ANGELINA GETS IT: DEMS DON'T

Jolie Sees Benefit in US Surge in Iraq
By LINDSAY HOLMWOOD – 1 day ago

NEW YORK (AP) — Actress and humanitarian activist Angelina Jolie said Thursday that the reinforcement of U.S. troops in Iraq has created an opportunity for humanitarian programs to boost assistance for Iraqi refugees.

In an op-ed piece published by the Washington Post, titled "A Reason to Stay in Iraq," Jolie details the plight of refugees and says their conditions have not improved since she visited the country last August to urge governments to provide more support.

Jolie, who has been a U.N. goodwill ambassador since 2001, was in Baghdad earlier this month to again highlight the refugee problem. She talked with Gen. David Petraeus, the American military commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, the U.S. Embassy said.

Petraeus "told me he would support new efforts to address the humanitarian crisis" as much as possible, "which leaves me hopeful that more progress can be made," the actress wrote.

She said she stressed to Iraqi officials there must be a coherent plan for helping some 2 million Iraqis who are taking advantage of the downturn in violence to begin trickling back to abandoned homes from havens elsewhere in the country. A similar number fled Iraq to escape the bloodshed.

"It will be quite a while before Iraq is ready to absorb more than 4 million refugees and displaced people," Jolie wrote. "But it is not too early to start working on solutions."

The actress, who works on behalf of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, urged America's presidential candidates and congressional leaders to step up financing for aid to displaced Iraqis. UNHCR has asked for $261 million this year — "less than the U.S. spends each day to fight the war in Iraq," she wrote.

Addressing the question of whether the "troop surge" has worked, Jolie said that "I can only state what I witnessed."

"When I asked the troops if they wanted to go home as soon as possible, they said that they miss home but feel invested in Iraq," she wrote. "They have lost many friends and want to be a part of the humanitarian progress they now feel is possible."

FBI TOP 10 TERRORIST KILLED

Thanks to U.S. ally Israel, the FBI's MOST WANTED terrorist second only to Osama Bin-Laden has been killed in a blistering, targeted attack. Justice has finally come to over 220 Marines murdered in Lebanon twenty-four years ago.

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Imad Mughniyeh, killed by a car bomb in Damascus on Tuesday night, was a top military leader of the Lebanese Hizbullah organisation, which is mourning him today as a "martyred" hero of its 20-year campaign against Israel and the US.

Mughniyeh has been on the FBI's most wanted list since the 1980s, long before al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden became bywords for terrorism. Working with a shadowy Shia group known as Islamic Jihad, he was blamed for the kidnapping of western hostages in Beirut – including the Briton Terry Waite – and a 1983 bombing that killed 240 US marines in the Lebanese capital.

In 1984, Mughniyeh was said to have been behind the kidnapping and killing of the CIA station chief in Beirut, William Buckley. From the start he was linked closely to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, still Hizbullah's strategic partner. He spent much of the 1990s in Tehran. He was indicted in the US for the 1985 hijacking to Beirut of a TWA airliner in which a US navy diver was killed.

Western intelligence agencies have described Mughniyeh as head of the jihad council within Hizbullah's ruling shura council.

Israel saw him as the terrorist "mastermind" behind the planning for Hizbullah's July 2006 war with the Jewish state, which began with the audacious cross-border kidnapping of Israeli soldiers the organisation hoped to swap for Lebanese prisoners.

AL-AQAEDA CAN RUN BUT NOT HIDE

-- Abu Laith al-Libi, a wanted al Qaeda terrorist, was killed in Pakistan by a CIA airstrike, three U.S. officials told CNN Thursday.

Al-Libi was described as a senior al Qaeda leader believed to have plotted and executed attacks against U.S. and coalition forces, including a February 2007 bombing at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney.

He was on a "most wanted" list of 12 accused terrorists which was issued in October by the Combined Joint Task Force-82 -- an anti-terror unit in Afghanistan.

Earlier, a knowledgeable Western official and a military source confirmed al-Libi's death to CNN. The same official said al-Libi is "not far below the importance of the top two al Qaeda leaders" -- Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The officials said al-Libi was killed by a missile from an airplane.

Radical Islamist Web sites announced al-Libi's death.

"May God have mercy on Sheikh Abu Laith al-Libi and accept him with his brothers, with the martyrs," said a eulogy posted on a main Islamist site, Al-Ekhlaas.

Al-Libi, 41, was of Libyan descent and was believed to have been in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region, according to the U.S. military

A U.S. counterterrorism official told CNN he was a significant, senior al Qaeda figure who had taken on a more prominent role in the organization in recent years. This official also confirmed that al-Libi was responsible for plotting attacks targeting U.S. and coalition forces as well as Afghan officials. Watch senior Arab affairs editor Octavia Nasr detail al-Libi's significance »

In an earlier role, he was a leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which eventually merged with al Qaeda, the counterterrorism official said, and was responsible for planning attacks throughout North Africa and the Middle East. The official described al-Libi as part of al Qaeda's inner circle, who helped fill the void created by the capture or death of other senior people in the organization.

A U.S. military official with Combined Joint Task Force-82 said they have no information on al-Libi's death. But he added that CJTF-82 does not collect information from outside of Afghanistan, and would be informed of targeted operations only "if the Pakistani military share(s) that with us."

The Pakistani military said an explosion occurred in North Waziristan on Tuesday, and 12 people were killed. However, it was unclear whether this was the incident in which al-Libi was killed. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told CNN it was not clear who attacked whom and that he could not comment on the identities of the dead since local al Qaeda and Taliban affiliates removed the bodies and buried them.

The U.S. military placed al-Libi on its most wanted list in 2006, behind bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar. In October, they announced rewards ranging from $20,000 to $200,000 for al-Libi and 11 other mid-level Taliban and al Qaeda leaders.

At that time, the military distributed posters and billboards with pictures and names of the insurgents around eastern Afghanistan.

Al-Libi and the others were described at the time by CJTF-82 spokesman Maj. Chris Belcher as "mid-level bad guys."

He appeared in a 2002 audio recording posted on an Islamist Web site, saying al Qaeda had regrouped and intended to expand its war to include assassinations and attacks against infrastructure.

He also appeared in a 2004 video that showed him participating in an attack on an Afghan army base.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, issued a statement saying al-Libi's reported death would be "a positive development" in efforts against terrorism.


"Intelligence points to, and his [al-Libi's] increasing role in al Qaeda propaganda suggests, that he would have been a top field commander and planner for al Qaeda," Hoekstra said. "His death, if confirmed, clearly will have an impact on the radical jihadist movement."

He said that through the committee, he would monitor the effects on al Qaeda operations. E-mail to a friend

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