Amnesty: Torture of POWs is Rife in Ukraine Conflict
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Rights group Amnesty International says it has gathered 'overwhelming evidence' that Ukrainian forces, pro-government militias, and anti-government separatists have tortured or mistreated prisoners, describing it as 'widespread' and 'frequent.'
US Assistant Secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Daniel Russel said that the United States has rejected Beijing's demands that US surveillance planes stop flying over the disputed Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
In the wars of recent years, US Special Operations Command saw the results of a dizzying investment in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) rushed into the field, leaving the command — in today's leaner times — to make sense of its inventory and focus.
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France has set aside an extra €1.5 billion (US $1.7 billion) to acquire additional equipment, including the C-130 Hercules, and maintain weapon systems over the next four years, reflecting the intense operations of the armed forces in sub-Saharan Africa, defense officials said Wednesday.
Poland's Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak met with US Defense Secretary Ash Carter in Washington on May 19 to discuss the potential acquisition of Patriot interceptors by Poland under the country's ongoing air defense modernization program.
US special operations forces are using forward-deployed rapid DNA scanners on a limited basis to confirm targets and have used DNA from improvised bomb components to capture "some very bad people," according to an official with US Special Operations Command (SOCOM).
A three-day, closed-door conference attended by eight top NATO air defense commanders and senior staff ended here Thursday with agreement in principal to hold similar events each year focused on cooperation in the face of common threats.
The US Air Force has released the next piece of its long-term strategic planning restructure, one which begins to deliver benchmarks for how the service will grow in future decades
Israeli defense sales last year plunged to their lowest point in seven years, with just $5.66 billion in new contracts signed in 2014, according to data released Thursday by the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
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CNN International |
Exclusive: China warns US surveillance plane
CNN International The series of man-made islands and the massive Chinese military build-up on them have alarmed the Pentagon, which is carrying out the surveillance flights in order to make clear the U.S. does not recognize China's territorial claims. The militarized ... China issues warning to US surveillance planeWND.com all 23 news articles » |
Business Insider |
The most spectacular Russian military failures of all time
Business Insider The Russian military has long been a bogeyman for the West, with Cold War memories lingering even after the fall of the Soviet Union. However, over the years Russia's fierce competition has produced a number of duds alongside its successes, as the ... and more » |
MarketWatch |
China getting worried about US-led Pacific trade deal
MarketWatch Given the perceived threat of the TPP, not to mention a proposed free-trade deal between the U.S. and the European Union known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership,China has been taking various measures to safeguard its trade position. Obama's Pacific trade deal will not tame ChinaFinancial Times all 615 news articles » |
Quartz |
China's military has declared war on Western thought on the internet
Quartz China's military says the internet has become its main ideological battlefield and that it should build a “Great Wall” online to protect the country's citizens from “hostile Western forces.” A strongly worded editorial (link in Chinese) published in ... Chinese Army newspaper calls for military role in Internet culture warArs Technica (blog) China to boost internet speeds amid move to purge 'hostile forces'Financial Times China is waging a 'hidden war' against the WestBusiness Insider Reuters all 35 The Diplomat all 33 news articles » |
Washington Free Beacon |
Chinese Military Using Jamming Against U.S. Drones
Washington Free Beacon China tried to electronically jam U.S. drone flights over the South China Sea in a bid to thwart spying on disputed island military construction, U.S. officials said. Global Hawk long-range surveillance drones were targeted by the jamming in at least ... and more » |
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) told Reuters that ISIS seized Palmyra’s military air base and prison after advancing into the city and routing armed forces loyal to Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad and their allies on Wednesday.
A statement posted by ISIS followers on Twitter said the jihadist group was in full control of the city, including its military bases, adding that the fleeing pro-Assad troops left behind many of their dead.
Heavy clashes between the two sides resulted in the death of at least 100 Assad regime fighters, said the Observatory, which monitors the Syrian war through a network of sources on the ground.
In a rare public appearance on May 6, Assad admitted for the first time that his regime had suffered a spate of military defeats at the hands of Syrian rebels including ISIS.
U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged on May 7 that Syrian rebel factions had made recent gains against Assad and suggested that the dictator shouldconsider negotiating peace.
“The capture of Palmyra is the first time ISIS has taken control of a city directly from the Syrian army and allied forces, which have already lost ground in the northwest and south to other insurgent groups in recent weeks,” notes Al Arabiya News.
Gen. Jack Keane, former Vice Chief of Staff for the Army, told the Senate Armed Services Committeeon Thursday that the U.S. was losing the war against ISIS, prompting criticism towards President Obama’s anti-ISIS strategy.
Keane himself said Obama’s efforts to fight ISIS are “fundamentally flawed.”
On March 11, Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers that “ISIL’s momentum has been diminished.”
Palmyra is home to a UNESCO World Heritage site that includes colonnaded streets, temples, and a theatre that have stood for nearly 2,000 years.
The ancient sites are at risk of being looted and destroyed if they have not been already.
On Thursday, the White House press secretary described ISIS’s seizure of Palmyra as a “setback” for the U.S.-led campaign against ISIS.
He added that President Obama disagrees with Republicans urging the deployment of U.S. ground troops to combat ISIS.
The global community must respond to ISIS, said French President Francois Hollande on Thursday.
“We have to act because there is a threat against these monuments which are part of humankind’s inheritance and at the same time we must act against Daesh,” declared Hollande, referring to ISIS by its Arabic name.
The Iraqi city of Ramadi, the capital of the country’s largest province Anbar, has also fallen to ISIS.
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May 22, 2015
Russia in Review: a digest of useful news from U.S.-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism for May 15-22, 2015
 Business Insider Australia |
Chechnya's Leader Kadyrov Urges Men To Lock Up Their Wives, Ban Women From ...
Huffington Post LONDON, May 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The leader of Russia's southern region of Chechnya has urged men to lock up their wives and ban them from using WhatsApp after outrage over the forced marriage of a 17-year-old girl spread on the messaging ... Chechen leader Kadyrov responds to criticism of the forced marriage of a 17 ...Business Insider Australia Ban women from WhatsApp says Chechnya leader who forced teen to marry allyDaily Mail Ramzan Kadyrov: Instagram-obsessed Islamist Chechen warlord-turned-president ...International Business Times UK New York Daily News all 241 news articles » |
 Business Insider |
Chechen leader Kadyrov lashes out at criticism of the forced marriage of a 17 ...
Business Insider Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov responded to criticism of the forced marriage of 17-year-old Kheda Goylabiyeva to the republic's police chief Nazhud Guchigov, who is 30 years her senior, by telling men to "lock in" their wives to prevent them from ... Ramzan Kadyrov: Instagram-obsessed Islamist Chechen warlord-turned ...International Business Times UK Chechnya's Kadyrov calls for WhatsApp ban for wivesBBC News Russia's independent newspaper reveals forced marriage in ChechnyaThe Guardian New York Daily News-International Business Times all 224 news articles » |
 Газета.Ru |
«Слишком мелко для падишаха»
Газета.Ru Рамзан Кадыров устроил показательный разнос группе мужчин и женщин, которые в соцсетях и через мессенджер WhatsApp размещали карикатуры и издевательские комментарии к «свадьбе тысячелетия» главы Ножай-Юртовского РОВД Нажуда Гучигова и 17-летней Хеды-Луизы ... В Сеть попало видео, как Рамзан Кадыров отчитывает сплетников, посмеявшихся над «свадьбой века»Город-812 Рамзан Кадыров собрал и отчитал жителей республики, "распространявших слухи" о "свадьбе тысячелетия" Радиостанция ЭХО МОСКВЫ Рамзан Кадыров прилюдно отчитал сплетников, обсуждавших «чеченскую свадьбу тысячелетия»Комсомольская правда Версия-Ura.ru all 180 news articles » |
 Newsweek |
The Story Behind a Chechen Wedding That Transfixed Russia and Beyond
Newsweek A week later, on May 5, the story took an unexpected turn, when the president of the Chechen Republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, stepped in, bringing up the scandal surrounding the marriage during a meeting with local press representatives. According to Kadyrov ... Chechnya's Leader Kadyrov Urges Men To Lock Up Their Wives, Ban Women From...Huffington Post Chechen Leader's Advice on Women: Lock Them inNew York Times Chechen leader denounces WhatsApp, orders women using it to be imprisonedEntertainment.ie International Business Times UK -New York Daily News all 235 news articles » |
 New York Times |
Chechen Leader Scolds WhatsApp Users for Spreading 'Rumors' About Official's ...
New York Times The Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, scolded users of WhatsApp on state television on Monday. Grozny TV, via YouTube. The suggestion came with a clear warning that comments shared on the service are being monitored by the authorities, since Mr. |
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 New York Times |
Chechen Leader's Advice on Women: Lock Them in
New York Times MOSCOW — Ramzan A. Kadyrov, the pugnacious president of the southern Republic of Chechnya and a close ally of President Vladimir V. Putin, finally had enough Wednesday of social media users' mocking him relentlessly for seeming to push polygamy. His ... Chechnya's Leader Kadyrov Urges Men To Lock Up Their Wives, Ban Women From...Huffington Post Chechen leader denounces WhatsApp, orders women using it to be imprisonedEntertainment.ie Ramzan Kadyrov: Instagram-obsessed Islamist Chechen warlord-turned-president ...International Business Times UK Yahoo7 News -New York Daily News all 237 news articles » |
 Радио Азаттык |
Заявления Кадырова указывают на напряженность с Москвой
Радио Азаттык На этой неделе Рамзан Кадыров высказался против пользователей мобильного приложения WhatsApp, укорив местных женщин в распространении через это приложение слухов о браке между начальником местного отдела полиции Нажудом Гучиговым, которому уже около 50 лет и ... Гибель империи: как чеченская свадьба разрушает российский суверенитетForbes Россия Президент наградил Рамзана Кадырова орденом Почета ГОСНОВОСТИ Кадырову вручен очередной орден. На этот раз Путин оценил «достигнутые трудовые успехи»Новый День - Главные новости ЮГА.ру- Информационное агентство "Грозный Информ" all 12 news articles » |
 Life News |
Владимир Путин вручил Рамзану Кадырову орден Почета
Life News Глава Чечни непримиримо борется с боевиками на Северном Кавказе. 4 декабря 2014 года во время нападения бандитов на центр Грозного Рамзан Кадыров лично руководил контртеррористической операцией. В результате все боевики, засевшие в Доме печати и школе № 20, были ... Заявления Кадырова указывают на напряженность с МосквойРадио Азаттык "Вдали от родных берегов": Рамзан Кадыров "слил" дальнейшие планы РоссииJoinfo.ua Путин наградил Кадырова орденом ПочетаUra.ru Телеканал ДОЖДЬ (подписка) all 29 news articles » |
The video shows the destruction caused during the battle for the city, as fears grow the group will destroy the ancient ruins.
RFE/RL Closes Baku Bureau, Continues Azerbaijan Operationby noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
RFE/RL has closed its Baku bureau, after Azerbaijani authorities sealed the office shut in December 2014 in connection with a government-led campaign against foreign organizations.
Obama Signs Iran Nuclear Bill by noreply@rferl.org (RFE/RL)
U.S. President Barack Obama has signed into law legislation giving Congress a say on any international nuclear agreement with Iran.
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MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's foreign ministry has warned its citizens traveling abroad of the risks posed by U.S. law enforcement bodies and special services, which it said were hunting for Russians around the world.
 The Guardian |
Mexican Official: About 40 Dead in Shootout in Cartel Area
New York Times MEXICO CITY — A Mexican official says about 40 people have been killed in large-scale firefight between law enforcement and criminal suspects in western Mexico. The official said almost all the dead were suspected criminals. He spoke on condition of ... Federal forces attacked in western Mexico area dominated by cartelsLos Angeles Times Gunfight in Mexico Leaves at Least 45 DeadWall Street Journal Mexican officials say 37 killed after police ambushed in drug cartel regionThe Guardian all 37 news articles » |
Government claims a victory over Jalisco New Generation
White House: No Plans to Send US Ground Troops to Iraqby webdesk@voanews.com (Aru Pande)
Despite the Islamic State militant group’s taking this week of Iraqi city Ramadi and Syria’s Palmyra - the White House has made clear President Barack Obama has no plans to send U.S. troops into the region to “re-invade Iraq or invade Syria.” VOA correspondent Aru Pande has more from the White House.
President Barack Obama’s strategy against Islamic State is under increasing scrutiny after setbacks this week in Iraq and Syria.
Court documents detail alleged lies by murdered man's assistant to investigators; suspect Daron Dylon Wint makes first court appearance
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Displaced Iraqis from Ramadi cross the Bzebiz bridge near Baghdad while fleeing fighting. (Karim Kadim/Associated Press)
Ramadi falls. The Iraqi army flees. The great 60-nation anti-Islamic State coalition so grandly proclaimed by the Obama administration is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s the defense minister ofIran who flies into Baghdad, an unsubtle demonstration of who’s in charge — while the U.S. air campaign proves futile and America’s alleged strategy for combating the Islamic State is in freefall.
It gets worse. The Gulf states’ top leaders, betrayed and bitter, ostentatiously boycott President Obama’s failed Camp David summit. “We were America’s best friend in the Arab world for 50 years,”laments Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief.
Charles Krauthammer writes a weekly political column that runs on Fridays.
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Note: “were,” not “are.”
We are scraping bottom. Following six years of President Obama’s steady and determined withdrawal from the Middle East, America’s standing in the region has collapsed. And yet thequestion incessantly asked of the various presidential candidates is not about that. It’s a retrospective hypothetical: Would you have invaded Iraq in 2003 if you had known then what we know now?
First, the question is not just a hypothetical but an inherently impossible hypothetical. It contradicts itself. Had we known there were no weapons of mass destruction, the very question would not have arisen. The premise of the war — the basis for going to the U.N., to the Congress and, indeed, to the nation — was Iraq’s possession of WMD in violation of the central condition for the cease-fire that ended the 1991 Gulf War. No WMD, no hypothetical to answer in the first place.
Second, the “if you knew then” question implicitly locates the origin and cause of the current disastersin 2003 . As if the fall of Ramadi was predetermined then, as if the author of the current regional collapse is George W. Bush.
This is nonsense. The fact is that by the end of Bush’s tenure the war had been won. You can argue that the price of that victory was too high. Fine. We can debate that until the end of time. But what is not debatable is that it was a victory. Bush bequeathed to Obama a success. By whose measure? By Obama’s. As he told the troops at Fort Bragg on Dec. 14, 2011, “We are leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.” This was, said the president, a “moment of success.”
Which Obama proceeded to fully squander. With the 2012 election approaching, he chose to liquidate our military presence in Iraq. We didn’t just withdraw our forces. We abandoned, destroyed or turned over our equipment, stores, installations and bases. We surrendered our most valuable strategic assets, such as control of Iraqi airspace, soon to become the indispensable conduit for Iran to supply and sustain the Assad regime in Syria and cement its influence all the way to the Mediterranean. And, most relevant to the fall of Ramadi, we abandoned the vast intelligence network we had so painstakingly constructed in Anbar province, without which our current patchwork operations there are largely blind and correspondingly feeble.
The current collapse was not predetermined in 2003 but in 2011. Isn’t that what should be asked of Hillary Clinton? We know you think the invasion of 2003 was a mistake. But what about the abandonment of 2011? Was that not a mistake?
Mme. Secretary: When you arrived at State, al-Qaeda in Iraq had been crushed and expelled from Anbar. The Iraqi government had from Basra to Sadr City fought and defeated the radical, Iranian-proxy Shiite militias. Yet today these militias are back, once again dominating Baghdad. On your watch, we gave up our position as the dominant influence over a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq” — forfeiting that position gratuitously to Iran. Was that not a mistake? And where were you when it was made?
Iraq is now a battlefield between the Sunni jihadists of the Islamic State and the Shiite jihadists of Iran’s Islamic Republic. There is no viable center. We abandoned it. The Obama administration’s unilateral pullout created a vacuum for the entry of the worst of the worst.
And the damage was self-inflicted. The current situation in Iraq, says David Petraeus, “is tragic foremost because it didn’t have to turn out this way. The hard-earned progress of the surge was sustained for over three years.”
U.S. military shows air strikes near Ramadi(0:46)
The Defense Department released video it says shows coalition air strikes against Islamic State targets near Ramadi on May 15. The videos shows several attacks after the looting of an Iraqi government building. (Reuters)
Do the math. That’s 2009 through 2011, the first three Obama years. And then came the unraveling. When? The last U.S. troops left Iraq on Dec. 18, 2011.
Want to do retrospective hypotheticals? Start there.
Read more from Charles Krauthammer’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
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D.C. police arrested Daron Dylon Wint near 10th Street and Rhode Island Avenue NE on the night of May 21. Wint was apprehended in connection with the killing of a Washington family and their housekeeper. (WUSA9)
D.C. police believe more than one person may have been involved in the gruesome slayings of the Savopoulos family and their housekeeper, saying the victims were held captive beginning the evening before they were killed.
The four were slain the afternoon of May 14, according to new documents filed in D.C. Superior Court, soon after an employee of Savvas Savopoulos dropped off $40,000 in cash at the home.
Savopoulos, 46; his wife, Amy, 47; and their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, suffered from blunt force trauma and sharp force injuries, according to the documents. Ten-year-old Philip Savopoulos, the couple’s son, suffered from sharp force wounds and was burned. Gasoline had been poured in several rooms, and the home was set on fire.
The crimes, police wrote in the affidavit for an arrest warrant, seemed to require “the presence and assistance of more than one person.”
So far, police have arrested one man, Daron Dylon Wint, 34, who was held without bond after a brief court appearance Friday afternoon. He is charged in a warrant with first-degree murder. D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier earlier this week said investigators had not ruled out the possibility that there are additional suspects, and said the investigation is continuing.
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Police apprehended late Thursday night the suspect in the gruesome killings of three members of a Northwest Washington family and a housekeeper, D.C.
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Police apprehended late Thursday night the suspect in the gruesome killings of three members of a Northwest Washington family and a housekeeper, D.C.
May 21, 2015 D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, right, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser attend a news conference with murder suspect Daron Dylon Wint shown to the public. Wint, 34, is charged in a warrant with first-degree murder while armed. Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post
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Wint, his legs and arms shackled, said only his name during the Friday hearing. He wore a plastic jail jumpsuit — often an indication a suspect’s clothes have been seized as potential evidence.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Miller said Wint’s DNA was found on discarded pizza left in the room where the three adults were found dead. She said police found a fingerprint on a waterbottle at the house, and that prosecutors were seeking to compare it to Wint’s fingerprint.
Wint’s attorney, Natalie Lawson of the District’s Public Defender Service, said her client is innocent and the prosecution case is “based on speculation and guesswork.”
Wint, and four others were taken into custody late Thursday without a struggle, according to authorities. “They were in the face of overwhelming odds and force,” said Cmdr. Robert Fernandez, who runs the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force and was among the agents who helped with the arrests.
The commander on Friday described in detail how dozens of police and federal investigators tracked Wint from Maryland to an apartment in Brooklyn, where Fernandez said he had been hiding since Sunday, and how authorities from two states and the District “barely missed” arresting him there Wednesday night.
Wint was arrested about 11 p.m. Thursday at Rhode Island Avenue and 10th Street NE, hours after the District’s police chief and mayor said he was believed to be in New York.
The victims were found dead May 14 after police say they had been held captive overnight and bound in the Savopoulos’s expansive house on Woodland Drive in Northwest Washington. The house had been set on fire and the family’s Porsche was taken and later found torched in a church parking lot in Prince George’s County. D.C. police detectives linked Wint through the DNA evidence on a discarded crust of Domino’s pizza that had been ordered May 13, while the family was detained.
Savvas Savopoulos’s assistant dropped a package off at the house with $40,000 hours before the fire, police officials have said. Other law enforcement officials said they found $10,000 in cash at the arrest scene Thursday night. Fernandez said he saw money stuffed in the side of the truck’s door but did not know how much.
Wint, who has family ties to Lanham, Md., and has relatives and friends in New York, is expected to make his initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court on Friday. Police have not released any information on the four people detained along with Wint Friday night.
On Friday, the Savopoulos family thanked law enforcement and firefighters for their efforts over the past two weeks. Savvas Savopoulos was head of American Iron Works, a major supplier of iron and steel to construction companies, and he and his wife were active in the District’s society, business and fund-raising circles.
“While it does not abate our pain, we hope that it begins to restore a sense of calm and security to our neighborhood and to our city,” the family said in a statement. “We are blessed to live in a community comprised of close circles of friends who have supported us and grieve with us. . . . Our family, and Vera’s family, have suffered unimaginable loss, and we ask for the time and space to grieve privately.”
Wint is a former employee of American Iron Works and has a long history of alleged assaults and threatening behavior, according to law enforcement and court records. A court record describes him as a certified welder. “What we can tell you right now is that we do believe there is a connection between the suspect in this case through the business,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said on Thursday. “So right now, it does not appear that this was a random crime.”
Fernandez, the head of the federal fugitive task force, said that D.C. police detectives in the major crime unit identified Wint as a suspect on Tuesday. His team began researching Wint, and on Wednesday Fernandez said “we were able to determine that he was more than likely in Brooklyn.”
That night, he said members of his team and counterparts from the fugitive task force in New York and New Jersey descended on an apartment in Brooklyn. But by then police in Washington had released Wint’s name and that he was being sought. “He saw it, and he fled,” Fernandez said. “He had just left. We barely missed him.”
The commander said his team “worked through the night” and on Thursday they learned Wint might be back in the Washington area, at a Howard Johnson Hotel on Route 1 in College Park. As agents were trying to learn what room he was in and form a raid plan, Fernandez said a surveillance team noticed Wint possibly leaving in one of two vehicles that pulled out of the parking lot.
“We had to abort the original plan,” Fernandez said.
Police followed a box truck and a white Chevrolet Cruze sedan heading toward the District. “It was obvious they were traveling together,” he said.
Fernandez requested help from Prince George’s County police and within five minutes a helicopter was in the air, flying over the target vehicles and 25 unmarked police cars below. Along Rhode Island Avenue NE, Fernandez said agents managed to maneuver an unmarked car between the sedan and the truck. Police in cars then blocked the road and pinned the sedan between vehicles. Agents, some toting semiautomatic rifles, ordered the occupants of both vehicles out.
He said Wint was in the back seat of the sedan with a woman driver and passenger. He said two men were in the truck. They were seated on a curb and handcuffed. “They had no idea they were being followed,” Fernandez said.
Keith L. Alexander contributed to this report
Clarence Williams is the night police reporter for The Washington Post and has spent the better part of 13 years standing next to crime scene tape, riding in police cars or waking officials in the middle of night to gather information about breaking news in and around Washington.
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Video shows scene of Daron Dylon Wint arrest(0:53)
D.C. police arrested Daron Dylon Wint near 10th Street and Rhode Island Avenue NE on the night of May 21. Wint was apprehended in connection with the killing of a Washington family and their housekeeper. (WUSA9)
The suspect in the killings of the Savopoulos family and their housekeeper was arrested along with associates late Thursday in Northeast Washington, when federal agents in two dozen vehicles pinned a car he was riding in and detained the group.
Daron Dylon Wint, 34, and four others were taken into custody without a struggle, according to authorities. “They were in the face of overwhelming odds and force,” said Cmdr. Robert Fernandez, who runs the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force and was among the agents who helped with the arrests.
The commander on Friday described in detail how dozens of police and federal investigators tracked Wint from Maryland to an apartment in Brooklyn, where Fernandez said he had been hiding since Sunday, and how authorities from two states and the District “barely missed” arresting him there Wednesday night.
Wint was arrested about 11 p.m. Thursday at Rhode Island Avenue and 10th Street NE, hours after the District’s police chief and mayor said he was believed to be in New York. He is charged with first-degree murder while armed in the killings of Savvas Savopoulos, 46; his wife, Amy, 47; their 10-year-old son, Philip; and their housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, known as Vera, who lived in Silver Spring.
The victims were found dead May 14 after police say they had been held captive overnight and bound in the Savopoulos’s expansive house on Woodland Drive in Northwest Washington. The house had been set on fire and the family’s Porsche was taken and later found torched in a church parking lot in Prince George’s County. D.C. police detectives linked Wint through DNA evidence on a discarded crust of Dominos pizza that had been ordered May 13, while the family was detained, officials have told The Washington Post.
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Suspect in quadruple killings captured in D.C.
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Police apprehended late Thursday night the suspect in the gruesome killings of three members of a Northwest Washington family and a housekeeper, D.C.
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Police apprehended late Thursday night the suspect in the gruesome killings of three members of a Northwest Washington family and a housekeeper, D.C.
May 21, 2015 D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, right, and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser attend a news conference with murder suspect Daron Dylon Wint shown to the public. Wint, 34, is charged in a warrant with first-degree murder while armed. Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post
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Savvas Savopoulos’s assistant dropped a package off at the house with $40,000 hours before the fire, police officials have said. Other law enforcement officials said they found $10,000 in cash at the arrest scene Thursday night. Fernandez said he saw money stuffed in the side of the truck’s door but did not know how much.
Wint, who has family ties to Lanham, Md., and has relatives and friends in New York, is expected to make his initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court on Friday. Police have not released any information on the four people detained along with Wint Friday night.
On Friday, the Savopoulos family thanked law enforcement and firefighters for their efforts over the past two weeks. Savvas Savopoulos was head of American Iron Works, a major supplier of iron and steel to construction companies, and he and his wife were active in the District’s society, business and fund-raising circles.
“While it does not abate our pain, we hope that it begins to restore a sense of calm and security to our neighborhood and to our city,” the family said in a statement. “We are blessed to live in a community comprised of close circles of friends who have supported us and grieve with us. . . . Our family, and Vera’s family, have suffered unimaginable loss, and we ask for the time and space to grieve privately.”
Wint is a former employee of American Iron Works and has a long history of alleged assaults and threatening behavior, according to law enforcement and court records. A court record describes him as a certified welder. “What we can tell you right now is that we do believe there is a connection between the suspect in this case through the business,” D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said on Thursday. “So right now, it does not appear that this was a random crime.”
Fernandez, the head of the federal fugitive task force, said that D.C. police detectives in the major crime unit identified Wint as a suspect on Tuesday. His team began researching Wint, and on Wednesday Fernandez said “we were able to determine that he was more than likely in Brooklyn.”
That night, he said members of his team and counterparts from the fugitive task force in New York and New Jersey descended on an apartment in Brooklyn. But by then police in Washington had released Wint’s name and that he was being sought. “He saw it, and he fled,” Fernandez said. “He had just left. We barely missed him.”
The commander said his team “worked through the night” and on Thursday they learned Wint might be back in the Washington area, at a Howard Johnson Hotel on Route 1 in College Park. As agents were trying to learn what room he was in and form a raid plan, Fernandez said a surveillance team noticed Wint possibly leaving in one of two vehicles that pulled out of the parking lot.
“We had to abort the original plan,” Fernandez said.
Police followed a box truck and a white Chevrolet Cruze sedan heading toward the District. “It was obvious they were traveling together,” he said.
Fernandez requested help from Prince George’s County police and within five minutes a helicopter was in the air, flying over the target vehicles and 25 unmarked police cars below. Along Rhode Island Avenue NE, Fernandez said agents managed to maneuver an unmarked car between the sedan and the truck. Police in cars then blocked the road and pinned the sedan between vehicles. Agents, some toting semiautomatic rifles, ordered the occupants of both vehicles out.
He said Wint was in the back seat of the sedan with a woman driver and passenger. He said two men were in the truck. They were seated on a curb and handcuffed. “They had no idea they were being followed,” Fernandez said.
Keith L. Alexander contributed to this report
Clarence Williams is the night police reporter for The Washington Post and has spent the better part of 13 years standing next to crime scene tape, riding in police cars or waking officials in the middle of night to gather information about breaking news in and around Washington.
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As reported by Robert Costa in The Washington Post, Republicans are blaming the president not only for allowing the Islamic State to develop as a terrorist organization in the first place, but also for failing to effectively combat the group as it has grown. Yet there appears to be some objection to Republicans calling President Obama out on his lack of a foreign policy strategy. Well, yeah. The Islamic State is 100 percent a creation of Obama’s policies. Plain and simple.
Iraq security forces withdraw from Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province, on Sunday. (Associated Press)
By his own admission, Obama announced the “end” of the Iraq war, standing in front of returning troops at Fort Bragg, N.C., on Dec. 14, 2011. In that speech, he said the United States was leaving behind “a sovereign, stable, and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government.” There was no Islamic State threat at that time. Fast forward to this month, when the president said in an interview with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg the day after Ramadi, Iraq, fell to Islamic State fighters that, “No, I don’t think we’re losing.” I wonder what this administration thinks “losing” looks like? This isn’t a “technical setback.” The losses in Iraq and the splintering of Syria are a direct result of at least three key Obama decisions.
First, Obama let the sectarian Nouri al-Maliki form a government in Iraq, even after Maliki failed to win the Iraqi parliamentary elections in 2010. Second, Obama folded in 2011 and did not ensure that an American fighting force remained in Iraq. Third, Obama refused to identify and groom an allied force fighting against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. To be clear, Obama is completely to blame for the Islamic State — the “JV team,” in his words — and its rapid consolidation of territory in western Iraq and through half of Syria. We are paying the price for the president’s dithering and his refusal to cultivate and equip an allied force that could shape events inside Syria and western Iraq. As your Insider said on May 18, “A ‘Sunni-stan’ is being created in front of our eyes.”
And since all Insiders readers know that bad gets worse, we can assume the march of the Islamic State will continue unless the president acknowledges some new realities. That doesn’t seem likely, as White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest is incredibly still claiming that the Obama administration’s strategy against the Islamic State is “overall” a success. So there is virtually no chance the president will acknowledge that the borders of the nation called Iraq, ruled from Baghdad, still exists; or that the nation called Syria, with its current borders, will continue to be ruled from Damascus.
Anyway, I have always accused this White House of lacking insight and being incapable of being self-aware — much less self-critical — so despite the urgent nature of world events, the prospect of a wholesale revision of our foreign policy objectives and policies is unlikely.
This lack of insight — the denial, delusion and downright, jaw-dropping inability to deal with the world as it is — was on display Wednesday during Obama’s remarks at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement ceremony. Given the realities of America’s decline and retreat from the global stage and the growing threats to our country, the president thought the most important thing he could sayto a U.S. military force was, “Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security … And so we need to act — and we need to act now.”
Since the president has been wrong about almost everything else concerning our national security, perhaps he’s wrong about the threat he sees in global warming. These are serious matters, but it’s hard not to ridicule what the president said at the academy. Perhaps if global warming persists at the pace the president desires, maybe it could actually improve America’s strategic positioning. Maybe global warming will work to America’s advantage since Obama cannot. Maybe global warming will cause the islands China is creating to flood. Maybe warm weather will strain the air conditioners in the North Korean laboratories where scientists are miniaturizing nuclear weapons. Maybe another Russian sinkhole will open up and swallow Vladimir Putin, making it impossible for him to continue to humiliate the president. Maybe a drought will somehow inhibit the Islamic State and keep it from murdering the few allies we still have in the Middle East.
Anyway, the Republican voices seeking to replace Obama need to speak with urgency so that the rest of the world will take notice. Even if Obama continues to be a befuddled pushover on the world stage, perhaps their forceful statements — combined with those of our GOP congressional leaders — will send the message that our enemies and competitors should temper their ambitions because a new sheriff is only 20 months away.
Ed Rogers is a contributor to the PostPartisan blog, a political consultant and a veteran of the White House and several national campaigns. He is the chairman of the lobbying and communications firm BGR Group, which he founded with former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour in 1991.
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The Insiders: The Islamic State is entirely a creation of Obama's policies
Washington Post (blog) As reported by Robert Costa in The Washington Post, Republicans are blaming the president not only for allowing the Islamic State to develop as a terrorist organization in the first place, but also for failing to effectively combat the group as it has grown. and more » |
The Shahed’s voyage follows months of suspicious shipping activity amid claims that point to Tehran’s complicity in the Yemeni war
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