Al-Qaida intelligence uncovered in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- U.S. officials in Iraq said they have obtained a 17-page letter written to senior members of al-Qaida seeking reinforcements, the New York Times said Monday.
The officials said they believe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian who has long been under scrutiny by the United States for suspected ties to al-Qaida, wrote the undated document.
The memo says extremists are failing to enlist support inside the country, and have been unable to scare the U.S.-led coalition into leaving.
Yet mounting an attack on Iraq's Shiite majority could rescue the movement, with an aim to prompt a counterattack against the Arab Sunni minority.
Such a "sectarian war" will rally the Sunni Arabs to the religious extremists, the document argues. It says a war against the Shiites must start soon -- at "zero hour" -- before the coalition hands over sovereignty to the Iraqis at the end of June.
Military officials in Baghdad said they were confident the account was credible and said they had independently corroborated Zarqawi's authorship.
Libya's nuclear blueprints deemed 'crude'
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- The nuclear bomb blueprints Libya obtained from Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan were of a relatively crude type, the New York Times reported Monday.
The analysis of the blueprints, which establish a new link between Khan and the underground nuclear black market, heartened investigators in Europe and the United States because Khan's design is seen as less threatening in terms of the spread of nuclear weapons.
However, European and U.S. investigators still fear Khan and his network of middlemen might have peddled the weapon blueprints to other nations in deals not yet known.
To the amazement of inspectors, the blueprints discovered in Libya were wrapped in plastic bags from an Islamabad dry cleaner.
The centrifuge equipment and warhead designs from Khan's laboratories in Pakistan were discovered in Libya after the country's leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, agreed to dismantle his secret nuclear program, opening it to U.S. and U.N. nuclear officials.
Call made to honor Italian who saved Jews
LONDON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- A Jewish man living in London is seeking to have Israel honor a World War II Italian ship captain who defied orders and saved the lives of at least 1,000 Jews.
As a child, James Hazan, 71, was among hundreds who had remained ignorant of the heroism of Capt. Emanuele Adolfo Stagnaro, the Times of London reported Monday. Hazan's late father, Isaac, disclosed the captain's bravery before his death but swore his son to secrecy.
Hazan decided to break the oath and hopes to persuade Israel to honor the Genoese captain as a "righteous gentile" by planting a tree at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, alongside an olive tree in memory of Giorgio Perlasca, an Italian who saved thousands of Jews in wartime Budapest.
Hazan was 7 at the time when he and 1,500 people were shipped to safety in Egypt in 1940 on the Esperia, a luxury cruise liner designed to carry 375 people.
Hazan says the captain defied an order to return them to Italy, from where they would have been deported by train to Nazi concentration camps.
Kerry takes Maine, 3rd win in 2 days
WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 (UPI) -- Sen. John Kerry swept to victory in Maine, nailing down his third caucus triumph in two days.
The Massachusetts senator galloped to victory with 45 percent of the vote, a full 19 points ahead of former Vermont governor Howard Dean in second place with 26.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio came in third with 15 percent and Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina trailed in single digits in fourth place with only 9 percent. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark melted down in fifth with only 4 percent.
Kerry's landslide Maine victory came the day after similarly one-sided sweeps in populous Michigan in the Midwest and in Washington state in the Pacific Northwest. He has now won decisive primary or caucus victories everywhere except the South.
