Holder says he understands mistrust of police as Ferguson protests dwindle

I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man.

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday that he understands why many black Americans distrust the police as he made a one-day swing through the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Mo., where a black teenager was fatally shot by a white police officer almost two weeks earlier. 
Holder made the comments during a meeting with about 50 community leaders at the Florissant campus of St. Louis Community College in which he heard about their own issues with law enforcement officials. 
Ferguson has endured more than a week of unrest since the August 9 death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was shot by Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson. The Obama administration intended the trip to underscore its commitment to civil rights in general and the Ferguson case in particular.
"I understand that mistrust," Holder said. "I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man." The attorney general then described how he was stopped twice on the New Jersey Turnpike and accused of speeding. Police searched his car, going through the trunk and looking under the seats.
"I remember how humiliating that was and how angry I was and the impact it had on me," Holder said.
Holder also described how once, while living in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, he was running to catch a movie with his cousin when a squad car rolled up and flashed its lights at the pair. The officer yelled, "Where are you going? Hold it!" Holder recalled.
His cousin "started mouthing off," and Holder urged him to be quiet.
"We negotiate the whole thing, and we walk to our movie. At the time that he stopped me, I was a federal prosecutor. I wasn't a kid," he said.
While in Ferguson, Holder met with federal officials investigating the case, as well as Brown's parents. He also met with Missouri Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson, who has been in charge of security in Ferguson for nearly a week. The National Guard is also helping to keep the peace.
On Wednesday night, a diminished number of protesters marched around a single block in Ferguson as a thunderstorm filled the sky with lighting and dumped rain. Police still stood guard, but many wore regular uniforms rather than riot gear.
Johnson said there were six arrests Wednesday, compared to 47 the previous night. He called it "a very good night," and said Holder's visit had let people know their voices had been heard. 
In nearby Clayton, a grand jury began hearing evidence to determine whether Wilson should be charged in Brown's death. A spokesman for St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch said there was no timeline for the process, but it could take weeks.
Outside the St. Louis County Justice Center, where the grand jury convened, two dozen protesters gathered in a circle for a prayer, chanted and held signs urging McCulloch to step aside.
McCulloch's deep family connections to police have been cited by some black leaders who question his ability to be impartial in the case. McCulloch's father, mother, brother, uncle and cousin all worked for the St. Louis Police Department, and his father was killed while responding to a call involving a black suspect.
The prosecutor, who is white, has insisted his background will have no bearing on the handling of the Brown case, which has touched off days of nighttime protests during which authorities used tear gas and rubber bullets to clear the streets.
On Wednesday, police said an officer had been suspended for pointing a semi-automatic assault rifle at demonstrators, then cursing and threatening to kill one of them. A protester captured the exchange on video Tuesday and posted it to YouTube and other websites.

Hamas says three top commanders killed by Israeli airstrike in Gaza

Hamas said that an Israel airstrike in Gaza killed three of its senior military leaders early Thursday. 
The Palestinian militant group claimed that the men -- identified as Mohammed Abu Shamaleh, Mohammed Barhoum and Raed al-Attar -- were killed along with three other people in a strike on a four-story building near Rafah, a town in the southern part of the coastal territory. 
The Israeli security agency Shin Bet confirmed the deaths of Shamaleh and al-Attar in an email, but did not mention Barhoum. The three Hamas leaders are considered to be at the senior levels of its military leadership and were involved in a number of high profile attacks on Israeli targets.
"The strike was the result of intelligence and operational activities, which led to the detection and attack on two central operatives from the heart of Hamas’s military leadership," Shin Bet said in a statement. 
The strike, one of 20 the Israeli military said it carried out early Thursday, came one day after another strike in Gaza City aimed at Hamas' senior military leader, Mohammad Dief. Israeli intelligence sources have told Fox News that they believe that Dief was killed in that operation, but Hamas has claimed that he survived. 
Israel says the airstrikes are in response to a resumption of Hamas rocket fire that on Tuesday scuttled a six-day cease-fire. The military says that only one rocket launch was registered since midnight, compared to more than 210 over the previous 30 hours.
In a nationally televised address Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed little willingness to return to the negotiating table after six weeks of war with Hamas.
"We are determined to continue the campaign with all means and as is needed," he said, his defense minister by his side. "We will not stop until we guarantee full security and quiet for the residents of the south and all citizens of Israel."
The Egyptian Foreign Ministry expressed "deep regret" over the breaking of the cease-fire. It said in a statement Wednesday that it "continues bilateral contacts" with both sides aimed at restoring calm and securing a lasting truce that "serves the interest of the Palestinian people, especially in relation to the opening of the crossings and reconstruction."
An Egyptian compromise proposal calls for easing the Gaza blockade but not lifting it altogether or opening the territory's air and seaports, as Hamas has demanded.
While the plan does not require Hamas to give up its weapons, it would give Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose forces were ousted by Hamas, a foothold back in Gaza running border crossings and overseeing internationally backed reconstruction.
The Gaza blockade has greatly limited the movement of Palestinians in and out of the territory of 1.8 million people, restricted the flow of goods into Gaza and blocked virtually all exports.
Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas and other militant groups from getting weapons. Critics say the measures amount to collective punishment.

Islamic State militants threatened journalist's death in email to family, CEO says

In the days before journalist James Foley was brutally beheaded by a member of the Islamic State militant group, an e-mail sent to Foley's family threatened his execution in "vitriolic" terms, the CEO of the international news service Foley had worked for said Wednesday. 
Philip Balboni told a news conference that the e-mail, which was received sometime last week, did not contain any demands, in contrast with previous missives dating back to last fall. Balboni said the company had hired an international firm shortly after Foley disappeared in November 2012, and the New Hampshire native was located in September 2013. Balboni added that Foley was always kept in Syria, though his captors moved him around often.
Foley was abducted in northern Syria while covering that country's civil war and had not been heard from since. On Tuesday, Islamic State, the militant group formerly known as ISIS, released a video showing a militant beheading Foley in apparent response to U.S. airstrikes against militant positions in Iraq. At the end of the video, the militant is shown threatening to behead another missing American journalist, Steven Sotloff.  
Citing a representative of Foley's family and a former hostage, the New York Times reported that ISIS militants had pressed the U.S. to pay a multi-million dollar ransom in exchange for Foley's release. That demand was refused. The Times also reported that ISIS is holding at least three other Americans hostage, including Sotloff, and has threatened to kill all of them if their demands are not met. 
In addition to money, the militants' demands also reportedly include prisoner swaps. One prisoner specifically named in the Times report is Aafia Siddiqui, a neuroscientist with ties to Al Qaeda who has been imprisoned in Texas since 2010 after a conviction for attacking U.S. agents in Afghanistan. 
In a rare move Wednesday, the Pentagon revealed that U.S. special forces had attempted to rescue hostages held by Islamic State, including Foley, earlier this summer. Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said in a statement that the mission had targeted a "captor network" inside the militant group, and included air and ground elements, but was unable to locate the hostages. 
Meanwhile, new details were being reported in the British press about the identity of the militant who beheaded Foley in the video. American and British intelligence officials were working to firmly identify the man, who speaks in the video with a distinct British accent and is believed to be from London or southeast England. 
A former hostage told The Guardian that the man was the head of a group of three British militants whose main job is to guard foreign captives in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, an ISIS stronghold. The hostage said the man called himself "John" and described him as intelligent, educated, and devoted to radical Islamic teachings. The hostage said that his fellow captives referred to their three British overlords as "The Beatles." 
The Guardian also reported that "John" is a point man for hostage negotiations and has had discussions about possible ransoms with families of several foreign nationals via Skype. 
The British government has estimated that up to 500 citizens of that country have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join up with ISIS and other militant groups since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011. British intelligence officials also reportedly believe that those nationals have developed into particularly dangerous fighters, willing to carry out suicide attacks and, as in the case of Foley's death, beheadings. According to The Daily Telegraph, approximately half of those 500 have returned to the United Kingdom.