Bridge honors Mass., RI couple killed on 9/11 (AP)

ATTLEBORO, Mass. – Before the politicians and the cameras showed up, Ellen and Bill Goodchild took an unhurried stroll on the bridge that now bears their daughter's name. There were no tears; just smiles for the child they lost on 9/11.

Lynn Goodchild and her boyfriend, both 25, died in the attack on the World Trade Center towers.

"If they named a mailbox after my daughter I'd be happy," Ellen Goodchild, of Attleboro, told The Associated Press. "She would be like, `They're naming a bridge after me? We were just a couple of kids!' For them to be remembered 10 years later, and for total strangers to come up with the idea, it's just wonderful."

Lynn Goodchild was heading to Hawaii for a vacation with boyfriend Shawn Nassaney when their United Airlines Flight was hijacked and flown into the South Tower. On Thursday, the Goodchilds joined the Nassaneys to dedicate the rebuilt and renamed "Lynn Goodchild Shawn Nassaney 9/11 Remembrance Memorial Bridge."

The bridge arches over a rail line and connects Attleboro and Pawtucket, R.I. It also connected Goodchild and Nassaney during their relationship.

"She lived in Attleboro, he lived in Pawtucket," said Patrick Nassaney, Shawn Nassaney's father. "I'm sure they came over this bridge a thousand times."

The 9/11 attacks ended what by all accounts was a promising future for Goodchild and Nassaney. They met while attending Bryant University in Smithfield, R.I. Nassaney worked in sales at American Power Conversion in Rhode Island. Goodchild was an administrator at Putnam Investments in Massachusetts. Both were working on their MBAs at Providence College and planned to marry once they graduated.

Both were hardworking, athletic and fun-loving, their parents said. He was a runner and she was president of the college martial arts club. They loved to travel.

In the nearly 10 years since 9/11 the Goodchilds and Nassaneys have stayed in close contact, connected by shared tragedy. Goodchild's family created a memorial foundation in her name. Nassaney's family set up a scholarship in his name and holds an annual charity golf tournament and a 5k run.

"It really doesn't heal," Patrick Nassaney said of his grief. "There's no such thing as closure. As you go on, it's like dust. It builds up a veneer."

What helps is knowing that your child isn't forgotten, he said. That's why he was delighted when the Goodchilds called four days ago and told them that city leaders had asked that the County Street Bridge be renamed in honor of Goodchild and Nassaney.

"He would have said, `I have a bridge? Cool! Let's put a toll on it," Patrick Nassaney said.

More than 100 residents turned out for Thursday's dedication ceremony on the bridge. The mayors of Attleboro and Pawtucket spoke. So did Massachusetts state Rep. George Ross, R-Attleboro, who choked up when he mentioned the young couple. "We must keep their memories alive," he told the crowd.

The two families together pulled down the cover that had hidden the new name of the bridge. The crowd cheered.

"It's a good bridge," Ellen Goodchild said, all smiles.

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6 suspected militants killed in Mauritania (AP)

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania – A Mauritanian military spokesman said six militants suspected of belonging to al-Qaida's affiliate in North Africa were killed during a clash earlier this week.

Col. Tiyid Ould Brahim said Mauritanian soldiers found their bodies after Tuesday's attack in the town of Bassiknou. The attackers were believed to belong to Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM. They opened fire on a Mauritanian military base, attacking in a convoy of more than 20 cars, but were pushed back.

The army said Thursday soldiers barricaded the base and fought back. There were no casualties on the Mauritanian side.

AQIM has become increasingly bold in recent years, leading attacks on foreign targets and on Mauritanian government buildings and military installations.

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NATO says it has killed a senior Haqqani militant in Afghanistan (The Christian Science Monitor)

New Delhi – The NATO-led international force in Afghanistan said it killed Wednesday a high-level insurgent commander it suspects provided “material support” to the terrorist assault Tuesday on the InterContinental Hotel. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says it killed a man named Ismail Jan in an airstrike over eastern Afghanistan. According to ISAF, Ismail Jan was a deputy to the senior commander in Afghanistan for the Haqqani Network, a faction of the Taliban-led insurgency. However, local journalists in Paktia Province, reached by the Monitor, report no knowledge of any airstrike nor of a commander named Ismail Jan.

So far, the response to the InterContinental has offered a window into the US approach to the Afghan conflict for the years to come.

The response during the hotel raid involved Afghan forces on the front lines with an option to call for backup [see story on how the raid tested Afghan security skills]. And the swift retaliatory strike the next day a€“ if it indeed happened a€“ fits the intelligence-driven, focused strikes that the Obama administration wants to rely more on in the US effort to combat terrorism.

RELATED Kabul raid shows Taliban's strength, tests Afghan security coordination

A key advantage of this strategy is that it requires far fewer troops. One disadvantage, however, is that it relies heavily on Afghan political support for the sort of missions that have come under the heaviest local criticisms: bombings and special forces raids.

Such operations often result in complaints from residents that those targeted were in fact innocents a€“ charges that are sometimes true and often reported nationwide.

IN PICTURES: Far from home: US soldiers serving in Afghanistan

Another disputed incidentThis type of dispute occurred once again today following a separate coalition raid conducted Wednesday in Zurmat district of Paktia Province. An ISAF press release claims that two Haqqani Network insurgents were killed during a hunt for a Haqqani leader. Residents say that among those killed were a student in the 9th grade, Mohammad Afzal, and his brother, a farmer named Mohammad Anwar, according to local journalist Ihsanullah Mahjoor. Mr. Mahjoor says he went to the village and saw school documentation showing Azfal was a student and spoke to his teacher who said Azfal was not against the government. An ISAF spokesman declined further comment. President Hamid Karzai, under mounting public pressure, has previously criticized ISAF airstrikes and special operations raids. After 2014, the US ability to have access to bases to stage such attacks will depend on ongoing negotiations in Kabul. Many Afghans as well as Afghanistan’s neighbors deeply oppose a continued US military presence in any form.

US attempts to keep even a minimal presence in next-door Pakistan are steadily unraveling. On Wednesday, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Chaudhry Mukhtar announced that the government told the US to vacate Shamsi, an air base in southwest Pakistan that has housed drones.

What the Haqqani network has to do with itThe ISAF report announcing Ismail Jan’s killing also assigned responsibility for the InterContinental attack on the Haqqani Network “in conjunction with Taliban operatives.”

According to ISAF, the "material support" given by Ismail Jan consisted of fighters, weapons, and training. He also assisted in providing accommodation and facilitated movement for the fighters.

In a phone interview yesterday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid refused to give the name of the commander in the fight, but he said the main person in charge of the operation was the insurgency’s shadow governor for Kabul. The level of sophistication of the attack suggested it came from the Haqqanis, not other Afghan insurgents, says Christine Fair, a regional expert at Georgetown University in Washington. The Haqqani Network is led by Afghan warlord Jaluluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin. The group has a strong presence in eastern Afghanistan and a haven in the North Waziristan tribal agency of Pakistan. The group remains a major point of contention between the US and Pakistan. The US wants Pakistan to launch a military offensive into North Waziristan to eliminate the Haqqanis and a host of other Islamic militant groups living alongside them. The Pakistan military, echoing some of Obama’s latest war rhetoric, has said it will consider targeted, intelligence-driven operations in North Waziristan, but appears disinclined to launch a full-scale ground assault.

Kabul raid shows Taliban's strength, tests Afghan security coordination

IN PICTURES: Far from home: US soldiers serving in Afghanistan

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Official: 17 killed in terror camp raid in Mali (AP)

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania – A Mauritanian colonel who led a military raid last week on a suspected al-Qaida camp in the neighboring nation of Mali says that 17 people were killed during the operation.

Col. Brahim Fall Ould Cheibani told a news conference Sunday that his men carried out the raid on Friday in the Wagadou region of Mali, a forested area bordering Mauritania.

He says those killed included two Mauritanian soldiers and 15 members of the terrorist cell.

Al-Qaida's African affiliate is known to operate in the deserts and remote forests between the two countries. The group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of dozens of foreigners, as well as a series of attacks on Mauritanian military installations and government buildings.

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German court to free woman that killed US soldier (AP)

BERLIN – A German court decided Friday to release a former Red Army Faction terrorist that was involved in a murder of a U.S. soldier in 1985 and a deadly bombing at a U.S. military base.

Birgit Hogefeld's parole request was granted after serving 18 years in prison because of her "positive development," Frankfurt state court said, noting she finished a college degree through distance learning and started to work on a Ph.D.

She was serving a life sentence for her role in the attacks. A 2008 court ruling had found that Hogefeld could only be considered for parole upon completing 18 years of her life sentence in prison given the "severity of the crimes" she committed.

Hogefeld was a member of the leftist Red Army Faction terrorist group, which emerged from German student protests against the Vietnam War.

The terror group waged a violent, 22-year campaign against what members considered U.S. imperialism and capitalist oppression of workers. It killed 34 people and wounded hundreds of others before declaring itself disbanded in 1998.

In 2007 and 2010, then President Horst Koehler rejected requests for clemency from Hogefeld.

At her 1996 trial, the court found Hogefeld guilty of luring U.S. Army Spc. Edward Pimental of New York City out of a disco near Mainz in 1985 to obtain his military ID. He was later found shot in the head in nearby woods.

The ID card was then used to get a Volkswagen sedan packed with about 530 pounds (240 kilograms) of explosives onto the U.S. Air Force Rhine-Main Air Base as people were arriving for work the next morning.

Airman 1st Class Frank H. Scarton, 19, of Woodhaven, Michigan, and Becky Joe Bristol, a civilian Air Force employee from San Antonio, were killed by the blast and more than 20 others were wounded.

Hogefeld was arrested in 1993 and was later convicted of murder in the deaths of Pimental, Scarton and Bristol.

It wasn't immediately clear when she would be released.

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Man behind failed Moscow terror attacks killed in Russia (AFP)

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russian forces have killed three men including an organiser of failed New Year terror attacks in Moscow when they put up resistance during a routine security check in the unrest-infested Caucasus, police said on Saturday.

Late Friday police and the FSB security service officers killed three men in Dagestan after their attempts to stop a suspicious-looking car met with resistance, regional police said.

The attackers began shooting at the security forces and were killed by return fire.

Police identified one of the assailants killed near the village of Manas as Kamil Magomedov, who it said was behind the failed bombings that were supposed to rock Moscow on the New Year's Eve.

"He looked after those who sought to organise the attacks in Moscow on December 31 when Zavzhat Daudova blew herself up," a spokeswoman for Dagestani police told AFP.

Russian investigators said at the time the Russian capital had escaped twin suicide bombings on the last day of 2010 by a sheer stroke of luck as Daudova had accidentally set off her suicide belt before heading into the city centre.

The second potential suicide bomber fled after the explosion but was later arrested.

Russia is fighting an Islamist insurgency in the North Caucasus, where it fought two wars with Chechen separatists in the 1990s, and the Caspian region of Dagestan has experienced some of the deadliest violence.

Islamic militants are seeking to establish an independent state across the North Caucasus and vowed to make 2011 a year of "blood and tears" for Russia.

In January, a suicide bomber from the Caucasus blew himself up at Russia's biggest Domodedovo airport, killing 36 and injuring more than 100.

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Two terror suspects killed in Indonesia raid (AFP)

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesian police killed two terror suspects during a raid early Saturday, following an arrest of four suspected terrorists a day earlier over a series of recent terror incidents.

"The two men on a motorcycle tried to escape and opened fire on police personnel," national police deputy spokesman I Ketut Untung Yoga Ana told AFP, adding that the suspects were killed on the spot.

The incident took place in Sukoharjo in Central Java province at 01:15 am (1815GMT). During the exchange of fire, one of the suspected terrorists shot dead a food seller on the street, the police said.

Police have arrested dozens of suspects allegedly part of a new militant cell believed to have been behind a series of recent incidents, including book bombs which were sent to Muslim moderates and counter-terrorism officials.

The cell was also linked to a suicide bomb attack last month in a prayer room at a police compound in Cirebon of West Java.

Police also foiled a bid to set off a massive bomb near a church on the outskirts of Jakarta at Easter. No one was killed in those incidents.

Indonesia has been rocked by a series of attacks staged by regional terror network Jemaah Islamiyah in recent years, including the 2002 Bali bombings which killed 202 people.

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2 suspects, vendor killed in Indonesia terror raid (AP)

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Indonesia's anti-terrorism forces killed two suspected militants in a predawn raid in Central Java on Saturday, a police spokesman said.

A nearby rice vendor was killed in crossfire during the raid early in the day in Sukoharjo district, said national police spokesman Col. Boy Rafli Amar.

He identified the suspects as Sigit Qurdowi, a leader of a little-known Islamist militant group called Hisbah, and his bodyguard, Hendro Yulianto.

Amar says the two suspects are among fugitives wanted for a church attack in Central Java last year. He says they are also believed to have links to a terrorist network in the West Java district of Cirebon.

"They have planned attacks against police," Amar said, adding that the two resisted arrest.

A number of terrorist suspects have been arrested following a suicide bombing last month at a mosque in Cirebon that wounded 30 people, mostly policemen.

Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has been battling extremists since 2002 when al-Qaida-linked militants attacked two nightclubs on Bali island, killing 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

Saturday's raid came two days after the arrest of four other suspects in nearby district of Solo. Their arrest brought to 10 the number of terrorist suspects arrested in connection with the April 15 bombing.

They include Muhammad Basuki, a younger brother of suicide bomber Muhammad Syarif.

Last week, police retrieved six bombs similar to the one used by Syarif, dumped into a river in Cirebon by a suspect after he knew that police were looking for him.

Police believe one of the bombs was prepared for another suicide attack by Basuki.

Police confiscated a number of firearms, grenades and more than 500 bullets and jihad books in the arrests and latest raid.

Brig. Gen. Untung Yoga Ana said the rice vendor, Nur Iman, was believed to be hit by a gunshot fired by Qurdowi on Saturday.

Also last month, police arrested some 20 suspects in connection with a series of mail bombs sent to liberal Muslim activists and a former anti-terrorism chief in March and plot to attack a church during Easter celebrations.

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