Reports: Radical cleric Awlaki killed
SANAA, Yemen, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- Anwar al-Awlaki, U.S.-born Yemeni cleric and al-Qaida member wanted by the United States, was killed in an airstrike in Yemen Friday, a security official said.
Tribal sources said Awlaki, a leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed with other al-Qaida operatives in a strike targeting a two-vehicle convoy in northern Yemen, The Yemen Observer reported.
In Washington, a senior official in the Obama administration confirmed Awlaki was dead, The New York Times said. A security official said Awlaki was killed while traveling between Marib and al-Jawf provinces, areas known to have an al-Qaida presence.
A Yemeni Defense Ministry statement said several of Awlaki's bodyguards also died.
Tribal officials told The Yemen Observer it wasn't clear whether the airstrike was carried out by the Yemeni air force or a U.S. unmanned aircraft.
The United States considered Awlaki, born in New Mexico, as a threat to U.S. security, CNN said. Awlaki preached at a mosque in Virginia before leaving the United States for the Middle East.
U.S. officials say Awlaki helped recruit Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was charged with trying to blow up a Northwest Airlines transatlantic flight as it approached Detroit on Christmas Day in 2009.
Officials also said the cleric exchanged e-mails with Army Maj. Nidal Hassan, charged in the 2009 shooting deaths of 12 military personnel and a civilian at Fort Hood in Texas.
The Times said Awlaki's lectures and sermons were tied to more than a dozen terrorist investigations in the United States, Britain and Canada.
U.S. envoy trapped by Syrian mob
DAMASCUS, Syria, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- A violent mob threw rocks at the U.S. ambassador to Syria and then tried to follow him as he entered an opposition figure's office, U.S. officials said.
Robert Ford, an outspoken critic of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and several U.S. Embassy workers were not injured in the motorcade attack, the State Department said.
They were trapped in the building for about 90 minutes as the mob tried to break in.
Armored embassy vehicles that removed Ford and his colleagues were damaged as the mob of about 100 people pelted the vehicles with rocks, White House and State Department officials said.
"We condemn this unwarranted attack in the strongest possible terms," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
"Ambassador Ford and his aides were conducting normal embassy business," she said, calling the attack an "inexcusable assault [that] is clearly part of ongoing campaign of intimidation aimed at diplomats ... raising questions about what is going on inside Syria."
White House spokesman Jay Carney called it "unwarranted and unjustifiable" and said Washington had no plans to recall Ford from Damascus.
Ford had gone to the office of Hassan Abdul-Azim, who leads the National Democratic Gathering and heads the outlawed Arab Socialist Democratic Union party. Abdel-Azim has called for an end to the six-month crackdown on pro-democracy protesters as a prerequisite for a dialogue with Assad and his government.
8 in council said to back Palestinian bid
RAMALLAH, West Bank, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- The Palestinian leadership has pledges for eight Security Council votes for its U.N. membership bid, a vote short of the nine needed, its foreign minister said.
The Palestinian National Authority has received assurances of "yes" votes from China, Russia, India, Lebanon, Brazil, South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon, Riyad al-Malki said Thursday from the authority's headquarters in Ramallah, West Bank.
"We are working on Bosnia, Colombia and Portugal," he told reporters, adding he was scheduled to visit Bosnia shortly.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas -- who submitted the request a week ago, shortly before delivering an address to the annual General Assembly urging its members' support for the bid -- will make stops in Colombia, Portugal, Honduras and the Dominican Republic in October, Malki said.
Honduras and the Dominican Republic are not current council members. Current council members also include permanent members Britain and France, as well as Germany, a member through next year.
Washington has pledged to use its veto to block the request if nine of the 15 Security Council members vote in favor. Even if that happens, the Palestinians hope they can at least claim a diplomatic victory by securing a majority in the Security Council, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported.
After closed-door debate Monday, the Security Council Wednesday referred the Palestinian Authority's request to a committee set to meet Friday.
Riyad Mansour, the permanent Palestinian U.N. observer, told reporters he hoped the Security Council would quickly take "positive action" on the application.
The review typically lasts 35 days at most, but the limit could be waived and the deliberation process could last weeks longer in the Palestinian case, Politico reported.
Occupy Wall Street gets union support
NEW YORK, Sept. 30 (UPI) -- The union representing New York City transit workers has come out in support of Occupy Wall Street protesters demanding U.S. social and economic policy changes.
The protesters, who argue U.S. social and economic policies unfairly favor the rich, secured the backing Thursday of the largest and most influential branch of the Transport Workers Union of America.
Local 100 President John Samuelsen said the branch's 38,000 city transit workers and 26,000 retirees share the protesters' view that while the richest New Yorkers get tax breaks, lower-income residents are struggling financially and forced to foot the bill for what they characterize as Wall Street's excesses.
The protesters -- marching since Sept. 17 in the financial district, especially at the opening and closing stock-exchange bells -- also got advice from a small grassroots political party for a specific demand they could seek.
They could call for a 50-cent Wall Street stock-trade surcharge, which it said would boost the U.S. economy at least $350 billion a year, Light Party founder Da Vic Raphael told United Press International Thursday night.
The movement's Facebook page had more than 5,400 supporters when UPI checked Thursday night.
