Thursday, September 24, 2009 UN: Iran's president has launched a scathing attack on Western powers, accusing them of spreading "war, bloodshed and terror" in the Middle East and Afghanistan.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the UN General Assembly on Wednesday that Tehran was prepared to warmly shake all those hands which are honestly extended to us.But he accused the West of hypocrisy, saying it preached democracy but violated its fundamental principles.Already speaking to a half-empty chamber, his attacks on the US and its allies - including Israel's barbaric attack on the Gaza Strip, its inhuman policies in the Palestinian territories and its domination of world political and economic affairs - prompted a walkout by the US delegation.
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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