Prosecutor: Couple sexually abused 2 Amish sisters

CANTON, N.Y. (AP) — The northern New York couple charged in the kidnapping of two young Amish sisters were prowling for easy targets and sexually abused the girls before letting them go, authorities say.

The couple were arrested and arraigned Friday on charges of kidnapping with the intent to physically or sexually abuse the 7-year-old and 12-year-old sisters.

St. Lawrence County District Attorney Mary Rain said Saturday that the girls were sexually abused, and the county sheriff said Stephen Howells Jr. and Nicole Vaisey may have planned to abduct other children.

"We felt that there was the definite potential that there was going to be other victims," St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin Wells said.

Howells, 39, and Vaisey, 25, are being held without bail and have a preliminary court appearance scheduled Thursday.

The sheriff said the Hermon couple "were targeting opportunities" and did not necessarily grab the girls because they were Amish.

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St. Lawrence County Sheriff Deputy Kevin M. Wells, second left, addresses the media on Saturday, Aug …

"There was a lot of thought process that went into this," Wells said. "They were looking for opportunities to victimize."

The sisters were abducted Wednesday from a farm stand in front of the family's home in Oswegatchie, near the Canadian border. They were set free by their captors about 24 hours later and turned up safe at the door of a house 15 miles from where they were taken.

Vaisey's lawyer, Bradford Riendeau told The New York Times that Howells had abused Vaisey and treated her submissively. He said she made a "voluntary statement" to investigators after her arrest and was obtaining an order of protection against him.

"She appears to have been the slave and he was the master," Riendeau told the newspaper.

There was no answer Saturday at the St. Lawrence County Conflict Defender's Office, which is representing Howells.

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This image provided by the St. Lawrence County Sheriff's Office shows the booking photo of Steph …

Wells said the girls were able to provide details to investigators about their time in captivity.

The Associated Press generally does not identify people who may be victims of sexual abuse.

The kidnappings touched off a massive search in the family's remote farming community. Searchers scoured the community of about 4,000 people, but were hampered by a lack of photos of the girls.

The Amish typically avoid modern technology, and the family had to work with an artist who spoke their language, a German dialect known as Pennsylvania Dutch, to produce a sketch of the older girl.

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GAZA PEACE TALKS

CAIRO (AP) — A Palestinian negotiator said Sunday his side is "less optimistic" about indirect talks with Israel over the Gaza war as a deadline on a temporary cease-fire looms.

The Palestinian team reassembled in Cairo on Sunday after members returned from consultations in Qatar, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. The Israeli team also returned Sunday to resume the Egyptian-mediated talks. A current five-day cease-fire is due to end late Monday.

The negotiations have been going on between the sides since early last week. They are aimed at ending the latest war between Israel and Hamas-led Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip and improving conditions for the territory's 1.8 million people. Israel wants guarantees to end rocket fire and attacks on its citizens.

Close to 2,000 Palestinians have been killed — most civilians — and more than 10,000 people have been wounded since the war began July 8, according to United Nations figures. In Israel, 67 people have been killed, all but three soldiers.

A member of the Palestinian delegation told The Associated Press on Sunday that the gaps between the sides were still significant and that it was far from certain whether a deal could be reached before the cease-fire expires.

"We are less optimistic than we were earlier," he said.

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Palestinians look out of their house, which witnesses said was damaged during the Israeli offensive, …

The negotiator said that a key sticking point remains Hamas's insistence that Israel pledge to end its Gaza blockade before the talks conclude. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to discuss the issue with journalists.

Under the terms of an Egyptian proposal, Israel and the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority would negotiate the end to the blockade at some point in the future. The blockade has restricted the flow of goods into Gaza and blocked virtually all exports, as well as limited Palestinians' movement in and out of the territory.

Israel says the closure is necessary to prevent arms smuggling, and officials are reluctant to make any concessions that would allow Hamas to declare victory.

Israel, meanwhile, is demanding that Hamas be disarmed, or at the very least, be prevented from re-arming, something the militant group has rejected.

Speaking before Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Hamas had suffered a huge setback in the four-week war and that would be reflected at the Cairo talks.

"If Hamas thinks its defeat on the battlefield will be papered over by a victory at the negotiating table it is mistaken," he said.

Hamas has recovered from previous rounds of violence with Israel, including a major three-week air and ground operation in January 2009 and another weeklong air offensive in 2012. It still has an arsenal of several thousand rockets, some with long ranges and relatively heavy payloads.

The current round of fighting began after Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel following the arrests of suspected Hamas-affiliated militants in the West Bank. Israel said the arrests came as part of the investigation into the killing of three Israeli teens in June.

Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - The lions sit dazed in the shade of their damaged pen, while nearby the decayed carcases of two vervet monkeys lie contorted on the grass of a Gaza zoo.

The animals were caught in the crossfire in over a month of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants that killed more than 1,960 Palestinians and 67 people on the Israeli side.

In one enclosure at the zoo a fly-covered pelican huddles in the corner with a duck. Opposite, a small crocodile sits motionless in an inch of stagnant water, next to the rotting corpse of a stork.

A gazelle shares another pen with a goose.

Around the corner, a baboon picks listlessly at the ground of the tiny pen it shares with the dried-out remains of another monkey.

Everywhere, there is a sickly stench from the animals' cages, which have not been cleaned for weeks.

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A Hamadryas baboon (L) looks at the carcass of another baboon inside their cage at the Bisan City to …

Shadi Hamad, the park's director, said the zoo was damaged and that the animals died as a result of Israeli air strikes.

An Israeli army spokesman told AFP that the military was looking into allegations that it fired missiles in the Al-Bisan park area.

Israel launched an air campaign over Gaza on July 8 to take out militants' rockets, followed by a ground offensive nine days later to destroy a network of Hamas cross-border tunnels leading into the Jewish state.

The zoo –- part of Al-Bisan City -- was built by the Hamas government in 2008 as a tourist village to give Gazans some relief from the hardships of life in the Strip, and had a cafeteria and tables where families could sit and relax.

The animals were all smuggled through tunnels that connected Egypt to Gaza, before the passages were shut last year with the ouster of Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi, a key ally of the Islamist movement Hamas.

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Zookeeper Farid al-Hissi feeds lions at the Bisan City tourist village zoo, in Beit Hanun, Gaza, on …

Now, Al-Bisan is far from relaxing, with the wire of its enclosures twisted and crushed, debris and dead animals strewn around, and the remains of militant rocket launchers lying nearby.

"Before the war the area was very beautiful. There were trees, lots of greenery, palm trees. It was an area for children, there were playgrounds and areas for families," zookeeper Farid al-Hissi said.

Hissi got his job at Al-Bisan after working in a zoo in Israel and because of his love for animals.

The death of the animals he cared for has clearly left him in a state of shock.

"Eight monkeys were killed, and an ostrich was killed too. The lion's enclosure was wrecked and the zoo was completely destroyed. The Al-Bisan zoo was totally devastated," he said.

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A zookeeper inspects the damage at the Bisan City tourist village zoo, in Beit Hanun, Gaza, on Augus …

The administrative centre has been flattened and some of the palm trees lining the avenue from the entrance down to the animal enclosures have been uprooted.

-'Makes you sad'-

The destruction to the zoo has shaken Hissi badly.

"You can see that the cages for the animals are badly damaged. When you see it, it makes you sad because they are in a jail now," he said, standing by the lion enclosure.

A lion and lioness lie in a steel pen inside their enclosure, the roof of which has collapsed from the force of the nearby explosion.

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A goose and an antelope are seen in their cage at the Bisan City tourist village zoo, in Beit Hanun, …

They make little noise, standing only when Hissi tosses in a couple of dead chickens.

And in a filthy three-by-three metre (10-by-10 foot) pen, seven mange-ridden wild dogs zig zag around their enclosure incessantly.

Hissi was insistent there had been no militant weapons inside the zoo.

But buckled rectangular metal rocket launch systems lay among the debris on the edge of the park, near a large building that was also hit by Israeli air strikes. Some appeared still to be loaded with rockets.

Hamad, the park's director, was adamant that the rockets had not been fired from inside the park.

"Maybe there was a base around Al-Bisan village or next to it. But the enemy decided and insisted on punishing Al-Bisan village," said the neatly-dressed director.

"They punished the park for the presence of the rockets nearby but not inside the village," he said.

The Jabaliya area north of Gaza City is home to the Strip's second park, the Jabaliya Zoo, which escaped major damage.

Completed just six months ago, the park's exhibits range from pigeons and a German Shepherd in cages to six lions. All were smuggled through tunnels from Egypt.

Although the park in Jabaliya was relatively unscathed, bombardment had impacted on the animals psychologically.

"It was the noise that really affected the animals here. The sound from the bombing terrified the animals. When the birds heard the shelling they would take flight and flap around the enclosure in panic because they were so scared," said Aamir Abu Warda, director of the Jabaliya park.

"The continuation, the repetition of this killed several birds, and other animals abandoned their young ones, some of which died," he said.

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Syrian Kurds teach Yazidis to fight Islamic State

By Youssef Boudlal

SERIMLI MILITARY BASE Syria (Reuters) - Kurdish militants have trained hundreds of Yazidi volunteers at several camps inside Syria to fight Islamic State forces in Iraq, a member of the armed Kurdish YPG and a Reuters photographer who visited a training camp said on Sunday.

The photographer spend Saturday at the training camp at the Serimli military base in Qamishli, northeastern Syria on the border with Iraqi Kurdistan, where he saw 55 Yazidis being trained to fight the Islamic State.

Dressed in green military fatigues, young and old men were taught how to use assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades by the Syrian Kurds, sweating in the 40 degree Celsius heat.

"The Yazidi civilians want to stay in Syria because it is safer but the volunteers really want to go back to Iraq to fight," he said by phone.

Iraq has been plunged into its worst violence since the peak of a sectarian civil war in 2006-2007, with Sunni fighters led by the Islamic State overrunning large parts of the west and north, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee for their lives and threatening ethnic Kurds in their autonomous province.

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Displaced Iraqis from the Yazidi community settle under a bridge in Dahuk, 260 miles (430 kilometers …

Thousands of Yazidis have also been trapped in searing heat on the mountain near the Syrian border. They fled there this month to escape the Islamic State, who deem Yazidis "devil worshippers". Yazidis follow an ancient faith derived from Zoroastrianism.

Some have been airlifted out by Iraq's Air Force and others fled into Syria with the help of Kurdish militants.

In Syria, the Yazidi volunteers train in weapon use and fighting tactics for several days before being sent back to Mount Sinjar to fight, a member from the media office of the Kurdish YPG told Reuters.

"There are several training camps for Yazidi men who have volunteered," Anas Hani said from eastern Syria. "In the past ten days, hundreds have graduated. And we are training more."

"On the top of the Singar mountains, in cooperation with locals and the YPG, the Yazidis have established what they call the Singar Resistance Units," he said by phone.

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A tank belonging to Kurdish peshmerga troops fire at Islamic State (IS) militant positions from the …

The YPG, or the People's Defence Units, says it has no political affiliations but analysts say it has close ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, who have waged a guerrilla war in Turkey for decades and which the U.S. lists as a terrorist organization.

The IS advances have drawn the first U.S. air strikes on Iraq since the withdrawal of American troops in 2011.

Iraqi Kurdish officials have sought to play down the role of the YPG in Iraq and spotlight the actions of their own peshmerga forces, who are already being supplied weapons by the United States.

Ethnic Kurds in Syria have a complex role in nearly four years of conflict that started when President Bashar al-Assad cracked down on a pro-democracy uprising.

The ensuing civil war has pitted Sunni Muslims against Assad's Alawite minority and different Kurdish militia have fought on both sides, normally over territory or power disputes.

The YPG are one of the few militant groups that have been able to stem the advance of the Islamic State, the most powerful rebel group in Syria and Iraq.

(Additional reporting and writing by Oliver Holmes in Beirut)

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Army troops have penetrated deep inside a rebel-controlled city in eastern Ukraine in what could prove a breakthrough development in the four-month-long conflict, the Ukrainian government said Sunday.

However, the military acknowledged that another one of its fighter planes was shot down by the separatists, who have been bullish about their ability to continue the battle and have bragged about receiving support from Russia. An Associated Press reporter spotted a column of several dozen heavy vehicles, including tanks and at least one rocket launcher, rolling through rebel-held territory on Sunday.

Talks in Berlin between the foreign ministers of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France aimed at finding a political solution to the conflict ended without any substantial result.

Ukraine's national security council said government forces captured a district police station in Luhansk on Saturday after bitter clashes in the Velika Vergunka neighborhood.

Weeks of fighting have taken their toll on Luhansk, which city authorities say has reached the verge of a humanitarian catastrophe. The siege mounted by government forces has ground delivery of basic provisions to a halt and cut off power and running water.

Although rebel forces have regularly yielded territory in recent weeks, they have continued to show formidable fighting capabilities.

Ukrainian military spokesman Oleksiy Dmitrashkovsky said Sunday that the separatists shot down a Ukrainian fighter plane over the Luhansk region after it launched an attack on rebels. The pilot ejected and was taken to a secure place, he said. Another military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, later said that the status of the pilot was still being clarified.

The column of armored vehicles was spotted southeast of Luhansk outside a town very close to the Russian border and was heading west, deeper into rebel-held territory. It was unclear whether the column had come from Russia. Among the armored vehicles was a Strela-10, a short-range surface-to-air missile system capable of hitting targets up to 3,500 meters (11,500 feet.)

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A local resident passes by Ukrainian army APC in the city of Lutugino, eastern Ukraine, Friday, Aug. …

The area is just across the border from where a large Russian aid convoy is poised to cross with supplies intended for Luhansk and other afflicted zones.

Part of the aid convoy headed to the frontier crossing on Sunday, but the 16 white trucks then stopped. The convoy of nearly 270 vehicles has been marooned for days in a town near the border amid objections from Ukraine, which initially complained that the mission was not authorized by the International Committee for the Red Cross.

The Red Cross, which would have responsibility for distributing the aid, on Saturday said the main holdup was a lack of security guarantees from all sides in the conflict.

A large X-ray machine was brought to the Russian crossing point in the afternoon, and Paul Picard, the head of a border-monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said it would be used to inspect the cargo.

The fate of the Russian aid convoy was one of the topics discussed by the foreign ministers of Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France who met in Berlin late Sunday.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter-Steinmeier said after the five-hour meeting that "frank words" had been exchanged and he believed there had been progress "on some issues," without elaborating. Before the talks he had expressed hope that the four countries' top diplomats might find a way to revive the political process aimed at brokering a lasting cease-fire and credible controls at Ukraine's eastern border with Russia.

Fighting, including frequent shelling, is also affecting Donetsk, Ukraine's main rebel-held city. Ten civilians have been killed and eight wounded in the past 24 hours, city authorities reported Sunday.

The leader of the self-proclaimed separatist government in the Donetsk region, Alexander Zakharchenko, has boasted that his forces have been bolstered by 1,200 fighters who underwent training in Russia and were brought in at a "crucial moment." In a video of his speech that was posted online over the weekend, he said the fighters have 150 armored vehicles, including 30 tanks, and have gathered near a "corridor" along the Russian border. Zakharchenko did not specify whether the armored vehicles had also come from Russia.

Ukrainian forces inspect Russian aid convoy (video)

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, on Sunday denied that Russia had supplied any armored vehicles to the separatists.

Lysenko, the military spokesman, said the government had information that separatists had received reinforcement from Russia, but added that there is evidence rebels are complaining about not receiving some of the equipment they have been promised.

Russia has consistently denied allegations that it is supporting the rebels with equipment or training. But Ukraine's president on Friday said that Ukraine had destroyed a large number of military vehicles that had recently crossed from Russia.

___

Jim Heintz in Kiev, Ukraine, Mstyslav Chernov in Krasnodon, Ukraine, Alexander Roslyakov in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Russia, and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.