer, Larry Stephenson, told The Seattle Times that he thought Haq was single and unemployed, and that Haq had a misdemeanor lewd conduct charge pending in Benton County. Haq had been accused of exposing himself in a public place, Stephenson told The Times. Haq's parents were shaken by his arrest in the shootings, the lawyer said. "I talked to his father, and his mother is crying, and they don't know what is going on," Stephenson said. "They are very, very shook up." Yousef Shehadeb, 46, a member of the Islamic Center of the Tri-Cities, recalled Haq as quiet and something of a loner. Shehadeb said he and Haq's father, Mian Haq, both work at the Hanford nuclear reservation, as do many members of the area's Muslim community. No one answered the door to an Associated Press reporter on Saturday at the Haq residence north of Pasco. Shehadeb hadn't called the Haqs, he said, because "I didn't know what to say." In a statement, the Islamic Center offered condolences to the shooting victims and said "we disassociate this act from our Islamic teachings and beliefs." On the Net: Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle: http://www.jewishinseattle.org -------- u.s. nuc facilities -------- tennessee Energy Solutions lays off 80 in Oak Ridge Most of the job cuts are from facilities on Bear Creek Road By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com July 29, 2006, Knoxville News http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/business/article/0,1406,KNS_376_4878368,00.html OAK RIDGE - EnergySolutions is eliminating about 80 jobs in Oak Ridge, where the broad-based nuclear firm has a number of business holdings. EnergySolutions was formed earlier this year, merging the assets of Envirocare, BNG America (formerly BNFL Inc.) and Duratek. The company is paring jobs as part of a reorganization that's designed to eliminate duplicate positions and consolidate job functions. "We had to let some good people go," Steve Creamer, EnergySolution's president and CEO, said Friday in a telephone interview from Utah, where the company is headquartered. "It's unfortunate, but when you bring companies together that's one bad thing that does happen. Hopefully, we'll build it back sooner or later." Companywide, EnergySolutions is reducing its work force by 170 out of a total of 2,000, Creamer said. In Oak Ridge, where the company employs about 500 people, most of the cuts are coming from the waste-processing facilities on Bear Creek Road, formerly part of the Duratek operations. After the companies merged, some of the business activities competed with others. For instance, the Bear Creek facility in Oak Ridge incinerated and compacted wastes to reduce the customers' costs of disposing of waste at a landfill in Clive, Utah, that also is part of EnergySolutions. It turned out to be cheaper to simply dispose of some wastes, rather than process them in Oak Ridge and then ship them to Utah, Creamer said. "The customers actually came out better," he said. The EnergySolutions executive said the company was actively recruiting additional missions for the Oak Ridge operations, including some waste-treatment tasks that will require approval of new permits. Those missions will take time to develop, he said. In a statement released to the news media, the company said it was offering two "generous" severance options to employees. One of those would be in a lump-sum cash payment, based on length of service and other factors, while the second option would provide continuing salary and benefits to employees as they seek new employment and use outplacement services. In addition to the waste-processing facilities on Bear Creek Road, other Oak Ridge operations include a nuclear container and equipment business on Gallaher Road. Energy Solutions also owns Manufacturing Sciences Corp., where depleted uranium and other metals are processed. Creamer called Manufacturing Sciences "one of the best nuclear materials science companies in the world," and he said it was on the verge of landing a contract to produce shipping containers for radioisotopes used in medicine. EnergySolutions also operates an Oak Ridge nuclear landfill for the U.S. Department of Energy under a contract previously assigned to Duratek Federal Services, and the company is part of a consortium that holds a DOE contract for processing a stockpile of uranium-233 at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Senior writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. ---- ORNL workers help Libya shed nuclear material By FRANK MUNGER, munger@knews.com July 29, 2006 Knoxville News http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/world/article/0,1406,KNS_351_4879039,00.html OAK RIDGE - Oak Ridge National Laboratory is helping de-nuke Libya. Larry Satkowiak, director of ORNL's Nuclear Nonproliferation Programs, confirmed Friday that lab employees participated this week in an operation that removed 6.6 pounds of highly enriched uranium from a research reactor in Libya and transported it to a secure location in Russia. He also said Oak Ridge workers assisted in a previously unannounced project in 2004 that relocated 37.4 pounds of weapons-usable uranium from Libya to Russia. Meanwhile, on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, ORNL has signed a "sister laboratory" agreement with the Tajoura Research Center in Libya, Satkowiak said. "This will ensure an ongoing relationship with this facility and other nuclear research facilities within Libya," he said. "Continued contact is the best way to normalize relationships." In 2003, under terms negotiated by the Bush administration, Libya agreed to abandon its nuclear weapons program and all activities pertaining to weapons of mass destruction. Since then, the United States has taken steps to improve relations with the African country, and Libya has cooperated in shedding weapons-making materials and equipment. The deal with Libya is considered one of the Bush administration's diplomatic successes. In early 2004, stocks of uranium and uranium-enrichment equipment were airlifted out of Libya and transported to the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge. President Bush visited Oak Ridge later that summer to inspect Libya's nuclear goods and to deliver a policy speech on counter-terrorism efforts. "The (Libyan) equipment is still being stored in Oak Ridge and is awaiting disposition," Steven Wyatt, a federal spokesman at Y-12, said Friday. The latest mission, announced earlier this week in Washington, removed weapons-grade uranium that Libya acquired years ago from Russia for use as fuel in a research reactor. Satkowiak said ORNL personnel were involved in assessing the nuclear material, ensuring that it was actually highly enriched uranium and that the listed amount was accurate. They also monitored the packaging of the uranium, working with representatives of the International Atomic Energy Agency to apply "tamper-indicating devices" as a security measure, he said. The Oak Ridge employees watched the loading of the uranium into containers and monitored the packages as they were placed on a transport plane bound for Russia, Satkowiak said. The nuclear reactor at Libya's Tajoura Research Center is being reconfigured to operate on low-enriched uranium, which cannot be used to make nuclear bombs. The National Nuclear Security Administration is heading the project as part of its Global Threat Reduction Initiative. In a prepared statement, NNSA Administrator Linton Brooks said this week's transfer of enriched uranium was "a clear indication of Libya's continued commitment to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and proliferation-sensitive materials." According to statistics released by the NNSA, about 400 pounds of high-risk nuclear materials have been recovered in recent years from vulnerable sites in Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Libya, Uzbekistan, Latvia and the Czech Republic. Senior Writer Frank Munger may be reached at 865-342-6329. -------- MILITARY -------- afghanistan U.S.-led offensive against Taliban to wind down as NATO takes over Updated 7/29/2006 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-07-29-nato-afghanistan_x.htm KABUL, Afghanistan — Southern Afghanistan, homeland of the Taliban and hub of the global heroin trade, is spinning out of control. Islamic militants are launching suicide attacks, corrupt authorities are undermining the central government and a disgruntled population is hooked on growing opium. On Monday, fixing Afghanistan's biggest problem area falls to NATO, the Western military alliance. It promises to be the toughest combat mission in NATO's 57-year history, and a stern test for a powerful force with surprisingly little experience in fighting. "A lot of different forces are coalescing to drive the coalition out," said Joanna Nathan, an analyst with the International Crisis Group. "It's not just Taliban. It's a complex alliance of people who don't want to see the rule of law in Afghanistan." The future of Afghanistan as a Western-style democracy could ride on the success or failure of the 8,000 mostly British, Dutch and Canadian forces that have moved into the southern region. Five years after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban regime that hosted al-Qaeda, the country is in danger of again becoming an international terrorist haven. And with the Arab-Israeli conflict raging and Iraqi mired in daily violence, failure in Afghanistan would leave the West in disarray on three of its main battlegrounds in the war on terror. The credibility of the 26-nation Western military alliance, established in 1949 to deter the Soviet bloc, is also at stake. While it has engaged in peace missions and aerial bombing campaigns such as in Kosovo in 1999, NATO has limited experience in ground combat. Francesc Vendrell, the European Union's special representative for Afghanistan, said Wednesday that because of the concerns over Afghanistan's future, NATO must not fail. "We are not going to tolerate any kind of haven for terrorists in Afghanistan," he said. The strong rhetoric reflects growing concern that the multinational effort to bring democracy and stability to Afghanistan is going awry. Over the past year, Taliban-led militants regained effective control over large tracts of their southern heartland. They have adopted destructive terrorist tactics seen in Iraq and have launched major attacks, this month even managing to briefly control two southern towns — unprecedented during the previous four years. Another pressing concern is the drug trade. Last year, Afghanistan produced nearly 90% of the world's opium, the raw material of heroin. Much of it is grown by poppy farmers in the south. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars in Western anti-narcotics assistance, diplomats expect opium output to have increased this year, and say provincial government officials and police are still involved in drug trafficking. U.N. special representative Tom Koenigs said the insurgency is fueled by international terrorist networks. Other officials say militants include a hard core of Taliban, students from religious schools in neighboring Pakistan, Afghan villagers who are paid to fight, and drug militias. NATO takes over command of the south from the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition that was deployed in 2001, primarily to hunt down Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda associates. The coalition has made strides in quelling militancy in the east, where al-Qaeda leaders are possibly hiding along the border with Pakistan. But it has failed to prevent an alarming spike in Taliban activity in the south. That appears to be largely because it lacked troops on the ground. For much of 2005, just one 3,600-strong U.S. brigade was responsible for security for the whole of southern and western Afghanistan, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick. Helmand province, a Taliban stronghold where nearly a quarter of Afghanistan's opium is grown, had just 120 U.S. troops last year. Since this spring, about 4,000 British troops have deployed in Helmand as part of the shift to NATO control, sparking intense fighting. "We have moved into areas that previously had no real coalition forces and as a result, we've rattled cages of Taliban and drug lords," spokesman Capt. Drew Gibson said by phone from Helmand. The hope is that a larger NATO force based in the region can stabilize it enough to allow development and better governance that will restore the tribes' faith in President Hamid Karzai's administration. Vendrell said the job of international forces would have been easier if they had deployed three or four years earlier, but that the enlarged troop presence offers hope that this new strategy would work. He said that about 36,000 U.S.-led coalition and NATO forces will be in Afghanistan: the biggest foreign troop presence during the post-Taliban period. An official of NATO's International Security Assistance Force conceded that the fierce Taliban response came as a surprise as its 18,000-strong force expanded from the relatively stable north and west to the south in recent months. "We assumed we would be tested, especially in the run-up to the handover when we were a bit wet behind the ears," said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. "What we didn't predict was the level of the resistance or the fact that they (the Taliban) would stand their ground and fight." Military officials say the Taliban have taken heavy losses. According to the U.S. military, more than 600 militants have died in the south in an operation launched June 10 with 10,000 Afghan government and foreign forces. But the fighting also has claimed at least a dozen British and Canadian soldiers, sparking criticism that NATO is being sucked into an unwinnable battle in a country where the Mujahedeen, or holy warriors, defeated the might of the Soviet army in the 1980s. Ultimately, success of the mission lies beyond the power of troops on the ground. Rebuilding Afghanistan requires international aid and concerted action by Karzai's increasingly unpopular administration to fight corruption. Western and U.N. officials also say for NATO's mission to succeed, neighboring Pakistan must prevent Taliban commanders and militants from operating from its soil — although Pakistan's government, a key U.S. anti-terror ally, bristles at suggestions that it doesn't do enough. "The insurgency requires safe havens, and they have got one," the ISAF official said, referring to Pakistan. -------- business Audit Finds U.S. Hid Cost of Iraq Projects By JAMES GLANZ, July 29, 2006 New York Times http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/nyt341.html BAGHDAD, Iraq — The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found. The agency hid construction overruns by listing them as overhead or administrative costs, according to the audit, written by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, an independent office that reports to Congress, the Pentagon and the State Department. Called the United States Agency for International Development, or A.I.D., the agency administers foreign aid projects around the world. It has been working in Iraq on reconstruction since shortly after the 2003 invasion. The report by the inspector general’s office does not give a full accounting of all projects financed by the agency’s $1.4 billion budget, but cites several examples. The findings appeared in an audit of a children’s hospital in Basra, but they referred to the wider reconstruction activities of the development agency in Iraq. American and Iraqi officials reported this week that the State Department planned to drop Bechtel, its contractor on that project, as signs of budget and scheduling problems began to surface. The United States Embassy in Baghdad referred questions about the audit to the State Department in Washington, where a spokesman, Justin Higgins, said Saturday, “We have not yet had a chance to fully review this report, but certainly will consider it carefully, as we do all the findings of the inspector general.” Bechtel has said that because of the deteriorating security in Basra, the hospital project could not be completed as envisioned. But Mr. Higgins said: “Despite the challenges, we are committed to completing this project so that sick children in Basra can receive the medical help they need. The necessary funding is now in place to ensure that will happen.” In March 2005, A.I.D. asked the Iraq Reconstruction and Management Office at the United States Embassy in Baghdad for permission to downsize some projects to ease widespread financing problems. In its request, it said that it had to “to absorb greatly increased construction costs” at the Basra hospital, and that it would make a modest shift of priorities and reduce “contractor overhead” on the project. The embassy office approved the request. But the audit found that the agency interpreted the document as permission to change reporting of costs across its program. Referring to the embassy office’s approval, the inspector general wrote, “The memorandum was not intended to give U.S.A.I.D. blanket permission to change the reporting of all indirect costs.” The hospital’s construction budget was $50 million. By April of this year, Bechtel had told the aid agency that because of escalating costs for security and other problems, the project would actually cost $98 million to complete. But in an official report to Congress that month, the agency “was reporting the hospital project cost as $50 million,” the inspector general wrote in his report. The rest was reclassified as overhead, or “indirect costs.” According to a contracting officer at the agency who was cited in the report, the agency “did not report these costs so it could stay within the $50 million authorization.” “We find the entire agreement unclear,” the inspector general wrote of the A.I.D. request approved by the embassy. “The document states that hospital project cost increases would be offset by reducing contractor overhead allocated to the project, but project reports for the period show no effort to reduce overhead.” The report said it suspected that other unreported costs on the hospital could drive the tab even higher. In another case cited in the report, a power station project in Musayyib, the direct construction cost cited by the development agency was $6.6 million, while the overhead cost was $27.6 million. One result is that the project’s overhead, a figure that normally runs to a maximum of 30 percent, was a stunning 418 percent. The figures were even adjusted in the opposite direction when that helped the agency balance its books, the inspector general found. On an electricity project at the Baghdad South power station, direct construction costs were reported by the agency as $164.3 million and indirect or overhead costs as $1.4 million. That is just 0.8 percent overhead in a country where security costs are often staggering. A contracting officer told the inspector general that the agency adjusted the figures “to stay within the authorization for each project.” The overall effect, the report said, was a “serious misstatement of hospital project costs.” The true cost could rise as high as $169.5 million, even after accounting for at least $30 million pledged for medical equipment by a charitable organization. The inspector general also found that the agency had not reported known schedule delays to Congress. On March 26, 2006, Bechtel informed the agency that the hospital project was 273 days behind, the inspector general wrote. But in its April report to Congress on the status of all projects, “U.S.A.I.D. reported no problems with the project schedule.” In a letter responding to the inspector general’s findings, Joseph A. Saloom, the newly appointed director of the reconstruction office at the United States Embassy, said he would take steps to improve the reporting of the costs of reconstruction projects in Iraq. Mr. Saloom took little exception to the main findings. In the letter, Mr. Saloom said his office had been given new powers by the American ambassador in Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, to request clear financing information on American reconstruction projects. Mr. Saloom wrote that he agreed with the inspector general’s conclusion that this shift would help “preclude surprises such as occurred on the Basra hospital project.” “The U.S. Mission agrees that accurate monitoring of projects requires allocating indirect costs in a systematic way that reflects accurately the true indirect costs attributable to specific activities and projects, such as a Basra children’s hospital,” Mr. Saloom wrote. -------- israel / palestine 500,000 Israelis Living in Bomb Shelters By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer Saturday, July 29, 2006 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2006/07/29/international/i002220D02.DTL&type=printable (07-29) 00:22 PDT TYRE, Lebanon (AP) -- Hezbollah launched a new kind of rocket Friday that made the deepest strike into Israel yet, rattling Israelis as their warplanes and artillery targeted guerrillas in attacks on apartment buildings and roads. Lebanese officials said about 12 civilians died in the day's fighting; Israel said it killed 26 militants, raising to about 230 the total number killed in the campaign. Hezbollah's launching of the new weapon unnerved Israelis, 500,000 of whom are already living in northern shelters because of rocket bombardments. The rocket firing was also likely to escalate a conflict now in its 18th day, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice heading back to the Middle East this weekend to make a second attempt to resolve the crisis. The guerrillas said they used the Khaibar-1 — named after the site of a historic battle between Islam's Prophet Muhammad and Jewish tribes in the Arabian peninsula — to strike the Israeli town of Afula. "With this, the Islamic Resistance begins a new stage of fighting, challenge and confrontation with a strong determination and full belief in God's victory," Hezbollah said in a statement. Five of the rockets crashed into empty fields outside Afula, causing no injuries. Still, Israel deployed a Patriot interceptor missile battery north of Tel Aviv, believing the area could be in range of Hezbollah's barrages. Israel said the Khaibar-1 rockets were renamed, Iranian-made Fajr-5s. They have four times the power and range of Katyusha rockets, making them able to hit Tel Aviv's northern outskirts. Hundreds of Katyushas have hit northern Israel in the current fighting, including 96 on Friday, one of which hit a hospital. The Afula strike came two days after Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed his guerrillas would fire rockets beyond Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, which has been hit repeatedly in the conflict. A top U.N. peacekeeping official said he thought the war could continue until the end of August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy the port of Tyre "neighborhood by neighborhood" if Hezbollah rockets keep slamming into the Jewish state. At U.N. peacekeeping headquarters in Naqoura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hezbollah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Haifa. Although possessing overwhelming firepower, Israel has made no threats to destroy Lebanese cities and villages. Israel has stressed that it is not fighting the Lebanese people or government, but will go after Hezbollah wherever it finds the militants. Rice's second trip to the region comes as diplomatic efforts are solidifying into two sharply divided camps. Most agree on the idea of bringing international forces into the south to end Hezbollah's decade-long free rein here — but still unresolved is how and when. In Washington, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said they want an international force dispatched quickly to southern Lebanon. But they said any plan to end the fighting must address the long-term issue of disarming Hezbollah. "This is a moment of intense conflict in the Middle East," Bush said. "Yet our aim is to turn it into a moment of opportunity and a chance for broader change in the region." French President Jacques Chirac said his country will press for the rapid adoption of a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire, increasing the pressure on the United States and Israel. A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the discussions, said possible elements of a Rice proposal to resolve the crisis included an international agreement on a U.N.-mandated multinational force, disarming Hezbollah and integrating the guerrilla force into the Lebanese army; urging Hezbollah to return Israeli prisoners; a commitment to resolve border issues and an international reconstruction plan for Lebanon. In Beirut, Hezbollah politicians signed on to a proposed peace package that includes strengthening an international force in south Lebanon and disarming the guerrillas, the government said. The agreement, reached at a Cabinet meeting, was the first time that Hezbollah has agreed to a proposal for ending the crisis that includes the deploying of international forces. The package falls short of American and Israeli demands in that it calls for an immediate cease-fire before working out details of a force and includes other conditions. But European Union officials said it forms a basis for an agreement. The uncertainty allowed the offensive to persist with a new dimension of destruction emerging — the environment. Beaches in Beirut were black with oil spilled from a power station that was blasted by Israel two weeks ago and was still burning. In the south, rescue workers dug through the rubble of bombed houses, looking for bodies. Early Saturday, two Israeli air raids destroyed a bridge on the Orontes river in the Bekaa Valley, largely cutting off the town of Hermel from the rest of the country. There were no casualties, residents said. Late Friday, the Israeli army said it killed 26 Hezbollah guerrillas in fighting for the Shiite town of Bint Jbail. The army did not report Israeli casualties, but Israel Radio said six soldiers were wounded. Hezbollah has verified 35 guerrilla casualties. The competing claims could not be resolved independently. Hezbollah said its guerrillas attacked Israeli troops on a ridge overlooking Bint Jbail and in Maroun al-Ras, a nearby villages that Israeli troops overran last weekend. The guerrillas said five Israeli soldiers were wounded. Eight Israelis died fighting for control of Bint Jbail on Wednesday, the highest toll of the campaign. Bint Jbail had the largest Shiite community along the border; it was known as the "capital of the resistance" during Israel's 1982-2000 occupation because of its vehement support for the Shiite Hezbollah. The Israel army said a half-million Israelis were living in shelters in northern Israel. U.N. humanitarian chief Jan Egeland told CNN that 800,000 Lebanese had fled or were caught in crossfire. The Israeli offensive began after Hezbollah guerrillas killed three soldiers and captured two others in a cross-border raid into Israel. The war with Hezbollah opened a second front for Israel, which was already battling Palestinians in Gaza after Hamas militants seized a soldier in a cross-border raid June 25. Israeli tanks and troops pulled back to the Israel-Gaza border Friday after an unusually deadly incursion that killed 30 Palestinians over three days. The army said the withdrawal was temporary. On Israel's border with Lebanon, the United Nations decided to move 50 unarmed observers from their posts to the better-protected positions of 2,000 lightly armed U.N. peacekeepers after an Israeli bomb killed four observers this week. With medicine, food and shelter trickling into the war zone in southern Lebanon, Egeland called for a three-day truce to let help aid get in and enable thousands of civilians trapped in the heat of the battle to get out — a call that got no response. In southern Lebanon, Israeli missile strikes and artillery rained down around towns and roads targeting rocket sites and buildings believed connected to Hezbollah but wreaking destruction in populated areas. One airstrike flattened a house in the village of Hadatha, and six people inside were believed dead or wounded, the Lebanese state news agency reported. Hezbollah's al-Manar TV said all six were dead. Missiles destroyed three buildings in the village of Kfar Jouz near the market town of Nabatiyeh, apparently targeting the apartment of a Hezbollah activist. A Jordanian was killed in a nearby house, and the blasts collapsed a shelter, killing a Lebanese husband and wife. Three women were killed in strikes on their homes in other southern villages, security officials said. A wounded woman was rushed to the hospital in the village of Ain Arab, and more people were believed trapped in the debris of a destroyed building there. An explosion, believed to be from Israeli artillery, hit a convoy evacuating villagers from Rmeish, lightly wounding a driver and a Lebanese cameraman for German TV news. Another strike hit a potato truck and a nearby car, wounding three. At least 445 people have been killed in Lebanon in the fighting, most of them civilians, according to a Health Ministry count Friday based on bodies taken to hospitals. But Lebanon's health minister estimated Thursday that as many as Lebanese 600 civilians have been killed, with other victims buried in rubble. On the Israeli side, 33 soldiers have died in fighting, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said. AP Washington correspondent Katherine Shrader contributed to this report. -------- un U.N. peacekeepers injured by Israeli airstrike Post in southern Lebanon hit, official says; Syria-Lebanon crossing closed MSNBC July 29, 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14093565/ BEIRUT, Lebanon - Two Indian soldiers with the U.N. peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon were wounded and their observation post damaged by an Israeli airstrike on Saturday, a U.N. spokesman said. Milos Strugar, spokesman for the UNIFL force, said the two had been evacuated to a hospital. He said the observation post inside their position had been damaged. Last week, an Israeli air raid killed four U.N. observers, an attack that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said was “apparently deliberate.” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed his sorrow and ordered a probe but said the U.N. position was not targeted intentionally. Syria-Lebanon crossing closed Israeli missiles also struck near the main Lebanese border crossing into Syria on Saturday, forcing its closure for the first time in the 18-day-old conflict, police officials said. Hezbollah fired more than 90 rockets from southern Lebanon into northern Israel, lightly wounding about a dozen people, the army and medics said. They have launched more than 1,500 rockets into Israel since the conflict started. Israeli warplanes fired three missiles that landed at the Masnaa crossing, about 300 yards beyond a Lebanese customs post, the officials said. They said the area is considered to be part of Lebanese territory. Security officials said there were no casualties from the strike, which damaged two cars. Police sealed off the area and prevented journalists from coming close. The road between Syrian and Lebanese checkpoints was closed in both directions, they said. It was the first time that the main crossing between Lebanon and Syria was shut in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas that began 18 days ago. The passage has been an escape route for tens of thousands of Lebanese who fled by land to Syria, after Israel bombed the runways at Beirut airport in the first days of fighting. It was also a gateway for humanitarian aid entering the country. Only the beginning, Hezbollah leader says Hezbollah’s leader on Saturday threatened more attacks on central Israeli cities, a day after guerrillas for the first time fired a rocket powerful enough to reach the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, speaking on Hezbollah’s TV station, said he supported Lebanon’s efforts to negotiate a peace deal, but suggested tentative promises for the guerrillas to disarm would be off if conditions aren’t met. Nasrallah also dismissed a new diplomatic effort by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to bring about cease-fire, saying the United States wants fighting to continue. His statement came as Rice arrived in the Mideast to visit Israel; a possible Lebanon stop has not been announced. The bearded Shiite Muslim cleric, wearing his trademark black headdress, insisted Hezbollah fighters were winning the battle with Israel, now in its 18th day. Israel has not made a “single military accomplishment” in its offensive on Lebanon, he said, speaking on the group’s Al-Manar television. He claimed Israel suffered a “serious defeat” in ground fighting around a Lebanese border town after Israeli troops pulled back Saturday afternoon. Israel said they left Bint Jbail because they accomplished their mission of wearing down Hezbollah fighters after a week of heavy battles. On Friday, a Hezbollah rocket hit outside the Israeli town of Afula, the farthest strike yet. Hezbollah said it targeted an Israeli military base, but the rockets fell in an empty field. “The bombardment of Afula and its military base is the beginning ..., Nasrallah said. “Many cities in the center (of Israel) will be targeted in the ‘beyond Haifa’ stage if the savage aggression continues on our country, people and villages.” Aid trickles in Humanitarian aid continued to arrive by sea and by air, but was piling up. Because aid convoys fear Israeli bombardment, only a trickle has reached the war zone in south Lebanon, where tens of thousands of Lebanese are stranded with dwindling supplies of medicine, food, water and fuel. Israeli strikes have come within hundreds of yards of the few truck convoys making their way south this week — though no trucks have been hit so far — said officials from the international Red Cross, U.N. and other agencies. Israel has promised safe passage for aid but on a convoy-by-convoy basis; often 72-hour notice is required, slowing the process, officials said. Israel on Saturday rejected a U.N. request for a three-day cease-fire to get in supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone. Israel: 50 guerilla deaths this week Israel radio cited an unnamed high-ranking officer as saying 50 guerrillas were killed in the week of fighting and hundreds wounded, most of them from a special Hezbollah unit. Hezbollah has acknowledge the deaths of only 35 fighters in the entire campaign. The officer also said Israeli soldiers entered a Hezbollah headquarters in Bint Jbail on Friday and seized weapons, maps and communications equipment. Whatever Israel’s intention, its pull back from the town could provide a propaganda boost for Hezbollah, whose radio and television have lauded guerrillas for their prowess and depicted them as slowing down the Israeli war machine. Meanwhile, Israeli air raids destroyed the bridge over the Orontes river in the eastern Bekaa Valley and were targeting bridges in the south. At least 458 Lebanese have been killed in the fighting, that broke out July 12 after Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed one in a cross-border raid. The figure is based on a count Friday from the Health Ministry, based on the number of bodies in hospitals, plus Saturday’s deaths outside Natabiyeh and Ain Arab. Some estimates range as high as 600 dead. Thirty-three Israeli soldiers have died in fighting, and Hezbollah rocket attacks on northern Israel have killed 19 civilians, the Israeli army said. Israeli troops have killed about 200 Hezbollah guerrillas, the army said, though Hezbollah has acknowledged only a handful of deaths. Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report. -------- ACTIVISTS Texas town disturbed by Sheehan, protests 7/29/2006 (AP) http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-07-29-sheehan-land_x.htm CRAWFORD, Texas — Like many folks in President Bush's adopted hometown, 83-year-old Robert Westerfield isn't exactly rolling out the welcome mat for the town's newest resident: war protester Cindy Sheehan. "I wish she'd stay away. Crawford's a Republican town, and she's a dumb Democrat," Westerfield, a lifelong Crawford resident, said Friday while sitting on a bench outside a gas station on Main Street. Sheehan, whose monthlong war protest near Bush's ranch last summer attracted more than 10,000 demonstrators, recently bankrolled the purchase of a 5-acre parcel near downtown to be used for future protests, including one next month. The protesters group said it outgrew a 1-acre lot about a mile from Bush's ranch that a sympathetic landowner provided. Several hundred demonstrators returned to the lot over Thanksgiving and Easter. Now many of the town's 700 residents fear the traffic congestion, noise from rallies and odor from portable toilets — complaints from residents near the other campsite — will affect those closer to town. "When it's here, it affects a different set of people," Teresa Bowdoin said. Gerry Fonseca, a Vietnam veteran who attended the protests in August and April, returned to Crawford in June to help the group look for property. Fonseca said he doubts that any Crawford landowner would have sold to Sheehan or other protesters, so he didn't reveal his connection. Fonseca, who lost his Slidell, La., home in Hurricane Katrina, told sellers about that part of his life and that he wanted to build. He bought the $52,500 lot in mid-July, using insurance money that Sheehan received after her oldest son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004. The lot is a tenth of a mile from a small "Welcome to Crawford" billboard featuring a picture of Bush, smiling with his hand in a thumbs-up sign, and his wife. The land is comprised of pasture and tree groves. Trucks began dumping gravel for a driveway on Friday, and water lines will be installed next week. Fonseca said he is still trying to arrange for electricity to be hooked up. Although the site is more than 7 miles from Bush's ranch, it will have more space for the group's large activities tent, camping area and parking. "This is close enough. We're still protesting in the community that he chose to live in," Fonseca said. Sheehan said when the camp is no longer needed, she plans to donate the land to the city for a park to be named Spc. Casey Sheehan Memorial Peace Park. Sheehan said it would have a playground, because "Casey loved children and peace." When Sheehan first arrived in Crawford last August, demanding to meet with the president during his monthlong working vacation, she and others set up tents in ditches off the winding, two-lane road leading to the ranch. But the area became crowded as weekend protests swelled to several thousand people — and spurred counter protests with Bush supporters — so a sympathetic landowner let the group use his parcel that was even closer to the ranch. Then last fall, county commissioners enacted roadside camping and parking bans to prevent similar protests. Some demonstrators returned to Sheehan's original makeshift campsite during the November and April protests for a civil disobedience action and were arrested. Sheehan was not among them. In late June, Sheehan and four others sued the county over the ordinances, saying they want to return to what became an "international symbol of protest against the Iraq war." Tammara Rosenleaf, one of the lawsuit's plaintiffs, said she is glad the group now owns a lot but that some protesters may return to Sheehan's original site because it is considered "the soul of this movement." Bill Johnson, owner of the Yellow Rose of Texas gift shop, disagrees with Sheehan's views of Bush and the war in Iraq and said he hopes protesters are considerate of their new neighbors. Last summer, the group disrupted the peaceful country life of some rural residents near Bush's ranch, he said. "I don't want her rights taken away. Her son fought and died for this country," Johnson said. "But on the other hand, she needs to be respectful for what our country stands for."