The last days of Private Scheuerman-Father says military support system failed suicidal soldier

SANFORD, N.C. - Private First Class Jason Scheuerman nailed a suicide note to his barracks closet in Iraq, stepped inside and shot himself.

"Maybe finaly I can get some peace," said the 20-year-old, misspelling "finally" but writing in a neat hand.

His parents didn't find out about the note for well over a year, and only then when it showed up in a government envelope in his father's rural North Carolina mailbox.

The one-page missive was among hundreds of pages of documents the soldier's family obtained and shared with The Associated Press after battling a military bureaucracy they feel didn't want to answer their questions, especially this: Why did Jason Scheuerman have to die?

What the soldier's father, Chris, would learn about his son's final days would lead the retired Special Forces commando, who teaches at Fort Bragg, to take on the very institution he's spent his life serving — and ultimately prompt an investigation by the Army inspector general's office.

Charsadda suicide blast: attacker loaded with ball bearings

PESHAWAR: The suicide bomber who killed 54 people in Sherpao village mosque had packed his explosives vest with ball bearings to inflict maximum casualties, a hospital official said on Saturday.

With security agencies hunting for clues to Friday's attack, a doctor said many of the victims suffered severe shrapnel wounds.

"Many were hit by ball bearings packed into the bomber's suicide jacket," said Manzoor Khan of the main state-run hospital in the northwest town of Charshadda, where the attack occurred.

"It seems most of the victims died from excessive bleeding," he was quoted as saying.

Local police said the head of the suicide bomber had not been located but that two severed legs believed to be his were being sent for DNA tests.

"We are probing locally and a team of experts is conducting a high-level investigation into the incident," said local police officer Gulzar Ahmed.

Ahmed said funeral services were held for 44 of the victims on Friday night. The bodies of others were sent to their home villages in the area, he said.

Suicide attack kills 35 in PakistanBlast strikes mosque outside home of country's former interior minister

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suicide attacker detonated a bomb early Friday at a mosque outside the home of Pakistan's former interior minister as he received visitors on an Islamic holiday, killing at least 35 people and wounding dozens more, authorities said.

It was apparently the second attack in eight months to target the politician, Aftab Khan Sherpao, who escaped unhurt. Sherpao is running for parliament in next month's general elections.
Election-related violence is common in Pakistan, but suspicion over the bombing will likely focus on pro-Taliban or al-Qaida militants who are active in the country's northwest.

Blast during prayers
The blast went off as worshippers held prayers for the Eid al-Adha holy day at the mosque in Sherpao's residential compound in Sherpao, a village about 25 miles northeast of the city of Peshawar, a witness said.

Provincial Health Minister Syed Kamal Shah said 35 people were killed and about three dozen were injured. Provincial police chief Sharif Virk said said one of Sherpao's sons was hurt.

Kamal Shah, a top Interior Ministry official in Islamabad, said he was not sure who was behind the bombing, but believed it was related to the previous attack on Sherpao, which killed at least 28 people and slightly wounded the former minister.

"We were saying prayers when this huge explosion occurred," said Shaukat Ali, a 26-year-old survivor of the blast Friday.

"It almost blew out our ear drums. Then it was it was like a scene from Doomsday," said Ali, whose white cloak and pants were torn and spattered with blood.

Jihad bomb plotter's plea dismissed

SYDNEY (AFP) - A Pakistan-born architect convicted of plotting a “jihad” bombing campaign in Australia had his appeal dismissed in a Sydney court Thursday.
Faheem Khalid Lodhi was sentenced to 20 years jail in August 2006 after a jury found him guilty of planning to blow up the electrical grid in Australia’s biggest city. Lodhi, who immigrated in the mid-1990s and holds Australian citizenship, was convicted of preparing for a terrorist act by seeking information about chemicals capable of making explosives. He was also found guilty of possessing a “terrorism manual” and of buying two maps of the Sydney electricity grid in preparation for a terrorist act. Lodhi denied the charges.
Prosecutors linked Lodhi to Frenchman Willie Brigitte, who was deported from Australia in late 2003 and subsequently convicted in France of plotting a major attack in Sydney.
Lodhi was one of the first defendants to be convicted under tough laws passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. His lawyers appealed on a number of grounds, arguing that the laws usurped the judiciary’s role and denied him a fair trial, and that the link with Brigitte was overstated in the original court case. The full bench of the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed all the appeal grounds and upheld Lodhi’s sentence in a 40,000-word judgement published Thursday on the court’s website.
“I agree that the appeal should be dismissed,” chief judge Jim Spigelman said.