World/Nation Briefs March 26, 2013
Officials: U.S. training Syrian forces in Jordan
WASHINGTON - The United States is training secular Syrian fighters in Jordan in a bid to bolster forces battling President Bashar Assad's regime and stem the influence of Islamist radicals among the country's persistently splintered opposition, American and foreign officials said.
The training has been conducted for several months now in an unspecified location, concentrating largely on Sunnis and tribal Bedouins who formerly served as members of the Syrian army, officials told The Associated Press. The forces aren't members of the leading rebel group, the Free Syrian Army, which Washington and others fear may be increasingly coming under the sway of extremist militia groups, including some linked to al-Qaida, they said.
The operation is being run by U.S. intelligence and is ongoing, officials said, but those in Washington stressed that the U.S. is providing only nonlethal aid at this point. Others such as Britain and France are involved, they said, though it's unclear whether any Western governments are providing materiel or other direct military support after two years of civil war that according to the United Nations already has killed more than 70,000 people.
Officially, the Obama administration has been vague on the subject of what type of military training it may be providing, while insisting that it is doing all it can - short of providing weapons to the rebels or engaging in its own military intervention - to hasten the demise of the Assad family's four-decade dictatorship.
It's not cheap to guarantee a seat at Supreme Court
WASHINGTON - The most expensive ticket to "The Book of Mormon" on Broadway: $477. The face value of a great seat for this year's Super Bowl: $1,250. Guaranteed seats to watch the U.S. Supreme Court hear this week's gay marriage cases: about $6,000.
Tickets to the two arguments that begin today are technically free. But getting them requires lining up days or hours ahead, or paying someone else to. The first people got in line Thursday, bringing the price of saving a seat to around $6,000.
For some, putting a value on the seats is meaningless.
"It's just not possible," said Fred Sainz a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest gay rights organization, which began employing two people to stand in line Thursday.
The court will hear arguments today over California's ban on same-sex marriage. On Wednesday, the court will take up the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman. Supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage say the cases are so potentially historic that they want to be inside the courtroom to watch, no matter what the cost in time or money.
Kerry, Karzai show rare U.S.-Afghan unity
KABUL - Eager to overcome a bout of bickering, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Afghan President Hamid Karzai made a show of unusual unity between their two nations on Monday. The friendly display came as the U.S. military ceded control of its last detention facility in Afghanistan, ending a longstanding irritant in relations.
Kerry arrived in the Afghan capital of Kabul on an unannounced visit amid concerns that Karzai may be jeopardizing progress in the war against extremism with anti-American rhetoric. After a private meeting, Kerry said he and Karzai were "on the same page" on security and reconciliation issues and brushed aside suggestions that relations were in peril.
Karzai infuriated U.S. officials earlier this month by accusing Washington of colluding with Taliban insurgents to keep Afghanistan weak even as the Obama administration pressed ahead with plans to hand off security responsibility to Afghan forces and end NATO's combat mission by the end of next year.
At a joint news conference after their talks, Karzai told reporters that his comments in a nationally televised speech had been misinterpreted by the media. Kerry demurred on that point but said people sometimes say things in public that reflect ideas they have heard from others but don't necessarily agree with.
Investigators find link between gun, Colorado death
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - Colorado corrections chief Tom Clements and his wife were watching television when the doorbell rang last Tuesday night. Clements opened the door and was shot to death.
"My life was changed forever," Lisa Clements told hundreds of people, including corrections guards and officials from around the country, who gathered at a memorial service for her husband Monday.
Nearly a week after Clements' death, investigators in Colorado say the gun suspect Evan Ebel used in a shootout with authorities in Texas is the same one used to kill Clements. However, they don't know yet whether Ebel is the person who shot Clements, whether he acted alone and what motivated the slaying of a corrections chief admired by prisoner advocates and prison guards alike. Authorities warned that could take some time.
Until investigators determine whether Ebel, paroled from Colorado's prison system, in January, acted alone, "it's hard to know what his role was," Lt. Jeff Kramer of the El Paso County Sheriff's Office told The Associated Press.
"He remains a suspect in our investigation, obviously, especially after receiving this confirmed link from Texas," he said.
- The Associated Press