Autopsy finds Hamas leader was drugged, suffocated

The killers of Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Mabhouh first injected him with a muscle relaxant and then suffocated him, Dubai police said Sunday.


Toxicology tests on the Hamas leader found significant amounts of succinylcholine, a drug that is used to relax muscles during surgery or as an anesthetic.

"The assassins used this method so that it would seem that his death was natural," Maj. Gen. Al Mazeina said.
But signs indicated that al-Mabhouh resisted his attacker as they suffocated him, police said.

The latest determination are in line with what police disclosed earlier and told al-Mabhouh's relatives.

Family members were told that police had found blood on the pillow. Authorities have also said the killers left some of al-Mabhouh's medicine next to his bed in an apparent effort to suggest his death was not suspicious.
Al-Mabhouh, a founding member of Hamas' military wing, was found dead in his hotel room in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on January 20.

Police believe he was killed the night before and suspect the Mossad, the secretive Israeli foreign intelligence unit, was behind his slaying.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has said only "media reports" link Israel to al-Mabhouh's death.
A total of 26 suspects have been identified by Dubai police. The suspects are believed to have acquired faulty passports to arrive in Dubai for the killing and then fled to other far-flung locations, police said.

The 26 named suspects do not include two Palestinians previously arrested in Jordan and returned to the UAE.

Twelve of the suspects used British passports, police said.

Six suspects used Irish passports, four used French passports, three used Australian and one used a German passport.

On Sunday, the British Embassy in Israel said it plans to talk to the British nationals whose identities were stolen and passports used.

"We have made contact with six of the individuals and look to locate the remaining six for the fraudulent use of their identities," an embassy official said Sunday.

The meetings will take place at the embassy, the UK Serious Organized Crime Agency said.

"We are arranging to speak to them as potential witnesses to a crime," a spokesman for the agency said.

Another Taliban leader captured in Pakistan

At least one Afghan Taliban leader has been seized in neighboring Pakistan by security forces, sources told Thursday.

Mullah Abdul Salam was arrested last week, according to Afghan government officials, Taliban sources and a U.S. official.

"The Taliban is down another shadow governor," the American source said late Wednesday, declining to be named because of the sensitivity of the information.

The news came against the background of an intensified U.S.-led campaign against insurgents on both sides of the border.

Taliban fighters are resisting an allied military push into area they control in Helmand province in the south of Afghanistan, a military operation called Moshtarak.

According to British Maj. Gen. Nick Carter, it will the NATO-led force "another 25 to 30 days to secure that which needs to be secured" in the region, and a further three months after that to be sure insurgents are being kept out.

But Operation Moshtarak has reached "the end of the beginning," he said in a briefing from Afghanistan broadcast by the Pentagon Channel. "The insurgent was entirely dislocated within 24 hours" of the insertion of troops by helicopter, he said.

The Nad-e Ali district is "broadly secure," he said, but there is still Taliban resistance in Marjah. "It will be some days before we can be completely confident that Marjah is secure," said Carter, the International Security Assistance Force's head of Regional Command South.

Ten civilians were killed on the second day of the operation, he said. Reports at the time said 12 were killed.

"They (Taliban) know this is their last stronghold. They're not backing down," .

The crackle of small arms fire and the whoosh of outgoing mortar rounds from the Marines were clearly audible on the line as she described the battle.

"About five minutes ago Taliban started attacking our area," she said shortly before 8 a.m. ET. "The Taliban are not giving up -- they seem to be coming out in squads, (but) they know they can't group together in large numbers" because it would make them easier targets.

The Taliban seem to include "foreign fighters who will fight to the death," she said.

Across the border in Pakistan, four people were killed and five were wounded Thursday when a drone fired on a suspected militant compound in Pakistan's tribal region, intelligence sources and a local political official told .

The four who were killed were suspected militants, two intelligence officials told . It was not clear whether the wounded were also militants.

The remote-controlled aircraft fired two missiles at the compound, which is in the Danday Darpakhel area of North Waziristan, one of seven districts in the tribal region along the Afghan border, the sources said. They asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

The U.S. military does not comment on reported attacks by the pilotless aircraft, but the United States is the only country operating in the region known to have the ability to launch missiles from drones.

Mullah Salam, the Taliban commander, was arrested in Pakistan, the Afghan government and Taliban sources agree, but they named different cities as the location of his capture. Gov. Muhammad Omar of Afghanistan's Kunduz province said Thursday he was detained in Quetta -- where the Afghan Taliban reportedly has its leadership councils. The Taliban sources said he was nabbed in Faisalabad.

Salam is believed to be the Taliban commander for Kunduz province, Omar said.

He was directing Taliban military operations in the province, including ordering terrorist actions, mine planting and suicide attacks, said Abdul Razaq Yaqubi, the chief of police in Kunduz.

Yaqubi said Salam and another Taliban "shadow governor," Mullah Salih, were arrested in the Pakistani city of Peshawar last week. He said the information came from Pakistani authorities.

Salih was the shadow governor of Baghlan province, the police chief said. There was no immediate confirmation of Salih's arrest.

Word of Salam's arrest comes days after news of the capture of the Afghan Taliban's reputed second-in-command, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar.

Taliban sources and Omar said several other suspected members of the Afghan Taliban were arrested with Salam, but their identities are not clear.

Israeli cult leader charged with enslavement, rape

An Israeli man accused of having 23 wives and fathering 59 children was charged Sunday in a Tel Aviv court with multiple counts of sexual assault, rape, sodomy and enslavement.

Goel Ratzon, 60, was arrested last month.

Authorities charge that he lived in a compound with the 23 wives, having convinced them that he was omnipotent.

All the wives tattooed Ratzon's name and picture on their arms and the children's names are all derivatives of his name, according to the court papers.

Ratzon married his first wife in 1972, added a second wife in the early 1980s, and from 1991 added another 21 wives, according to the indictment.

He persuaded the women that he had the power to heal and curse, through which he gained "complete control of their lives, desires, thoughts, emotions and actions," the court papers say.

Ratzon spoke in court for first time last week, saying he was innocent, that everything was done with consent, and that any women who wished to leave could do so, Israeli media reported.

The indictment charges that the defendant "captured the women in a 'pseudo-family' structure that revolved around the worship of his image, making the birth of his children a supreme goal that the women must aspire to, and all this was to glorify him while serving and fulfilling all his needs."

Ratzon demanded that his wives and children completely obey all of his orders and has stringent rules and had a penalty system if they disobeyed him, the indictment alleges.

He also "abused his wives by trampling their self-worth and cut them off from any outside social contact including their families, and by this enslaved them to him and his desires," the court papers say.

The indictment includes allegations of rape and sodomy of two of his daughters, sexual assault of another daughter, and rape, assault and sodomy of four other girls.

Beyond the mental and physical control Ratzon had over his wives, he effectively controlled all of their finances, the indictment says. The women deposited major chunks of their social security payments and salaries into the family's account, paid for all of his living expenses and bought him all his property and anything he demanded, authorities charge.

Ratzon's cult has been known to the authorities for about 10 years, they said, but it was only about six months ago they succeeded in convincing one of the women to file a complaint. That brought about his arrest last month.

Ukraine Opposition Leader Appears to Win Election

Ukraine's pro-Moscow opposition leader Viktor Yanukovych will win a narrow victory in the country's presidential election, electoral officials say.

With more than 98% of votes counted, Mr Yanukovych had a 2.7% lead over his rival, PM Yulia Tymoshenko, media said.

Mr Yanukovych called on Mrs Tymoshenko to quit, but she refused and is expected to challenge the result.

International observers described the vote as an "impressive display of democratic elections".

"For everyone in Ukraine, this election was a victory," the observers, led by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said in a statement, Reuters news agency reported.

"It is now time for the country's political leaders to listen to the people's verdict and make sure that the transition of power is peaceful and constructive."

Favorable judgments by the electoral commission and international observers will make it much more difficult for Mrs Tymoshenko to challenge the outcome.

She has postponed a news conference on the result until Tuesday.

'Full circle'

The results suggest a remarkable comeback after Mr Yanukovych was swept aside by the 2004 "Orange Revolution".

Under the 59-year-old former mechanic, Ukraine's foreign policy is expected to become more pro-Russian.

Our correspondent says a Yanukovych win would be an extraordinary indictment of the pro-Western Orange Revolution leaders' failure to deliver on their promises, which has left people deeply disillusioned.

Politics in Ukraine has now gone full circle, our correspondent adds.

Mr Yanukovych was a presidential candidate in the last election in 2004, which was found to have been rigged in his favor.

Mrs Tymoshenko's impassioned leadership of the subsequent street protests that swept him from power - and thrust her to office, along with Viktor Yushchenko - made her an international celebrity.

But the prime minister - once a fierce critic of Russian involvement in Ukraine - has close ties with her Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, who said at a recent meeting she was someone he could "do business with".

Incumbent President Viktor Yushchenko lost in the first round of the election last month.

With more than 98% of votes counted, Mr Yanukovych was ahead with some 48.55% of the vote, with Mrs Tymoshenko at around 45.85%, according to media reports.

It is set to be a narrower margin of victory than Mr Yanukovych had been hoping for, but he has already congratulated his supporters and said he will deliver the change the country is yearning for.

The opposition leader reportedly said it was time for his rival to quit.

"I think that Yulia Tymoshenko should prepare to resign. She understands that well," Interfax-Ukraine quoted him as saying in a television interview.

"In any case, I believe such a suggestion will be put to her."

But Mrs Tymoshenko, 49, showed no sign of standing down.

In a news conference earlier, she said her team was conducting a "parallel count" and urged them to "fight for every result, every document, every vote".

Mud-slinging

Mr Yanukovych won last month's first round of voting, finishing 10 percentage points ahead of Mrs Tymoshenko.

She has threatened to take her supporters to the streets if defeated, saying the protests could be larger than those of the Orange Revolution.

Sunday's vote came after a bitter mud-slinging campaign in which real policy issues and debate appeared to have been forgotten, says our correspondent.

On Saturday, Mrs Tymoshenko's political bloc accused Mr Yanukovych's Party of Regions of blocking her supporters from overseeing the vote in the eastern Donetsk region.

Mr Yanukovych's camp hit back with allegations that some supporters of the prime minister had been tampering with ballots in an attempt to get votes from eastern Ukraine disqualified.

President Yushchenko - who came fifth in last month's first round - led a series of bitter personal attacks on former ally Mrs Tymoshenko during the campaign.

His working relationship with the prime minister over the last five years was poisoned by bickering as Ukraine became engulfed by an economic crisis, with its GDP plummeted 15% last year.