Taliban leader believed killed in US drone strike

Taliban leader believed killed in US drone strike

WASHINGTON

U.S. special operations forces launched an drone strike Saturday against Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour in a remote town in Pakistan, U.S. military officials said, and initial evidence suggested that Mansour was killed.

U.S. military and intelligence officers were still assessing the results of the strike by multiple armed drones, they cautioned.

The operation, which was authorized by President Barack Obama and took place around 3 p.m. local time, hit Mansour as he traveled in a vehicle with another man along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, southwest of the town of Ahmad Wal.

Mansour has emerged as the leader of a resurgent Taliban that in recent months has mounted a powerful insurgency against the Afghan government in a string of attacks that have killed civilians, Afghan forces and U.S. military personnel.

Top US commander secretly visits Syria

NORTHERN SYRIA

On a secret trip to Syria, the new commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East said Saturday he felt a moral obligation to enter a war zone to check on his troops and make his own assessment of progress in organizing local Arab and Kurd fighters for what has been a slow campaign to push the Islamic State out of Syria.

“I have responsibility for this mission, and I have responsibility for the people that we put here,” Army Gen. Joseph Votel said in an interview as dusk fell on the remote outpost where he had arrived 11 hours earlier. “So it’s imperative for me to come and see what they’re dealing with - to share the risk they are dealing with.”

Votel, who has headed U.S. Central Command for just seven weeks, became the highest-ranking U.S. military officer known to have entered Syria since the U.S. began its campaign to counter the Islamic State in 2014.

Climbers die after reaching summit of Mt. Everest

KATHMANDU, Nepal

An Australian climber who died on Mount Everest has been identified as a finance lecturer at a university in Melbourne.

Monash University’s business school posted on Facebook that the community was deeply saddened by the death of Maria Strydom.

An earlier post on the business school’s website said Strydom and her husband were attempting to climb the seven summits, the highest peaks on the seven continents.

Australian media reports say Strydom reached the summit of Everest on Friday but died after showing signs of altitude sickness while descending Saturday.

A Dutch climber who died Friday was confirmed as the year’s first death on the world’s highest mountain.

3 more bikers file suit over shootings

WACO, Texas

Three bikers arrested after a shooting involving police outside a Waco restaurant have filed lawsuits against local officials, alleging civil rights violations.

The Waco Tribune-Herald reports that Bradley Terwilliger, Benjamin Matcek and Jimmy Dan Smith filed suit Friday in a Travis County federal court seeking unspecified damages.

The suits name McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman, Waco police officer Manuel Chavez and an unidentified Texas Department of Public Safety agent as defendants.

Altogether, 10 bikers have filed civil suits alleging unlawful arrest and due-process violations. Nearly 200 people were arrested after the May 2015 shooting that left nine dead. Since November, a grand jury has indicted 154 people on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity.

No trial dates have been set.

Combined dispatches