2 killed, including the agent, at the Memphis Hotel - Seattle Post Intelligencer

MEMPHIS, Tennessee (AP) - A police officer and another person died of their wounds after having been shot Sunday evening in a Memphis Hotel, located in the neighbourhood of the entertainment of the city filled with people celebrating the Fourth of July. A suspect was in custody.Director of police Toney said Armstrong officer Timothy Warren, a Department since 2003 patrol officer, died in Center.Warren medical regional among several officers responding to a call to the Doubletree Hotel around 7 a.m. on Sunday. A civilian casualty was also filmed and died in what officials said began as a domestic dispute.Armstrong was Director of the police service of Memphis for only a few months. "" Even if you had been the Director of 20 years, it is a call that you hope you don't ever get ", he said.WMC - TV reported that police had responded earlier in the night to the call for disruption involving the same suspect, but let go. When they were recalled, the officer who shot takes the stairs while other officers takes the elevator.Police cars and officers armed invading the hotel and its surroundings. The hotel is located at a busy intersection adjacent to the historic hotel of Peabody and the Memphis Redbirds minor league Stadium. A game is in progress and fireworks were planned after the match.Joel Miller of Maryland attended a meeting of family at the hotel. He told the Commercial Appeal that it gets in an elevator with the suspect, who was wearing shorts and a plaid shirt.Miller he "seemed to be off," said the newspaper, "as he was out of it."Miller said that man has descended on the third floor, he pulled out a pistol from his pocket. "He looked and pointed his finger and made like that", Miller said, claiming the fire a weapon.

Hotel Maid accusing Strauss-Kahn of rape would have worked as a prostitute - Fox News

The New York City hotel maid who accused the former Fund International Monetary Chief Dominique Strauss Kahn of sexual assault has worked as a prostitute, the new york Post reports.

A close investigation of defence source told the Post that the Sofitel Hotel housekeeper would have sex with men invited to the hotel for the money.

"It y information... its obtaining extraordinary Councils," the source told the post.

The source also stated that the maid had "lots of expenses - hair braiding, fresh show - paid by not related to his men".

Friday, gave them pause for Strauss-Kahn walked out of court free on bail after prosecutors said a survey of the extensive experience of the housekeeper Hotel accusing him of sexual assault.

The servant accused Hotel Strauss-Kahn, to hunt him through its suite of luxury in may, trying to pull his tights and forcing them to perform oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn had been free on $ 6 million in cash and bond, but under house arrest for the weeks in a gentle loft in Manhattan. The charges, which include attempting to rape, have not been reduced, but the move signals that prosecutors believe not the charges are as absolute as they once seemed.

District of Manhattan Prosecutor's Office revealed that 32-year-old woman had committed a multitude of minor fraud to better his life to the United States since its arrival in the country, seven years including effigy on the immigration formalities, cheating on his taxes and poorly formulated his income so that she could live in an apartment reserved for the poor.

In a letter to counsel for Strauss-Kahn, prosecutors also said that she had made false as it did immediately after the attack alleged Strauss-Kahn - instead of escaping its suite of luxury in a corridor and wait for a supervisor, she goes to clean up another piece and then returned to clean suite of Strauss-Kahn before reporting the meeting.

Attorney of District of Manhattan Cyrus Vance told journalists after the hearing that the investigation of sex assault alleged at the Sofitel Hotel "raised concerns about the credibility of the witness of the complainant."

"It's a great relief," said the Attorney for Strauss-Kahn William Taylor, adding that the case highlighted "" how it is easy for people to be charged with serious crimes and that there was a rush to judgment.""

"It's so important in this country that people, especially the media, refrain from judgment until the facts are all in,", he said.

But Attorney of the accuser not to return to the seriousness of the charges, told journalists that the claim of Strauss-Khan of consensual sexual intercourse is a "lie".

"On the first day she described a violent sexual assault Dominique Strauss-Kahn committed against it," Attorney Ken Thompson said.

"She described that sexual assault several times, prosecutors and me, and it has never changed one thing about this meeting," he said. "Here, the victim may have made a few mistakes, but this does not mean that it is not a rape victim."

He also referred to media reports that his client was involved with a drug trafficker, calling them lies.

"The DA may be about to abandon the victim, but we will not abandon him.". We will comply with it, "said Thompson.

Vance said her Office is committed to the truth and will continue to investigate thoroughly alleged crime.

"The defence of the rights of victims of sexual crime is among the highest priorities of the Office," Vance told journalists. "We believe that we have any to support and maintain privacy and keep safe, and we will continue to do so."

Strauss-Kahn arrived at the courthouse Friday morning in a Lexus SUVS and confidently strode up the steps of granite with his wife, French journalist Anne Sinclair. He was wearing a dark grey suit, it has a white jacket.

After the hearing, he walked slowly out of the courthouse with his arm on his shoulder, smile slightly to the crowd that themselves are gathered outside.

His passport remained surrender, and it is not even allowed to leave the country. His lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, said that Strauss-Kahn would be free to travel to the United States.

Jana winter of FoxNews.com and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Leader of attack on Kabul Hotel killed by aircraft of the NATO - The Guardian

A military helicopter of the NATO plane on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, after he was attacked by fighters Taliban photography: S Sabawoon/EPA

The NATO planes killed one insurgent linked to a deadly attack hotel in the Afghan capital, this week, the coalition said a raid raises questions about whether if Afghan forces are prepared for the impending transition of security.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Intercontinental, one of two major hotels used by foreigners and representatives of the Afghan Government, a rare nighttime raid which began Tuesday and ended five hours later with 12 killed.

However, the International Security Assistance Force led by NATO (ISAF) said that the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network had also participated in the assault by nine suicide bombers and gunmen.

ISAF has identified the leader of the Haqqani network, killed in an air attack: Jan Ismail, described as a Deputy to the senior Commander Haqqani in Afghanistan, Haji Mali Khan.

He said Thursday he and "several Haqqani fighters" were killed in an air attack in the province of Paktia Gardez district South of Kabul on Wednesday.

"The Haqqani network, in conjunction with Taliban secret agents, was responsible for the attack on Tuesday night at the Hotel Intercontinental in Kabul, which killed 12 people, including a provincial judge," ISAF said in a statement.

The raid came only a week after the President of United States, Barack Obama, announced the progressive withdrawal of combat troops, with 10 000 to leave at the end of this year and 23 000 more at the end of September 2012.

Announcement of the Obama prior to the beginning of a gradual transition of responsibility to the Afghan forces next month that will end with all foreign combat troops, leaving the Afghanistan at the end of 2014.

This process to begin in seven fields next month, the raid on the hotel raised serious questions about whether the Afghan forces, including the police, were ready to support.

"It shows one of the concerns is that the Afghan security forces is more in quantity, not quality," said Thomas Ruttig, Co-Director of the network based in Kabul to Afghanistan analysts.

The attack ended when a helicopter of the NATO sniper killed the last three attackers fighting from the roof of the hotel. Earlier television images showed the Afghan forces firing heavily in the air.

ISAF training of members of the Afghan national police of 126,000 - strong since 2009.

Afghan police, who will be the front line of security transition in towns and villages across the Afghanistan, have long been considered inept and behind the formation of the dindisie army, which was the subject of the efforts of training since the Taliban was overthrown late 2001.

Violence has increased to record levels in Afghanistan over the past 18 months as NATO troops, especially, American forces struck against a growing insurgency, especially in the heart of the Taliban in the South.

A quarterly report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Security Council on the Afghanistan concluded that the number of incidents of security since March had increased 51% over the same period in 2010, with suicide bombings rises sharply.

Attacks in the heart of the Taliban in Kandahar have been particular concern. "The city of Kandahar and its environs recording the majority of incidents during the reporting period, with a quarter of global attacks" and more than half of all registered killings countrywide, the report said.

But, Ruttig, stated that also developed attack revealed that the other difficulties encountered in Afghanistan before the start of the transition process, which also includes the delivery to Afghans the functioning of civil institutions and projects.

Is policy paralysis prevailing in the country for months.

"The fact that NATO and the Afghan people were able to avoid that it says something - which must be something more than just the security of the transition," Ruttig said the hotel attack.

"Security forces are only part of the transition." It must also be a strengthening of political institutions and, at the moment, the parliamentary crisis has brought political to a standstill, "he told Reuters."

Last week a Court of special election created by a decree by President Hamid Karzai, cancelled the results of a quarter of parliamentary seats since the elections of last year, effectively throwing 62 MPs who had been declared winners.

The move and the Court itself, were tagged unconstitutional and illegal by observers and Afghan officials to the West. Critics have said that the Court has been put in place by Karzai to pursue its own political opposition of the order of the day and silence.

Attack on Kabul Hotel: Afghan officials be deterred by "Enemy Coward" - ABC News

Afghan officials said today they would not be deterred by the "cowardly enemies" who attacked Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul late Tuesday night in a brazen attack that left 20 dead.

"The transition process will be, and these cowardly enemies will not stop our plans," Ashraf Ghani transition Committee Chairman said, according to Associated Press.

More than five hours after the insurgents triggered a deadly Kabul Intercontinental Hotel Tuesday assault commandos night, Afghan night vision goggles was able to return to the hotel with the help of the NATO forces special operations - but not before nine civilians, the two police officers and the nine attackers were killed. The Taliban claimed the attack shortly after the start.

Afghan officials, including provincial governors, were having dinner at the Intercontinental ahead of a Conference on the transition of security that begins today, but none have been killed in the attack, Afghan Interior Minister General Bismillah Khan Mohammadi said. Afghan forces are scheduled to take charge of security in some parts of the country from July.

Earlier this month following President Obama ordered the army to withdraw more than 30,000 soldiers of the Afghanistan by the summer 2012, part of a three year and a half transition plan that will provide some security features in seven provinces and cities of the police and the Afghan army. Tuesday attack, Obama, said today, shows that U.S. in the country "is not working."

"The Taliban are still active [and] it is still being of events like that on occassion," Obama said in a press conference. "[But] Kabul is much safer was." Afghan forces in Kabul are much more capable than they were. Which does not mean that they will not be events as this potentially is and probably will for a period of time. »

NATO ends standoff with rockets

At least a suicide bomber explodes himself at the entrance of the hotel late Tuesday evening, and at least four explosions were heard.

But the battle ended only after special operations forces troops in a NATO helicopter overflew the hotel shot three insurgents on the roof. Two Americans were in the hotel attack, but the two survived, according to the United States Embassy in Kabul. A Spanish pilot was killed in the attack, according to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who expressed his condolences in a press release.

It is not known if there were a particular target in the hotel, located on a hill overlooking the city, or if the target was the hotel itself.

The attack occurred while the guests were having dinner and at least two marriages took place. Police said they cut the power at the hotel and the area surrounding whole, cordoning off streets leading to the hotel.

The Intercontinental Hotel is the most famous hotel in Afghanistan and one of the icons of Kabul, where many Western and Afghan officials remain and hold meetings.

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Ten people killed in the attack on Kabul Hotel - voice of America

Afghan security officer directing vehicles near the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, June 28, 2011

At least six suicide bombers and gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in the Afghan capital, Kabul, late Tuesday and early reports indicate that 10 people were killed.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack of the Intercontinental Hotel.   Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, said the Group was targeting foreign guests, and that the attackers were killed or wounded at least 50 people.  However, the Taliban often exaggerates the number of victims in attacks against Western and Afghan Government targets.

The head of the Kabul police crime unit, Mohammad Zahir, said that several police officers were injured in the fighting, while witnesses reported at least three loud explosions and gunfire inside and outside the hotel.

Ministry of Interior spokesman Sidiq Sidiqqi said the suicide bombers detonated themselves or were killed and two Taliban insurgents have continued to fire from the roof Wednesday at the start.

Police blocked streets leading to the hotel, situated on a hill that overlooks the Afghan capital and said that the entire area in darkness.  Shortly after, the national army Afghan commando unit arrived on the scene.

The attack occurred on the eve of a Conference on the gradual transition of responsibility civilian and military forces to the Afghan people.

In other acts of violence Tuesday, NATO said three of its members in service are dead in attacks by insurgents and separate bomb in the South of the Afghanistan.

Also in the South, the authorities have declared a bomb killed two women and wounded a child in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province.

Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.

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Money in motion
Philip Alexiou report combating the illegal trade in ivory of observation.