World / Nation Briefs February 19, 2012
<p>Firefighters battle a blaze at a house where authorities say at least three people were shot and wounded Thursday in east Los Angeles. A 34-year-old man and two 38-year-old women had been shot and police took them from the front of the home, authorities said.</p>
ICE agent was fatally shot during struggle
LONG BEACH, Calif. - An Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent accused of shooting his supervisor at least six times at the ICE office in Long Beach died after an intense struggle for his gun with another agent, authorities said Saturday.
Ezequiel Garcia struggled for the gun after shooting the agency's second-in-command for the Los Angeles area in the hand, knee and torso, ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said.
Garcia had just had a discussion about his job performance with Kevin Kozak when the third agent heard gunfire and wheeled back into the office. The unnamed agent killed Garcia during Thursday's struggle, Kice said.
Kozak was hospitalized in stable condition after the shooting, and was alert and talking.
Bomb plot arrest was culmination of yearlong probe
WASHINGTON - Within the last week, authorities say, Amine El Khalifi's plan was proceeding as hoped: An al-Qaida associate handed him an automatic weapon to kill security officers inside the U.S. Capitol. A bomb-laden vest would detonate the building. He'd die as a martyr.
But there was a problem: The explosives were inert, the gun inoperable and the man who provided them was an undercover officer - not, as he thought, an al-Qaida associate, according to court documents.
El Khalifi was arrested in a parking garage Friday on his way to carry out an attack the FBI says had been kicked around for months - in apartments, inside a restaurant and at a quarry used for bomb practice - with shifting targets in mind.
Court papers unsealed Friday trace the evolution from a vague plan to prepare for the "war on Muslims" to more clearly articulated visions of attacking a restaurant and a synagogue before, finally, settling on a plot to obliterate the seat of American government.
Iran poised for major nuke expansion
VIENNA - Iran is poised to greatly expand uranium enrichment at a fortified underground bunker to a point that would boost how quickly it could make nuclear warheads, diplomats tell The Associated Press.
They said Tehran has put finishing touches for the installation of thousands of new-generation centrifuges at the cavernous facility - machines that can produce enriched uranium much more quickly and efficiently than its present machines.
While saying that the electrical circuitry, piping and supporting equipment for the new centrifuges was now in place, the diplomats emphasized that Tehran had not started installing the new machines at its Fordo facility and could not say whether it was planning to.
Still, the senior diplomats - who asked for anonymity because their information was privileged - suggested that Tehran would have little reason to prepare the ground for the better centrifuges unless it planned to operate them. They spoke in recent interviews - the last one Saturday.
Syrian forces open fire on thousands
BEIRUT - Syrian security forces fired live rounds and tear gas Saturday at thousands of people marching in a funeral procession that turned into one of the largest protests in Damascus since the 11-month uprising against President Bashar Assad began.
The new violence broke out during a visit by a Chinese envoy, who said his country will back a solution to the crisis based on proposals already put forward by the Arab League - even though Beijing is unlikely to support the regional bloc's call for Assad to step aside.
China, along with Russia, recently supported Damascus by vetoing a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have condemned Assad's regime.
- The Associated Press