NATO: 8 service members killed

NATO: 8 service members killed

KABUL, Afghanistan

Eight NATO service members were killed in a spate of attacks in Afghanistan on Thursday, including four in roadside bombings, bringing the alliance’s troop losses over the past two days to 14, officials said.

It has been the deadliest year for international forces in the nine-year Afghan conflict. Troop numbers have been ramped up to turn the screws on insurgents, and casualties have mounted. The escalating toll has shaken the commitment of many NATO countries, with calls growing to start drawing down forces quickly.

A homemade bomb in western Afghanistan killed three service members Thursday, an alliance statement said without giving the nationalities of the dead or the specific location of the attack. American, Italian, Spanish and Lithuanian forces are deployed in the country’s west.

Fort Hood soldiers testify at hearing

FORT HOOD, Texas

Unarmed soldiers caught up in a deadly shooting rampage as they prepared to deploy from Fort Hood reacted as though they’d already reached a combat zone, playing dead to avoid gunfire and refusing to leave fallen comrades behind, according to testimony Thursday at a military hearing.

Most took just moments to realize the chaos of gunfire, smoke and a weapon’s laser flashing across walls and bodies was not a drill, and their survival instincts and training kicked in.

“I laid back down on the ground and played dead,” Spc. Alan Carroll, who was shot several times in the Nov. 5 attack, testified via video link from Kandahar, Afghanistan. “I tried to get up again and was shot again in the leg. I was holding my breath, trying not to move. ... If I was moving, I thought he would come to me.”

The Article 32 hearing will determine whether Maj. Nidal Hasan, who has been charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, should stand trial. Prosecutors have not said whether they would seek the death penalty.

Dems, GOP blast Obama billboard

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo.

A billboard in western Colorado that uses caricatures to depict President Barack Obama as a terrorist, gangster, Mexican bandit and a gay man has drawn bipartisan scorn from political officials.

The billboard along an Interstate 70 business loop in Grand Junction shows the four figures around a table playing cards and rats below.

The sign reads “Vote DemocRAT. Join the game” at the top.

Mesa County Democratic Party Chairwoman Martelle Daniels calls the billboard racist and homophobic. Her GOP counterpart, Chuck Pabst, describes it as “juvenile” and “reprehensible.”

The artist tells The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction that he’s not allowed to say who paid for it. Paul Snover of nearby Loma says he would have included Republicans as part of the problem.

Tropical storm hits Cuban capital

HAVANA

Tropical Storm Paula brought winds and heavy rain to the Cuban capital on Thursday, turning some low-lying streets into shallow rivers, bending palm trees and sending waves crashing against the city’s famed Malecon sea wall, though there were no reports of serious damage.

With the storm losing steam by the hour, Cuban officials said they were optimistic it would not bring a repeat of the devastation wrought by three monster storms that hit in 2008.

Associated Press