BRIEFS

WORLD

BAGHDAD – The U.S. military acknowledged it killed
15 civilians – including nine children – and wounded four
others in an operation yesterday targeting what it called
senior leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.

The statement said 19 suspected insurgents also were
killed in the attack in a region northwest of Baghdad.
American forces have applied fierce and determined pressure
on militants, especially al-Qaida in Iraq, since the full
contingent of additional U.S. troops arrived June 15.

But Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has recently
confronted American commander Gen. David Petraeus
about what he sees as overly aggressive U.S. tactics that
harm innocent civilians, according to Iraqi officials. The
military statement detailing the air and ground assault
said soldiers were acting on intelligence reports about
an al-Qaida meeting in the Lake Tharthar region, about
50 miles northwest of the capital.

The American account said U.S. surveillance confirmed
“activity consistent with the reports and supporting aircraft
engaged the time-sensitive target.” The U.S. statement
said a first air attack killed “four terrorists.”

“After securing the area, the ground force assessed
15 terrorists, six women and nine children were killed,”
the statement said. Two suspected al-Qaida members, a
woman and three children were wounded, according to
the military account.

NATION

NEW ORLEANS – A black teenager whose prosecution
in the beating of a white classmate drew thousands to
Louisiana for a civil rights demonstration is back in jail,
but a prosecutor said Friday the sentence has nothing
to do with the racially charged case.

Mychal Bell, 17, was unexpectedly sent back to
prison on Thursday after going to juvenile court in
central Louisiana’s LaSalle Parish for what he expected
to be a routine hearing, Carol Powell Lexing, one of his
attorneys said.

Instead, state District Judge J.P. Mauffrey Jr. decided Bell
had violated probation and sentenced him to 18 months
in jail on two counts of simple battery and two counts
of criminal destruction of property, Lexing said.

The case has drawn the attention of civil rights activists,
including the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

“We feel this was a cruel and unusual punishment and
is a revenge by this judge for the Jena Six movement,” said
Sharpton, who helped organize the protest held Sept. 20,
the day Bell was originally supposed to be sentenced.

Bell, who was 16 at the time, was convicted in June
of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to
commit that crime. LaSalle Parish prosecutor Reed Walters
reduced the charges just before the trial. Since then, both
of those convictions were dismissed and tossed back to
juvenile court, where they now are being tried.

LOCAL

ROANOKE – As the six-month anniversary of the
Virginia Tech massacre approaches, a lawyer representing
20 people killed or injured in the April shootings has begun
notifying the town and the state about possible lawsuits.

Blacksburg Town Attorney Larry Spencer said he
received notices Friday from Peter Grenier, a personal
injury lawyer in Washington, D.C., of possible lawsuits
claiming negligence by the town and its employees.

More than two hours elapsed between the dormitory
slayings and Cho’s rampage at Norris Hall, and
police initially thought the first shootings were an act of
domestic violence. Grenier’s notices to the town alleged
that Blacksburg police, who were among officers who
responded, “failed to conduct a reasonably thorough and
professionally appropriate investigation.”

Grenier also contended that town officials failed to take
steps to protect Virginia Tech students.

No lawsuits have yet been filed stemming from the
shootings on the university’s Blacksburg campus, where
mentally disturbed student Seung-Hui Cho killed two
people in a dormitory and 30 in a classroom building
before taking his own life.