KHARTOUM: A Sudanese court has sentenced to death 10 members of the Darfur rebel Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) for an unprecedented 2008 attack on the Sudanese capital here on Thursday.The men were found guilty of involvement in the attack on the Khartoum suburb of Omdurman in May 2008. Three others were acquitted and will be freed, the court said.After the sentence was announced, the men raised their shackled hands and shouted in unison "Allah Akbar" (God is great) and "Revolution until victory".The men were found guilty of 12 charges, including treason, violence against the state and illegal possession of weapons. The group has seven days to appeal the decision.The sitting judge rejected requests for leniency from their lawyers.More than 200 people were killed and hundreds injured when JEM launched the shock attack.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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