Beirut (AFP) - Syrian rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad for the first time received at least 20 US-made TOW anti-tank missiles from a "Western source," a rebel official told AFP Tuesday.

"Moderate, well-organised fighters from the Hazm movement have for the first time received more than 20 TOW anti-tank missiles from a Western source," the source said on condition of anonymity, and without specifying who had supplied the rockets.

The Hazm movement, part of the opposition Free Syrian Army, brings together mainly ex-army officers and soldiers who defected from the military to join the revolt.

"More have been promised should it be proven that the missiles are being used in an effective way," the source said.

"Dozens of fighters have been trained with international assistance in the use of these missiles," the rebel said, adding that the weapons have been used in flashpoint areas of Idlib, Aleppo and Latakia provinces in the north.

Amateur video distributed by the opposition Masarat media network showed rebels unpacking, loading and firing several missiles at unnamed locations in the Syrian countryside.

"Most of the targets were tanks," said the rebel official, adding that "the 20 missiles have been used 100 percent effectively, always hitting their targets."

Vastly outgunned by the army, rebels have frequently called on the West to provide them with specialised weaponry.

"The international community needs to help stop Assad's army and Iran (a key backer of the Syrian government). We are calling for anti-aircraft weapons to be shipped over," opposition National Coalition member Louay Muqdad told AFP Tuesday.

Syria's uprising was initially peaceful but later escalated into a brutal insurgency after the regime launched a massive crackdown on dissent.

More than 150,000 people have been killed, and nearly half the population has been displaced since the revolt began in March 2011.

Western supporters of the revolt have hesitated to arm the rebels for fear that weapons may fall into the hands of powerful jihadist groups.

In January 2014, a broad coalition of moderate and Islamist rebels launched an offensive against the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), pushing its fighters out of several areas of northern Syria.

Government loyalists backed by Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement have meanwhile made a string of advances near Damascus and in central Syria.

A relative of "Caesar" who defected early in the civil war kept in contact with him, and persuaded "Caesar" to copy and collect the images over the next three years, the report says.

"Essentially, 'Caesar' became a spy," Crane said.

Crane said he and his colleagues found "Caesar" to be credible when they interviewed him in January.

In the collection of 55,000 images, each body was photographed four or five times, so the "Caesar Report" authors estimate that about 11,000 victims are pictured.

The forensic team examined about 5,500 of the images and found that almost all were of men aged 20 to 40; only one woman was pictured, and she was clothed; and there were no children in the images. The pathologists found that in a representative sample of images they studied, 62 percent showed emaciation. Nineteen percent showed neck injuries, and "16 percent showed evidence of ligature marks on the neck."

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Kansas prosecutors filed state-level murder charges Tuesday against the white supremacist accused in shootings that left three people dead at two Jewish community sites in suburban Kansas City.

Frazier Glenn Cross has been charged with one count of capital murder for the deaths of 14-year-old boy and his grandfather outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City, Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe said at a news conference. Cross also faces one count of first-degree, premeditated murder for the death of a woman who was gunned down while visiting her mother at a nearby retirement complex.

The capital murder charge carries the death penalty as possible punishment, Howe said, while the first-degree murder charge carries a life sentence with no chance for parole for at least 25 years. Cross is being held on $10 million bond, and is scheduled to appear in court at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday in Johnson County District Court.

Cross, a 73-year-old Vietnam War veteran from southwest Missouri, founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in his native North Carolina and later the White Patriot Party. He is suspected of killing 69-year-old physician William Lewis Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, outside the community center; both were Methodist. Moments later, Terri LaManno, a 53-year-old Catholic occupational therapist and mother of two, was gunned down outside a Jewish retirement complex where she was visiting her mother.

Federal prosecutors say there's enough evidence to warrant putting the case before a grand jury as a hate crime. Moving the case from state to federal prosecutors would likely mean tougher punishments if Cross is convicted, but U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said Tuesday that federal charges in the case were likely a week or more away, and Cross' state case would have to be resolved before he could be moved to a federal trial.

"Our system is more nimble, we can move a little bit quicker than the federal system. We've alleged he came into the community I've been elected to protect. ... This isn't about retribution, this is about seeking justice," Howe said.

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In this April 17, 1984 file photo, Glenn Miller, leader of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, …

Cross shouted "Heil Hitler" at television cameras as he was arrested after Sunday's killings, which shocked the city on the eve of Passover and refocused attention on the nation's problem with race-related violence.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit that monitors the activities of known white supremacists, says Cross, who also went by the name Frazier Glenn Miller, has been immersed in white supremacy most of his life. During the early 1980s, Cross was "one of the more notorious white supremacists in the U.S.," according to the Anti-Defamation League, and served as the Carolina Knights' "grand dragon" before launching the supremacist White Patriot Party, the law center said.

By 1987, Cross was the target of a nationwide manhunt for violating terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. Federal agents tracked him along with three other men to a rural Missouri mobile home stocked with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of bullets.

CLICK IMAGE for slideshow: An Overland Park Kansas police officer guards the entrance to the scene of a shooting …

A federal grand jury indicted Cross on weapons charges and accused him of plotting robberies and the assassination of the law center's founder, Morris Dees. He served three years in federal prison, and, as part of a plea bargain, testified against other Klan leaders in a 1988 sedition trial.

Cross ran for the U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010 in Missouri, each time espousing a white-power platform. During his Senate run as a registered write-in candidate, Cross' effort to air anti-Semitic ads was scuttled by the Federal Communications Commission, which concluded Cross was not a "bona fide" candidate entitled to mandatory access to airwaves.

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Kansas shooting suspect facing murder charges

A former Ku Klux Klan leader is accused of killing three people at two Jewish community centers.
Facing death penalty

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine (AP) — In the first Ukrainian military action against a pro-Russian uprising in the east, government forces said they repelled an attack Tuesday by about 30 gunmen at a small airport.

The clash came hours after Ukraine's acting president, Oleksandr Turchynov, had announced an "anti-terrorist operation" against the armed, pro-Russian insurgents who had seized control of numerous buildings in at least nine cities in Ukraine's restive east.

The central government has so far been unable to rein in the insurgents, who it says are being stirred up by paid operatives from Russia. The insurgents are demanding broader autonomy and closer ties with Russia, and, complicating the political landscape, many local security forces have switched to their side.

The clashes Tuesday came at Kramatorsk airport, just south of the city of Slovyansk, which is 160 kilometers (100 miles) from the Russian border. The city has come under the increasing control of the gunmen who seized it last weekend.

The precise sequence of events in Kramatorsk was mired in confusion amid contradictory official claims.

Ukraine's security services anti-terrorist unit chief, Gen. Vasyl Krutov, speaking outside Kramatorsk airport, said his men managed to thwart an attack by fighters in green military uniforms without insignia who tried to storm the facility in the late afternoon.

An Associated Press reporter and camera crew at the airport heard rounds of gunfire at the time.

After the armed standoff, hundreds of local people surrounded the airport in response to rumors that government troops were planning to launch a military operation on the city of Kramatorsk itself. Some in the crowd attempted to enter the military facility, prompting Ukrainian troops to fire bursts of warning shots.

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An Ukrainian soldier aims his rifle at pro-Russia protesters gathered in front of a Ukrainian airbas …

There were conflicting reports of casualties. Yury Zhadobin, coordinator of a pro-Russian defense force, said two people were slightly injured and were taken to a hospital. Russian media, without sourcing, claimed anywhere from four to 11 casualties at the airport. Ukraine's government said there were no casualties and added that Ukrainian forces took an unspecified number of militiamen prisoner.

In an attempt to defuse the standoff, Gen. Krutov came out to speak to the crowd of people picketing the airport but was attacked by them.

While he spoke of repelling an attack, the new government in Kiev declared that its forces had recaptured the airport from militiamen.

"I just got a call from the Donetsk region: Ukrainian special forces have liberated the airport in the city of Kramatorsk from terrorists," Turchynov told parliament. "I'm convinced that there will not be any terrorists left soon in Donetsk and other regions and they will find themselves in the dock - this is where they belong."

The United States on Tuesday gave its tacit support to Ukrainian military action against pro-Russian militia. This is not the preferred option, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, but the Ukrainian government has to respond to what he said was an untenable situation.

What was clear is that the area bordering Russia is getting increasingly armed and unstable. Russia itself also has tens of thousands of troops stationed along the border, which Western officials say is adding to the instability.

Earlier Tuesday, an Associated Press reporter saw at least 14 armored personnel carriers with Ukrainian flags, helicopters and military trucks parked 40 kilometers (24 miles) north of the city. Other heavy military equipment appeared nearby, along with at least seven busloads of government troops in black military fatigues.

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Map of Ukraine (130x115 mm) (AFP Photo/S.Ramis/A.Bommenel, pld/jfs)

"We are awaiting the order to move on Slovyansk," said one soldier, who gave only his first name, Taras.

Two of the helicopters loaded with troops were later seen taking off and flying toward Slovyansk. Witnesses said helicopters delivered several dozen troops to the Kramatorsk military airfield.

The clash was viewed entirely differently by Ukraine and Russia.

Ukraine's ex-prime minister and presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko said Tuesday what Kiev was seeing in the country's east was, in effect, a war.

"We have to tell the Ukrainians the truth: The Russian Federation is waging a real war against Ukraine in the east, in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in particular," she said.

She called on the West to "recognize Russia's aggression against eastern Ukraine as a war."

Ukrainian First Deputy Prime Minister Vitaly Yarema also accused Russia of sending its troops to Ukraine, saying Kiev has "evidence that those people occupying Slovyansk and Kramatorsk right now are servicemen of the Russian 45th Airborne Regiment."

Ukraine's security services also identified one of the leaders of the pro-Russian operation in Slovyansk as a Russian foreign intelligence agent named Igor Strelkov, who it said also coordinated Russian seizures of military facilities in Crimea.

Dmitry Peskov, a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, dismissed all those claims as absurd.

Late Tuesday, Russia's Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the Ukrainian military operation, saying it was "criminal to fight with your own people as they speak out for their legal rights." The ministry called on Russia's "international partners" to condemn the new Ukrainian government's actions.

Russia has strongly warned Kiev that if it uses military force it could prompt Moscow to walk out of Thursday's international conference on Ukraine in Geneva.

The events in Ukraine helped pushed global stock markets down as investors worried that the West might scale up sanctions against Russia. The DAX index in Germany, which has strong trade ties with Russia and imports a third of its gas from the country, fell 1.8 percent while Moscow's MICEX slumped 2.5 percent.

Ukraine's currency, which last week hit a record low against the dollar, was stabilized after the central bank hiked interest rates.

___

Leonard reported from Donetsk. Maria Danilova and Nataliya Vasilyeva in Kiev, Lynn Berry and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Julie Pace in Washington, D.C., and Christopher Bodeen in Beijing contributed to this report.

Ukraine military secures airport from attack

Kiev mobilizes its troops as part of an "anti-terrorist" campaign against pro-Russian insurgents.
Gunfire at airfield

There were fears, however, of a big jump in the death toll, as dozens of boats, helicopters and divers scrambled to rescue passengers who had been on the ferry traveling to the southern tourist island of Jeju. One passenger said he believed that many people were trapped inside the ferry when it sank.

The ferry sent a distress call at about 9 a.m. local time Wednesday after it began leaning to one side, according to the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. The government said about 95 percent of the ferry, whose passengers included 325 high school students on a school trip to the popular tourist island, was submerged.

Coast guard officers, speaking on condition of anonymity citing department rules, said at least two people died and 293 were unaccounted for, but gave no further details, including what might have caused the ferry to sink. Official estimates of the missing, dead and even the number of passengers on the ship varied wildly as the search went on. A government official had earlier said that more than 100 people were unaccounted for, but officials later boosted the number to 295 missing and then changed it to 293.

Media photos showed wet students, some without shoes, some wrapped in blankets, tended to by emergency workers. One student, Lim Hyung-min, told broadcaster YTN from a gym on a nearby island that he and other students jumped into the ocean wearing life jackets and then swam to a nearby rescue boat.

"As the ferry was shaking and tilting, we all tripped and bumped into each another," Lim said, adding that some people were bleeding. Once he jumped, the ocean "was so cold. ... I was hurrying, thinking that I wanted to live."

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South Korean ferry "Sewol" is seen sinking in the sea off Jindo April 16, 2014, in this pi …

The water temperature in the area was about 12 degrees Celsius (54 Fahrenheit), cold enough to cause signs of hypothermia after about 90 minutes or 2 hours, according to an emergency official who spoke on condition of anonymity citing department rules. Officials said mud on the ocean floor made underwater search operations difficult. The ship sank in waters several kilometers (miles) north of Byeongpung Island, which is near the mainland and about 470 kilometers (290 miles) from Seoul, according to the coast guard.

Local media earlier showed the mostly submerged ferry tilting dramatically as helicopters flew overhead and rescue vessels floated nearby.

Passenger Kim Seong-mok, speaking from a nearby island after his rescue, told YTN that he was "certain" that many people were trapped inside the ferry as water quickly rushed in and the severe tilt of the vessel kept them from reaching the exits. Some people urged those who couldn't get out of the ferry to break windows.

Kim said that after having breakfast he felt the ferry tilt and then heard it crash into something. He said the ferry operator made an announcement asking that passengers wait and not move from their places. Kim said he didn't hear any announcement telling passengers to escape.

The students are from a high school in Ansan city near Seoul and were on their way to Jeju island for a four-day trip, according to a relief team set up by Gyeonggi Province, which governs the city. The ferry left Incheon port, just west of Seoul, on Tuesday evening, according to the state-run Busan Regional Maritime Affairs & Port Administration. The trip from Incheon to Jeju is usually about 14 hours, so the ferry was about three hours from its destination when it made the distress call.

At the high school, students were sent home and parents gathered for news about the ferry.

Park Ji-hee, a first-year student, said she saw about a dozen parents crying at the school entrance and many cars and taxis gathered at the gate as she left in the morning.

She said some students in her classroom began to cry as they saw the news on their handsets. Teachers tried to soothe them, saying that the students on the ferry would be fine.

Officials said dozens of navy and coast guard divers, more than eight government boats, 11 helicopters and eight private fishing boats were helping with rescue efforts.

Lee Gyeong-og, a vice minister for South Korea's Public Administration and Security Ministry, had earlier said 14 were injured, but officials later changed the number to seven without elaborating.

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Nearly 300 missing after S. Korea ferry sinks

Officials say 293 people are still unaccounted for hours after a ferry carrying 459, most of them students, sank.
At least 2 dead