In a significant new blow to al-Qaida, U.S. airstrikes in Yemen on Friday killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American militant cleric who became a prominent figure in the terror network’s most dangerous branch, using his fluent English and Internet savvy to draw recruits for attacks in the United States.
The strike was the biggest U.S. success in hitting al-Qaida’s leadership since the May killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. But it raises questions that other strikes did not: Al-Awlaki was an American citizen who has not been charged with any crime. Civil liberties groups have questioned the government’s authority to kill an American without trial.
The 40-year-old al-Awlaki was for years an influential mouthpiece for al-Qaida’s ideology of holy war, and his English-language sermons urging attacks on the United States were widely circulated among militants in the West.
But U.S. officials say he moved into a direct operational role in organizing such attacks as he hid alongside al-Qaida militants in the rugged mountains of Yemen. Most notably, they believe he was involved in recruiting and preparing a young Nigerian who on Christmas Day 2009 tried to blow up a U.S. airliner heading to Detroit, failing only because he botched the detonation of explosives sewn into his underpants.
Yemen’s Defense Ministry said another American militant was killed in the same strike alongside al-Awlaki _ Samir Khan, a U.S. citizen of Pakistani heritage who produced “Inspire,” an English-language al-Qaida Web magazine that spread the word on ways to carry out attacks inside the United States. U.S. officials said they believed Khan was in the convoy carrying al-Awlaki that was struck but that they were still trying to confirm his death. U.S. and Yemeni officials said two other militants were also killed in the strike but did not immediately identify them.
Washington has called al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, as the branch in Yemen is called, the most direct threat to the United States after it plotted that attack and a foiled attempt to mail explosives to synagogues in Chicago.
In July, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said al-Awlaki was a priority target alongside Ayman al-Zawahri, bin Laden’s successor as the terror network’s leader.
The Yemeni-American had been in the U.S. crosshairs since his killing was approved by President Barack Obama in April 2010 _ making him the first American placed on the CIA “kill or capture” list. At least twice, airstrikes were called in on locations in Yemen where al-Awlaki was suspected of being, but he wasn’t harmed.
Friday’s success was the result of counterterrorism cooperation between Yemen and the U.S. that has dramatically increased in recent weeks _ ironically, even as Yemen has plunged deeper into turmoil as protesters try to oust President Ali Abdullah Saleh, U.S. officials said.
Apparently trying to cling to power by holding his American allies closer, Saleh has opened the taps in cooperation against al-Qaida. U.S. officials said the Yemenis have also allowed the U.S. to gather more intelligence on al-Awlaki’s movements and to fly more armed drone and aircraft missions over its territory than ever before.
The operation that killed al-Awlaki was run by the U.S. military’s elite counterterrorism unit, the Joint Special Operations Command _ the same unit that got bin Laden.
A U.S. counterterrorism official said American forces targeted a convoy in which al-Awlaki was traveling with a drone and jet attack and believe he’s been killed. The official was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Yemeni government announced that al-Awlaki was “targeted and killed” around 9:55 a.m outside the town of Khashef in mountainous Jawf province, 87 miles (140 kilometers) east of the capital Sanaa. It gave no further details.
Local tribal and security officials said al-Awlaki was traveling in a two-car convoy with two other al-Qaida operatives from Jawf to neighboring Marib province when they were hit by an airstrike. They said the other two operatives were also believed dead. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.
Al-Awlaki, born in New Mexico to Yemeni parents, began as a mosque preacher as he conducted his university studies in the United States, and he was not seen by his congregations as radical. While preaching in San Diego, he came to know two of the men who would eventually become suicide-hijackers in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The FBI questioned al-Awlaki at the time but found no cause to detain him.
In 2004, al-Awlaki returned to Yemen, and in the years that followed, his English-language sermons _ distributed on the Internet _ increasingly turned to denunciations of the United States and calls for jihad, or holy war. The sermons turned up in the possession of a number of militants in the U.S. and Europe arrested for plotting attacks.
Al-Awlaki exchanged up to 20 emails with U.S. Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, alleged killer of 13 people in the Nov. 5, 2009, rampage at Fort Hood. Hasan initiated the contacts, drawn by al-Awlaki’s Internet sermons, and approached him for religious advice.
Al-Awlaki has said he didn’t tell Hasan to carry out the shootings, but he later praised Hasan as a “hero” on his Web site for killing American soldiers who would be heading for Afghanistan or Iraq to fight Muslims.
In New York, the Pakistani-American man who pleaded guilty to the May 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt told interrogators he was “inspired” by al-Awlaki after making contact over the Internet.
After the Fort Hood attack, al-Awlaki moved from Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, into the mountains where his Awalik tribe is based and _ it appears _ grew to build direct ties with al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, if he had not developed them already. The branch is led by a Yemeni militant named Nasser al-Wahishi.
Yemeni officials have said al-Awlaki had contacts with Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused would-be Christmas plane bomber, who was in Yemen in 2009. They say the believe al-Awlaki met with the 23-year-old Nigerian, along with other al-Qaida leaders, in al-Qaida strongholds in the country in the weeks before the failed bombing.
Al-Awlaki has said Abdulmutallab was his “student” but said he never told him to carry out the airline attack.
The cleric is also believed to have been an important middleman between al-Qaida militants and the multiple tribes that dominate large parts of Yemen, particular in the mountains of Jawf, Marib and Shabwa province where the terror group’s fighters are believed to be holed up.
Last month, al-Awlaki was seen attending a funeral of a senior tribal chief in Shabwa, witnesses said, adding that security officials were also among those attending. Other witnesses said al-Awlaki was involved in negotiations with a local tribe in Yemen’s Mudiya region, which was preventing al-Qaida fighters from traveling from their strongholds to the southern city of Zinjibar, which was taken over recently by Islamic militants. The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals and their accounts could not be independently confirmed.
Yemen, the Arab world’s most impoverished nation, has become a haven for hundreds of al-Qaida militants. The country has also been torn by political turmoil as President Saleh struggles to stay in power in the face of seven months of protests. In recent months, Islamic militants linked to al-Qaida have exploited the chaos to seize control of several cities in Yemen’s south, including Zinjibar.
A previous attack against al-Awlaki on May 5, shortly after the May raid that killed Osama bin Laden, was carried out by a combination of U.S. drones and jets.
Top U.S. counterterrorism adviser John Brennan has said cooperation with Yemen has improved since the political unrest there. Brennan said the Yemenis have been more willing to share information about the location of al-Qaida targets, as a way to fight the Yemeni branch challenging them for power.
Yemeni security officials said the U.S. was conducting multiple airstrikes a day in the south since May and that U.S. officials were finally allowed to interrogate al-Qaida suspects, something Saleh had long resisted, and still does so in public. The officials spokes on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.
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AP correspondent Matt Apuzzo and AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier in Washington contributed to this report.
Stocks rose sharply Tuesday on hopes that European leaders are moving closer to a plan to contain that region’s debt crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average rose more than 225 points.
Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel said her country would do whatever it could to help Greece regain investors’ confidence. Merkel and Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou are expected to discuss ways to solve the debt crisis later today.
Greece’s finance minister also said that country would receive the next round of bailout loans in time to avoid a default. Greece was at risk of running out of money by mid-October if it did not receive the funds.
“Europeans are finally starting to understand that they need to act with some force to get ahead of the European debt crisis,” said John Briggs, a fixed-income strategist at RBS.
Shortly after 10:15 a.m., the Dow Jones industrial average rose 227 points, or 2 percent, to 11,268. The Dow rose 272 points on Monday, its fourth-largest gain this year. The Dow is heading for its third day of gains.
The gains were broad. Every one of the 30 stocks in the Dow average rose. Twelve stocks rose for every one that fell on the New York Stock Exchange.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 22, or 1.9 percent, at 1,186. Materials and energy shares led the S&P higher.
The Nasdaq composite rose 42, or 1.7 percent, at 2,558 business cards.
Worries about Europe have weighed on the stock market for months. The S&P 500, a benchmark for many U.S. mutual funds, has fallen 7.4 percent over the past three months. It’s down 5.8 percent for the year.
Analysts say more needs to be done to fight Europe’s debt crisis. Finance ministers have been pushing to increase the size of Europe’s rescue fund. Economists also want the European Central Bank to lower interest rates to help spur the economy.
President Barack Obama said in a town hall meeting Monday that Europe’s financial crisis “is scaring the world” and that the actions the region’s leaders have taken so far “haven’t been as quick as they need to be.”
In the U.S., the Senate passed legislation late Monday to avert a government shutdown.
Home prices rose for a fourth straight month in most major U.S. cities in July. A report on Tuesday also showed that consumer confidence improved slightly in September after plummeting in August.
Walgreen Co. fell 4.4 percent after the drugstore operator said it is ending its relationship with Express Scripts Inc. That deal is worth $5.3 billion per year, but Walgreen said Express Scripts was not paying it enough money to fill prescriptions.
Some of the nation’s largest oil refineries are seeking huge tax refunds that could force school districts and local governments across Texas to give back tens of millions of dollars they were counting on to pay teachers and provide other services.
The refineries want the tax breaks in exchange for buying pollution-controlling equipment. But the cost to public schools would be dear, coming only months after lawmakers slashed education spending by more than $4 billion.
If a three-member commission appointed by Gov. Rick Perry grants the refunds, nearly half the money would be taken from schools. Classrooms in cities with refineries would be hurt most.
“We were already cut at the knees as it is, but more cuts? It’s appalling,” said Patricia Gonzales, a single mother of twins at Park View Intermediate School in Pasadena, a refinery town just south of Houston.
She is president of the parent-teacher organization, which was created this past summer after budget cuts left the school without basic supplies such as pencils and paper towels.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is evaluating 16 refund requests that could add up to more than $135 million, according to county tax data and application documents analyzed by The Associated Press.
What’s more, if the commission grants the requests, at least 12 other refineries that have not sought a refund also could qualify.
On Monday, about a dozen community activists handed out fliers in Pasadena as they conducted a mock bake sale offering $10,000 cookies, brownies and cupcakes to draw attention to the problem.
Gonzales lives near a miles-long stretch of refineries, where massive pipes and stacks light the night like skyscrapers do in other cities. An intense odor of burnt chemicals hangs over the town.
“There are days when we can’t go out because our children’s asthma is that bad,” she said. “And then they want money back?”
The state commission expressed some support for the refund last year, raising speculation that it is preparing to side with the industry.
Beginning in 2006, the Environmental Protection Agency began requiring refineries to remove sulfur dioxide from diesel and gasoline, and many refineries had to either upgrade existing “hydrotreater” units or purchase new, more effective equipment.
San Antonio-based Valero Energy Corp. argues that the units should qualify for a tax exemption under an amendment to the Texas Constitution that says industrial plants don’t have to pay taxes on equipment purchased to reduce on-site pollution.
Valero first asked for the refund for six of its refineries in 2007. Since then, at least four other companies have asked for the same retroactive refund.
Valero’s initial request was denied. The company appealed, and the panel’s chairman, Bryan Shaw, said last April that the Legislature probably intended a broader interpretation of the law. He instructed his staff to research whether they could award partial exemptions to Valero.
Shaw declined to comment, saying it could present a conflict because the issue will be brought before him again.
Valero could potentially get a refund of more than $92 million, but company spokesman Bill Day said executives believe the final refund would be much smaller. He said appraisers will probably estimate the value of refinery properties below the amount submitted by the company.
There is no timeline for a ruling. The slow pace of the decision has put municipalities and school districts in the position of collecting and spending money they could be forced to return.
Schools alone could be forced to fork over $62.8 million, according to data compiled by the AP.
In smaller, more rural counties _ where property taxes from heavy industry provide a big chunk of funding for schools and government services _ the effect could be even greater. For example, in Moore County, where a Valero refinery is seeking two exemptions, a $15.8 million refund would amount to more than $720 per person.
“If it was a good year and property values were up, it wouldn’t be so bad,” said Hugh Landrom Jr., president of Hugh Landrom and Associates, an engineering firm that does industrial appraisals for Galveston and other counties that are home to large refineries and chemical plants.
But the pain is “compounded by the state budget cuts that are being passed down to everybody,” Landrom said.
If the abatements are approved, all Texas schools would be affected. Refinery towns would be hurt the most.
“The dollars that are lost by these school districts directly affect the children of the employees that help make these companies what they are,” said David Hodgins, consultant and attorney for the Texas Association of School Administrators.
The Pasadena schools will have to refund $11.3 million to two refineries, according to the AP analysis.
The school where the Gonzales children attend class has laid off eight staff members and is asking parents to donate money to pay for basketballs, volleyballs and even gloves for the science teachers.
The Valero spokesman insisted the refund would not “be a disaster.”
“I guarantee you, it’s not a surprise to the school districts,” Day said. “Yes, they spent the money. Yes, we’re asking for an abatement on our pollution-control equipment. … But this is really no different than a homeowner appealing their property tax, just on a larger scale.”
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Associated Press Writer Troy Thibodeaux contributed to this report from New Orleans.
After years of wars, sanctions and drought, farmer Qais Nima Khamis says it’s time to save the dates _ and bring back Iraq’s long-regaled fruit palm industry, which once led the world market.
Khamis, whose family has been growing the fruit since 1880, is growing hundreds of more date trees this year, aiming to double his grove to up to 1,500 palms. The government is taking its own action to revive Iraq’s lost golden age of dates, supporting farmers with loans and launching nurseries.
It’s just a start, said the 40-year-old Khamis, but “Iraq is now open to all the world, the government started some steps and that has brought some hope.”
During its heyday, in the 1950s and 1960s, Iraq was the world’s No. 1 date producer and exporter and boasted 32 million date palms, more than any other nation in the world. At that time, Iraq produced about 1 million tons of dates annually, said Kamil Mikhlif al-Dulaimi, head of the Agriculture Ministry’s Date Palm Board.
But by 2003, there were only half that number of trees and production fell to 200,000 tons. The southern province of Basra was the worst hit by the slump, with only about a quarter of the 12 million date trees it once had.
“That prompts only deep sadness,” al-Dulaimai said in an interview.
It’s not just an economic issue of getting a bigger slice of a date export market that nets big producers like Iran and Pakistan millions of dollars a year. Being renowned for dates is also a point of pride. Like all Muslims, Iraqis honor the date palm as a blessed plant.
It is mentioned many times in the holy book of Quran which, at one point, states that Mary gave birth to Jesus under a palm tree and she ate its fruit to ease the pain of childbirth. And the prophet Mohammed stressed the benefits of dates as a medicine for several human diseases. A date is the traditional way for Muslims around the world to break their daily sunrise to sunset fast during the holy month of Ramadan.
Now, with the worst years of violence following the 2003 U.S.-led invasion over and oil revenues bubbling on the horizon, Iraq has focused on the date industry as one of several sectors _ including oil, agriculture and infrastructure _ it wants to develop.
The government has begun supporting date farmers with soft loans to plant new orchards and subsidized fertilizers and insecticides. It established the Date Palm Board in 2005 with a mission to more than double to number of trees nationwide to 40 million by 2021.
The board has built 30 nurseries around the country to produce new varieties and it has launched programs to rehabilitate old orchards and build processing and storage facilities. It is aiming to develop tree varieties that produce fruit in two years rather than the four or five it usually takes.
The push has brought some progress. The number of trees has risen to 21 million trees, producing 420,000 tons last year, al-Dulaimi said.
“This is a major leap forward,” al-Dulaimi said proudly. “We are reaping the fruits of these efforts.”
Marhon Abid Falih, a date farmer south of Basra, would like to reap some of those profits. But he’s not sure the government can help.
Iraq’s chronic problems over the decades _ lacking of water, electricity, fuel, and storage _ have forced many farmers to abandon cultivation and find another jobs like in the army or police.
In 2002, Falih’s orchard in the Abu al-Khasib area south of Basra boasted as many as 200 date palm trees. He grew fruits and vegetables in their shade, and hired dozens of workers to help him during harvest. The farm made enough money to meet all his family’s daily needs.
But a year later, his farm was hit by drought and its soil grew bitter. Only about 50 trees survived.
“There is no motive to cultivate anymore,” said Falih, 52.
“It’s not a matter of planting new trees or taking loans,” he said. “There is no a longer benefit from agriculture because of the salinity and dearth of water. All attempts are in vain.”
“We will look for another work and come back only when there is water.”
Fresh from fending off a takeover bid by rival ConAgra Foods, Ralcorp Holdings appears poised to expand its corporate headquarters in downtown St. Louis.
St. Louis aldermen today will receive legislation proposing tax breaks for the foodmaker, which would sign a 10-year lease and improve and expand its space in the Bank of America Plaza at 8th and Market streets downtown.
The bill would offer Ralcorp $20 million in bond financing and property tax breaks on new equipment. The company is expected to spend $6.9 million on improvements.
The company employs 400 people in the office tower and is expected to hire more over the course of the deal.
Ralcorp’s lease is expiring and the company looked at other sites around the region, but decided to negotiate with its current landlords to stay put and expand in place.
“We evaluated many opportunities, and determined that versus moving, expanding our square footage and investing in this space would best serve our business, our employees, our shareholders and the St. Louis community,” said the company’s co-chief executive officers, Kevin Hunt and David Skarie, in a statement.
Japanese automakers Nissan and Mitsubishi are strengthening their cooperation by expanding the number of models they make for each other in Japan.
Nissan and its smaller rival Mitsubishi have had what is called an original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, deal since December 2010. They manufacture specific vehicle models for each other and sell them under their own brands.
Nissan Motor Co. said Thursday it will provide the Fuga luxury sedan to Mitsubishi Motors Corp., starting from summer next year.
They have also started talks on Mitsubishi providing the Minicab-MiEV commercial electric car to Nissan in the fiscal year that begins April 2012.
Such OEM deals are fairly common in the auto industry. They allow companies to cut costs by increasing production scale and to expand their lineup of types of cars they don’t want to invest in the development or manufacturing of personal loans for bad credit.
Under an earlier agreement, Nissan, which also makes the Leaf electric car and March subcompact, is providing the NV200 Vanette compact van to Mitsubishi Motors from next month.
They also set up a joint venture called NMKV Co., which began operating in June, to work together on minicars for the Japanese market, which may later include other nations.
Mitsubishi President Osamu Masuko has said he hopes the joint venture will fuse his company’s design expertise with Nissan’s purchasing power.
“These initiatives are intended to strengthen the competitiveness of both companies in Japan,” both sides said in a statement.
Stocks are rising as investors pin their hopes on a key Federal Reserve meeting that could result in a decision to stimulate the economy.
Strong results from Carnival Corp. also suggest the upcoming earnings season could be better than expected.
The Fed began a two-day policy meeting Tuesday. On Wednesday, many analysts believe the central bank will announce new stimulus measures.
Carnival rose 6.7 percent, the most of any S&P 500 company, after the cruise operator said slimmer costs and strong ticket prices boosted its net income.
The Dow Jones industrial average is up 133 points, or 1.2 percent, at 11,532 in morning trading. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index is up 15, or 1.2 percent, at 1,218. The Nasdaq composite is up 25, or 1 percent, at 2,638.
The chief executive of UBS says he feels responsible but not guilty for the $2 billion loss a rogue trader has caused the Swiss bank.
Oswald Gruebel told the Swiss weekly Der Sonntag in an interview Sunday he also isn’t thinking about resigning.
Gruebel was brought in more than two years ago to lead UBS out of a series of missteps that have heavily damaged the biggest Swiss bank’s reputation. He told the paper in his first interview since UBS announced the loss Thursday that he was “responsible for everything that happens at the bank electronic check payday advance.”
He added “but if you ask me whether I feel guilty, then I would say no.”
A 31-year-old trader, Kweku Adoboli, is being held in London on charges of fraud and false accounting.
U.S. stock futures are sinking after European finance ministers pushed back a decision about Greece’s next bailout.
European financial officials are meeting in Poland, joined by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. The group’s leader said Friday that it will not decide until next month whether Greece has qualified for its next round of bailout money.
Worries about a possible default by Greece have weighed on financial markets all summer. That kind of financial shock might tip the global economy back into recession.
At 7:45 a.m. Eastern, S&P 500 futures are down 6 points, or 0.5 percent, at 1,198. Dow futures are down 50, or 0.4 percent, at 11,325. Nasdaq 100 futures are off 8, or 0.3 percent, at 2,277.
Stocks have risen every day this week, their first four-day winning streak since August.
UBS was under pressure on Friday to explain how its managers failed to catch a $2 billion loss due to rogue trading, with experts calling into question the Swiss bank’s ability to turn around its scandal-hit image.
As police in London obtained a 12-hour extension to question the trader, 31-year-old trader Kweku Adoboli, the bank’s investors and the wider industry wondered about the fallout, both for UBS as a storied Swiss financial institution and for the banking sector.
Commentators and politicians called for senior managers at UBS to take responsibility for the loss, which the bank said could put its third-quarter results in the red. Ratings agency Moody’s put UBS’s credit grade on review for possible downgrade, citing worries over the future of its London-based investment unit.
UBS shares on Friday recovered a fraction of the losses they suffered the day before. Investors took the chance to buy UBS shares cheaply, sending their price up 2.5 percent to 10 Swiss francs ($11.45) on the Zurich exchange by noon. Shares had slumped 10 percent the day before, after the bank said a lone employee had caused the massive loss with unauthorized trades.
Swiss media questioned how one UBS trader could have managed to cause a $2 billion loss without others around him noticing sooner. Respected banking professor Hans Geiger told Swiss television station SF he doubted the lone trader account put forward by UBS.
Police in London continued their interrogation of Adoboli. Normally police cannot hold a suspect longer than 24 hours without pressing charges. But under British law, a police superintendent can extend the 24-hour detention period by up to 36 hours for serious crimes. After that, police would need to get a court order to continue questioning for up to 96 hours more.
UBS spokesman Andreas Kern declined to comment on a report in Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger on Friday, that the entire trading team in London where the alleged unauthorized deals took place had been suspended.
Kern said the paper’s report of fresh job cuts at the investment bank referred to a reduction of about 1,600 posts already announced last month as part of a plan to save some 2 billion francs over the next two years.
The international banking industry has been trying to put stricter controls on its traders in the wake of a 2008 scandal at France’s Societe Generale, when trader Jerome Kerviel gambled away euro4.9 billion ($6.7 billion), and the infamous case of Nick Leeson, who made so many unauthorized trades that it caused the collapse of the British bank Barings in 1995.
Chief executive Oswald Gruebel was brought in two years ago to rehabilitate the bank’s damaged reputation after a series of missteps that included massive losses in the subprime mortgage market and an embarrassing U.S. tax evasion case.
The scandal casts doubt on his ability to improve the bank’s image.
Moody’s ratings agency cited such concerns when on Thursday night it placed UBS’s credit grade on review for a possible downgrade.
Although it said the $2 billion losses would be manageable for a bank the size of UBS, they “call into question the Group’s ability to successfully complete the rebuilding of its investment banking operations.”
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Bob Barr contributed to this report from London.
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