US officials say Iran is firing artillery in support of Iraq’s fight for Beiji oil refinery
WASHINGTON (AP) — Iran has entered the fight to retake a major Iraqi oil refinery from Islamic State militants, contributing small numbers of troops — including some operating artillery and other heavy weapons — in support of advancing Iraqi ground forces, U.S. defense officials said Friday.
Two U.S. defense officials said Iranian forces have taken a significant offensive role in the Beiji operation in recent days, in conjunction with Iraqi Shiite militia. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
One official said Iranians are operating artillery, 122mm rocket systems and surveillance and reconnaissance drones to help the Iraqi counteroffensive.
The Iranian role was not mentioned in a new U.S. military statement asserting that Iraqi security forces, with U.S. help, had managed to establish a land route into the Beiji refinery compound. The statement Friday by the U.S. military headquarters in Kuwait said Iraqis have begun reinforcing and resupplying forces isolated inside the refinery compound.
Iran’s role in Iraq is a major complicating factor for the Obama administration as it searches for the most effective approach to countering the Islamic State group. U.S. officials have said they do not oppose contributions from Iran-supported Iraqi Shiite militias as long as they operate under the command and control of the Iraqi government.
Email released: Clinton received sensitive CIA info on her private server; some now classified
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton received information on her private email account about the deadly attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi that was later classified “secret” at the request of the FBI, according to documents released Friday, underscoring lingering questions about how responsibly she handled sensitive information on a home server.
The nearly 900 pages of her correspondence released by the State Department also contained several messages that were deemed sensitive but unclassified, detailed her daily schedule and contained information — censored in the documents as released — about the CIA that the government is barred from publicly disclosing.
Taken together, the correspondence provides examples of material considered to be sensitive that Clinton, the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, received on the account run out of her home. She has said the private server had “numerous safeguards.”
Clinton’s decision while secretary of state to opt out of a State Department email account has become a political problem for her, as the Republican-led House committee investigating the Benghazi attacks has used the disclosures of her email usage to paint her as secretive and above standard scrutiny.
Clinton, campaigning in New Hampshire, said Friday she was aware that the FBI now wanted some of the email to be classified, “but that doesn’t change the fact all of the information in the emails was handled appropriately.”
Extremists from Islamic State hunt down Syrian troops, Assad loyalists after seizing town
BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State group militants hunted down Syrian government troops and loyalists in the newly captured town of Palmyra, shooting or beheading them in public as a warning, and imposing their strict interpretation of Islam, activists said Friday.
The purge, which relied mostly on informants, was aimed at solidifying the extremists’ grip on the strategic town that was overrun Wednesday by IS fighters.
It also was part of a campaign to win the support of President Bashar Assad’s opponents, who have suffered from a government crackdown in the town and surrounding province in the last four years of Syria’s civil war.
The strategy included promises to fix the electricity and water grids — after Palmyra is cleared of regime loyalists, according to an activist in the historic town. The man is known in the activist community by the nom de guerre of Omar Hamza because he fears for his security.
The capture of Palmyra has raised alarm that the militants might try to destroy one of the Mideast’s most spectacular archaeological sites — a well-preserved, 2,000-year-old Roman-era city on the town’s edge — as they have destroyed others in Syria and Iraq. For the moment, however, their priority appeared to be in imposing their rule, with activists saying there were no signs the group moved in on the ancient ruins.
Amnesty International: All sides in Ukraine fighting are perpetrating war crimes almost daily
KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Both warring sides in eastern Ukraine are perpetrating war crimes almost daily, including torturing prisoners and summarily killing them, the Amnesty International rights group said in a report Friday.
Amnesty said in a statement that it has heard from former captives of both Ukrainian government and separatist forces who say they faced savage beatings, torture with electric shocks, kicking and stabbings.
Concern about the treatment of prisoners comes as Ukrainian authorities face scrutiny this week for publicly parading two men they say were Russian soldiers captured while fighting alongside separatists.
Hundreds of Ukrainian troops are believed to have been captured by rebel forces in the yearlong war that has claimed more than 6,100 lives. Both sides routinely accuse one another of mistreating captives. Under a February peace agreement, all war prisoners had been due for release in early March, but little progress has been achieved.
Amnesty says it interviewed 17 captives of the separatists and another 16 held by government forces for its report.
Review of federal data shows that as US oil production soars, so do pipeline accidents
The oil pipeline leak that fouled a stretch of California coastline this week reflects a troubling trend in the nation’s infrastructure: As U.S. oil production has soared, so has the number of pipeline accidents.
Since 2009, the annual number of significant accidents on oil and petroleum pipelines has shot up by almost 60 percent, roughly matching the rise in U.S. crude oil production, according to an analysis of federal data by The Associated Press.
Nearly two-thirds of the leaks during that time have been linked to corrosion or material, welding and equipment failures, problems often associated with older pipelines, although they can occur in newer ones, too. Other leaks were blamed on natural disasters or human error, such as a backhoe striking a pipeline.
Industry officials and federal regulators say they have adequate means of gauging the safety of pipelines, but the aging infrastructure is a source of lingering concern for outside experts.
“Tick, tick, tick,” said Robert Bea, a professor emeritus in civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. “Things get older. They don’t get stronger.”
Mexican official says about 40 dead in large shootout with suspects in cartel territory
MEXICO CITY (AP) — About 40 people were killed in large-scale firefight Friday between law enforcement and criminal suspects in western Mexico, a Mexican official said.
Almost all the dead were suspected criminals, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.
The gunbattle happened in an area between Michoacan and Jalisco states that is known as a stronghold of the Jalisco New Generation drug cartel, which has mounted several large-scale attacks on federal and state forces in recent weeks. A federal police official said the country’s top security officials were en route to assess what happened.
While there was no immediate confirmation on the identity of the suspects, Michoacan Gov. Salvador Jara told local media “the likeliest thing is” the Jalisco cartel was involved in the shootout.
The area on the Michoacan-Jalisco border has been the scene of bloody shooting and grisly discoveries for several years.
Senators eye vacation, but first: a pile of important bills awaiting action
WASHINGTON (AP) — With President Barack Obama’s high-profile agenda at risk, the White House cajoled the Senate in public and private Thursday to pass trade legislation and prevent a lapse in the anti-terrorism Patriot Act before lawmakers rushed off for a weeklong vacation.
“We can do all this today unless some want to delay it,” said Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican leader, suggesting it might be Democrats who would.
In typical Senate fashion, hours drifted by with little or no evidence of progress on the president’s pre-holiday agenda, which also included legislation to permit a continued flow of federal highway construction funds. Often, the marking of time has been a prelude to a mad rush to complete legislation in time for lawmakers to catch late-night flights back home.
Prodding from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, White House spokesman Josh Earnest urged the Senate to agree to a House-passed bill to renew anti-terrorism programs due to expire on June 1. The bill would eliminate the National Security Agency’s ability to collect mass telephone records of Americans. Instead, the material would remain with phone companies, with government searches of the information permissible by court order on a case-by-case basis.
Earnest said Senate refusal to consider the measure would put at risk “the ability of our national security professionals to keep us safe.”
TLC pulls ‘19 Kids and Counting’ amid reports of Josh Duggar sexual misconduct allegations
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — TLC pulled the reality series “19 Kids and Counting” from its schedule on Friday, a move that follows reports of sexual misconduct allegations against one of the stars, Josh Duggar, stemming from when he was a juvenile.
In a statement, the channel said it was “deeply saddened and troubled by this heartbreaking situation, and our thoughts and prayers are with the family and victims at this difficult time.” The statement didn’t elaborate.
Also Friday, Arkansas police said they had destroyed a record outlining a nearly decade-old investigation into Duggar, a day after the 27-year-old resigned his role with a prominent conservative Christian group amid reports about the allegations.
The Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which obtained the offense report before its destruction, reports Duggar was accused of fondling five girls in 2002 and 2003. Duggar issued an apology Thursday on Facebook for unspecified bad behavior as a youth and resigned his role as executive director for FRC Action, the tax-exempt legislative action arm of the Washington-based Family Research Council.
“I would do anything to go back to those teen years and take different actions,” Duggar wrote. “In my life today, I am so very thankful for God’s grace, mercy and redemption.”
