WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is pursuing plans to hand control of its largest prison in Afghanistan to that country’s government, but wants Kabul to let the American military hold terrorism suspects from other countries there, according to U.S. officials.
If Afghan officials agree, it would give the administration a place to hold and interrogate terrorism suspects captured elsewhere around the world. President Barack Obama wants to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, leaving the administration without a lockup for those suspected of plotting attacks against the U.S.
Administration officials are developing a compromise plan to hand over control of the U.S.-run prison at Bagram air base over to Afghans, but also to carve out a section of the prison for non-Afghan detainees who would remain under U.S. custody, according to a senior U.S. official.
Texas: Two killed in gas line explosion, 2nd in two days
Two men removing clay from a pit with a bulldozer in a remote part of the Texas Panhandle were killed when a natural-gas line exploded, a sheriff said Tuesday. The blast near Darrouzett, about 270 miles northeast of Lubbock, was the second fatal natural gas explosion in Texas in as many days. On Monday, a worker was killed when a utility crew accidentally hit and ruptured a natural gas line in rural Johnson County.
Massachussets: Fisherman catch mustard gas shells
State and federal officials on Tuesday were decontaminating a clam boat anchored off Massachusetts after it dredged up old munitions containing mustard gas, severely sickening a crewman. The Coast Guard believes one of the shells cracked or otherwise leaked its contents. The Coast Guard was trying to locate the two military shells, which the crew tossed overboard. The military used the ocean as a dumping ground for munitions from after World War II through 1970.
D.C.: Charitable giving falls
Charitable giving fell by 3.6 percent last year as Americans continued to struggle with the recession, according to an authoritative annual survey released today. Americans donated $303.75 billion during 2009, the second worst year since 1956, when the Giving USA Foundation started conducting its surveys. The worst year was 1974, when giving fell an inflation-adjusted 5.5 percent. However, 2009 also was the third-straight year giving reached more than $300 billion.
New York: Lawmakers want restrictions on prepaid cells
Alarmed by the use of hard-to-track prepaid cell phones by terror suspects, Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas, have introduced legislation requiring consumers to produce identification before buying such phones.
New Jersey: Terror suspect said to be dangerous as a student
One of two terrorism suspects arrested at an airport Saturday was considered so dangerous as a student that he was removed from the local high school and was taught in a private room at a public library with a security guard present, school officials said Tuesday. They said it was not a specific incident but more a pattern of behavior to make them consider Mohamed Mahmood Alessa dangerous. Authorities say Alessa, 20, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, tried to fly out of New York’s Kennedy Airport on Saturday in hopes of getting terrorism training in Somalia.
Afghanistan: 2 U.S. troops die, making 24 deaths in June
Two American troops were killed by a roadside bomb and a British soldier was shot dead on patrol Tuesday, raising the NATO death toll in Afghanistan to 24 in little more than a week. Fourteen Americans have been killed so far this month, half of them on Monday.
From Herald news services
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