Thursday, December 24, 2009 BEIRUT: Security officials say police have detained a man suspected of shooting this week at a bus heading from northern Lebanon to neighboring Syria.Monday's shooting left one Syrian passenger dead and raised concerns about the timing — coming just days after Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri's highly charged visit to Syria.The officials say the suspect, identified as Shawki al-Nazer, had argued in the past with the bus driver. He opened fire on the bus from a nearby rooftop.The officials said on Wednesday the suspect had no political motive. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.Hariri has blamed Damascus for the 2005 assassination of his father. Syria denies involvement.
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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