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Pakistan has angrily condemned a raid on a tribal region village that officials say killed at least 15 people, including women and children. Islamabad claims that U.S.-led troops used helicopters to fly in from Afghanistan and carry out the attack. If Islamabad's allegations are true, the attack on September 3 would be the first known foreign ground assault against a suspected militant haven in Pakistan's tribal regions. Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi told the National Assembly the raid was a shameful violation of rules of engagement agreed with U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. "We will not compromise on any violation of...

A year ago, the Ramsey County sheriff's office began looking closely at a group called the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee. What it found, according to an 18-page search warrant application and affidavit, led to weekend raids on two Minneapolis homes and a temporary St. Paul office for the self-described anarchist group. According to the document, investigation learned: The self-described anarchist group — whose main goal was to "crash" the Republican National Convention," according to its Web site — traveled to or communicated with affinity groups in 67 cities to recruit members and raise money. Group members discussed the possibility...

Postville has lost more than a quarter of its pre-raid population of 2,300. Besides the detained workers, scores more fled or went into hiding. People were pushed out of jobs and homes. Children were separated from parents. Businesses verged toward collapse.

"LAUREL, Miss. — The largest single-workplace immigration raid in U.S. history"

PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. immigration agents have arrested 595 people at a Mississippi factory in what was the largest workplace enforcement raid in the United States to date, an immigration official said on Tuesday. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said federal agents arrested the workers in a raid at the Howard Industries Inc. factory in Laurel, Miss, on Monday, "This is the largest targeted workplace enforcement operation we have carried out in the United States to date," Gonzalez told Reuters by telephone. The swoop at the plant, which makes electrical equipment including transformers, was part of an ongoing...

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Largest such sweep in the country.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Federal immigration agents raided a major manufacturing plant in south Mississippi on Monday, but it wasn't immediately clear how many illegal workers were taken into custody. Barbara Gonzalez, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, said the target of the operation was Howard Industries Inc. in Laurel, a town of about 18,000 people located about 85 miles southeast of Jackson. Howard Industries produces dozens of products, ranging from electrical transformers to medical supplies, according to the company's Web site. "This is a targeted enforcement operation that is part of an ongoing ICE investigation that has revealed...

TIJUANA – A special federal task force captured several men believed to be high-ranking members of the Arellano Felix cartel amid gunfire in a pre-dawn raid Friday, according the local Mexican military command. The suspects were gambling around 2 a.m. in a room at Caliente Casino, owned by former mayor Jorge Hank Rhon. Alfonso Duarte Mujica, local military commander, said at a press conference Friday morning that one of those captured was Pedro Ignacio Zazueta, known as “El Pit,” believed to be one of the leaders of the Arellano cartel. Zazueta is a lieutenant to Fernando Sanchez Arellano, known as...

A small town struggles after immigration raid Email this Story Aug 16, 1:05 PM (ET) By MONICA RHOR Google sponsored links Get the facts on Peta - Find out the details of Peta's Euthanasia record. PetaKillsAnimals.com Information on PETA - Find out more about the founder's statements and philosophy. www.ActivistCash.com POSTVILLE, Iowa (AP) - A vague unease whispered through this tiny town in northeastern Iowa, where the rolling hills are a study in vivid colors - red barns, white clapboard houses, and vibrant green cornfields plowed with almost architectural precision. It drifted through Postville's downtown, where restaurants serving tamales share...

Police said yesterday they have cleared Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo and his family of any wrongdoing in connection with a package of marijuana that police intercepted en route to his home, leading to a violent raid in which deputy sheriffs killed the family's two dogs. Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin C. High delivered the news in a telephone call Thursday to Calvo, saying police and State's Attorney Glenn F. Ivey determined that Calvo and his family were innocent victims caught up in a drug-smuggling ring. High exonerated the mayor and his family and expressed regret that they were...

4 gunmen bust doors, yell ‘FBI,’ loot home BY JACOB QUINN SANDERS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE Two men kicked in the front door, splintering it near the bolt-lock. Two more kicked in a side door. All four had guns. It was 3 a.m. “FBI! FBI!” the men shouted, one pulling what looked like a badge out of his shirt before stuffing it back in. “Where’s your money?” Lloyd McCuien lay facedown on the living-room floor of his Pulaski County house — off Arkansas 365 outside Maumelle and within sight of Interstate 40 — surrounded by seven family members. “It took me about...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE HAMMER — The mission was simple: perform a raid to gather information on extremists in the area, search for weapons caches and perform human-terrain mapping. The day was still young when Soldiers from Company A, 1st Battalion, 35th Armor Regiment, along with “shurta” (policemen) of the Raid Platoon, 3rd Battalion, 1st Iraqi National Police division, made their final preparations for a raid on the village of al Batta, Iraq. They exited their vehicles into the early morning heat and looked at the village ahead. Families began to stir in their homes; the sun beat down on them;...

Even though Dhimmi Watch admirably noted the recent attack on the Abu Fana Coptic monastery in Egypt, after just watching a graphic video detailing the affair on the Arabic satellite program Hiwar al-Haq—which makes clear that the raid (ghazwa) was far from being motivated by a “land dispute,” as the Egyptian authorities insist—I figured I’d do a little translating and relaying, thereby giving readers more perspective on the matter: For starters, Father Antonias, who was there, said that many “disparaging” words were hurled against Christianity by the Muslim assailants during their rampage, which, incidentally, included the destruction of altars and...

KFYI Radio in Phoenix is reporting an incident that took place this past Monday morning in a Phoenix residential neighborhood. Former Congressman turned talk radio host, JD Hayworth, reports that three suspects were captured in an attempted ambush on Phoenix Police which may have turned deadly. The three suspects were captured with two AR-15 assault weapons, full body armor and dressed in black assault gear impersonating a Phoenix Police Tactical Team.

Postville, Iowa has been turned into a ghost town. Nearly a third of its residents, mostly undocumented workers from Guatemala and Mexico, sit in jail convicted of identity crimes or awaiting deportation. Hundreds more hide in fear. Their children, too scared to go to school, have left the town’s classrooms nearly empty. For this, Postville should thank their local police, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), and a failed immigration policy. Aided by local law enforcement, ICE arrested 389 workers during the largest single-site immigration raid in U.S. history at the Postville meatpacking plant, the area’s major employer....

World's biggest drug seizure in Afghanistan By David Blair, Diplomatic Editor Last Updated: 12:38AM BST 12/06/2008 Afghanistan's police claim to have made the largest drugs seizure in history after they discovered hashish worth at least £200 million. Afghan counter narcotics officials uncovered 260 tons of hashish hidden in 6-foot-deep trenches in southern Afghanistan About 260 tons of narcotics were found in trenches and bunkers in Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan. No previous haul comes close to matching this find, which weighed roughly the same as 30 double-decker buses. The previous record was set by Colombia's security forces when they uncovered...

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) — For nearly two months, Texas child welfare officials had insisted conditions at a polygamist group's ranch were so abusive that none of its members should be allowed to keep their children. Now, however, one of the of the largest custody cases in U.S. history is unraveling, and some are looking for what went wrong when the state raided the Yearning For Zion Ranch and removed more than 400 children. Since the state Supreme Court ruled that the Texas Department of Child Protective Services overreached when it swept the children into foster care, agency officials have...

POSTVILLE, Iowa -- Antonio Escobedo ran to get his wife Monday when he saw a helicopter circling overhead and immigration agents approaching the meatpacking plant where they both work. The couple hid for hours inside the plant before obtaining refuge in the pews and hall at St. Bridget's Catholic Church, where hundreds of other Guatemalan and Mexican families gathered, hoping to avoid arrest. "I like my job. I like my work. I like it here in Iowa," said Escobedo, 38, an illegal immigrant from Yescas, Mexico, who has raised his three children for 11 years in Postville. "Are they mad...

SAN FRANCISCO — Jose Luis Sanchez was a veteran cook at El Balazo, working at the popular Bay Area taqueria chain for eight years before a Friday immigration raid ended his career and left his family's future uncertain."My kids are sad," said the 32-year-old San Pablo resident, one of 63 illegal immigrants employed by the 11-restaurant chain who were arrested Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "They want to know if they're going to send me to Mexico."With an electronic surveillance bracelet attached indefinitely to his ankle, Sanchez contemplated his future Monday afternoon outside the Sansome Street high-rise building...

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A 33-year-old Colorado Springs woman who may have sparked a massive child-protection raid at a polygamist compound in Texas kept a steady job and gave no hint of her activities to those closest to her. "She is the last person I would expect to do something like this," said a woman in her mid-20s who described herself as the roommate of Rozita Swinton. Speaking at the door of their apartment, the roommate described Swinton as a steady, soft-hearted person. But growing evidence indicates Swinton repeatedly made calls to authorities in multiple jurisdictions, setting off large emergency...

It has been more than two weeks since Texas Rangers raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch, seizing more than 400 children on vague evidence of polygamy and child abuse. To the credit of law enforcement authorities, no one was injured. Apparently, only two men were arrested, while another is being sought in another state for his role in alleged sexual abuse. Little resistance was offered by the sect's followers. Now, I don't like polygamy. And I don't like child abuse. But, after carefully reading all the news reports covering activities of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,...

Israel says Syria nuclear base was raid target By Tim Butcher in Jerusalem Last Updated: 2:19am BST 02/04/2008 Israel has admitted for the first time that an air strike in Syria last year was aimed at a nuclear facility built with assistance from North Korea. The Japanese daily newspaper Asahi Shimbun cited sources at the Japanese foreign ministry for its report of a meeting between Ehud Olmert, the prime minister of Israel, and Yasuo Fukuda, his Japanese opposite number. Mr Olmert is reported to have admitted that Israel carried out the bombing last September and that the target was a...

Over the years, investors in Russia have grown accustomed to the unexpected. Often, just when things seem to have calmed down, the next bombshell is right around the corner. That's surely the only way to describe the extraordinary news that a manager from TNK-BP, British Petroleum's Russian joint venture, and his brother, who works for the British Council, have been arrested and accused of spying. The arrests came less than three weeks after Russia's election of a new President, Dmitry Medvedev, which seemed to send a reassuring message of liberalism and stability (BusinessWeek.com, 3/3/08). Remarkably, they also occurred just one...

The Saudi vice police stormed a food court at a shopping mall, and told families to leave because there were no partitions to separate families from one another, press reports said on Sunday. According to the Saudi edition of Al-Hayat newspaper, members of the Commission for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stormed the dining area at the Granada Shopping Center, causing panic among people eating there. "They made no distinction between men, women, or children. They started pulling chairs out from under everyone," one eyewitness told the paper on condition of anonymity. "I don't know why they...

Agents from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency have been stepping up the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants in Wisconsin recently. It’s a trend that’s beginning to worry some Wisconsin dairy farmers who employ immigrant milkers from Mexico. A new study of employment patterns on 600 farms in four Wisconsin counties found that 90 percent of the milkers on those farms were Mexican immigrants. It’s a trend that ballooned between 1998 and 2000, soon after the North American Free Trade Act went into affect. Study author Brent Valentine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Rural Sociology says...

Authorities Raid California Museums By GREG RISLING LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal agents raided several Southern California museums on Thursday in search of Southeast Asian antiquities believed to have been illegally obtained, smuggled into the U.S. and donated so collectors could claim fraudulent tax deductions. Agents also investigated American Indian artifacts at one museum. Search warrants were executed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena and the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Authorities said no arrests...

TIKRIT, Iraq – A raid conducted by the 2nd Iraqi Army Division in Al Kussyat, netted a large weapons cache Jan. 16. The 3rd Battalion, 4th Brigade, 2nd Iraqi Army Division’s raid was driven on information gathered from captured insurgents and resulted in the detention of two personnel. The discovered cache consisted of five mortar systems, 300 mortar rounds, 500 lbs of TNT, 50 remote control devises, 26 Katusha rockets, 25 anti-personnel mines, 600 mortar charges and other various weapons including ammunition, wires and office copy equipment. The cache was later destroyed by a 2IA Div. explosive ordinance disposal team....

AUSTIN, Texas - Authorities raided the offices of an influential Democratic donor on Friday, prompting accusations by the donor's attorneys that the raid was politically motivated. The state attorney general's office said it was assisting the Nueces County district attorney in the criminal investigation of Mauricio Celis, 36, who has given money to major Democratic candidates including Hillary Clinton and is the subject of numerous ongoing lawsuits and charges. Attorney General Greg Abbott, a Republican, sued Celis in November, accusing him of practicing law without a license. Agents from Abbott's office were among those involved in the Friday search of...

JERUSALEM - Police raided more than 20 government buildings and private offices Sunday, searching for evidence in a series of criminal investigations of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. The probes — all related to actions that took place before Olmert became prime minister — have threatened to weaken the Israeli leader at a time of growing momentum in peace efforts with the Palestinians. Among the places raided were the Industry and Trade Ministry, the Postal Authority and Jerusalem's City Hall, said police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld. "Police investigators are searching a number of government and private offices in connection with three ongoing...

Thomas X. Hammes is a retired Marine colonel. He is the author of a seminal book on conducting counter-insurgency warfare. The work is called "The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century." Recently, he made an intriguing proposal on how to battle jihadists on the Internet (a virtual agora where Islamist militants appear to consort with alarming frequency). This is what he said: "For the last few years, individuals and private organizations that are pro-Israeli have been in a daily fight to shut down or deface anti-Israeli Web sites. Unofficial and informal, this Internet Hagana has had...

SAN DIEGO – More than 5,000 birds were seized and 50 people were arrested in what's being called the largest cockfighting raid in U.S. history, authorities announced Monday. Several law enforcement agencies took part in a raid that was carried out in several locations Saturday in South County, said San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. The largest of the raids was at a seven-acre compound in Otay Mesa near the border, where 4,400 birds including roosters, hens and chicks were found. “For years this particular site has been a bird factory – raising and training hundreds of roosters for illegal...

The lid of secrecy covering the Sept. 6 Israeli air strike into Syria remains tight but one new theory emerging amid the speculation is that the Israeli conducted an electronic warfare exercise in preparation for future strikes or an attack on Iran. Authoritative reports from the Middle East stated that the Israel operation included extensive electronic warfare jamming by aircraft. The Israeli were testing the capabilities of Russian-made air defenses, including both radar and missiles located near Damascus and south of Homs near the Lebanese northern border. The raid was unprecedented in the blanket of jamming and electronic disruption that...

JERUSALEM - Israel on Tuesday eased a strict news blackout on an airstrike in Syria last month, allowing the first publication of reports it struck an unspecified "military target" deep inside Syrian territory. Israel's military censor had imposed a total blackout on coverage of the Sept. 6 airstrike. But Tuesday, the office allowed preliminary details to be published after Syria's president, Bashar Assad, confirmed the airstrike in a televised interview. "Israeli air force planes attacked a military target deep inside Syria on Sept. 6, the military censor allowed for publication today," Israel's Army Radio reported. The headline on the Web...

Israelis seized nuclear material in Syrian raidUzi Mahnaimi and Sarah Baxter September 23, 2007 Israeli commandos seized nuclear material of North Korean origin during a daring raid on a secret military site in Syria before Israel bombed it this month, according to informed sources in Washington and Jerusalem. The attack was launched with American approval on September 6 after Washington was shown evidence the material was nuclear related, the well-placed sources say. They confirmed that samples taken from Syria for testing had been identified as North Korean. This raised fears that Syria might have joined North Korea and Iran in...

WASHINGTON, Sept. 14, 2007 – A new battalion of Afghan National Army commandos today completed it first operation, capturing a well-known Taliban facilitator and two suspected Taliban extremists. Working with a contingent of Afghan national police advised by coalition forces, the commandos led a two-day mission 30 miles southwest of Jalalabad in the Sherzad district of Nangahar province. During the mission, the commandos captured and detained Haji Shir Khan, a known improvised explosive device maker, who is responsible for numerous IED attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in the province. The assault force also found two weapons caches that contained...

Immigration agents take Mercury News along on South Bay raids Immigration agents arrested three South Bay residents early Tuesday, part of a federal sweep for illegal immigrants who have ignored previous deportation orders. For the first time, the Mercury News was invited along to watch as the arrests were made, an effort by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to show Bay Area media the inner workings of a growing national crackdown on immigrants who are deportable because of criminal convictions, and others who have been ordered deported. The invitation came months after a comprehensive immigration reform bill was stymied in...

WASHINGTON, July 30 — The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Senator Ted Stevens on Monday in search of evidence about his relationship to a businessman who oversaw a remodeling project that almost doubled the size of the senator’s house, federal law enforcement officials said. The decision to raid the home suggests that the corruption investigation focused on Mr. Stevens, a long-serving Republican and former chairman, has taken on new urgency. The businessman, Bill J. Allen, the founder of an oil fields service company that has won tens of millions of dollars...

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Coalition Forces captured a suspected terrorist with close ties to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) in a raid Thursday in Kharnabat near Baqubah. No shots were fired when Coalition Forces conducted a raid to capture or kill a highly-sought operative with connections to senior leaders of the IRGC-QF. The captured terrorist is suspected of facilitating the transport of weapons and personnel from Iran into Iraq. The captured terrorist is also believed to have facilitated the flow of deadly Explosively Formed Projectiles (EFPs) into Iraq from Iran to be used against Coalition Forces. During the raid,...

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan soldier opened fire inside a military base Monday, killing four Afghans and wounding 12 others, including an American soldier, while a U.S.-led coalition raid in the east killed a Taliban leader and two children, officials said. Afghan authorities, meanwhile, showed off a captured 14-year-old boy from Pakistan whom officials said had intended to set off a suicide bomb against an Afghan governor. During the coalition raid at a home in eastern Paktia province, suspected militants fired guns and rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. and Afghan troops, forcing the soldiers to return fire. Two children were...

Mugabe's 'inflation police' raid shopkeepers By Byron Dziva in Harare Last Updated: 2:24am BST 03/07/2007 Plain-clothes police sought to enforce Zimbabwe's new price controls by raiding shops yesterday as President Robert Mugabe's regime waged a desperate struggle against soaring inflation. Bare shelves are left behind after shoppers intent on grabbing 'bargains' swarmed supermarkets in Harare They roughed up shop owners and staff and arrested 20 businessmen. Shoppers swarmed over supermarket shelves in the capital, Harare, intent on grabbing "bargains". Ministers claim that the inflation rate of 4,500 per cent - the highest in the world - is solely caused by...

A picture is emerging of the men who allegedly drove that car bomb into the terminal building. This morning, police raided their home in Houston, a quiet village just a few miles from the airport. "The guys in black uniforms and things like the balaclavas went in first," an eyewitness said, "and they surrounded the house … and there was a lot of shooting. I heard glass breaking." Locals say two young Asian men moved into number 6 Neuk Crescent a few months ago. One neighbor described seeing one of the men washing what she says was a Jeep SUV...

Feds use warrant, search Vick's property Associated Press, Updated 9 minutes ago SURRY, Va. (AP) - Federal law enforcement officials descended on a home owned by Michael Vick on Thursday armed with a search warrant that suggests they're taking over an investigation into the Falcons quarterback's possible involvement in dogfighting. More here..http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6899670

<p>Morning Edition, May 16, 2007 · It was a year ago this week that the FBI, for the first time in U.S. history, raided the office of a member of Congress. Agents carted off documents and computer hard drives belonging to Rep. William Jefferson, a Democrat from Louisiana.</p>

Iraq raid nabs al-Qaida smuggler BAGHDAD April 21 (UPI) -- Iraqi forces reportedly captured a reputed al-Qaida commander in a raid in Nineveh Province, the Multi National Forces headquarters announced Saturday. The identity of the high-value prisoner was not released but he was described as a mid-level al-Qaida member involved in smuggling insurgents into Iraq from Syria. The MNF said the capture was made Friday in the village of Fadiliyah by Iraqi forces who swept in by air early in the morning. There was some resistance from a sentry; however, he was wounded and captured. Elsewhere in Iraq, the MNF...

BALTIMORE - Immigration agents arrested 69 people Thursday in raids on a temporary employment agency's offices and places where it provided undocumented workers, including the port of Baltimore, authorities said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents also seized a bank account containing more than $600,000 from the employment agency, Jones Industrial Network. The company's offices and eight other businesses were searched, including three where the temp agency is suspected of providing undocumented workers, ICE said. The investigation began last year after immigration officials heard that temp agencies had provided illegal immigrants as workers to the port of Baltimore and other...

IF THE CHAOTIC immigration raid in New Bedford earlier this month troubled you, we have news: Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, is just getting warmed up. We know this because the New Bedford raid was part of a frighteningly ambitious plan laid out by the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 -- and it hasn't received nearly enough scrutiny. The plan is called Endgame, and its details are available online on our group's website (www.aclum.org/endgame.pdf). It's a 10-year campaign to track down and deport all the immigrants to the United States who are living and working here...

FBI Raids North American Headquarters of Japan's All Nippon Airways; Search Warrant Under Seal LOS ANGELES (AP) -- FBI agents raided the North American headquarters of Japan's All Nippon Airways on Thursday, authorities said. Agents executed a federal search warrant at ANA's customer relations and services office in Torrance early Thursday, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said. She declined to say why the office was under investigation because the search warrant was under seal. In a statement issued by ANA's headquarters in Tokyo, the company said it had not yet confirmed the reason for the investigation. "There is no suspicion of...

[...] I say, current immigration law is an embarrassment to a country founded by immigrants. It is arbitrary, absurd, at times cruel and completely disconnected from the reality of immigrant labor in America. The law should be changed, but too many politicians in Washington lack the spine to change it. [...] 361 workers, most of them young and middle-aged Latino women, were detained. Some were flown to a Texas detention center, forced to leave behind children in Massachusetts. [...] Sending home 12 million illegal immigrants is impossible. The reality is that illegal immigrants provide cheap labor for a wide range...

TUCSON, Ariz. - Federal authorities on Friday raided a construction company accused of hiring illegal immigrants, detaining eight undocumented workers and arresting several other employees. Scores of agents fanned out in Douglas, along the Mexico border, and in Sierra Vista, about 50 miles northwest, in the raid on Sun Dry Wall & Stucco Inc.'s offices, a foreman's home, the home of a suspected counterfeiter and eight work sites. Company president Ivan Hardt, 44; the firm's human resources manager, Carol Hill, 42; and four other employees were taken into custody on federal counts of conspiring to knowingly hire illegal workers and...