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Republicans sweep Va., win in N.J.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- The Republican Party, after a clobbering in 2008 at all levels, won off-year governor's races Tuesday in New Jersey and Virginia.

But a Democrat, Bill Owens, won a special election in a heavily Republican upstate New York congressional district that had been held by the GOP for generations. Doug Hoffman, running as a conservative, forced Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava out of the race with help from nationally known conservative figures but conceded to Owens.

"This one was worth the fight," Hoffman said. "And it's only one fight in the battle, and we have to keep fighting."

In New Jersey, Gov. Jon Corzine conceded the election to former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, who picked up about half the vote to 45 percent for Corzine and 5 percent for Chris Daggett, a former Republican environmental official running as an independent.

Christie was the first Republican to win statewide in New Jersey since Christie Whitman was re-elected governor in 1997.

In Virginia, former Republican state Attorney General Robert McDonnell won an early and decisive victory over state Sen. Creigh Deeds. The Republicans took all statewide offices and expanded their majority in the House of Delegates.

Republicans cast the New Jersey and Virginia victories as a referendum on President Barack Obama. Democrats said voters were reacting to a sour economy.

"People are disgruntled and angry," said New Jersey Democratic state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, Corzine's pick for lieutenant governor. "When people get angry and hostile, the attitude is, 'Throw the bums out, whoever they are.'"

Five British soldiers shot, killed

KABUL, Afghanistan, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- An Afghan policeman shot and killed five British soldiers after ambushing them at a police checkpoint in Helmand province and fled the scene, officials said.

The incident occurred Tuesday, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.

"It's our understanding that one individual Afghan national policeman, possibly in conjunction with another, went rogue," a British Defense Ministry spokesman said. The spokesman said he fired without warning "before anyone could respond."

The Defense Ministry said a search was under way for the "rogue" policeman, whose motives were unclear. There were suggestions he might have had a dispute with his commander.

The BBC quoted a spokesman for the British Task Force in Helmand that three of the soldiers were from the Grenadier Guards and the other two from the Royal Military Police.

The five had been mentoring and living with Afghan police in a compound in the province's Nad Ali district, the report said. The attacker opened fire, injuring several other troops, before fleeing.

The Telegraph report said two Afghan policemen also were believed to have died in the shooting.

It was unclear if the attacker was a Taliban, whose members are believed to have infiltrated Afghan security institutions.

Israel nabs Iranian weapons ship

JERUSALEM, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Israeli naval commandos intercepted an Iranian arms cargo ship flying an Antigua flag some 100 nautical miles off the Israeli coast, the army said Wednesday.

Defense officials said they suspect the Iranian-made arms found aboard the Francop near Cyprus were headed for Syria and eventual transfer to Hezbollah and possibly other terror organizations, Maariv said.

Special Israeli forces on routine patrol boarded the ship before dawn Wednesday and discovered the arms and ammunition. The vessel was towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod for further examination, the army said.

The Hebrew language newspaper said 122 mm. Katyusha rockets, grenades, assault rifles and mortar shells were found aboard the ship.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak praised the catch and the elite naval forces involved.

"This is another success in the endless struggle against attempts to smuggle weapons and military equipment whose goal is to strengthen terrorist elements who threaten Israel's security," the defense minister was quoted as saying in local Israeli media reports.

The newspaper said special forces uncovered the weapons stashed in the ship's hold. The ship documents described the cargo as being for "civilian use."

Ynetnews.com said the Israeli military had monitored the ship for several days before receiving approval for the raid.

This is not the first time Israeli military forces have nabbed ships smuggling weapons, the paper noted. In 2002 special naval forces backed by air support uncovered a huge weapons haul on the Karine A, which carried some 50 tons of military equipment including advanced rockets, explosives and anti-tank missiles. Last April Egyptian media reported Israeli army forces or American forces sank an Iranian weapons ship off the Sudanese coast, the paper said.

Await verdict in landmark rendition case

MILAN, Italy, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- A landmark rendition case in Italy involving 26 U.S. officials and a Muslim cleric is expected to reach a verdict shortly, court observers in Milan say.

Italian prosecutors charged the Americans with kidnapping Imam Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr in Milan more than six years ago and flying him to Egypt where he says he was tortured, The New York Times reports.

All but one of the defendants were believed to be working for the Central Intelligence Agency, and included the CIA's station chief in Milan.

The case is the first of its kind to contest the practice of "extraordinary rendition" in which terror suspects are captured in one country and taken to another for questioning.

At the time of his abduction, Nasr was under surveillance by Italian authorities who suspected him of preaching violence from his mosque and recruiting militants to send to Iraq.

All of the Americans were tried in absentia.

D.C. sniper's attorneys oppose execution

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- District of Columbia sniper John Allen Muhammad should not be executed because he suffers from mental illness and brain damage, his attorneys say.

Muhammad's defense team filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court saying their client was delusional and paranoid at his trial for a 2002 Washington area shooting spree, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Muhammad, 48, and Lee Boyd Malvo, now 24, were convicted in a series of random shootings that left 10 people dead.

In the Supreme Court brief, Muhammad's defense team says the attorneys who represented him at trial should have requested a competency evaluation.

"Trial counsel knew that Muhammad had been diagnosed with severe mental illness, and personally observed Muhammad's struggle with severe psychiatric disorders prior to the start of the trial," the team wrote.

Unless the Supreme Court or the Virginia governor intervenes, Muhammad is scheduled to die by lethal injection Nov. 10.