Al-Qaida ‘imploding,’ U.S. officials say

Al-Qaida ‘imploding,’ U.S. officials say

WASHINGTON — Top U.S. counterterrorism officials Monday said al-Qaida is “imploding” and that its violent tactics have turned Muslims worldwide against the organization.

“Absolutely it’s imploding. It’s imploding because it’s not a message that resonates with a lot of Muslims,” said Dell Dailey, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism.

Al-Qaida still remains the most dangerous threat to the United States. But of growing concern are organizations such as Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas, which combine social services, local governance, national politics with extremist attacks, said Undersecretary of State James Glassman.

Probe to check records of engineer’s cell phone

LOS ANGELES — Federal officials investigating a commuter rail collision that killed 25 people said they want to review cell phone records to determine if an engineer blamed for running a stop signal before the crash may have been text-messaging at the time.

With the probe into Friday’s crash continuing, a smaller number of commuters than normal returned to the rails Monday morning.

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa boarded one of the morning’s earliest trains.

The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed Sunday that the engineer, who was killed in the crash, had failed to stop at the final red signal.

Vermont man pedaling to Calif. bicycle race

PITTSFIELD, Vt. — A Vermont man planning to ride in a 508-mile bicycle race in California is taking the long way to the starting line. He’s pedaling there.

Joe Desena, 39, said he was leaving Monday on his 3,000-mile trip west, which is expected to take about two weeks. He’s planning to be in the field on Oct. 4 for the Furnace Creek 508, which goes from Santa Clarita, Calif., to Twentynine Palms.

Desena, who has participated in dozens of adventure races, triathlons and ultramarathons, says there’s no better way to get in shape for the race than to bike across country.

U.S., Pakistan deny event at border area

KARACHI, Pakistan — U.S. and Pakistani military officials denied reports that Pakistani troops turned back a U.S. attack in Pakistan’s tribal areas Monday by firing warning shots toward U.S. troops as they attempted to cross from Afghanistan in pursuit of Taliban insurgents.

A Pakistani intelligence official said several U.S. helicopters were seen hovering near the Pakistani village of Angor Adda in the tribal area of South Waziristan. By the official’s account, the helicopters landed just inside Afghanistan and several U.S. soldiers got out of them.

Pakistani troops fired warning shots in the air as the U.S. troops tried to enter Pakistani territory from Afghanistan, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly on military operations. .

Police involved in slayings in Brazil, U.N. report says

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Brazilian police carried out a “significant proportion” of the 48,000 murders that swept Brazil last year, according to a U.N. report released Monday, casting doubt on the government’s ability to curtail drug violence and reign in vigilante militias.

The report by U.N. special envoy on extra-judicial killings Philip Alston said police murder three people a day on average in Rio de Janeiro, making them responsible for one in five killings in the city, which is plagued by drug-gang violence and roving militias of off-duty police.

The U.N. report found that police are rarely punished for their involvement and many Brazilians are resigned to the violence, seeing no other way to fight the drug gangs that rule the slums.

Plane disappears with U.S., Mexican officials

MARFA, Texas — A plane carrying the U.S. and Mexican heads of the International Water and Boundary Commission disappeared Monday while touring floods along the Rio Grande.

Commissioners Carlos Marin, of the U.S. section, and Arturo Herrera, from Mexico, were flying to Presidio, Texas, from El Paso but the plane did not land as scheduled, Presidio County Judge Jerry Agen said. The plane carried the pilot and one other passenger, he said.

Combined dispatches