List of 11 who disappeared from Mexico City bar

Eleven young people were brazenly kidnapped May 26 from an after-hours bar in Mexico City's Zona Rosa, a normally calm district of offices, restaurants, drinking spots and dance clubs, according to their relatives. Here are the names The Associated Press has confirmed:

1. Eulogio Fonseca Arreola, 26, a street vendor who sells cell-phone accessories with his sister and family. "They went out to have fun. They are not criminals," sister Isabel Fonseca said.

2. Jennifer Robles Gonzalez, 23, a single mother of a 6-year-old boy. Her family said she posted a message on Facebook after 8:30 a.m. Sunday saying she was dancing at the bar less than two hours before the kidnapping allegedly took place.

3. Josue Piedra Moreno, 29, street food vendor who told his mother, Leticia Moreno, he was going out to a club with his brother, Aaron Piedra Moreno.

4. Aaron Piedra Moreno, 20, street food vendor

5. Guadalupe Karen Morales Vargas, 24

6. Alan Omar Athiencia Barranco, 26

7. Said Sanchez Garcia, 19, who helped his mom sell purses and cleaning items in a street market. He was last seen late Saturday when he came home for a sweater before going out to another nightclub and then the bar.

8. Jerzy Ortiz Ponce, 16, went to the party with his friend, Said Sanchez.

9. Gabriela Tellez Zamudio, 34,

10. Rafael Rojas, no age available, married and a merchant in Tepito.

What started as a peaceful demonstration to save sycamore trees has quickly escalated. And the police are cracking down violently

ISTANBUL, TURKEY — I came to Istanbul to enjoy a breezy six days researching local street food and checking in on the contemporary art scene. But within a couple of hours of arriving from the airport on Thursday afternoon, I was standing among thousands of chanting protesters in Taksim Gezi Park, the city's version of Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.

I was there because my friend Peri Mekmak wanted to show me the trees that were slated to be cut down so that the city could redevelop the park into a mall. Today, Gezi Park is filled with sycamores. The park is a few blocks long on either side, and is the only real swatch of vegetation in this congested downtown area. The city's plan is to build a compound-looking structure walled in by store fronts instead.

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The crowd at the protest on Thursday filled the park with that purposeful and focused form of activism generally found at college campuses and for most of the duration of Occupy Wall Street's efforts in New York City. Homemade signs, catchy songs, and a stage for speakers were all in place. The crowd represented a diverse swath of Istanbul — young and old, rich and poor. When we left the park, Peri and I felt buoyed by the energy and excitement, even if she believed nothing would change for the fate of the park. "I am so proud of my people," she kept saying.

Then, everything changed. What I saw on Friday and Saturday is extremely different from that feel-good protest. Tear gas is now being used casually just to manage people. The usual bustling revelry of Istiklal Boulevard has been replaced by the ebb and flow of crowds marching towards Gezi Park and then racing back as the riot police push forward. People are making homemade gas mask from simple construction respirators, a suggestion put out on Facebook, which everyone is checking obsessively for updates.

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This ancient city is a warren of side streets that can make you feel trapped, especially when it's your second day in town. And now, the smoky tear gas crawls down the side of the buildings and hits you even when you can't see it. People choke up and run. I was amazed at how fast the burning hit my face from a safe distance from the gas. I found safety in a bar. The staff at the door let people in and quickly shut the entrance as the crowd flooded by on the street. The bartenders were accommodating and tried to keep a sense of normalcy as people pushed in scared, many crying. The DJ spun, people drank beers, and as the only exit was shut, smokers lit up if they had them.

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"The park was a pretext for a protest against the government," said my new Kurdish friend now sharing a beer with me.

He mentioned the protest songs that were both from the liberal side as well as the Kurdish Party. Everybody I spoke to said that this march was a long time coming. They complained about Prime Minister Erdogan's power grab and crackdown on individual rights.

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When I saw people strolling and not running outside the bar I knew it was time to head back to my flat. I walked down Istiklal. The protest had turned much darker, and I'm sure that will help authorities counter-spin the event. The mostly male crowd was targeting storefronts and smashing them, many pulling off material from buildings to build a chain of bonfire along the avenue. The shouts were now more angry rather than just resistant.

I was able to make my way through the crowd and smoke to my flat. I could hear chanting and fog horns in the distance. This is normally a beautiful neighborhood of coffee shops, galleries, and ancient buildings that looks over the Bosphorus. It's hard to remember that today.

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The people of Istanbul love their city deeply. In spite of the ferocity of the protests, I still see tremendous solidarity here. A local court has put an injunction on further development of the park until both sides submit their cases.

But on the street, things are really escalating, and in a very worrying way.

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Rockets from Syria hit Hezbollah stronghold

This citizen journalism image provided by the Local Council of Barzeh, which has been authenticated based on its contents and other AP reporting, shows destroyed homes from government airstrikes and shelling, in the Barzeh district of Damascus, Syria, Saturday, June 1, 2013. More than a dozen rockets and mortar rounds fired from Syria struck eastern Lebanon on Saturday, security officials said, as tensions escalated along the Lebanese-Syria border over the increasing role of Hezbollah militants in the civil war next door. (AP Photo/Local Council of Barzeh)

BEIRUT (AP) — Eighteen rockets and mortars rounds from Syria slammed into Lebanon on Saturday, the largest cross-border salvo to hit a Hezbollah stronghold since Syrian rebels threatened to retaliate for the Lebanese militant group's armed support of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

The rockets targeted the Baalbek region, the latest sign that Syria's civil war is increasingly destabilizing Lebanon. On Friday, the Lebanese parliament decided to put off general elections, originally scheduled for June, by 17 months, blaming a deteriorating security situation in the country.

In Qatar, an influential Sunni Muslim cleric whose TV show is watched by millions across the region, fanned the sectarian flames ignited by the Syria conflict and urged Sunnis everywhere to join the fight against Assad.

"I call on Muslims everywhere to help their brothers be victorious," Yusuf al-Qaradawi said in his Friday sermon in the Qatari capital of Doha. "If I had the ability I would go and fight with them."

"Everyone who has the ability and has training to kill ... is required to go," said al-Qaradawi, who is in his 80s. "We cannot ask our brothers to be killed while we watch."

He denounced Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, as "more infidel than Christians and Jews" and Shiite Muslim Hezbollah as "the party of the devil."

He said there is no more common ground between Shiites and Sunnis, alleging that Shiite Iran — a longtime Syria ally that has supplied the regime with cash and weapons — is trying to "devour" Sunnis.

The Syrian conflict, now in its third year, has taken on dark sectarian overtones. It has escalated from a local uprising into a civil war and is not increasingly shifting into a proxy war.

Predominantly Sunni rebels backed by Sunni states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are fighting against a regime that relies on support from Alawites, Shiites and Christians at home, and is aided by Iran and Hezbollah. The Syria conflict is also part of a wider battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran for regional influence.

Sunni fighters from Iraq and Lebanon have crossed into Syria to help those fighting Assad, while Shiites from Iraq have joined the battle on the regime's side.

Sectarian tensions rose sharply when Hezbollah stepped up its involvement in the war in mid-May by joining a regime offensive against the rebel-held Syrian town of Qusair, about 10 kilometers (six miles) from Lebanon. The town has since become one of the war's major military and political flashpoints, with international concern growing over civilians believed to be trapped there.

On Saturday, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nation's two top officials dealing with human rights and humanitarian issues said they were alarmed by reports that thousands of civilians are trapped in Qusair and that hundreds of wounded people are in urgent need of medical care.

The U.N. officials called for a cease-fire to allow the wounded to be evacuated. They said more than 10,000 people have fled to two nearby towns and need food, bedding, water and medical care.

The Red Cross said it has requested access to Qusair and is prepared to enter the city immediately to help the civilians there.

Syria's political opposition cited Hezbollah's role in the war and the dire situation in Qusair as reasons for not attending peace talks with the regime in Geneva, which the U.S. and Russia had hoped could be launched at an international conference this month.

Qusair has also become a rallying cry for rebels demanding Western weapons shipments, with the commander of the main Western-backed rebel group warning this week the town could fall soon if such arms are not delivered.

A regime victory in Qusair would deal a demoralizing blow to the rebels and solidify Assad's control over the central province of Homs, the linchpin linking the capital Damascus with the Alawite strongholds on the Mediterranean cost.

For the rebels, holding the town means protecting their supply line to Lebanon. Rebels have sent reinforcements to the town to try to stem the regime advances. Both sides have suffered heavy casualties.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah's role in Syria set off a mounting backlash from the rebels who threatened to target the militia's bases in Lebanon if the militant group does not withdraw its fighters.

Over the past week, Syrian rebels have fired dozens of rockets on Lebanon's northeastern region of Hermel, across the border from Qusair, but Saturday's attack was the first on the Baalbek region, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Sixteen rockets and mortar rounds hit Baalbek early Saturday, igniting fires in fields but causing no casualties. Lebanese security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with regulations, said the villages of Yanta, Brital and Saraeen were among the areas struck. Lebanon's National News Agency said two more rockets hit the Baalbek area on Saturday evening.

Also Saturday, gunmen opened fire on a Shiite shrine in the town of Baalbek in an attack that could worsen frictions between Lebanon's Shiites and Sunnis. The shrine of Sayida Khawla, a great granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad, was attacked shortly after midnight, a security official said.

Lebanon and Syria share a complex web of political and sectarian ties and rivalries that are easily enflamed. Lebanon, itself plagued by decades of strife, has been on edge since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, which began as mostly peaceful protests against Assad's regime but later degenerated into all-out civil war.

Some Lebanese Sunnis support the Syrian rebels, while some Shiites back Assad's regime. In the majority Sunni city of Tripoli in northern Lebanon, Sunnis backing the rebels and Alawites supporting Assad have repeatedly fought each other with rockets and grenades.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has firmly linked the militia's fate with that of the Assad regime, but in a speech last week also pledged to keep the fighting out of Lebanon.

Still, a senior Hezbollah commander, Nabil Kaouk, said Saturday that "we will not be silent and will not stand idle" in the wake of Syrian rebel attacks on Hezbollah targets. He spoke during a memorial service for a slain Hezbollah fighter and his comments were carried on the website of Hezbollah-owned Al-Manar TV.

Fawaz A. Gerges, director of the Middle East Center at the London School of Economics, said he believes Hezbollah has made a strategic decision that the battle is in Syria, not Lebanon. "If Hezbollah is provoked, I don't expect it to allow itself to fall into the trap" of responding, he said.

At the same time, the al-Qaradawi comments "are pouring fuel on a raging fire," Gerges said.

The cleric is "putting a sectarian stamp on an essentially geostrategic struggle between Saudi Arabia and Iran," he said.

___

Associated Press writers Aya Batrawy in Cairo and Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed reporting.

Frightened Okla. residents opt to flee tornadoes

2 Mexico kidnap victims sons of drug traffickers

A broken padlock and signs with the details of people that were recently abducted lie on the sidewalk in front of an after hours bar in Mexico City, Friday May 31, 2013. Anguished relatives said that on Sunday May 26, eleven young people were kidnapped in broad daylight from an after-hours bar in Mexico City's Zona Rosa, a normally calm district of offices, restaurants, drinking spots and dance clubs. Sign says: "Looking for Said Sanchez Garcia, 19 years old, height 1.85 mts., tattoo in the shape of a devil on his right shoulder." (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

Photo composite of images taken from flyers made by relatives showing ten of the eleven young people that were kidnapped in broad daylight from an after hours bar in Mexico City last Sunday May 26, 2013. From left to right, top row; Josue Piedra Moreno, Aaron Piedra Moreno, Rafael Rojas, Alan Omar Athiencia Barragon, Jennifer Robles Gonzalez. From left to right, bottom row; Jerzy Ortiz Ponce, Said Sanchez Garcia, Guadalupe Morales Vargas, Eulogio Foseca Arreola, Gabriela Tellez Zamudio. (AP Photo/Marco Ugarte)

MEXICO CITY (AP) — It started to rain last Saturday night and the temperature dropped. So 19-year-old Said Sanchez Garcia stopped home to get a sweater. He'd been gone all afternoon and now he and his friend, Jerzy Ortiz, 16, were headed out clubbing on Jerzy's motor scooter.

"The only thing I said was, 'Son, it's raining, you shouldn't be going out,'" said Josefina Garcia. It was the last time she saw him.

By late Sunday she was calling Jerzy's mother, Leticia Ponce, to see if she knew where the boys were. By Tuesday, both mothers were at the Mexico City prosecutor's office with other distraught relatives. The boys disappeared from an after-hours bar in central Mexico City on Sunday morning along with nine others, kidnapped by masked men with large guns and SUVs in broad daylight, according to the story of one man who got away.

Nearly a week later, the two mothers found themselves denying that the brazen abduction had anything to do with their sons.

Both acknowledged that the boys' fathers are serving prison sentences for drug-related crimes. But Ponce tearfully pleaded with reporters on Friday not to criminalize her son, Jerzy. His father has been in jail for 10 years.

"If somebody wanted to do something to us, they would have already kidnapped us," said Ponce, shaking with sobs.

Authorities have been searching desperately for motives in the bizarre crime that left no clues. It followed the May 9 beating death of Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of the late Malcolm X, in a fight over a bill at another rough Mexico City bar. Two waiters have been arrested in that killing.

After scouring available surveillance tapes in the kidnapping and searching the bar, Mexico City Attorney General Rodolfo Rios said Saturday that so far they so far have found no evidence that a heavily armed command abducted the young people.

"We have found no signs of violence inside or outside the place," he told a press conference.

The family members have met with city and federal prosecutors, and have demanded to see tapes from the office buildings that tower over the narrow side street just off the city's leafy Paseo de la Reforma. The bar is also a short walk from the federal police building and the U.S. Embassy.

Employees in nearby businesses say they had noticed for some time strange activity and loud music at the building with the sign Bicentenario, some calling it a narco-bar for the expensive cars that came and went. Several said they would cross the street to work to avoid the drunks who would hang out on the sidewalk, still partying in the early morning. The after-hours club, called "Heaven," had been operating for about a year, neighbors estimated.

It was running with a different name than the one listed on a license that expired in 2009 and was never renewed. Still, it stayed open. Humberto Huerta, a spokesman for the city borough office that is responsible for inspecting bars and other businesses, noted his office only has 16 inspectors to oversee 60,000 businesses.

But no one saw anything Sunday around 10 a.m. when the abduction supposedly happened, nearly unbelievable given that nearby Reforma was full of people that day — for a 5-kilometer foot race, the city's weekly urban bike ride and an international culture fair that had just opened the day before.

Amid the lack of an explanation, speculation emerged that it was a retaliation crime relating to the fathers of the two boys.

The spokesman for the city's penitentiary system said Sanchez's father, Alejandro Sanchez, was sentenced in October 2004 to 23 years in prison for extortion, organized crime, homicide and robbery. He is serving time in a maximum security prison in the city.

Jerzy's father Jorge Ortiz, known as "the Tank," was arrested the same day as Sanchez and was sentenced to the same crimes and for the same number of years. He was transferred to a federal maximum security prison in 2009 because he is considered a high-risk criminal.

"My husband has been locked up for many years," Garcia said. "He doesn't have any problems with anybody, he doesn't mess with anybody. So that would be a long time for that to keep having consequences, right?"

Others accused authorities of stigmatizing the kidnap victims because they hail from Tepito, one of Mexico City's most dangerous neighborhoods and the main clearinghouse for millions of dollars of contraband, from guns and drugs to counterfeit handbags.

In the winding, narrow streets of the 150-block area, stalls selling knock-off sneakers and pirated CDs block access for most cars. Youths ride motorbikes, often two to a bike, as the main form of transport. Garbage is piled on street corners, and warehouses full of auto parts of dubious origin spill their contents.

Alma, a 21-year-old student who didn't want to give her last name, said it's common to see kids as young as 10 hanging out on the streets at all hours of the night, and noted that their role models are the men with flashy motorcycles and cars and no visible means of income.

Rumors also spread that the abductions might be the result of one of Mexico's major drug cartels trying to break into the lucrative black market of Tepito, traditionally controlled by local mafias and families.

Officials have said that Mexico's major drug cartels sometimes move money or drugs through Mexico City, but don't really base themselves or operate from the capital, in part because the crowded streets and 70,000-member police force make it hard to do business. As a result, the city until now has been largely spared from the mass abductions and killings going on in other parts of Mexico, where the cartels are at war.

But street crime is bad in Tepito, where strangers can't enter without local guides for fear of being robbed. Local businessmen now fund a 17-member security force made up largely of tattooed ex-cons, who patrol the streets looking for thieves. Once caught, suspects are turned over to police.

Miguel Barcenas, an imposing ex-cop dressed in black, heads the force, which is armed only with radios. He said he's heard rumors about cartels such as La Familia Michoacana or the Zetas coming in, but he thinks Tepito is probably too tough even for them.

"The people here are very united, very war-like," Barcenas said.

Family members deny that the disappeared were involved in any illicit trade.

Garcia said her son helped her sell purses and cleaning products. Another of the disappeared, Jennifer Robles, 23, was a single mother. She posted a message on Facebook about 8:30 a.m. Sunday, just before she disappeared, saying she was dancing.

_____

Associated Press writer Olga R. Rodriguez contributed to this report.