The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 3

NEWS BRIEFS
SIRNAK, Turkey
U.S., Arab nations
urge Turkey not
to attack Iraq
Dozens of Turkish military
vehicles streamed toward the Iraqi
border with heavy artillery and
ammunition yesterday after Kurd-
ishguerrillas killed a dozen soldiers
and claimed to have captured eight
in an intensifying crisis threaten-
ing to spill into Iraq.
Arab nations joined the U.S. and
Europe in urging Turkey's govern-
ment not to attack suspected guer-
rilla bases in the Kurdish region
of northern Iraq, while Turkish
citizens rallied across the country
demanding action against the reb-
els.
Iraq's president claimed the
guerrillas would announce a cease-
fire. But the rebels denied that, say-
ing a cease-fire they declared in
June was still in place.
SAN DIEGO
Wildfires force
250,000 to flee
Wildfires fanned by fierce desert
winds consumed huge swaths of
bone-dry Southern California on
yesterday, burning dozens of build-
ings and threatening hundreds
more from Malibu to San Diego,
including a jail, a hospital and nurs-
ing homes.
More than a dozen wildfires had
engulfed the region, killing at least
one person, injuring dozens more
and forcing hundreds of thousands
of evacuations.
Overwhelmed firefighters said
they lacked the resources to protect
property.
"We have more houses burning
than we have people and engine
companies to fight them," San
Diego Fire Captain Lisa Blake said.
"A lot of people are going to lose
their homes today."
Nearly 250,000 people were
forced to flee in San Diego County
alone, where hundreds of patients
were being moved by school bus
and ambulance from a hospital and
nursing homes, sheriff's spokes-
woman Susan Knauss said.
WASHINGTON
Bush wants $46 bil
mrdo fundwar-
President Bush asked Congress
for $46 billion more to bankroll
wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and
said he wants the money approved
by Christmas.
The fighting in Iraq, in its fifth
year, already has cost more than
$455 billion.
Democrats who gained control
of Congress with an antiwar mes-
sage said Bush shoud not expect
lawmakers to rubber-stamp the
request.
"The colossal cost of this war
grows every day - in lives lost, dol-
lars spent, and to our reputation
around the world," House Speaker
Nancy Pelosi said.
CAIRO, Egypt

Osama bin Laden
tells insurgents to
avoid 'extremism'
Osama bin Laden called for
Iraqi insurgents to unite and avoid
divisive "extremism," speaking
in an audiotape aired yesterday
and apparently intended to win
over Sunnis opposed to al-Qaida's
branch in Iraq.
In the audiotape broadcast on Al-
Jazeera television, bin Laden said
r insurgents should admit "mistakes"
and that he even advises himself not
to be extreme in his leadership.
The tape appeared to be in
response to moves by some Sunni
Arab tribes in Iraq that have joined
U.S. troops in fighting al-Qaida
members, as well as other Sunni
insurgent groups that - while still
attackingAmericans - have formed
coalitions opposed to al-Qaida.
"Some of you have been lax in one
duty, which is to unite your ranks,"
bin Laden said in the audiotape.
- Compiled from
Daily wire reports
3,834
Number of American service mem-
bers who have died in the War in
Iraq, according to The Associated
Press. There were no new casual-
ties identified yesterday.

Mistrial declared in
case involving alleged
terrorist financiers

By LESLIE EATON
The New York Times
A federal jury did not convict
leaders of a Muslim charity on any
of the 197 counts of supporting
terrorists, and a judge yesterday
declared a mistrial on almost all of
the charges in what has been wide-
ly viewed as the government's flag-
ship terror-financing case.
The case, involving the Holy
Land Foundation for Relief and
Development and five of its back-
ers, is the government's largest and
most complex legal effort to shut
down what it contends is American
financing for terrorist organiza-
tions in the Middle East. President
Bush announced he was freezing
the charity's assets in December
2001, saying that the radical Islam-
ic group Hamas had "obtained
much of the money it pays for mur-
der abroad right here in the United
States."
But at the trial, the government
did not accuse the foundation,
which was based in a Dallas suburb,
of paying directly for suicide bomb-
ings. Instead, the prosecution said,
the foundation supported terrorism
by sending more than $12 million to
charitable groups, known as zakat
committees, which build hospitals
and feed the poor.
The prosecution said the com-
mittees were controlled by Hamas
and contributed to terrorism by
helping Hamas spread its ideology
and recruit supporters. The gov-
ernment relied on Israeli intelli-
gence agents, using pseudonyms, to

testify in support of this theory.
But prosecutors appeared to have
made little headway in convincing
the jury.
The case involved 197 counts,
including providing material sup-
port to a foreign terrorist orga-
nization. It also involved years
of investigation and preparation,
almost two months of testimony
and more than 1,000 exhibits,
including documents, wiretaps,
transcripts and videotapes dug up
in a backyard in Virginia.
After 19 days of deliberations,
the jury acquitted one of the five
individual defendants on all but one
charge, on which it deadlocked. A
majority of the jurors also appeared
ready to acquit two other defen-
dants of most charges, and could
not reach a verdict on charges
against the two principal organiz-
ers and the foundation itself, which
had been the largest Muslim char-
ity in the United States until the
government froze its assets in late
2001.
James T. Jacks, the first assistant
U.S. attorney, said in court that the
government would retry the case.
Both prosecutors and defense law-
yers have been barred from dis-
cussing the case in the press, and
Chief Judge A. Joe Fish said that
order continued in force.
The decision is "a stunning set-
back for the government, there's no
other way of looking atit," said Mat-
thew Orwig, a partner at Sonnen-
schein Nath & Rosenthal here who
was, until recently, U.S. attorney for
the Eastern District of Texas.

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