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A judge has sentenced Rapper T.I. to one year and a day behind bars on federal weapons charges. The 28-year-old rapper, whose real name is Clifford Harris, was sentenced Friday. He will have between 30 and 60 days to report to prison. He already has completed about 1,000 hours of community service and has warned youths about the pitfalls of guns, drugs, violence. He will need to complete 470 more hours. Harris pleaded guilty last March after he was arrested in 2007, attempting to buy unregistered machine guns and silencers. The arrest happened blocks away from where he was to...

A Macedonian immigrant pleaded guilty Wednesday to running "Ice" methamphetamine and illegal weapons out of his family owned restaurant in Longview for more than a year. Ziber "Billy" Kaba, 36, operated the Little Italy restaurant in Longview, 212 E. Marshall Ave., and admitted he set up deals and sold more than 156 grams of "Ice" meth and possessed a handgun in the commission of drug trafficking. The defendant pleaded guilty to charges one and seven of the 13-count indictment in U.S. Magistrate Judge Judith Guthrie's court. He faces five to 40 years in prison, a $2 million fine and at...

LOS ANGELES -- Two Silicon Valley, Calif., businessmen are due in federal court next week after being indicted on charges they shipped military cameras to China. Philip Cheng of Cupertino, and Martin Shih of San Jose, were indicted by a federal grand jury Wednesday on nine counts of violating export laws and money laundering. The indictments come after the men were arrested last month for allegedly shipping night vision cameras to an organization linked to the Chinese military. Shih is president of San Jose-based Night Vision Technology. He allegedly brokered the deals. Cheng allegedly laundered money through wire transfers between...

WASHINGTON - Weapons-hunters in Iraq have found evidence that experts from Russia and other countries helped with Iraq's missile programs, but it is unclear whether those countries' governments played any role, U.S. officials said Friday. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the Bush administration will compile information it has obtained and eventually present it to those countries. In addition to Russia, officials found signs that experts from Ukraine, Serbia and Belarus may have been involved. It may be that the alleged assistance came from companies or individuals who came to Iraq without the knowledge or sanction of...

TBILISI, Georgia (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday there are still unanswered questions about Russian military equipment that U.S. officials believe made its way to Iraq before last year's U.S. invasion. U.S. officials last year said they believed private Russian firms sold Iraq antitank missiles, night-vision goggles and electronic jamming systems and that private sector technicians went to Baghdad to train Iraqis to use the jamming equipment. "There are still some outstanding questions in my mind," Powell told a news conference in Tbilisi, where he was attending the inauguration of Mikhail Saakashvili as Georgia's new president before...

COPENHAGEN, Jan 14 (Reuters) - The Danish Army said on Wednesday initial tests showed a cache of mortar rounds found buried in Iraq on January 9 did not contain any chemical substances as originally suspected. "The expert group from the Iraq Survey Group have investigated five...and none of them have showed any trace of chemical substances," the Danish Army Operational Command said in a statement. Samples would be sent to the United States for further tests and the results were expected within three to five days, the command said. Denmark said its troops found the 36 mortar shells buried in...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Danish and Icelandic troops have uncovered a cache of 36 shells buried in the Iraqi desert, and preliminary tests showed they contained a liquid blister agent, the Danish military said Saturday. The 120mm mortar shells were thought to be leftovers from the eight-year war between Iraq and neighboring Iran, which ended in 1988, said U.S. Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt. The shells were found by Danish engineering troops and Icelandic de-miners near Al Quarnah, north of the city of Basra where Denmark's 410 troops are based, the Danish Army Operational Command said in a written statement. The...

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish troops have found dozens of mortar rounds buried in Iraq (news - web sites) which initial tests show could contain blister gas, the Danish army said on Saturday. The tests were taken after Danish troops found 36 120mm mortar rounds on Friday in southern Iraq. The Danish army said they had been buried for at least 10 years. "All the instruments showed indications of the same type of chemical compound, namely blister gas," the Danish Army Operational Command said on its Web site, cautioning that further tests were needed. Blister gases, such as mustard gas, are...

<p>WASHINGTON -- US officials have found evidence corroborating White House allegations that Russian companies sold Saddam Hussein high-tech military equipment that threatened US forces during the invasion of Iraq last March, a senior State Department official said yesterday.</p> <p>The official said the United States has found proof that Russian companies exported night-vision goggles and radar-jamming equipment to Iraq, the official said. The evidence includes the equipment itself and proof that it was used during the war, according to the official. Such exports would violate the terms of United Nations sanctions against Iraq.</p>

NEWS RELEASEHEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND7115 South Boundary BoulevardMacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 January 6, 2004Release Number: 04-01-16 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CORDON AND SEARCHES LEAD TO CAPTURE OF ARMS DEALERS RAMADI, Iraq – The 82nd Airborne Division and its subordinate units continued missions over the last day to bring peace and prosperity to the residents of the Al Anbar province. During the last 24 hours, the 82nd Airborne Division and subordinate units conducted 203 patrols, 12 of which were joint patrols with Iraqis, and carried out four offensive operations. During these operations one...

NEWS RELEASEHEADQUARTERS UNITED STATES CENTRAL COMMAND7115 South Boundary BoulevardMacDill AFB, Fla. 33621-5101Phone: (813) 827-5894; FAX: (813) 827-2211; DSN 651-5894 January 4, 2004Release Number: 04-01-11 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TASK FORCE “ALL-AMERICAN” CAPTURES ARMS DEALERS, CONFISCATES ILLEGAL ARMS AR RAMADI, Iraq – During the past 24 hours, the 82nd Airborne Division and subordinate elements, also known as Task Force “All-American,” conducted 167 patrols, five of which were joint patrols with Iraqis, and carried out five offensive operations. During these operations, three enemy personnel were killed and 70 were captured. Entry was denied to 225 people at the border crossing at Trebil...

DAMASCUS, Syria — First of two parts A Syrian trading company with close ties to the ruling regime smuggled weapons and military hardware to Saddam Hussein between 2000 and 2003, helping Syria become the main channel for illicit arms transfers to Iraq despite a stringent U.N. embargo, documents recovered in Iraq show. The private company, called SES International Corp., is headed by a cousin of Syria's autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, and is controlled by other members of the president's Baath Party and Alawite clan. Syria's government assisted SES in importing at least one shipment destined for Iraq's military, the Iraqi...

According to recently uncovered documents in Iraq, a Syrian trading company with close ties to the ruling regime smuggled weapons and military hardware to Saddam Hussein between 2000 and 2003, establishing Syria as the main channel for illegal transfers to Baghdad during the U.N. embargo, the LOS ANGELES TIMES will report in Tuesday papers... Developing...

French Missiles Used in Hotel Attack (CNSNews.com) - A British newspaper reported that half of the rockets used in Sunday's attack on the Al Rasheed Hotel were French weapons produced after an arms embargo was imposed against Iraq following the Gulf War

<p>October 27, 2003 -- Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was just a floor away from danger yesterday when a missile barrage blitzed the Baghdad hotel where he was staying - killing an American colonel and wounding 18 other people. Wolfowitz was dressing in a 12th-floor room when eight to 10 missiles crashed into the western side of the Al Rasheed hotel at 6:10 a.m. - punching holes in the modern, concrete facade and shattering windows in two dozen rooms.</p>

French bombs in Baghdad Smashed ... the wrecked Rashid hotel By TREVOR KAVANAGH and BRIAN FLYNN A BAGHDAD hotel where US defence chief Paul Wolfowitz was staying was yesterday blitzed by rockets made in FRANCE.Half of the missiles fired were modern French weapons, said experts — produced after the arms embargo imposed on Iraq following the first Gulf War.The shock discovery will further fuel growing concern over blackmarket French arms links with Islamic terrorists.The French government has furiously denied turning a blind eye to illegal weapon supplies, despite the recent discovery in Iraq of military hardware apparently built there. Guest...

  MSN Home   |   My MSN   |   Hotmail   |   Search   |   Shopping   |   Money   |   People & Chat     Long day’s journey in Iraq’s desert   Combat engineers switch gears from civil projects to raids         A U.S. combat engineer prepares to destroy these Russian-made SA2 surface-to-air missiles in the desert near Baji.       By Kevin SitesNBC NEWS       BAJI, Iraq, Oct. 22 —  The combat engineers of Battalion 299 Charlie Company were doing what they like doing best: blowing things up.            ON SATURDAY, east of the Iraqi town of Baji — a town north of Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit — the...

NewsMax has obtained exclusive photographs proving that Iraq violated a U.N. Security Council ban on importing weapons. The photographs show a wide variety of imported weapons with production dates as recent as 2001. A U.S. military inspection team that visited an Iraqi air force munitions site in late September 2003 took the photographs. The site, located in the Suni triangle near Baghdad, has at least 13 concrete bunkers filled with missiles, bombs and bomb-fusing devices. U.S. military teams uncovered several examples of U.N. violations, including a number of French bomb fuses with a production date of "2001-Sep-5." The French-made...

A U.S. investigation has disclosed that Iraq concluded an intermediate-range missile deal with North Korea in 2001. David Kay, who headed a Bush administration team in the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, disclosed the agreement last week. Kay said the report of an Iraqi-North Korean deal emerged in Iraqi government documents as well as in interviews with captured Iraqi officials. Iraq signed a $10 million contract to buy technology and equipment from North Korea for the production of ballistic missiles based on the No-Dong intermediate-range missile.U.S. officials said the deal was completed in June 2001. The No-Dong has...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Weapons hunters in Iraq are following leads that point to the presence of anthrax research and Scud missiles still hidden in the country, the chief U.S. weapons searcher said Sunday.</p> <p>David Kay told Congress last week that his survey team has not found weapons of mass destruction. But he argued against drawing conclusions, saying he can provide a full picture on Iraq's weapons programs in six months to nine months.</p>