My Lai ceremony highlights peace, but dark memories recalled

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In this Mar. 15, 2018 photo, US army photographer Ron Haeberle speaks to a Vietnamese TV host about the photos of My Lai massacre he took in My Lai, Vietnam. More than a thousand people attend the commemoration marking the 50th anniversary of the My Lai massacre in which 504 unarmed civilians, most of the children, women and elderly men. (AP Photo/ Hau Dinh)
Updated 17 March 2018
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My Lai ceremony highlights peace, but dark memories recalled

MY LAI, Vietnam: Talk of peace dominated the 50th anniversary commemoration of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, but among the hundreds in the audience were survivors and a former US Army photographer whose gruesome images galvanized anti-war opinion.
Their disturbing tales were a sharp rejoinder to the ceremony’s peaceful sentiments.
Friday’s memorial events were held at the site of the 1968 massacre by American troops of 504 unarmed Vietnamese villagers, mostly women, children and elderly men.
A provincial official addressing the crowd mentioned the killings but scrupulously avoided naming the United States as the two nations steadily improve their relations.
The audience included Sgt. Ron Haeberle, who photographed the aftermath in My Lai, and survivor Tran Van Duc, who was 6 at the time and whose slain mother was photographed by Haeberle
The two men bonded after they met in 2011. Duc lives in Remscheid, Germany, and a German cinematographer, curious about the connection, put him in touch by a message on Facebook to Haeberle in Ohio.
Duc recalled some US soldiers appearing at his family’s house soon after landing by helicopter, who then herded him, his four siblings, and their mother out onto a trail, where American troops began shooting at them.
“The American soldiers set up machine guns at the bridge, then started to fire at us,” Duc told The Associated Press. “At that point I had to witness the most painful moment in my life — the cries, the screams of terror. My mother pushed me into the rice field, so I survived.”
Duc’s mother, wounded in the stomach and thigh, tried to cover him and his 14-month-old sister. After the shooting, the soldiers moved along to the village. Duc’s sister began to cry, and their mother, fearful she would draw the soldiers to return, told him to take her to his grandmother’s house, 7 kilometers (4 miles) away.
“Take Ha to grandma, if you stay here, US soldiers will kill you when they come back,” were the last words Duc heard from her.
Clutching his sister, Duc looked back to see his mother try to grab a bag to get something to staunch her bleeding, but he knew she was in desperate condition.
By the time his grandmother and other villagers returned to recover the remains of their loved ones, they had already been buried. Baby Ha and another sister survived, but two of Duc’s other sisters were killed.
Duc and Haeberle on Thursday visited the trail where the three, along with about three dozen other people, were shot down.
Haeberle’s shocking photos were published first in November 1969 in The Plain Dealer, the biggest newspaper in his home state of Ohio, and then in Life magazine and all around the world. He had been using his Army-issue camera to take photos of fellow soldiers to be dispatched to their hometown papers, a standard military public relations practice which, he acknowledged, did not work so well that day.
It was a technicality that brought the pictures of the carnage to public view; he also carried his personal camera, a Nikon F, for which he had one roll of color film, which meant he did not have to turn in photos to the army’s Public Information Office.
The photo which disturbs him most, he said, was “the woman with the brains lying beside her head. Because later on in life I found out it was Duc’s mother. That to me was upsetting.”
Haeberle came upon the killing scene after being dropped off by a helicopter in the second wave entering the village. With no enemy — the Viet Cong, the VC — in the area firing at them, he had an unmolested view of the atrocities.
“We started going toward the highway and I noticed over my left shoulder that there were a group of people being, like they were guarded there, about three or four soldiers around and they were all squatted down and OK, I walked about another 10, 15 yards I hear firing.
“I turn around, look over my shoulder. People get up trying to run and I figure that something’s wrong. And we heard, you know, a lot of shooting in the village — nobody was shooting at us. We all heard all rapid fire automatic — you know it’s just, we’re trying to figure out what’s going on. Then we got down near the trail, there were three people coming toward us their hands up: ‘No VC, no VC.’ Two children and an old man.
“I thought the soldiers around me, there’s only about three or four, they were going to go ahead and search them or question them. We’re standing there and all of the sudden this guy opens up, and shoots them.”
It was just one of several such shootings he witnessed.
The coldblooded killing was mindboggling to Haeberle, who was 26 at the time, about six years older than the average troops in Charlie Company.
Later, he concluded that the American soldiers were badly trained, scared, bitter, and since they couldn’t understand why the Vietnamese villagers seemed hostile, they considered them to be just like the Viet Cong guerrillas they were fighting.
“You know, ‘They’re all VC, everybody’s VC.’ And I ask myself, are babies VC, or little children VC? B-------, they’re not. It’s just a frame of mind they were in.”
Haeberle gave his camera, the one he shot his famous photos with, what he called his My Lai camera, to Duc, who he says installed it on an altar in his home in Germany.
“The camera captured the image of his mother,” Haeberle said. “That was the last photograph, even as horrific as it was, he had a photograph. He had the camera.”
___
Peck reported from Bangkok.


Sweden tries militant over Jordanian pilot burned to death by Daesh

Updated 5 sec ago
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Sweden tries militant over Jordanian pilot burned to death by Daesh

“Osama Krayem has, together and in agreement with other perpetrators belonging to Daesh, killed Maaz Al-Kassasbeh,” prosecutor Reena Devgun told the court
In the 22-minute video of the killing, the victim is seen walking past several masked Daesh fighters, including Krayem, according to prosecutors


STOCKHOLM: A convicted Swedish militant went on trial in Stockholm on Wednesday accused of war crimes for his role in the 2014 killing of a Jordanian pilot who was burned alive in Syria.

The case is considered unique as the other militants involved in the brutal killing, which sparked international outrage at the time, are presumed dead, Swedish prosecutor Henrik Olin told AFP.

Osama Krayem, a 32-year-old Swede, is already serving long prison sentences for his role in the Paris and Brussels attacks in 2015 and 2016.

He now faces charges of “serious war crimes and terrorist crimes” for his alleged participation in the killing of the Jordanian pilot.

On December 24, 2014, an aircraft belonging to the Royal Jordanian Air Force crashed in Syria.

The pilot was captured the same day by fighters from the Daesh group near the central city of Raqqa and he was burned alive in a cage sometime before February 3, 2015, when a video of the gruesome killing was published, according to the prosecution.

The slickly-produced propaganda video was one of the first such videos released by Daesh.

The killing shocked Jordan, which was participating in the US-led coalition’s strikes against Daesh positions in Syria.

“Osama Krayem has, together and in agreement with other perpetrators belonging to Daesh, killed Maaz Al-Kassasbeh,” prosecutor Reena Devgun told the court on Wednesday.

“Osama Krayem, in uniform and armed, guarded and led the victim Maaz Al-Kassasbeh to a metal cage, where the latter was then locked up. One of the co-perpetrators then set fire to Maaz Al-Kassasbeh, who had no possibility to defend himself or call for help,” Devgun said.

Krayem, wearing a dark blue shirt and with a thick beard and long, loose dark hair, had his back to the handful of journalists and spectators who followed Wednesday’s proceedings behind a glass wall in the high security courtroom in Stockholm’s district court.

He appeared calm as the prosecution laid out the charges, which could result in a life sentence if Krayem is convicted.

In the 22-minute video of the killing, the victim is seen walking past several masked Daesh fighters, including Krayem, according to prosecutors.

The pilot is then seen being locked in the cage and praying as he is set on fire.

Prosecutors have been unable to determine the exact date of the murder but the investigation has identified the location.

The pilot’s father, Safi Al-Kassasbeh, told AFP on Wednesday the family hoped Krayem would “receive the harshest penalty according to the magnitude of the crime.”

“This is what we expect from a respected and fair law,” he said.

It was thanks to a scar on the suspect’s eyebrow, visible in the video and spotted by Belgian police, that Krayem was identified and the investigation was opened, Devgun said when the charges were announced last week.

Other evidence in the case includes conversations on social media, including one where Krayem asks a person if he has seen a new video “where a man gets fried,” according to the investigation, a copy of which has been viewed by AFP.

“I’m in the video,” Krayem said, pointing out the moment when the camera zooms in on his face.

The other person replies: “Hahaha, yes, I saw the eyebrow.”

The defendant’s lawyer, Petra Eklund, told AFP before the start of the trial that her client admitted to being present at the scene but disputed the prosecution’s version.

“He denies the acts for which he is prosecuted,” she said.

“He acknowledges having been present at that place during the event, but claims not to have acted in the manner described by the prosecutors in the account of the facts,” she added.

Krayem, who is from Malmo in southern Sweden, joined the Daesh group in Syria in 2014 before returning to Europe in September 2015.

He was arrested in Belgium in April 2016.

In June 2022, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison in France for helping plan the November 2015 Paris attacks in which 130 people were killed.

The following year, he was given a life sentence in Belgium for participating in the March 2016 bombings at Brussels’ main airport and on the metro system, in which 32 people were killed.

Krayem has been temporarily handed over to Sweden for the Stockholm trial, which is scheduled to last until June 26.

NATO defense buildup must ‘outpace Russia’: US envoy

Updated 38 min 12 sec ago
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NATO defense buildup must ‘outpace Russia’: US envoy

  • “The urgency of this moment is undeniable as the Russia-Ukraine conflict grinds on, Moscow is already preparing for its next move,” Whitaker told journalists
  • “NATO allies must outpace Russia. We have no other choice. Let me be clear, the time is now“

BRUSSELS: NATO’s push to ramp up defenses must outstrip Russia’s rearmament drive as Moscow is already gearing up for its “next move” beyond Ukraine, the US ambassador to the alliance said Wednesday.

The warning came ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers Thursday that will seek to forge a deal on hiking military spending for a summit later this month.

US President Donald Trump has called on Washington’s allies to commit to spending five percent of their GDP on defense.

NATO chief Mark Rutte looks on track to secure a compromise deal agreement at the upcoming summit in the Hague for 3.5 percent of GDP on core military spending, and 1.5 percent on broader security-related areas such as infrastructure.

“The urgency of this moment is undeniable as the Russia-Ukraine conflict grinds on, Moscow is already preparing for its next move,” US ambassador Matthew Whitaker told journalists.

“We are already seeing the Kremlin aims to rebuild its military. NATO allies must outpace Russia. We have no other choice. Let me be clear, the time is now.”

Whitaker said “the United States expects every ally to step up with concrete plans, budgets, timelines, deliverables, to meet the five percent target.”

“This is not going to be just a pledge. This is going to be a commitment. Every ally must commit to investing at least five percent of GDP in defense and security, starting now again, this is not a suggestion,” he said.

The US envoy said that Washington remained committed to NATO’s Article Five mutual defense clause — but expected allies to step up their spending.

“We will defend every inch of allied territory, and we will do it from a position of unmatched
strength,” Whitaker said.

NATO ministers will sign off at their meeting in Brussels on new capability targets for the weaponry needed to face the threat from Russia.

“We are going to take a huge leap forward,” Rutte said.

“These targets set out what forces and concrete capabilities the allies need.”

Rutte said he was “absolutely, positively convinced” that NATO countries would agree to a new spending deal in The Hague.

The NATO chief insisted that the United States “have made totally clear their commitment to Article Five.”

He similarly insisted that Washington remained committed to backing Ukraine despite defense secretary Pete Hegseth skipping a meeting of Kyiv’s backers in Brussels on Wednesday.


Indonesia weighing buying Chinese J-10 fighter jets 

Updated 04 June 2025
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Indonesia weighing buying Chinese J-10 fighter jets 

  • Indonesian minister says will factor in reports Pakistani J-10 shot down multiple Indian jets in May 
  • Indonesia has in recent years embarked on efforts to modernize its aging military hardware

JAKARTA: Indonesia is weighing buying China’s J-10 fighter jets, given their relatively cheaper price and advanced capability, as it also considers finalizing a purchase of US-made F-15EX jets, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Southeast Asia’s most populous country has in recent years embarked on efforts to modernize its aging military hardware. 

In 2022 it bought 42 French Rafale jets worth $8.1 billion, six of which will be delivered next year.

“We have had talks with China and they offered us a lot, not just J-10, but also ships, arms, frigates,” said Deputy Defense Minister and retired Air Marshal Donny Ermawan Taufanto.

“We’re evaluating J-10,” Taufanto said, adding that Jakarta was reviewing system compatibility and after-sales support as well as pricing.

A potential purchase has been considered for over a year, before the recent conflict between India and Pakistan, but Taufanto said Indonesia would factor in reports that a Pakistani J-10 plane shot down multiple Indian jets last month.

Jakarta also continues to consider whether to proceed with the next step for its purchase of F-15EX fighters, he said, following the defense ministry’s deal with planemaker Boeing for the sale in 2023.

Taufanto said the US jets’ capabilities were well recorded, but suggested the offered price of $8 billion for 24 planes remained in question.

French President Emmanuel Macron said after meeting Indonesian counterpart Prabowo Subianto in Jakarta last week that they had signed a preliminary defense pact that could lead to new orders of French hardware including Rafale jets.

“We’re considering (France’s) offer. We’re considering our own budget, we’re evaluating, especially given we have other options like J-10, F-15,” Taufanto said.


Ukraine’s Zelensky suggests truce until meeting with Putin can be arranged

Updated 04 June 2025
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Ukraine’s Zelensky suggests truce until meeting with Putin can be arranged

  • “We propose to Russians a ceasefire until the leaders meet,” Zelensky told a briefing in Kyiv

KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday proposed implementing a ceasefire until such time as a meeting can be arranged with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“My proposal, which I believe our partners can support, is that we propose to Russians a ceasefire until the leaders meet,” Zelensky told a briefing in Kyiv.

June 2 peace talks with Russia in Istanbul made little progress toward ending the three-year-old war in Ukraine, apart from an exchange of proposals and a plan for a major swap of prisoners of war, which Zelensky said would take place this weekend.


’Why this hatred’: French town reels over killing of Tunisian man

Updated 04 June 2025
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’Why this hatred’: French town reels over killing of Tunisian man

  • Tributes have poured in from shocked neighbors and friends mourning the murder of Hichem Miraoui
  • His killer posted racist videos on social media both before and after the attack

PUGET-SUR-ARGENS, France: The murder of a Tunisian man by his French neighbor in southern France, which is being investigated as a terror crime, has horrified the local community and raised alarm over rising racism in the country.
Tributes poured in from shocked neighbors and friends mourning the murder of Hichem Miraoui, with more than a dozen bouquets placed outside the barbershop where he worked in the quiet town of Puget-sur-Argens.
“I don’t understand why he was killed. Why all this hatred?” said Sylvia Elvasorre, a 65-year-old pensioner who lives next to the hair salon, tears in her eyes.
Marwouen Gharssalli, 43, echoed her disbelief, saying his friend was generous and willing to lend a helping hand.
“He even cut hair for free when people couldn’t pay... he regularly used to cut my son’s hair,” said Gharssalli, a welder in the southern town.
A card signed by fellow shopkeepers said the death of Miraoui — remembered as hard-working and warm — would “leave a void.”
Christophe B., a French national, shot and killed Miraoui, 46, on Saturday evening before injuring another neighbor, a Turkish national. The suspect, born in 1971, was arrested after his partner alerted police.
He posted racist videos on social media both before and after the attack, according to regional prosecutor Pierre Couttenier.
A silent march is planned in Puget-sur-Argens on Sunday to affirm the city’s “absolute rejection of hatred and our commitment to respect, tolerance and fraternity,” said a town hall statement.
The shooting followed the murder of a Malian man in a mosque in April, also in southern France, while the burning of a Qur'an near Lyon at the weekend has further fueled concerns over rising anti-Muslim attacks in the country.
“People are stunned that a racist crime like this could happen. This kind of thing is not part of Puget’s culture,” said Paul Boudoube, the town’s mayor.
Miraoui was in a video call with family planning for the major Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, when he was shot
“He was joking with our sick mother when I heard him grunt and the call ended,” said Hanen Miraoui, the victim’s sister.
According to French daily Le Parisien, the suspect in Miraoui’s murder said he “swore allegiance to the French flag” and called on the French to “shoot” people of foreign origin in one of his videos posted on social media.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the investigation into the case, the first such racist attack linked to the far right to be dealt with as “terrorism” since their office was set up in 2019.
“It means that investigative resources will be devoted to analizing the political motives behind this act and how this person became radicalized,” said the legal head of the anti-discrimination group SOS Racisme, Zelie Heran, who praised the referral.
Following the murder, political and religious leaders have sounded the alarm over growing anti-Muslim acts in France, which increased by 72 percent in the first quarter, with 79 recorded cases, according to interior ministry figures.
Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who is taking an increasingly hard line on immigration issues, has faced accusations of not being firm enough against such crimes and even fueling a racist climate.
But he said on Tuesday that the killing of Miraoui was “clearly a racist crime,” “probably also anti-Muslim” and “perhaps also a terrorist crime.”
Chems-Eddine Hafiz, the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, called on French President Emmanuel Macron to speak out.
“It is time to hold accountable the promoters of this hatred who, in political and media circles, act with complete impunity and incite extremely serious acts,” said Hafiz.
“Remind people of the reality that we are citizens of this country,” said Hafiz.
France is home to the largest Muslim community in the European Union, as well as the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States.
There has also been a rise in reported attacks against members of France’s Jewish community since Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 and the Israeli military responded with a devastating military offensive on the Gaza Strip.
France’s Holocaust memorial and three Paris synagogues and a restaurant were vandalized with paint on Saturday.