Military Intelligence

Six Army soldiers who deserted their military intelligence post in West Germany and were arrested in Florida told other soldiers they were leaving to find and destroy the "anti-Christ," it was reported today. The European edition of the military newspaper Stars and Stripes, citing Army sources, said the six soldiers destroyed or gave away all of their personal belongings before leaving their 701st Military Intelligence Brigade in Augsburg, West Germany, earlier this month.

JERUSALEM - Israel's accusation that Syria used chemical weapons against rebels raises the prospect that Damascus crossed what President Obama has termed a "red line," but appears unlikely to overcome deep resistance of the U.S. and its allies to military involvement in the country's civil war. Brig. Gen. Itai Brun, Israel's top military intelligence analyst, said at a security conference in Tel Aviv on Tuesday that Syria used chemical weapons, probably a sarin-based nerve agent, in attacks March 19 near Aleppo and Damascus.

Thomas B. Ross, 73, a journalist and author of books on military intelligence who served as the Pentagon spokesman during the Jimmy Carter administration, died of pancreatic cancer Thursday in a Long Island hospital. Ross was the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times when an American spy plane, piloted by Francis Gary Powers, was shot down over Russian territory in 1962. Ross and his co-author, David Wise, investigated the incident and published "The U-2 Affair."

FT. MEADE, Md. - Pfc. Bradley Manning swiveled in the witness chair, smiling and occasionally talking over his lawyer. In his Army dress-blue uniform, he appeared even younger than his 24 years. It was difficult to reconcile the bespectacled Manning's relaxed, almost chatty demeanor with the vast charges against him - perpetrating one of the biggest leaks of classified material in U.S. history. Manning is accused of providing the anti-secrecy Internet group WikiLeaks with hundreds of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and classified war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq while based in Baghdad as a military intelligence analyst in 2009 and 2010.

Some things make more sense than others. * Bob Bayer, a copy editor at the San Diego County Edition of The Times, swears he saw this scene at Parkway Plaza in El Cajon: A young woman (a true denizen of the mall culture) walks up to a male counterpart and asks: "Have you seen a long-haired guy with short hair around here?" Sure, right next to the tall short guy. * Great moments in diplomacy. San Marcos is thinking of forming a sister-city relationship with Nakagawa, Japan.

A U.S. military intelligence soldier who blamed wartime stress for his abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison was sentenced Saturday to eight months in prison, a reduction in rank and a bad-conduct discharge. Spc. Armin J. Cruz, 24, was the first military intelligence soldier to be convicted in the scandal that shocked the world when photographs of Iraqi detainees suffering physical and sexual abuse were made public. A military policeman also has been convicted.

A Supreme Court justice has ruled against the prosecution of military intelligence agents for the abduction and murder of Carmen Soria, a U.N. official and Spanish citizen killed here in 1976. The Thursday ruling confirmed an earlier decision by a military court to close the Soria case, a notorious emblem of unredressed human rights violations under Chile's former dictatorship. Gen.

A sweeping overhaul of the search for Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction is creating an operation with striking similarities to the United Nations inspection system that Bush administration officials openly derided before the war, according to senior military and intelligence officials here. Unlike the U.N. teams, however, the new weapons hunt will rely chiefly on "secret squirrels," as U.S.

Federal and local investigations were underway Thursday into allegations by a Marine gunnery sergeant that he gave stolen top-secret antiterrorism files to a Los Angeles Police Department officer and an L.A. County sheriff's detective. Authorities said the probes by the FBI, LAPD internal affairs and Naval Criminal Investigative Service come after Gunnery Sgt.

Given politics and politicians in general, "political correctness" is like "military intelligence": a real good example of an oxymoron. With the emphasis on moron. MARJORY COYLE Lakewood

CAIRO - Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi on Sunday purged the nation's military leadership in a provocative move to expand his power and push aside generals who epitomized the inner circle of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak. The dismissals, including the forced retirement of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, who led the military council that had ruled for more than a year, stunned a nation engulfed in months of political turmoil. The president also scrapped a constitutional declaration by the generals that had dramatically constrained his authority.

Omar Suleiman, Egypt's former spymaster and a confidant of deposed leader Hosni Mubarak, died Thursday in a U.S. hospital, months after his unsuccessful presidential bid to restore the old guard to power after a national revolution, state media reported. He was 76. There were conflicting reports about the cause of death. The Egyptian Embassy in Washington said Suleiman died of a blood illness, according to the Ahram Online news website. The state news agency MENA reported that he died of a heart attack while undergoing tests in a Cleveland hospital.

After a U.S. airstrike mistakenly killed at least 15 Afghans in 2010, the Army officer investigating the accident was surprised to discover that an American civilian had played a central role: analyzing video feeds from a Predator drone keeping watch from above. The contractor had overseen other analysts at Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field in Florida as the drone tracked suspected insurgents near a small unit of U.S. soldiers in rugged hills of central Afghanistan.

Pakistani political leaders meeting Thursday in the capital denounced U.S. allegations that the country's premier spy agency assisted insurgents in attacking American targets in Afghanistan, but also stressed the need to keep lines of communication open with Washington. The meeting of more than 50 politicians from a broad spectrum of parties, along with military and intelligence chiefs, was meant to convey Pakistan's unity amid fear that the United States will attack tribal areas along the Afghan border where Afghan Taliban militants maintain strongholds.

Pakistani officials angered by the secret U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden declared they would conduct a full review of operations by U.S. drone aircraft over the country and rebuffed an appeal by visiting U.S. officials not to close military intelligence liaison centers, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Islamabad on Friday in a bid to ease the mistrust deepened by the secret May 2 raid that killed the Al Qaeda chief. Pakistani leaders see the raid as a blatant violation of their country's sovereignty, and Washington's decision to not inform Islamabad in advance as an example of a glaring lack of trust.

The International Criminal Court prosecutor at the Hague on Monday requested arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi, his son Seif Islam Kadafi and his military intelligence chief, accusing them of crimes against humanity. Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced at the ICC that Kadafi, his son and Abdullah Sanoussi had commanded, planned and carried out attacks on civilians since the Feb. 15 start of demonstrations against Kadafi's regime in Libya. Kadafi's forces used violence against protesters, and the demonstrations quickly turned into an uprising.

It's a sad truth of modern life that while "military intelligence" is an oxymoron, "criminal attorney" isn't. BURT PRELUTSKY North Hills

Tass press agency said today that Soviet military intelligence has cut its operations by 10%, closing down more than 20 counterintelligence units in the armed forces. Tass quoted the weekly government bulletin Pravitelstvyenny Vyestnik as saying military intelligence, the GRU, had made the cuts in line with general reductions in the Soviet armed forces.

The United States Senate unanimously approved a resolution congratulating the U.S. military and intelligence communities for locating and killing Osama bin Laden. Before the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called the mission "historically significant and tactically stunning. " Photos: Osama bin Laden dead "This is the newest proud page in the long story of the American hero," the Nevada senator said. "Today the Senate stands in awe of the countless men and women who have toiled in obscurity in the field in every corner of the world.

WASHINGTON ? Facing congressional criticism over President Obama's handling of the military campaign in Libya, top administration officials will hold a closed-door briefing with lawmakers next week when Congress resumes, sources said. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other military and intelligence officials are expected to provide a classified briefing on Wednesday to members of Congress, according to aides. The White House has come under growing criticism from members of Congress over the scope of the U.S.-led operation and the cost to taxpayers.