• John Vidal
• The Observer, Saturday 13 October 2012 19.35 BST

Kerry defends US capture of Libya 'Al-Qaeda operative'

Nusa Dua (Indonesia) (AFP) - Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday insisted the capture of an alleged Al-Qaeda operative in Libya in a US raid was legal, after Tripoli demanded answers about the "kidnap".

Abu Anas al-Libi, who was indicted in connection with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and has a $5 million FBI bounty on his head, was captured on Saturday.

It was one of two US raids at the weekend, with US Navy Seals also storming a Shebab stronghold in the southern Somali port of Barawe, although the success of that assault was unclear.

The operation to capture Libi drew fury from the Libyan government, which said it was unauthorised and described it as a "kidnap".

But Kerry on Monday defended the operation as within the law.

"With respect to Abu Anas al-Libi, he is a key Al-Qaeda figure, and he is a legal and an appropriate target for the US military," Kerry told reporters on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Indonesia.

He added that Libi had committed "acts of terror" and had been "appropriately indicted by courts of law, by the legal process".

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Map of Libya locating Tripoli where US forces seized top Al-Qaeda suspect Abu Anas al-Libi (AFP Phot …

"The United States of America is going to do everything in its power that is legal and appropriate in order to enforce the law and protect our security," he said.

But when asked whether the United States had informed Libya before the raid, Kerry refused to say.

"We don't get into the specifics of our communications with a foreign government on any kind of operation of this kind," he said.

His defence of the operation came after Libya on Sunday demanded an explanation from Washington for the "kidnap".

"The Libyan government has been following the reports of the kidnap of one of the Libyan citizens wanted by the authorities in the United States," a government statement said.

"As soon as it heard the reports, the Libyan government contacted the US authorities to demand an explanation."

Libi was taken to a US Navy warship in the region after the raid and was being questioned there, a US official said.

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An image of Abu Anas al-Libi on the FBI's most wanted list, October 5, 2013 (AFP Photo/)

Libi, 49, had been indicted in the US federal court in New York for allegedly playing a key role in the east Africa bombings -- which left more than 200 dead -- and plots to attack US forces.

The Tripoli operation ended a 13-year manhunt for Libi, whose given name is Nazih Abdul Hamed al-Raghie. FBI and CIA agents assisted US troops in the raid, US media reported.

His arrest paves the way for his extradition to New York to face trial.

Citing surveillance camera footage, Libi's son, Abdullah al-Raghie, said his father had been seized by masked gunmen armed with pistols, and that some of them were Libyans.

He claimed that the Libyan government was implicated in his father's disappearance, a claim Tripoli vehemently denies.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Sunday the operations sent "a strong message to the world that the United States will spare no effort to hold terrorists accountable".

"We will continue to maintain relentless pressure on terrorist groups that threaten our people or our interests, and we will conduct direct action against them, if necessary, that is consistent with our laws and our values," he added.

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US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to journalists during a press conference with Russian Foreig …

Kerry insisted that the capture of Libi by US forces on foreign soil would not send a negative perception about the United States to the world and that he would be treated fairly.

"He will now have an opportunity to defend himself and to be appropriately brought to justice in a court of law," Kerry said.

He said people should focus on the "importance of the rule of law" when looking at the case.

"That is the perception that we believe is the important one for people to understand."

While the operation in Libya achieved its objective, it was unclear whether the Somalia raid on the beachfront villa of a leader of the country's Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents had been a success.

A US official said a "high-value" Shebab leader was the target but according to The New York Times, SEAL commandos were forced to withdraw before confirming the kill.

The target was a Kenyan of Somali origin known as Ikrimah, the Times reported Monday, citing an unnamed US official.

The strike follows last month's siege of an upscale shopping mall in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where 67 people were killed.

The Times said that Ikrimah, identified as a top Shebab planner, was not linked to that attack but the raid was prompted by fears that the target could be planning a similar assault on Western targets.

U.S. defends capture of terror suspect in Libya

Secretary of State John Kerry insists the raid that led to the arrest of Abu Anas al-Libi was legal.
Linked to 1998 embassy bombings

Gov't shutdown enters 2nd week, no end in sight

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government shutdown entered its second week with no end in sight and ominous signs that the United States was closer to the first default in the nation's history as Speaker John Boehner ruled out any measure to boost borrowing authority without concessions from President Barack Obama.

Washington will be closely watching the financial markets on Monday to see if the uncompromising talk rattles Wall Street and worldwide economies just 10 days before the threat of default would be imminent.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew warned that the budget brinkmanship was "playing with fire" and implored Congress to pass legislation to re-open the government and increase the nation's $16.7 trillion debt limit. Lew reiterated that Obama has no intention to link either bill to Republican demands for changes in the 3-year-old health care law and spending cuts.

A defiant Boehner insisted that Obama must negotiate if the president wants to end the shutdown and avert a default that could trigger a financial crisis and recession that would echo 2008 or worse. The 2008 financial crisis plunged the country into the worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

"We're not going to pass a clean debt limit increase," the Ohio Republican said in a television interview. "I told the president, there's no way we're going to pass one. The votes are not in the House to pass a clean debt limit, and the president is risking default by not having a conversation with us."

Boehner also said he lacks the votes "to pass a clean CR," or continuing resolution, a reference to the temporary spending bill without conditions that would keep the government operating.

The shutdown has pushed hundreds of thousands of workers off the job, closed national parks and museums and stopped an array of government services.

The one bright spot on Monday is a significant chunk of the furloughed federal workforce is headed back to work. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered nearly 350,000 back on the job, basing his decision on a Pentagon interpretation of a law called the Pay Our Military Act.

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In this photo taken Friday, Oct. 4, 2013, Marcelo del Canto, a budget analyst for the Substance Abus …

Those who remain at home or are working without paychecks are a step closer to getting back pay once the partial government shutdown ends. The Senate could act this week on the measure that passed the House unanimously on Saturday.

Democrats insist that Republicans could easily open the government if Boehner simply allows a vote on the emergency spending bill. Democrats argue that their 200 members in the House plus close to two dozen pragmatic Republicans would back a so-called clean bill, but the Speaker remains hamstrung by his tea party-strong GOP caucus.

"Let me issue him a friendly challenge. Put it on the floor Monday or Tuesday. I would bet there are the votes to pass it," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

In a series of Sunday television appearances, Lew warned that on Oct. 17, he exhausts the bookkeeping maneuvers he has been using to keep borrowing.

"I'm telling you that on the 17th, we run out of the ability to borrow, and Congress is playing with fire," Lew said.

Lew said that while Treasury expects to have $30 billion of cash on hand on Oct. 17, that money will be quickly exhausted in paying incoming bills given that the government's payments can run up to $60 billion on a single day.

Treasury issued a report on Thursday detailing in stark terms what could happen if the government actually defaulted on its obligations to service the national debt.

"A default would be unprecedented and has the potential to be catastrophic," the Treasury report said. "Credit markets could freeze, the value of the dollar could plummet, U.S. interest rates could skyrocket, the negative spillovers could reverberate around the world."

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In this photo taken Friday, Oct. 4, 2013, Marcelo del Canto, right, a budget analyst for the Substan …

Private economists generally agree that a default on the U.S. debt would be extremely harmful, especially if the impasse was not resolved quickly.

"If they don't pay on the debt, that would cost us for generations to come," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He said a debt default would be a "cataclysmic" event that would roil financial markets in the United States and around the world.

Zandi said that holders of U.S. Treasury bonds would demand higher interest rates which would cost the country hundreds of billions of dollars in higher interest payments in coming years on the national debt.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a force in pushing Republicans to link changes to the health care law in exchange for keeping the government running, spelled out his conditions for raising the borrowing authority.

"We should look for three things. No. 1, we should look for some significant structural plan to reduce government spending. No. 2, we should avoid new taxes. And No. 3, we should look for ways to mitigate the harms from 'Obamacare,'" Cruz said, describing the debt ceiling as an issue that is among the "best leverage the Congress has to rein in the executive."

Some Republicans, such as Rep. Steve King of Iowa, dismiss the warnings about a government default as an exaggeration, suggesting U.S. credit won't collapse and calling the talk "a lot of false demagoguery."

Asked how the standoff might end, Boehner, R-Ohio, said that he was uncertain: "If I knew, I'd tell you."

Boehner and Schumer were interviewed on ABC's "This Week," and Lew and Cruz on CNN's "State of the Union." Lew also appeared on CBS' "Face the Nation," ''Fox News Sunday" and NBC's "Meet the Press."

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Associated Press writer Martin Crutsinger contributed to this report.

Shutdown enters week two amid ominous signs

There's no indication lawmakers are any closer to a deal on either the shutdown or the debt ceiling.
''Playing with fire'

Destruction of Syrian chemical weapons begins: mission

By Mariam Karouny

BEIRUT (Reuters) - International experts began overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons arsenal on Sunday, said an official from the mission that has averted a U.S. strike but could rob President Bashar al-Assad of his most feared weapon.

The process is being conducted amid a civil war in which 120,000 people have been killed, fragmenting Syria along sectarian and ethnic lines and drawing in Iran and Hezbollah on the side of Assad and his Alawite minority and Arab Sunni powers on the side of the mostly Sunni Muslim rebels.

The official, a member of a joint team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) in The Hague and the United Nations, said Syrian forces used cutting torches and angle grinders to begin "destroying munitions such as missile warheads and aerial bombs and disabling mobile and static mixing and filling units".

"Let it be clear that it is the Syrians who do the actual destroying while we monitor, observe, verify and report," he said.

Witnesses said the experts, who arrived on Tuesday, left their Damascus hotel in the early hours of Sunday to begin their work in an undisclosed location.

The mission, which the United States hammered out with Russia after an August 21 chemical weapons attack in Damascus prompted U.S. threats of air strikes against Assad's forces, is expected to continue until at least mid-2014.

Even without his chemical weapons arsenal, Assad's air power and better-equipped ground forces would still hold a significant advantage over the rebels, who remain divided, with large numbers joining hardline Islamist brigades.

On the ground, the war has largely settled into a stalemate, with Assad seeking to tighten his grip on the centre of the country, the coast, areas along the country's main north-south highway, routes to Lebanon and Iraq, and Damascus, scene of the August 21 sarin gas attack.

Assad's government and the rebels blame each other for the attack in Sunni Muslim suburbs of the capital that killed hundreds of people.

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U.N. vehicles transporting a team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical W …

The United States and other Western countries say a report by U.N. investigators indirectly implicates government-allied forces for the attack.

The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution last week that demands the eradication of Syria's chemical weapons and endorses a plan for a political transition in Syria.

The West is pushing, along with Russia, for the convening of a conference to nudge Assad and his foes towards a settlement to the conflict, the bloodiest of the "Arab Spring" revolts against entrenched autocrats.

But Assad told a German magazine he would not negotiate with rebels until they laid down their arms, and said his most powerful ally Russia supported his government more than ever.

He said he did not believe it was possible to solve the conflict through negotiations with the rebels.

"In my view, a political opposition does not carry weapons. If someone drops his weapons and wants to return to daily life, then we can discuss it," he was quoted as saying by Der Spiegel.

The opposition insists on a peace conference producing a transitional government with full powers that excludes Assad and his lieutenants, and the U.N.'s Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said on Sunday it was not certain that peace talks would take place in mid-November in Geneva as planned.

Heavy fighting between rebels and loyalist forces was reported in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, once the country's industrial and commercial hub.

In the coastal province of Tartous, loyalist Alawite and Christian militia surrounded al-Mitras, a rebellious Sunni village inhabited by members of Syria's small Turkmen community, which has been generally supportive of the revolt against four decades of Assad family rule.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, a monitoring group based in the UK and headed by opposition activist Rami Abdulrahman, said eight people were killed defending al-Mitras and warned of a massacre if the village were overrun.

(Reporting by Mariam Karouny; editing by Ralph Boulton and Tom Pfeiffer)

Syria begins destroying chemical weapons

International disarmament inspectors have begun demolishing the country's estimated 1,000-ton stockpile.

U.S. 'very pleased'

Government's work stacking up a week into shutdown

And it's the dead eagle in Wendi Pencille's freezer.

Pencille tends to injured birds in her upstate New York home. When a bald eagle dies, she sends the federally protected remains to a special eagle repository near Denver that ships feathers and carcasses to Indian tribes for their sacred ceremonies.

But the federal bird shippers are on furlough while much of the U.S. government, like her fallen eagle, is on ice.

"I couldn't send it, because it would just rot in a mailbox somewhere," said Pencille. So the volunteer wildlife rehabilitator put the 9-pound bird in the freezer alongside food for the owls, hawks and two live eagles recovering at her Medina home.

"I'd like to get it out of there," Pencille said. "We definitely need the space."

A week into a partial government shutdown, some messy stuff is stacking up.

Toxic waste is on hold at the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund sites, although work continues at those deemed an imminent threat to human life. The federal shutdown is fouling up some state and local clean-ups, too. For example, volunteers ready to pick up trash on sandbars and islands along 39 miles of the Missouri River in northeast Nebraska were told to stand down when they lost the use of federal boats.

The Labor Department delayed its monthly count of how many people are looking for work, which was due Friday and highly anticipated by stock traders. The Agriculture Department stopped cranking out tallies of livestock auctions and crop yields, which are vital numbers to farmers and buyers. The Centers for Disease Control isn't tracking the nation's flu cases, just as the season is getting started.

Other diseases are going unmonitored, too, such as microbes that could signal a multi-state outbreak of food poisoning.

The staff of 80 that normally analyze foodborne pathogens sent by states has been furloughed down to two. They are concentrating on looking for the biggies, such as possible salmonella, E. coli or listeria outbreaks. Other germs, including shigella and campylobacter, go ignored for now.

"The blind spots are getting bigger every day as this goes on," said CDC spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds in Atlanta.

Timber will wait to be felled if the shutdown lasts much longer, since the Forest Service is starting the shutdown of logging operations this week. IRS refunds and farm subsidy checks are backing up. The future is on hold for some immigrants, because hearings that could lead to their deportation have been postponed.

The somber work of federal safety investigators has nearly come to a standstill.

In California, the wreckage of a private jet that crashed into a hangar at Santa Monica Airport, killing four people, is being preserved off-site for National Transportation Safety Board investigators who packed up and left when the shutdown began Oct. 1.

Almost all of the board's 400 employees were furloughed, said NTSB spokeswoman Kelly Nantel. Investigators examining a train collision in Chicago were kept on the job, however, because of urgent safety concerns raised by that accident.

Compared with what furloughed federal workers must deal with, the eagle in her freezer is just an inconvenience, Pencille, president of the Bless the Beasts Foundation, said Friday.

A bigger worry for her: What will happen to wounded eagles and ospreys in the nearby Iroquois National Wildlife Refuge while the shutdown keeps hunters and birdwatchers out?

"Without people over there," Pencille said of the birds, "if they get injured, nobody is going to find them."

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Associated Press writers Mary Claire Jalonick and Joan Lowy in Washington and Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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Online: Bless the Beasts Foundation: http://blessthebeastsinc.webs.com

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Follow Connie Cass on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ConnieCass