Your Duty: 2014-09-21

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Center helps student veterans with college plans

GAINESVILLE, FLA. — A University of Florida program is helping military veterans succeed in college.

The Gainesville Sun reports that the Collegiate Veterans Success Center serves about 600 University of Florida students who receive military benefits. A full-time Veterans Affairs counselor has been assigned to the campus since January.

The center is part of the national VetSuccess on Campus program that began in 2009 at the University of South Florida.

The University of Florida center allows student veterans to access the VA benefits system, health care system and the university school system.

The idea behind the program is to make it easier for veterans to navigate through higher education.

Military Times reported last year that the Veterans Affairs Department was expanding the number of schools participating in the VetSuccess on Campus program, bringing VA counselors to more than 60 new locations this fall.

While the program is based on college campuses, the participating VA counselors can offer help on more than just education-related issues.

Counselors can help vets learn about and apply for benefits they might not know about, and they also maintain close ties to VA medical facilities and Vet Centers.

In addition to help with academic issues, the program provides an additional and more convenient “entree into the VA” for student veterans, opening up a world of VA benefits to people who would not go to stand-alone VA centers and thus could have been shut out, a VA official said last year.

One student veteran, Caleb Archie, told the Gainesville Sun that when transferred to the University of Florida from a smaller college, he was overwhelmed and confused. The VA benefits counselor assigned to the school, Charlotte Kemper, took him to the financial aid office, the Collegiate Veterans Success Center and to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, where she was helping him apply for work study, the Sun reported.

Benefits counselors can access the VA benefits system, health care system and a school’s system to help student veterans with any issue they encounter.

North Korean threat underscores need for land mine exemption

SEOUL, South Korea — The Obama administration’s decision to remove all of its land mine stockpiles, except those in South Korea, underscores the constant security threat posed by North Korea and serves as a reminder that little has changed in the decades-old military standoff here.

“No other country besides South Korea faces such a huge military confrontation like the one on the Korean peninsula. There’s no comparison,” a spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of National Defense said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity.

Citing security concerns, neither South Korean defense officials nor U.S. Forces Korea would disclose how many land mines are buried in the 16-mile-long, 2.5-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone that separates the two Koreas, though officials have previously estimated it’s more than 1 million.

Meant to deter a land attack, the mines are part of the massive arrays of military forces and equipment that make the DMZ the mostly heavily guarded — and dangerous — border in the world.

The buffer zone — and particularly the Joint Security Area — is a surreal place, part tense border, part tourist attraction. Busloads of visitors tour infiltration tunnels dug by the North and watch as troops from both countries glare at each other from across the Military Demarcation Line, separated by just yards in land but miles in dueling ideologies.

Both Koreas maintain villages in the DMZ. On the southern side is Daesungdong, home to some 200 people and a small school where students practice evacuating in case hostilities flare up. On northern side is the ghost village of Kijong-dong, which has no residents and is best known for the massive North Korean flag that flies over its empty buildings.

And while a ground invasion might seem unlikely, it is estimated that millions of North Korean soldiers would flood across the border if war broke out again. Vestiges of the past remain along the northern edge of the South’s territory, like the overpasses rigged to explode and stymie the advancement of North Korean troops. South Korean troops posted in lookout points along barb-wired riverbanks scan for infiltrators.

Along with hundreds of thousands of South Korean military personnel, more than 28,500 U.S. troops are stationed on the peninsula as a deterrent to the North, whose nuclear capabilities remain a key security concern in the region. The North periodically threatens to use them against South Korea and even the U.S. mainland.

Earlier this week, the State Department announced the U.S. is exempting the Korean peninsula from a pledge it made earlier this year to quit producing land mines and get rid of its current stockpiles.

Another MND spokesman said South Korea respects and welcomes the U.S. decision and views it as a sign that the U.S. understands its “unique” security situation.

“We have confidence in the strength of combined U.S.-ROK capabilities to defend against North Korean military action and maintain appropriate capabilities to meet U.S. defense requirements to defend the ROK,” the spokesman said.

South Korea has spent millions of dollars to remove land mines south of the DMZ in recent years, primarily from rural areas. A legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, they may be unearthed due to farming or uncovered by heavy rains and washed far from where they were buried.

“Land mines still hurt people, and there are still so many,” a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said previously.

While the war ended in armistice, the two Koreas, along with the U.S., remain technically at war.

Stars and Stripes’ Yoo Kyong Chang contributed to this story.

rowland.ashley@stripes.com

Nuremberg stenographer's mementos to be auctioned

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The old trunk was locked when it was found by auction house workers clearing a long-vacant home in Alaska that was about to be listed for sale.

The collection crew's members couldn't find the key, so they broke the lock. Inside were yellowed papers and blankets. Personal stuff, they figured.

Only back at the warehouse of Anchorage-based Alaska Auction Co. did they discover carbon copies of transcripts from the Nuremberg war-crimes trials. They also found a staff directory for the multinational tribunal that prosecuted scores of Nazi masterminds in those infamous trials, a translated letter to Nazi faithful that signs off with "Heil Hitler" and personal credentials and correspondence belonging to a lowly postwar stenographer who squirreled the mementos away for decades.

The late Maxine C. Carr's small collection is the featured lot in an auction of World War II relics scheduled to take place on Saturday.

"It was chilling, very chilling going through that paperwork. Very unsettling," said Christine Hill, who has owned the auction house with her husband, Duane, for 30 years.

The Carr collection is being auctioned as one lot, with no minimum bidding set. Several other private collections of mementos from that era also are being auctioned and include Nazi arm bands, German and Russian medals, and a tiny Hitler propaganda booklet. There also are plenty of Alaska artifacts, such as ivory carvings, old photographs, even black bear and coyote head mounts.

Little is known about Carr's time in Alaska, although a state fishing license was issued to her in 1951, when she was 29 years old. While in Alaska, she eventually used her married name, Maxine Sud, according state records. Carr died at least a decade ago, but it's not clear exactly when she passed away.

Her 91-year-old widower, Chand Sud, lives in an Anchorage assisted living facility. Through the auction house, he declined to comment to The Associated Press.

Hill said the widower was surprised to learn about the documents, although he knew of her Nuremberg past.

An old undated news article found among his wife's possessions says Maxine Carr worked for 32 months on the International Military Tribunal staff in Nuremberg.

In November 1945, the landmark Nuremberg trials began. Twelve of the 23 defendants, including Hitler aide Hermann Goering, were sentenced to death.

Almost seven decades after the war, many institutions, including the Harvard Law School Library, have extensive collections of Nuremberg trial documentation, said Ed Moloy, curator of modern manuscripts at the Harvard library. While the Carr collection is interesting, it's likely not particularly unique, he said.

But it might appeal to a private collector who wants such documents that are not already housed in a repository such as the Harvard library, which has 600 linear feet of Nuremberg documents.

"It's very possible that people like Miss Carr, who was part of this pool of civilians working to support the trials, ended up with extra copies or something and saved them for souvenirs," Moloy said. "That's what I would assume this collection is."

Last year, other Nuremberg documents surfaced in Israel at a flea market in Tel Aviv. That 500-page trove eventually ended up at auction, too, where they sold for a price tag in the $10,000 range.

Personal correspondence found in the trunk also hints of dissatisfaction with her position as a clerk-stenographer with the Civil Aeronautics Administration for war-training service before the war trials started. Carr received a job rating of "fair" in 1944, and she filed an unsuccessful appeal to the Civil Service Commission to amend the evaluation to "very good."

"I performed a great deal more work than any other girl assigned to the same type of position, and I certainly believe that I should receive a higher rating than "Fair" for work completed, especially considering the unfavorable circumstances under which I had to work," Carr wrote. In a May 1945 letter from the Efficiency Rating Board of Review, the board chair said Carr "had not altogether convincingly rebutted" her supervisors' work appraisals.

South Korea buying 40 F-35A jets from Lockheed for $7 billion

A U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II assigned to the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron taxis down the runway before a training mission April 4, 2013, at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.
Brett Clashman/U.S. Air Force

By Ashley Rowland and Yoo Kyong Chang

Stars and Stripes

Published: September 25, 2014

SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea is buying 40 F-35A fighter jets from Lockheed Martin to upgrade its aging fleet of aircraft and help counter the threat posed by North Korea, officials said Wednesday.

The approximately $7 billion acquisition from the Bethesda, Md.-based company marks South Korea’s single largest weapons purchase, said Paek Youn Hyeong, a spokesman for the South’s Defense Acquisitions Program Administration.

“The biggest reason for the purchase is that we need higher-performance aircraft,” he said.

South Korea announced its intent to sign a Letter of Offer and Acceptance with Lockheed Martin on Wednesday after several months of negotiation about the price. The aircraft will be delivered to the South between 2018 and 2021, Paek said.

The F-35A Lightning II is a fifth-generation fighter with advanced stealth technology and sustainment, according to Lockheed Martin.

The agreement makes South Korea the third Foreign Military Sales country to buy the F-35, along with Israel and Japan, which announced their purchases in 2010 and 2011, respectively, a company statement said.

The purchase of the fighter jets is designed to replace South Korea’s aging fleet of F-4 and F-5 fighter jets, South Korea’s Yonhap News reported.

Paek said Thursday that the DAPA has also finalized plans to produce 120 mid-sized, next-generation fighter jets at the cost of approximately $8.5 billion. The upgraded aircraft will be deployed beginning in 2025, he said.

rowland.ashley@stripes.com

Twitter: @Rowland_Stripes

chang.yookyong@stripes.com

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

EPA: Army must move faster on Fort Gillem contamination

It’s been more than a month since the U.S. Army tested the air in Chad Partin’s Forest Park, Ga., home for toxic chemicals and known carcinogens seeping off nearby Fort Gillem, a now-closed base where Army personnel regularly dumped solvents into the soil.

Partin still hasn’t been told the results. And he’s fearful for his 4-year-old son.

“It’s been really, really slow getting information,” Partin, a 34-year-old diesel mechanic, said.

“It absolutely worries me, because even if the results come back negative, what about the air my son is breathing when he plays outside? What about the creek behind my house?”

On Wednesday, impatient federal regulators moved to help Partin and other residents get answers. Warning of an imminent danger to human health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered the Army to move faster in testing homes, informing residents of the results and providing help to those homes where risky levels of hazardous chemicals are detected.

The EPA gave the Army 10 days to respond.

The order is the third attempt to get the Army to act on behalf of residents. Gov. Nathan Deal wrote a letter to prod Army officials Sept. 4 and state regulators at the Environmental Protection Division also urged quick action after tests revealed a threat to public health.

State officials said the Army has already missed a key deadline, which gave them 21 days to install mitigation measures — like ventilation systems — in homes with high levels of contaminants.

“EPA believes that an Order is necessary to protect the health of the community and the environment,” said a statement from the the federal agency.

The Army said it is considering how to address the EPA order and will host a series of public information sessions to address community concerns.

“Prompt action to address risks to human health resulting from the Army’s past activities at Fort Gillem remains our top priority for this cleanup effort,” the Army said.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution began reporting on the environmental problems at the base last year. At the time, the EPA was considering making a portion of the base a Superfund site, a designation that would have put it on a list for federal funds created for the cleanup or eradication of toxic waste. But it backed off the threat as state and Army officials appeared to make progress in the cleanup efforts. That effort will impact a planned redevelopment, which officials are hopeful will bring badly-needed jobs to Clayton County. Grocery giant Kroger has planned a distribution center on a portion of the base, which closed in 2011.

Fort Gillem, south of Atlanta, was for decades an Army transportation hub where many military vehicles were repaired and housed. There is a mustard bomb buried on the base but the military maintains it was deactivated. With no laws forbidding it, workers on the base freely dumped dumped motor oil and industrial solvents, saturating the soil and groundwater with hazardous chemicals that have now spread off the base in several plumes. The most worrisome is one that oozes for nearly one mile into an adjacent residential neighborhood.

Residents there have long been warned not to drink the well water. But state officials this summer finally persuaded military brass to conduct vapor intrusion studies of air in the homes near the base to see if chemicals in the groundwater had spread into the air residents breathe.

The initial results were alarming. The EPA said in it’s order Wednesday that data has been evaluated for 17 homes and that at least nine homes warrant immediate mitigation. Six require monitoring and two require additional testing. Air samples have been collected from 56 homes and business so far, the EPA said. Dozens more homes must still be tested.

Among the chemicals found in the homes that need attention is 1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene, a volatile organic compound used as an additive in aviation fuel and gasoline. Acute exposure can lead to headaches and fatigue. Chronic exposure can affect the reproductive system and developing fetus.

The EPA filed the order Wednesday under the Resources Conservation Recovery Act, which is designed to address imminent and substantial endangerment to public health due to past waste handling activities.

The executive director of Greenlaw, an Atlanta-based legal environmental advocacy group, applauded the EPA’s move.

“Residents need to be informed and engaged in this process,” the group’s executive director, Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, said.

If the Arab Spring wasn't dead already, it is now

WASHINGTON — For well over a year now, the Arab Spring has struggled on life support, doomed to die with barely a whimper. Instead, it ended definitively with the bang of U.S. airstrikes in Syria, coordinated with five of the Arab world's most authoritarian states. The long winter of a protracted war with the Islamic State and affiliated jihadists now seems here to stay.

There was a time when the White House genuinely had hope that people power and pro-democracy uprisings could reshape the Middle East. In a famous speech in May 2011, President Barack Obama likened the dramatic self-immolation of a fruit seller in Tunisia, which triggered protests that toppled a long-ruling autocrat, to the defiance of Rosa Parks and the agitators of the Boston Tea Party.

Tunisia's protests inspired a far more epic revolution in Egypt, the Arab world's most populous state. An entrenched dictator was forced to step down, and Cairo's Tahrir Square, a faceless traffic roundabout, became the birthplace of something far more inspiring: a moment in which people long suppressed joined together and demanded their rights. The genie was out of the bottle. Protests spread to Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria.

Obama, in his speech, echoed the optimism and hailed the "extraordinary change taking place":

In Cairo, we heard the voice of the young mother who said, "It's like I can finally breathe fresh air for the first time."

In Sanaa [Yemen], we heard the students who chanted, "The night must come to an end."

In Benghazi [Libya], we heard the engineer who said, "Our words are free now. It's a feeling you can't explain."

In Damascus [Syria], we heard the young man who said, "After the first yelling, the first shout, you feel dignity."

But the rosy glow of 2011 has sputtered out like the thin flame of a candle. From being the catalyst of seismic upheaval, Tunisia's fledgling democracy is starting to look like the sad, lonely exception. And for Obama, a realist's caution has replaced his earlier embrace of the Arab Spring.

In Egypt, elements of the old regime are firmly back in power, led by a former general who presided over the ruthless slaughter of Islamist protesters and the arrests of hundreds of dissidents. Some of the leading liberal activists who once defined the revolution in Tahrir Square have been jailed. The United States was largely a bystander; Secretary of State John Kerry even claimed that the Egyptian army was "restoring democracy."

In Libya, an armed uprising, backed by NATO airstrikes, defeated the regime of Moammar Gadhafi. But the unraveling that has followed has been stark and tragic. Benghazi, the seat of the 2011 rebellion, is now a city known for its Islamist militias, gun violence and political chaos. Libya is in the grips of a low-level civil war.

In Yemen, protests led to a political transition backed by the U.S. But the larger narrative has hardly improved: A Shiite rebellion in Yemen's north has brought the country to its knees, while U.S. involvement is characterized not by democracy-building but an interminable, controversial drone war against al-Qaida's Yemeni affiliate.

And then there's Syria. In 2011, the Obama administration was adamant that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad had to go. They thought Assad's departure was as "inevitable" as that of the other fallen Mideast dictators; Washington paid little heed to the calls of other countries, particularly Russia, to take Assad's proposals for dialogue and reconciliation seriously.

It's three years later, and the Syrian death toll has likely eclipsed 200,000, with roughly a quarter of the country's population displaced by the brutal conflict. Assad remains in power, and it's hard to see how the current U.S. intervention, aimed at attacking the extremist Islamic State, will not boost his regime's prospects of survival. Anti-Assad activists appear to be not so thrilled with the current strikes.

Meanwhile, the United States' coalition of Arab allies comprises some of the region's most authoritarian governments. Saudi Arabia, notorious as the incubator of the Salafist creed that inflames terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State, gave sanctuary to Tunisia's exiled dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in 2011.

The kingdom looked on with great anxiety at the upheavals sweeping through countries around it, and did what it could to arrest the change. It helped crush anti-regime protests in neighboring Bahrain (Bahraini military jets took part in the airstrikes overnight). After the Egyptian army ousted the unpopular (but democratically elected) Islamist President Mohammed Morsi last year, Saudi Arabia and its Gulf sidekick, the U.A.E., extended billions of dollars of aid to the new Egyptian regime.

Qatar, another petro-rich Gulf state, saw the political vacuums in the Arab Spring states as an opportunity to spread its clout. The Qataris backed Islamists in various countries, but now appear to have been chastened by that support. The Gulf states reject longstanding accusations that they, through various proxies, helped fuel the Islamic State's rise.

Last week, the Saudis played host to Arab, American and European delegations all seeking a strategy to crush the Islamic State, a terrorist organization that first emerged in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The jihadists present a real security threat to the neighborhood, as well as numerous Western countries whose nationals are in the militants' ranks.

And, in Washington, those considerations now far outweigh the idealism of Obama's 2011 Arab Spring speech. The agenda of jihadists, Obama said at the time, "had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and North Africa had taken their future into their own hands."

That future has been clearly taken out of their hands — both by the political dysfunction of the post-Arab Spring governments and the larger tectonic geopolitical battles in the region. In that context, the U.S. air campaign in Syria, which follows more than a decade after its invasion of Iraq, is a blistering return to the status quo.

Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor at TIME, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.

Universities forge ahead with 3-D printing programs

LAKELAND, FLA. — When students propose, design and create projects at Florida Polytechnic University, they will have a state-of-the-art, 3-D printing lab available to help them along.

It’s a long way from the days of poster boards and a box of colored markers.

Florida Poly President Randy Avent said the university is extremely well-suited to host the lab.

“We are on a mission to address real-world challenges, and that’s what this is about,” he said.

“People might think, well, it looks like a lot of fun, but what does it have to do with higher education?

“And it encompasses the entire Florida Poly, STEM-based package.”

Classes began at Florida Poly on Aug. 25. The university is focusing on courses related to science, technology, engineering and math, otherwise known as STEM. For many of those courses, a 3-D printing laboratory will serve as a creation-booster.

Tom Hull, vice president and chief information officer, said the setup was made possible via a partnership with MakerBot, a subsidiary of Stratasys Ltd.

Partnering with the company that makes the equipment and software enabled the school to obtain the equipment for about $277,000, Hull said. The next-generation software releases will be provided, along with training and ongoing consulting, he said.

The Rapid Application Development Makerspace Lab at Florida Polytechnic University has more than 60 3-D printers and 3-D digitized scanners, making it a large-capacity innovation center.

“It will be a place where students, faculty, partners and community members can work to apply creativity and innovation of adaptive manufacturing and hybrid-maker opportunities,” Hull said.

“Florida Poly seeks to encourage entrepreneurism and creativity — along with providing a resource to help build relationships with industry partners.”

Florida Poly is not the only school looking toward the future.

Isaac Budmen, co-author of “The Book on 3D Printing,” explained the concept recently at Polk State College’s Clear Springs Advanced Technology Center.

“Chances are, if you can think it, you can print it,” he said.

Budmen, who is working as an artist with the Digital Media Lab at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, held two workshops on 3-D printers with Polk State College students, faculty and artists during his visit. The talk discussed the future of 3-D printing.

Polk State has 3-D printers.

Students from many lines of study will be able to incorporate the 3-D lab into studies, Florida Poly’s Hull said.

“We are using the RAD Makerspace for computer engineering, electrical engineering, computer science and information technology, and cybergaming in gaming and simulation. In the works is advanced technology in robotics.”

Avent, an engineer with the ability to explain the field to nongeeks, explained the scanners are used to capture shapes and sizes of actual objects — a credit card, a deck of cards or a piece of jewelry could be scanned. Then the printer is used to create a model-sized version of the object out of filament.

“Let’s say someone wants to build a new cool new part for a BMW,” Avent said.

“What they could do here is draw a picture of it, hit a button and print it out.”

A major cost-saver with this system is that prototypes can be adjusted and created repeatedly, right there in the lab, Avent said.

“What it does is it allows people to build prototypes very quickly and change them very quickly,” he said.

“Whenever any of our faculty or students have a business idea, they can run and very easily draw things up and print out prototypes and play with it,” he said.

Student Zach Boyd said he’s psyched about the 3-D lab and looks forward to using it. The first week of school was enough to show him his choice of universities was a good one, he said.

“The first day was just the beginning, and by the end of today I now know for sure that this was a great decision,” he said.

“So far I have taken all of my classes over these past two days, which include intro to engineering, analytical geometry and calculus 1, technical writing, ethics, chemistry and chem lab.”

The 3-D printing ability can fit into a number of the courses, he said.

And while it’s cool for students to be able to use the lab, Avent said it’s not going to be just for them. “We are going to open it up to anyone that lives in the area, anyone that has a business, anyone outside of the Poly as well. We will work with them,” he said.

A self-study course will be offered online for those who are interested in using the equipment, Hull said.

Polk State College wants to create its own makerspaces on the campuses so that all students have access to this technology, said Osubi Craig, director of Polk State’s Lake Wales Art Center. During his talk, Craig carried around a small, 3-D-printed red eagle that students had printed in 45 minutes at their earlier workshop with Budmen.

Polk State officials are still discussing the possibility of opening those spaces to businesses and community members as well, he said.

Avent said it’s crucial for Florida Poly to be on top of this type of technology, which is destined to be part of major achievements in upcoming years. “We’re not doing this because it’s kind of cool and interesting,” he said. “There’s a real reason we’re doing this.

“In our case, a big part of what we are doing here is educating students in new, emerging technologies that are going to drive the economy.”

Student loan default rates decline

WASHINGTON — The Education Department on Wednesday reported a drop in the percentage of people who are defaulting on repaying student loans in the first years after they are due.

More than 4.7 million borrowers began paying back in the 2011 budget year, and about 650,000 have defaulted, which is about 13.7 percent. A year earlier, the rate was 14.7 percent.

If the default rate for students at a specific school is too high, then students there could be barred from participating in federal financial aid programs.

The borrowers attended about 5,900 U.S. schools.

“We will also continue working with institutions to ensure they are providing their students with the information and guidance the students need to repay their loans after they graduate,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said in a statement.

For-profit institutions had the highest default rate, 19.1 percent, which dropped from 21.8 percent a year earlier.

The rate at public institutions was 12.9 percent, compared with 13 percent. It was 7.2 percent for private nonprofit schools, a decrease from 8.2 percent.

The department said that based on the rates, it was taking action against one adult and continuing education school and 20 for-profit schools. Many are cosmetology schools.

Also Wednesday, the Census Bureau said that college enrollment declined by nearly a half-million students between 2012 and 2013, marking the second year in a row for a large decrease. The agency said the two-year drop of 930,000 was larger than any before the recent economic downturn.

'I don't think we will be repairing this one': An MRAP does its job

An MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle is damaged when it strikes a pressure plate that triggers an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan.
Illustration by Richard Johnson/The Washington Post

By Richard Johnson

The Washington Post

Published: September 24, 2014

Our military convoy was 10 minutes into its journey back to the base when a loud boom that made my stomach drop pulsed through our armored vehicle and a cloud of dust obscured the one ahead of us.

For a couple of minutes, there was little sound but the noise of the diesel engine. Then an order came to dismount, and two soldiers dropped out the back. Javad Hassan, an Afghan American who serves as an Army interpreter, and I were left in the back, looking out the side windows nervously.

It turned out that the vehicle ahead of us had struck a pressure plate that triggered an improvised explosive device. Out the front window, I could see the U.S. infantrymen walking slowly along the road. We rolled along behind. Because I couldn't really think what else to do, I sketched Javad, who sat waiting, just two days from the end of his tour.

The damage to the vehicle meant that it couldn't be driven, but it had done its job protecting the occupants. To get us out of a possible ambush situation, one vehicle dragged the damaged one using a towline. The rest of the convoy followed, rolling slowly over the 5-foot wide, 3-foot deep crater in the asphalt roadway.

I sketched what remained of the bombed MRAP (Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle the next morning.

Find more of Richard Johnson's sketches on his Washington Post blog, Drawing D.C. Together: A Journal of Urban Sketches and on his website, newsillustrator.com. Contact him at richard.johnson@washpost.com

USS Cowpens XO reportedly drove away after flunking alcohol test

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — The relieved executive officer of the USS Cowpens drove his car away from the ship after testing above the legal limit for driving under the influence of alcohol, Navy officials said Wednesday.

Cmdr. Armando Ramirez was found guilty of one count of drunken or reckless operation of a vehicle and one count of conduct unbecoming an officer at an Admiral’s Mast hearing held Sept. 17. Such hearings are the equivalent of nonjudicial punishment in other services.

Ramirez was relieved the next day by ship commanding officer Capt. Scott Sciretta. Ramirez is at least the fifth senior leader to be removed from Cowpens since 2010 and the sixth to be punished for their actions.

Ramirez boarded Cowpens during Labor Day weekend to attend to ship business, said Lt. Rick Chernitzer, spokesman for Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet in San Diego.

Ramirez hadn’t been called in by anyone, Chernitzer said.

Sailors aboard the ship observed signs of intoxication in Ramirez. He voluntarily submitted to a breath test, which confirmed that his blood-alcohol level was over California’s legal limit of 0.08 percent.

Ramirez was offered the chance to sleep on the ship but declined to do so.

“He chose instead to leave and drive his car, and that’s what got him in trouble,” Chernitzer said.

The alcohol detection devices aboard Navy ships aren’t considered evidentiary for use in court, according to the device’s operating guide.

However, the incident did trigger a Judge Advocate General investigation and the subsequent administrative punishment.

Ramirez has been reassigned to Naval Surface Forces, U.S. Pacific Fleet while the service determines the future of his career.

In June, Cowpens commanding officer Capt. Gregory W. Gombert was relieved after an investigation that panned his leadership. The ship’s command master chief was also relieved, and the acting executive officer received nonjudicial punishment.

The ship’s commanding officer was also relieved in 2012 following accusations of an extramarital affair. His predecessor was fired in 2010 after reports of verbally and physically abusing sailors under her command.

slavin.erik@stripes.com

Twitter: @eslavin_stripes

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

VA to investigate whether data on retired Marine who died was falsified

MINNEAPOLIS — The Department of Veterans Affairs said Tuesday it will investigate allegations that the appointment records of a retired Marine who died after having seizures were falsified to cover up delays in patient care at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System.

Cathy Gromek, spokeswoman for the VA's inspector general's office in Washington, told The Associated Press she wasn't sure when the investigation would be finished.

"We're working it and when we can report out, we'll report out," Gromek said.

The announcement followed calls from Minnesota's congressional delegation for an investigation, one day after KARE-TV reported that VA records showed that a neurology exam for Jordan Buisman was rescheduled four days after his death. His family believes the record was falsified and has filed a wrongful death claim against the VA.

Buisman had been told he'd have to wait almost 70 days to see a specialist at the Minneapolis VA neurology clinic for his epilepsy, which had forced him to leave the Marines. The 24-year-old former corporal died Nov. 26, 2012 — 24 days before his appointment. His death certificate listed "seizure disorder" as the cause.

Four days after his death, someone wrote in his VA records that Buisman had canceled his neurology appointment and requested a later date, KARE reported. The VA scheduler entered Jan. 17, 2013, as the tentative follow-up date.

His mother, Lisa Riley, said she believes the record was falsified to hide the delay and that her son probably would have survived if he had received care in time.

"Heads need to roll and butts need to be fired," Riley said.

Minneapolis VA spokesman Ralph Heussner told the AP that he couldn't comment on the family's allegations because of the pending litigation.

The VA's inspector general was already investigating whistleblower claims by two former Minneapolis VA employees who say they were instructed to falsify records to make it look like veterans were canceling or delaying appointments, a practice they allege allowed VA managers to hide long appointment delays.

U.S. Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar and U.S. Rep. Tim Walz said in letters Tuesday to Richard Griffin, the VA's acting inspector general, that his office needed to investigate the new allegations as well.

"This case appears to be an egregious example of manipulating scheduling practices to conceal excessive wait times that put veterans' lives at risk," Klobuchar said in her letter.

The VA's goal for getting a patient into a specialty clinic is 14 days. Dr. Orrin Devinsky, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at New York University, reviewed Buisman's medical records for the family. He concluded there was more than a 50 percent chance that Buisman would have lived if he had been seen in time.

The VA has come under scrutiny following reports of widespread delays that forced veterans to wait months for medical appointments. Investigators have said efforts to cover up or hide delays were systemic throughout the agency's network of almost 1,000 hospitals and clinics.

Australian police kill suspected terrorist after stabbing attack

CANBERRA, Australia — Two Australian counterterrorism police had no choice but to shoot a suspected terrorist when he attacked them in a confrontation in Australia's second largest city of Melbourne, top police officials said Wednesday.

Some experts suspect Tuesday's attack, which left the suspect dead, was inspired by the Islamic State group's call to supporters to wage terror in their home countries.

An Australian Federal Police officer and a Victoria state police officer who were part of a Joint Counter Terrorism Team had asked the 18-year-old man to come to a police station in southeast Melbourne in relation to a routine matter in an investigation when the violence erupted outside the station, Victoria state police Assistant Commissioner Luke Cornelius said.

The two officers were stabbed before one of them shot the man dead, Cornelius said. He declined to release the man's name.

"Our members had no inkling that this individual posed a threat to them and as far as we were concerned, it was going to be an amicable discussion about that individual's behavior," Cornelius told reporters, adding that the officer had "no choice" but to shoot.

Both police officers were taken to a hospital.

"It appears this individual was acting on his own and was not acting in concert with other individuals," Cornelius said. "It's our belief at this stage that this is an isolated incident."

Justice Minister Michael Keenan, who is responsible for the federal police, said the federal officer was in serious but stable condition. The state police officer's condition was stable.

Keenan described the dead man as "a known terror suspect who was a person of interest to law enforcement and intelligence agencies."

The stabbing was unprovoked and the shooting appeared to be in self-defense, Keenan said.

"Whilst this is a horrible incident, we do need to stay calm and go about our daily lives," Keenan told reporters.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, on his way to New York to attend a United Nations Security Council meeting on the problem of 15,000 foreign fighters who are in Iraq and Syria, said he phoned the wives of the injured police to assure them of his government's support.

"Obviously this indicates that there are people in our community who are capable of very extreme acts," Abbott said in a video message sent from Hawaii.

Onlookers said the dead man had been shouting insults about Abbott and the Australian government in general in the moments before he was shot, The Age newspaper reported.

Australian Federal Police Commander Bruce Giles said reports that the deceased man had earlier been waving an Islamic State flag were being investigated.

A statement issued by Islamic State group spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and made public this week asked Muslims to use all means to kill a "disbelieving American or European — especially the spiteful and filthy French — or an Australian or a Canadian" or any disbeliever and others whose countries have joined to try to disable and destroy the group.

Australian National University Professor of National Security Michael Wesley blamed the statement for the attack.

"I think that this attack occurring in the context of the fatwa that came out earlier this week, a fatwa that implored followers to attack infidels and ask no one's permission, thereby really an incitement to lone-wolf attacks — I don't think that's a coincidence at all," Wesley said.

The Islamic Council of Victoria state, a leading Muslim group, said in a statement the tragedy highlighted the need to deal with the root causes of alienation and disaffection of people like the man killed.

The Defense Department announced Wednesday that an Australian air force contingent including eight F/A-18 Hornet jet fighters had arrived in the United Arab Emirates. The jets are expected to be used in air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Iraq, although the Australian government has yet to commit to a combat role.

Earlier this month, Australia raised its terror warning to the second-highest level, citing the domestic threat posed by supporters of the Islamic State group. Last week, police detained 16 people in counterterrorism raids in Sydney and charged one with conspiring with an Islamic State movement leader in Syria to kidnap and behead a randomly selected person. Another man faces a lesser weapons charge; the rest were released.

On Wednesday, the government is to propose a law to Parliament making it an offense to simply visit terrorism hot spots abroad. The legislation is designed to make it easier to prosecute Australian jihadists when they return home from Mideast battlefields and carries sentences of up to life in prison.

Associated Press writer Kristen Gelineau in Sydney contributed to this report.

Syrian rebels angry that airstrikes hit Khorasan but not Bashar Assad

REYHANLI, Turkey — Anti-government media activists and rebel commanders gave a mixed assessment of U.S.-led airstrikes in northern Syria on Tuesday, saying that some of the Islamic State encampments hit had been evacuated and one building that was struck had been filled with displaced civilians, even as at least one major Islamic State base was seriously damaged and many fighters were killed.

But the greatest damage, they said, may be to the Free Syrian Army, the moderate rebel faction that enjoyed U.S. support for years.

By focusing exclusively on Islamic State insurgents and al-Qaida figures associated with the Khorasan unit of the Nusra Front, and bypassing installations associated with the government of President Bashar Assad, the airstrikes infuriated anti-regime Syrians and hurt the standing of moderate rebel groups that are receiving arms and cash as part of a covert CIA operation based in the Turkish border city of Reyhanli.

Rebel fighters argue that they constitute the only friendly ground force available to the international coalition to fill the security vacuum in places that Islamic State fighters are forced to abandon. But rebel commanders said they had played no role in selecting the targets or planning for the aftermath.

The U.S. informed the Syrian government of the impending airstrikes Monday, the official Syrian news agency reported, but no one dropped a hint to the inner circle of rebel commanders. They learned about it from the news.

While the official Syrian news agency reported the U.S.-led assaults in neutral terms, without even mentioning the repeated breaches of Syrian sovereignty, rebel leaders minced no words.

“Public support is the source of our power,” said Col. Hassan Hamadi, a defected Syrian army officer whose Legion 5 force has about 6,400 fighters. The bombings caused “a lot” of damage, he said.

He and other rebel commanders are taking heat from their own troops and anti-government Syrians for what may have been an erroneous strike — the destruction of temporary housing for internally displaced civilians in Kafr Daryan in Idlib province, which caused the deaths of 10 — and eight attacks on installations belonging to the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria but an effective ally in the fight against the Assad regime. U.S. officials said the strikes were aimed at Khorasan, a Nusra unit that includes senior al-Qaida figures who allegedly were plotting an attack on Western targets.

The deaths of the civilians evoked an emotional response.

“People see there was a massacre in which innocent people were killed,” Hamadi said. “They are asking, ‘Who is responsible, the (U.S.-led) coalition or the Assad regime?’”

Who was in the building at the time was unknown. One media activist said the missile killed at least 10 “emirs” of the Nusra Front, but another activist denied that any Nusra leaders were in the building.

“Nusra is still popular in Syria,” Hamadi said. “And now Nusra is playing on the emotions of the Syrian people.” It says that those who deal with the West become part of the West, he said. “They are accusing us of being traitors. And the majority of the Syrian people are speaking in the same tone.”

But the biggest complaint about the bombings was that they didn’t target Assad.

The regime “is the head of terrorism,” Hamadi said. “If there is a comprehensive solution which targets the regime and the jihadi groups together, then all the Syrian people will stand by us, and they will be with the bombing.

But if the war against terrorists excludes the regime, “it’s lacking something important.”

Raad Alawi, the commander of a smaller group of fighters, the Squadrons of Al Haq, told McClatchy he was very angry.

“Starting the war with the bombing of Nusra is an indication that this is a war against the revolution and not Daash,” he said, using the pejorative Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “Maybe next they will bomb the bases of the Free Syrian Army.”

The Hazm movement, which also receives U.S. and international support, issued a statement condemning the airstrikes, the failure to consult the Free Syrian Army and the deaths of civilians.

On Facebook, critics of the U.S. and its Arab allies, calling them “aggressors” and the “Crusade Coalition,” dominated the postings Tuesday by almost 10 to 1.

One of those venting his anger on Facebook was Col. Faris Bayoush, the leader of the Fursan al Haq Brigade, which also receives support from the U.S. and its allies.

“The international coalition is superficially against terrorism, but it is (really) against Islam, and it will bomb all the positions of the Syrian opposition. And in a word, it is with the regime,” he wrote.

Then there was Ala’a al Barri, a man in his early 20s who said he had just visited Al Atarib, a town west of Aleppo. “Everyone there is praying to Allah to give victory to the mujahedeen and to all Islamists who are being targeted by this infidel bombing,” he wrote.

At a hotel in this southern Turkish town, now overrun by Syrian refugees, Syrian guests approached McClatchy reporters Tuesday morning to vent their anger.

“The American strikes against Daash help the Assad regime and push moderate Syrians closer to Daash,” said Telal Sattof , 40, a chemical engineer from Homs. “The Syrian regime is responsible for Daash. If you want to get rid of extreme Islamists — and I do — you have to get rid of Assad. Just give us the weapons to fight him.”

Another hotel guest, who gave his name only as Khalid, said that as result of the bombing, two of his cousins were en route to Raqqa to join the Islamic State.

There was cheering in one corner of northern Syria, in Kobane canton, now under an Islamic State siege. More than 150,000 Kurdish residents have fled to Turkey.

“I think the coming hours and days will see a change in the fighting. The airstrikes will have a big effect on them,” said Idriss Nassan, the deputy foreign minister of the canton. “Maybe the Islamic State will disappear from here.”

Media activists in Raqqa, the unofficial capital of the Islamic State in Syria, said the buildings and encampments of the Islamic State had been empty when they were bombed, and activists in Ash Shadaddi said all the Islamic State’s bases were empty when bombed.

But airstrikes at Tabqa airport near Raqqa, which the Islamic State captured from the regime last month, caused considerable damage and killed a “big number” of jihadi fighters, Hamadi said.

Alhamadee is a McClatchy special correspondent.

Financial relief finally coming for Camp Lejeune toxic water victims

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday announced it will soon start to cover out-of-pocket health care costs for Marine dependents who contracted cancer and other illnesses from toxic water at Camp Lejeune, as promised two years ago by law.

In 2012, Congress passed the landmark Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act. It provided health care for Marines and family members who had lived on the base near Jacksonville, N.C., from 1957-1987 and who suffered from any of 15 illnesses named in the law. These included cancer related to the lungs, bladder, breasts, kidneys and esophagus, as well leukemia and problems involving female infertility.

An estimated 750,000 people were exposed to drinking water at the base that was polluted with chemicals that included industrial solvents and benzene from fuels. The chemicals resulted from spills, a dump site on base, leaking underground storage tanks on base and an off-base dry cleaner.

Under the 2012 law, the VA immediately offered full care for veterans who had been stationed at Camp Lejeune, but it told their dependents who suffered from covered illnesses that they would have to wait to be reimbursed.

The announcement of final rules Tuesday means the VA later this year will start to reimburse family members under the 2012 law for costs since March 26, 2013, that were not covered by insurance. The date is when Congress appropriated funding. The rules first must be published in the Federal Register, to be followed by a 30-day waiting period before people can file claims.

The VA also planned to release a document about health care services to veterans who were on active duty at the base for at least 30 days in the three-decade period.

Retired Marine Jerry Ensminger, whose 9-year-old daughter, Janey, died of leukemia in 1985, and Mike Partain, who was born at the base and suffered from male breast cancer, led a long fight to get the law passed. Both said Tuesday that they were dismayed it took two years to put it into effect.

“As far as I’m concerned, so many people have already died. They just keep dragging this thing out,” Ensminger said.

Partain said “institutional apathy and incompetence” were the reasons it took two years to write and approve the regulations for how the law would be administered.

The VA wrote the regulations, and then the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, part of the White House Office of Management and Budget, had to approve them. The office’s website said approval was made on Sept. 9. The White House referred questions to the VA, and the VA didn’t respond to a question about the length of time required for the implementation of the law.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., who proposed the legislation and fought for it to become law and for its promises to be fulfilled, said in a statement that the final regulation “has been a long time coming.”

“Unfortunately, many who were exposed to the contaminated water have already died as a result of their exposures and will not be able to receive the help this law provides,” Burr said. “I fully expect VA will now move swiftly to implement all the regulations and extend a helping hand to the victims of this tragic episode in our nation’s history.”

Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., who joined Burr in pushing for the legislation when she became a senator in 2009, said her office had been urging the VA to finalize the regulations since Congress passed the bill.

“I am relieved that action has finally occurred today,” Hagan said. “Our veterans and their families exposed to toxic water contamination have waited too long for answers, and I am pleased they will now begin to receive the critical health care benefits they deserve.”

For veterans, any reimbursement of copayments would go back to Aug. 6, 2012, when the law was signed. The law does not provide veterans with disability compensation.

Veterans and family members can apply for the Camp Lejeune benefits by enrolling with the VA online or at a local VA health facility. The VA said they would have to prove they lived or worked at the base during the prescribed period.

Burr and Hagan have proposed legislation that would expand the eligibility dates for veterans and families to 1953. A study by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in 2013 estimated that the water was contaminated with carcinogens as early as that date, four years earlier than previously thought.

For more information about the VA’s Camp Lejeune program, including eligibility and how to apply, visit http://ift.tt/1l39XZC or call 1-877-222-8387.

Would US have right of hot pursuit in Syria?

WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials returned Tuesday to citing Congress' 2001 authorization to wage war on the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attacks as legal grounding for its overnight airstrikes against Islamic State militants and an al-Qaida affiliate inside Syria.

But Secretary of State John Kerry has separately raised the idea of a "right of hot pursuit" across borders — a concept with little grounding in international law — as a basis for attacks on the militants.

President Barack Obama has said repeatedly that U.S. troops will advise Iraqi forces but will not be used for combat directly against the Islamic State group. During a hearing last week by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kerry said the same, but then unexpectedly explained the hot pursuit doctrine, which had not previously been cited by the Obama administration to legally justify any part of its new war.

"So, Iraq is asking us to help them," Kerry said. "And as a matter of right, if they're being attacked from outside their country, you have a right of hot pursuit. You have a right to be able to attack those people who are attacking you as a matter of self-defense."

International law experts said there is a recognized right of hot pursuit to pursue ships escaping in international waters, but there is no similar global legal authority that would allow one nation to violate another nation's border to pursue an opposing force on land. Even without that precedent, numerous nations have repeatedly taken action across borders — including raids by U.S. troops in recent years pursuing militants from Afghanistan into Pakistan.

A State Department spokesman, Jeff Rathke, elaborating on Kerry's comments last week, said Kerry was referring to the recognized concept of a nation's right of self-defense, "which includes the right to use necessary and proportionate force to address armed attacks that emanate from another nation, if that nation is unwilling or unable to address the threat."

In a formal letter sent Tuesday to UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon explaining the airstrikes, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power also alluded to Iraq's right to self-defense and its request for an American military response. Citing the "inherent right of individual and collective self-defense," Power said "the Syrian regime has shown that it cannot and will not confront these safe havens effectively itself. Accordingly, the United States has initiated necessary and proportionate military actions in Syria."

Officials said the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force against terrorists provides Obama with a basis to attack both Islamic State and Khorasan targets. The officials said the Khorasan group in Syria has direct ties to al-Qaida and is linked to bomb testing inside Syria and planning for terrorist actions against U.S. and Western interests. The Islamic State group broke with al-Qaida earlier this year and has yet to be linked to active plots against the U.S., but officials said it retains historic ties to the terror group and presents a threat because of its reliance on foreign fighters, whose ranks include some Americans.

U.S. forces used fighter jets, bombers and cruise missile in strikes against Islamic State and Khorasan targets in northern Syria on Monday, Pentagon officials said. Officials also said Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates are aiding the offensive.

Neither Kerry nor his spokesman identified which military forces might rely on "hot pursuit" as legal basis for strikes or other military action. But Kerry's comments, which came during an exchange with Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Maryland, closely followed a discussion about the role U.S. and Iraqi forces and an international coalition would play in countering the Islamic State threat.

Cardin had asked Kerry how the government should obtain congressional approval for a war that would also "protect us against any lengthy particularly combat involvements in these countries in the future."

Kerry responded that "our lawyers also are clear that Iraq has a right of self-defense, and Iraq is exercising its right of self-defense and asking the United States to help it. And we already have a military agreement with them with respect to that."

International law authorizes military action if a nation can show it is acting in self-defense. But even recognizing that nations have repeatedly invoked their self-interest in striking at opposing forces across borders, legal experts said there is no governing international legal code that recognizes a reflexive right of hot pursuit on land.

Temple University law professor and international law authority Peter J. Spiro said the hot-pursuit doctrine is well-established in criminal law, used to justify U.S. law enforcement pursuit of an armed fugitive across state lines. But Spiro added that "without some justification or U.N. National Security Council authorization, any use of force will comprise a violation of Syrian sovereignty."

There is clearer authority when it comes to pursuit on the sea. The 1958 Geneva Convention codified authorities' right to pursue and apprehend ships that have violated a nation's laws and have escaped from a country's national waters into international waters. Kerry cited that law in 2008 when, as the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he called for the pursuit of pirates onto land in Somalia. The United Nations Security Council later authorized sea-to-land pursuit in Somalia.

Associated Press writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.

Burger King’s black bun in Japan weird, but not much fun

At Burger Kings throughout Japan, black is the new brown. It’s also the new yellow and red.

On Sept. 19, Burger King brought back the black buns it made famous two years ago. Only this time, the fast-food chain went the extra mile and made the cheese and ketchup black as well. Instead of using food coloring, BK opted instead for bamboo charcoal smoke and squid ink.

According to the now-viral news release, the buns and cheese are smoked with the charcoal, and the squid ink is part of the sauce. Add a peppered all-beef patty, and even the meat takes on a darker shade.

The result is as unappetizing in appearance as it sounds, but not quite as horrible-tasting as it looks. I volunteered to be a taste-tester, putting my nearly 15 years of Naval training in consuming vast quantities of normally inedible foods to good use.

The burgers come in two forms. The Kuro Pearl has only the unique black condiments; cheese, ketchup and bun. For roughly a dollar more, the Kuro Diamond has the same plus regular lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo.

The Kuro Pearl and the Kuro Diamond are sold at nearly every Burger King in Japan. I went to the franchise right outside Hachioji Station’s north gate.

The burger is wrapped nicely in a black wrapper and, if you opt to get it to go, comes in a black bag to match. Once you open the wrapper, the burger sits there looking as sad and pathetic as any other hastily-assembled fast-food burger.

And that cheese. That strange-looking plastic-like thing hanging off the sides of the bun looks like the blown tire tread on the side of the freeway.

Oddly, the burger gets more strange-looking after you bite into it. The air bubbles are black, too. It looks cake-like in texture, but smells like liquid smoke.

Here’s how it tastes: First, you’re hit by a heavy smoky flavor, followed by the tang of the squid-inky ketchup. The black-peppery burger that follows doesn’t taste or look like a typical BK burger. No, it tastes more like a TV dinner meat patty and looks more like a veggie burger.

However, after you get past the looks, you realize that marketing must have been lying about the cheese, because it tastes like American cheese. The inky ketchup is actually and surprisingly good, especially considering it’s made by Burger King.

Regardless, $10 for the meal (if you get fries and a drink) is high for any fast food, even by Japanese standards, and the burger patty is too much like a microwavable Salisbury steak to be worth a second go. But it does make for great photos.

kimber.james@stripes.com

Twitter: @james_kimber

DOD: Syrian al-Qaida affiliate Khorasan was about to conduct ‘major attacks’

WASHINGTON — U.S. airstrikes in Syria may have prevented “major attacks” on the U.S. homeland, according to the Pentagon.

The U.S. military conducted two sets of attacks in Syria late Monday and early Tuesday: one against the Khorasan group — an al-Qaida offshoot — and another against the Islamic State.

Officials said Khorasan attacks against the West were “imminent” before American and allied air and missile strikes rained down on northwest Syria late Monday and early Tuesday.

“We believe the Khorasan group was nearing the execution phase of an attack either in Europe, or the homeland. We know that the Khorasan group has attempted to recruit Westerners to serve as operatives or to infiltrate back into their homelands,” Lt. Gen. William Mayville told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday.

Mayville, the Joint Staff director for operations, declined to provide details about the intelligence, including which sites Khorasan was eyeing as terrorist targets.

U.S. Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East, launched eight strikes against the group in northwest Syria, west of the city of Aleppo. Training camps, an explosive and munitions production facility, a communication building, and command and control facilities were targeted, officials said.

“The United States took actions to protect our interests and to remove their capability to act,” Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said.

When asked whether the airstrikes had removed the threat, Mayville said: “Give us some time to assess the targets and the effects we thought we had last night before we can answer that.”

In a simultaneous operation, the U.S. military and five Arab partner nations attacked Islamic State targets in Syria.

The two operations were conducted in three waves, Mayville said. In the first, 47 Tomahawk missiles struck Khorasan and Islamic State targets in northern and eastern Syria. The majority of the missiles were aimed at Khorasan, according to Mayville.

The Tomahawks were launched from the USS Arleigh Burke guided missile destroyer and the USS Philippine Sea guided missile cruiser, which are stationed in the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.

The second wave featured F-22 Raptors, F-15 Strike Eagles, F-16s, B-1 bombers and drones launched from bases in the region. Those strikes in northern Syria targeted Islamic State headquarters, training camps, barracks and combat vehicles, Mayville said.

That attack marks the first time that the F-22, the Pentagon’s most advanced fighter aircraft, was used in a combat operation.

In the third and final wave, F-18s taking off the USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier and regionally based F-16s hit targets in eastern Syria, including Islamic State training camps and combat vehicles. Most of those strikes took place around Deir al-Zour, Mayville said.

The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps all contributed fighter jets to the operations, according to CENTCOM.

The coalition conducted 14 strikes against Islamic State targets in the vicinity of Raqqa, Deir al-Zour, Al Hasahak, and Abu Kamal. Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates took part in the bombing, and Qatar supported the effort. However, the vast majority of the munitions dropped came from the U.S., according to Mayville.

“The attack destroyed or damaged multiple ISIL targets … including ISIL fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles,” CENTCOM said in a press release.

ISIL is an acronym used to refer to the Islamic State.

“Initial indications are that our strikes were very successful,” Pentagon spokesman Col. Steve Warren said Tuesday morning. “We hit everything we were aiming at.”

Mayville said that 96 percent of all the delivered munitions were precision-guided, partly to minimize the risk of civilian casualties.

American officials made a point of noting that the attacks were not coordinated with the Syrian government, which is at war with various rebel groups in Syria, including the Islamic State. The Obama administration, citing the Assad’s regime human rights abuses, is working to remove Syria’s leaders from power.

“We informed the Syrian regime directly of our intent to take action through our Ambassador to the United Nations (Ambassador Power) to the Syrian Permanent Representative to the United Nations. We warned Syria not to engage U.S. aircraft. We did not request the regime’s permission. We did not coordinate our actions with the Syrian government. We did not provide advance notification to the Syrians at a military level, or give any indication of our timing on specific targets,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement Tuesday.

The Assad regime did not attempt to impede the U.S. military operations in Syria, and Mayville described their air defense systems, which are formidable, as “passive” during the operations.

harper.jon@stripes.com

Twitter: @JHarperStripes

Airstrikes in Syria and Iraq are just the start

WASHINGTON -- The one-two-three punch of American and Arab airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq was just the beginning, President Barack Obama and other leaders declared Tuesday. They promised a sustained campaign showcasing a rare U.S.-Arab partnership aimed at Muslim extremists.

At the same time, in fresh evidence of how the terrorist threat continues to expand and mutate, the U.S. on its own struck a new al-Qaida cell that the Pentagon said was "nearing the execution phase" of a direct attack on the U.S. or Europe.

"This is not America's fight alone," Obama said of the military campaign against the Islamic State group. "We're going to do what's necessary to take the fight to this terrorist group, for the security of the country and the region and for the entire world."

Obama said the U.S. was "proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder" with Arab partners, and he called the roll: Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain and Qatar. Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon's press secretary, said four of the five had participated in the strikes, with Qatar playing a supporting role.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Turkey, too, is joining the coalition against the Islamic State group and "will be very engaged on the front lines of this effort." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in New York for U.N. meetings, said he was considering expanding support of NATO operations against the Islamic State to include military involvement.

In all, Kerry said, more than 50 nations are allied in the fight.

It was a measure of the gravity of the threat and the complex politics of the problem that Syrian President Bashar Assad gave an indirect nod of approval to the airstrikes in his own country, saying he supported "any international anti-terrorism effort." There has been concern among U.S. officials that any strikes against militants fighting Assad could be seen as inadvertently helping the leader whom Obama wants to see ousted from power.

Monday night, in three waves of attacks launched over four hours, the U.S. and its Arab partners made more than 200 airstrikes against roughly a dozen militant targets in Syria, including Islamic State headquarters, training camps and barracks as well as targets of the rival Nusra Front, al-Qaida's branch within Syria. The first wave, conducted by the U.S. alone, focused mostly on a shadowy network of al-Qaida veterans known as the Khorasan Group, based in northwestern Syria.

"We've been watching this group closely for some time, and we believe the Khorasan group was nearing the execution phase of an attack either in Europe or the homeland," said Lt. Gen. William Mayville, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group is known to be working with the Yemeni branch of al-Qaida to recruit foreign fighters with Western passports and explosives to target U.S. aviation.

Pentagon officials released photos and video showing strikes on rooftop communications equipment at an Islamic State finance center in Raqqa, the group's self-declared capital in Syria. Another showed damage to a command-and-control building in the same city. A third showed damage in a residential area along the Syrian-Iraqi border that had been used as a training site for fighters.

A Syrian activist group reported that dozens of Islamic State fighters were killed in the strikes, but the numbers could not be independently confirmed. Several activists also reported at least 10 civilians killed.

Even as the military was still assessing the full impact of the strikes, U.S. officials pledged there was more to come. Obama met at the United Nations on Tuesday with representatives of the five Arab nations and told them the airstrikes were "obviously not the end of the effort, but this is the beginning." Mayville promised "a credible and sustainable persistent campaign to degrade and ultimately destroy" the Islamic State.

The participation of the Arab nations marked an unusual public convergence of interests between the United States and its Sunni Arab partners against the Sunni Islamic State group. Each of the five had privately supported U.S. action, but until now had shied away from overt military cooperation against the militants, fearing reprisals. Each of the nations faces threats from militant Sunnis, but they all also harbor fears of growing assertiveness in the region by Iran, which is largely a Shiite country.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the top American military leader, called the coalition unprecedented and said the partnering had set the stage for a broader international campaign against the extremists.

"We wanted to make sure that ISIL knew they have no safe haven, and we certainly achieved that," Dempsey told reporters as he flew to Washington after a weeklong trip to Europe. ISIL is an alternate name for the Islamic State group whose fighters swept across much of Iraq this summer.

Said Kerry in New York: "We are going to do what is necessary to take the fight to ISIL, to begin to make clear that terrorism, extremism does not have a place in the building of civilized society."

The president got swift bipartisan backing from Congress. Republican House Speaker John Boehner called the airstrikes "just one step in what must be a larger effort to destroy and defeat" the Islamic State group. Mindful that Americans are weary after two prolonged wars in the region, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the participation of the Arab nations in the coalition and the president's pledge not to use U.S. ground forces in combat "are clear evidence that President Obama will not repeat the mistakes of the past."

Senior administration officials said Obama had the legal authority to take the action under an Authorization for Use of Military Force that Congress passed in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power had informed Syria of its intent to take action but did not request the Assad government's permission.

Syria's two key allies, Iran and Russia, condemned the strikes. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called them illegal. Russia said "unilateral" U.S. airstrikes were destabilizing the region and urged Washington to secure either Damascus' consent or U.N. Security Council support.

U.S. Central Command said the bombing mission against the Khorasan group took place west of the Syrian city of Aleppo, with targets including training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communication building and command and control facilities.

The U.S. military has been launching targeted airstrikes in Iraq since August, focusing specifically on attacks to protect American interests and personnel, assist Iraqi refugees and secure critical infrastructure. Last week, as part of the newly expanded campaign, the U.S. began going after militant targets across Iraq, including enemy fighters, outposts, equipment and weapons.

Urged on by the White House and U.S. defense and military officials, Congress passed legislation late last week authorizing the military to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels. Obama signed the bill into law Friday, providing $500 million for the U.S. to train about 5,000 rebels over the next year.

Mroue reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Zeina Karam, Julie Pace, Edith M. Lederer and Matthew Lee in New York, Ryan Lucas in Beirut, Nancy Benac, Deb Riechmann, Lara Jakes and Donna Cassata in Washington, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and Robert Burns aboard a U.S. military aircraft contributed to this report.

DOD: Syrian al-Qaida affiliate was about to conduct ‘major attacks’