THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ VI

R.I. pastor is killed in ambush in Iraq

By Jared Stearns, Globe Correspondent, 2/17/2004

Knowing that he would be in Iraq on Valentine's Day, the Rev. John Kelley of Wakefield, R.I., had a bouquet of flowers delivered to his wife, Jane, on Saturday. Hours later, Jane Kelley was told that her husband had been killed in an ambush attack when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle outside Baghdad.


Three other missionaries from the Northeast were injured in the attack, including one from Franklin, Mass., according to relatives and friends.

Sam Stricklin, a pastor at the First Baptist Church in Warwick, R.I., said he had known Kelley since the pastor arrived about 18 years ago at the Curtis Corner Baptist Church in rural Wakefield.

"This hits close to home with me," Stricklin said by phone last night. Stricklin was in Baghdad a month ago doing missionary work similar to that of the pastors who were attacked Saturday.

The Rev. Kirk DiVietro, of the Grace Baptist Church in Franklin, and the Rev. David Davis, of the Grace Bible Baptist Church in Vernon, Conn., and a minister from Newburgh, N.Y., were also injured in the ambush.

"Apparently, a car pulled out from behind them and emptied two magazines into the car," said DiVietro's daughter, Kate Pettit, 30, of Wrentham. "My dad was sitting behind the driver . . . He took some shrapnel on the back of his head and his hand."

Pettit said the men were coming back from Babylon when they were ambushed. The driver of the vehicle, who was not injured, immediately took the passengers to a hospital, she said.

She spoke with her 51-year-old father on Saturday night. "He's doing well," she said. "His injuries are very minor compared to what they could be. He seems to be in a very good frame of mind." DiVietro should be back in the United States on Friday, Pettit said. He had never been to Iraq before, she said, but traveled to Jordan in August for two weeks to do some training.

She said the ministers went to Iraq to help establish a church there. They left the United States on Feb. 6 and were expecting to stay for two weeks.

Davis, who has been a pastor at Grace Bible Baptist Church since 1983, suffered minor injuries, according to his wife Dorothy. "I talked to him Saturday and briefly this morning," she said yesterday. "I don't really know all the particulars, just that it was minor."

Roland Vukic, a member of Curtis Corner Baptist Church, said he was told of the attack in a phone call Saturday from another pastor in Iraq.

The US military in Baghdad confirmed yesterday that gunmen killed an American Baptist minister from Rhode Island and wounded three other pastors, but did not identify them.

US paratroopers learned of Saturday's attack while conducting a patrol in the town of Mahmudiyah, about 15 miles south of Baghdad, and were told the Americans were being treated at a hospital there.

Stricklin said he hadn't known that Kelley was going on the trip. The wife of another Rhode Island pastor who coordinates the trips heard from her husband that Kelley had been killed and asked Stricklin to go with her to inform his wife.

"I thought I was going to have to inform her, and I was nauseated," he said. But when they arrived, Kelley's wife already knew.

Stricklin said they talked to Kelley's wife and youngest daughter, one of the couple's four children. Jane Kelley told him that her husband had been looking forward to the trip, Stricklin said.

"I know he really felt like he was going to be of some benefit and service to the people," he said. "When we were there, the Iraqi people were very thrilled we came."

Kelley, a former Marine originally from South Carolina, was devoted to his church, Stricklin said. The church is a close-knit community of about 120 parishioners, he said. "It's very difficult for them," Stricklin said of the parishioners. "He was a very hard-working guy."

Stricklin said the group of ministers were coming back from visiting an Old Testament site in Babylon when they were attacked, but he doesn't believe they were informed of the potential dangers of traveling outside the facility where they were staying. "They should have never been able to get into a taxi with one Iraqi driver," he said. "They had to be targeted. This was not just a random thing."

Stricklin said Kelley's body was returned to the United States yesterday and a funeral is scheduled for Feb. 24.

"The tragic part is, it's so senseless," Stricklin said.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

There's an interesting article in today's newspaper about Afghanistan; that women fear going outside because of rape and mistreatment by men - except in Kabul. In Bush's quest to overthrow Saddam, he forgot the war he started in Afghanistan - the promises he made and broke. Rah, rah, USA. blaugh.....

U.S. Intelligence Official: Qaeda Posed Plane Threat
By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Al Qaeda has deployed operatives to hijack planes and fly them into targets in an echo of the Sept. 11 attacks and is looking at derailing trains possibly carrying hazardous material, according to a top U.S. intelligence official.

Robert Hutchings, chairman of the National Intelligence Council which reports to the CIA director, did not give details of the plots but provided the most recent public outline from an intelligence official of the al Qaeda threat.

The network, blamed for the Sept 11, 2001, attacks that killed 3,000 people, seeks targets that would strike a blow to the U.S. economy, Hutchings said in a Jan. 14 speech to the International Security Management Association in Arizona, the text of which was posted on Feb. 4 on the NIC's Web site.

"Soft targets, including the U.S. stock market, banks, major companies, and tall buildings are a primary focus of active al Qaeda planning," he said.

Those targets are seen as easier to hit than U.S. government buildings and major infrastructure, which have higher security, Hutchings said.

Al Qaeda has looked at derailing trains, perhaps carrying hazardous materials, to attack U.S. interests, he said.

Nuclear power plants, water treatment facilities, and other public utilities are high on al Qaeda's target list, he said.

The U.S. government is concerned that al Qaeda will try to take its ability to build truck bombs as demonstrated by past attacks in Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and marry it with toxic or radioactive material to increase the damage and psychological impact of an attack, Hutchings said.

"My biggest worry, however, is how far al Qaeda might have progressed in being able to deploy a chemical, nuclear, or biological weapon against the United States or its allies," he said.

U.S. authorities have found several examples of al Qaeda adjusting its tactics to circumvent increased airline security, Hutchings said, without providing details.

"Although we have disrupted several airline plots, we have not eliminated the threat to airplanes," he said. "There are still al Qaeda operatives who we believe have been deployed to hijack planes and fly them into key targets."

The United States has beefed up security at airports and on airlines. There were a spate of flight cancellations since late December because of potential threats.

U.S. authorities have succeeded in disrupting the network, Hutchings said. "We have disrupted scores of plots at home and abroad -- plots that were audacious in terms of the numbers of attacks under consideration and their global scope," he said.


02/17/04 15:26

McGent, People like you will never "get it."

Are women in Afghanistan free to work now?

Are women in Afghanistan free to educate them selves now?

Are women in Afghanistan free to see a doctor now?

Are women in Afghanistan free to hold public office now?

What is it exactly that you are whining about? Is it Sharia law? Is it the fact that Afghanistan is a tribal country? Is it that you just need something to whine about?

Is it the fact that certain posters live with blinders on?