Grenade Launcher

The type of grenade launcher that killed a Marine instructor here Wednesday is central to Marine tactics, but use of the weapon has been suspended until an investigation of the accident is complete, officials said Thursday. A round of ammunition exploded inside an M203 launcher, an an M-16 rifle attachment that fires grenades up to 350 yards. The blast killed Sgt. Frederick Nunez and injured Pvt. Jeffrey L. Stout, 20, of Illinois.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in connection with a nighttime massacre at two remote Afghan villages, after villagers say he burst into the homes of civilians with a pistol, rifle and grenade launcher and indiscriminately shot family members in the head, neck, chest and groin. The charges, read Friday to the 38-year-old husband and father at the Army's Joint Regional Correctional Facility on Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., could lead to the death penalty, the military said.

One Marine was killed and two others were wounded Wednesday when a grenade launcher exploded during target practice at a remote rifle range. The 2:15 p.m. accident occurred when the 40-millimeter, high explosive projectile exploded shortly after an instructor had helped a private load the grenade launcher. The private was holding the weapon when it exploded, base officials said.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder Friday in a case that could lead to the death penalty. Bales allegedly armed himself with a pistol, rifle and grenade launcher and shot men, women and children in a nighttime raid that stands as the worst American atrocity since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. The charges -- given to Bales Friday at the high-security Army prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. -- also include six counts of attempted murder and six of assault carried out in two remote villages in southern Afghanistan on March 11. The incident has deeply shaken U.S.-Afghan relations and fueled outrage against the U.S. and its continued presence in that country.

Federal agents and police swooped into a tourist-packed motel today and arrested three men and three women armed with a grenade launcher, machine guns, rifles and pistols and carrying a Nazi flag, police said. Authorities said they were still trying to learn why the six--five from Texas and one from Washingtonian--had gathered in the capital with a cache of at least 19 weapons, some with silencers. An FBI spokeswoman said six children apparently with the group were taken into protective custody.

A soldier peers motionlessly through the scope of a rocket-propelled grenade launcher; another is depicted reeling in agony as a bullet pierces his chest. Nearby, several art students chat casually, apparently oblivious to the plaster and papier-mache battleground of art on display in the courtyard of the Iraqi Academy of Fine Arts. "I don't encourage this type of art," says Ismail Fattah Turk, an Italian-educated professor at the academy and designer of the national martyrs' monument here.

A team of specialized American sailors apprehended 17 suspected pirates who attacked an Egyptian merchant ship in the dangerous waters off Yemen, the U.S. Navy said. The Gettysburg launched the operation with the help of a South Korean warship after the Egyptian-flagged ship was fired on about 75 miles south of Yemen's Al Mukalla port, the Navy said. Eight assault rifles and a grenade launcher were seized.

Prosecutors in Denver showed jurors a cache of firearms--from rifles to a grenade launcher--recovered from defendant Terry L. Nichols' home three days after the Oklahoma City bombing. FBI agent William West, who stepped down from the witness stand to identify the weapons, said he found them hidden in closets, cupboards and above a bathroom ceiling. Nichols is charged with conspiring with Timothy J. McVeigh to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder Friday in a case that could lead to the death penalty. Bales allegedly armed himself with a pistol, rifle and grenade launcher and shot men, women and children in a nighttime raid that stands as the worst American atrocity since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. The charges -- given to Bales Friday at the high-security Army prison at Ft. Leavenworth, Kan. -- also include six counts of attempted murder and six of assault carried out in two remote villages in southern Afghanistan on March 11. The incident has deeply shaken U.S.-Afghan relations and fueled outrage against the U.S. and its continued presence in that country.

A rocket-propelled grenade fired across the busy Garden Ring Road at rush hour Wednesday blasted into the sixth floor of the U.S. Embassy in an attack by unknown assailants. No one was injured by the grenade that struck the stone exterior of the stately yellow-and-white building at 4:25 p.m., embassy spokeswoman Olivia Hilton said. The blast was absorbed by a large photocopying machine that shielded much of the interior from flying glass and fragments, she said.

Reports that France has been secretly supplying weapons to Libyan rebels engaged in daily battles with Moammar Kadafi's forces in the Nafusa Mountains stunned the world. It also surprised the overall commander of the rebel forces, who said Thursday that his men had never received any such weapons. "Whoever gave us these arms should come here and tell us where he put them," said Col. Mokhtar Milad Fernana. Although the front in eastern Libya has grounded to a stalemate, rebels in the mountainous region in the west appear to be gaining momentum in their fight against Kadafi, as they regularly capture towns and villages that were under his control.

When he was a boy, the blind sheik was forced to read Moammar Kadafi's Green Book manifesto in Braille, his fingers trying to decipher the erratic mind of a leader who brutalized a nation. "It was nonsense, the work of a madman," said Yosry Alhadar, one of the most prominent clerics in rebel-held territory in eastern Libya. "There was absolutely no value in it. He wanted the world to know that Libya is Kadafi and Kadafi is Libya. That they were indivisible. But the world is now watching the whole facade collapse.

A federal grand jury has indicted 14 suspected pirates in the attack on a yacht in the Indian Ocean that left four Americans dead. Thirteen Somalis and one Yemeni made initial appearances in a Norfolk, Va., courtroom Thursday on charges of piracy, kidnapping and firearms possession. The four Americans, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle of Seattle, were sailing the 58-foot Quest off the coast of Oman last month, headed toward the Red Sea, when their yacht was attacked.

A team of specialized American sailors apprehended 17 suspected pirates who attacked an Egyptian merchant ship in the dangerous waters off Yemen, the U.S. Navy said. The Gettysburg launched the operation with the help of a South Korean warship after the Egyptian-flagged ship was fired on about 75 miles south of Yemen's Al Mukalla port, the Navy said. Eight assault rifles and a grenade launcher were seized.

A gun buyback program that trades gift cards for firearms netted nearly 1,700 weapons in Los Angeles, including 40 assault-style weapons and a rifle with a grenade launcher, officials said Monday. The grenade launcher AR-15 rifle, which did not have a grenade in it, was delivered to the Los Angeles Police Department's Topanga station over the weekend as officers across the city distributed gift cards for handguns, rifles and shotguns.

It was a brazen assault, not just because it targeted the city's police station, but for the choice of weapon: grenades. The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico's drug wars.

A federal grand jury has indicted 14 suspected pirates in the attack on a yacht in the Indian Ocean that left four Americans dead. Thirteen Somalis and one Yemeni made initial appearances in a Norfolk, Va., courtroom Thursday on charges of piracy, kidnapping and firearms possession. The four Americans, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, and Phyllis Macay and Bob Riggle of Seattle, were sailing the 58-foot Quest off the coast of Oman last month, headed toward the Red Sea, when their yacht was attacked.

Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales was charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder in connection with a nighttime massacre at two remote Afghan villages, after villagers say he burst into the homes of civilians with a pistol, rifle and grenade launcher and indiscriminately shot family members in the head, neck, chest and groin. The charges, read Friday to the 38-year-old husband and father at the Army's Joint Regional Correctional Facility on Ft. Leavenworth, Kan., could lead to the death penalty, the military said.

In a dramatic instance of the anti-American sentiment sweeping Russia because of NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, a man fired a submachine gun Sunday at the U.S. Embassy here, raking its walls with bullets. The yolk-colored exterior of the embassy, now spattered in many bright hues, is showing the effects of four days of protests--probably the most heated ever seen there--by demonstrators who have hurled paint, rocks, beer and eggs, burned American flags, broken windows and urinated.

Prosecutors in Denver showed jurors a cache of firearms--from rifles to a grenade launcher--recovered from defendant Terry L. Nichols' home three days after the Oklahoma City bombing. FBI agent William West, who stepped down from the witness stand to identify the weapons, said he found them hidden in closets, cupboards and above a bathroom ceiling. Nichols is charged with conspiring with Timothy J. McVeigh to blow up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995.