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Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

The Bosnian Muslim community in Salt Lake is celebrating the arrival of a new religious leader. Dozens from the Bosnian community came to worship at 427 E. 3300 South. Friday is their holy day. There are presently 150 members. The new Imam spoke to the members about one of the five pillars of Islam--prayer. Not very long ago, he said he could not have imagined leaving Bosnia to come to Utah. But when he heard about the desire and need for a religious leader, it touched his heart. When asked why Bosnians worship separately from the Shia and Sunni Muslims,...

UFO? Caught on tape: A strange object seen in the skies over Salt Lake City.

His face bathed in sunlight, Stacy Hansen was all smiles Tuesday as he sat in a wheelchair on his newly paved driveway. After spending nearly two months in University Hospital recovering from a gunshot wound to his lower back that left him paralyzed from the waist down, the 53-year-old was ecstatic to be home. "This is just overwhelming," said Hansen, who was among nine victims during a Feb. 12 shooting rampage at Trolley Square mall. Neighbors, firefighters, Salt Lake City police officers - including Chief Chris Burbank - and Ogden Officer Ken Hammond, who helped stop 18-year-old shooter Sulejman Talovic,...

Six weeks before his deadly rampage at Trolley Square mall, Sulejman Talovic proudly showed three young relatives the 12-gauge shotgun, .38-caliber revolver and black backpack of ammunition he had collected. None of the three teenagers, skeptical of Talovic's claim that he was "hustling" for a local gang, thought to alert Talovic's parents or police. Talovic had invited the teens, all distant cousins, to his family's west Salt Lake City home on Jan. 1, and the four watched MTV in the basement. .......

San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - Facts have emerged in this case which prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Bosnian Muslim immigrant's rampage at a Utah shopping mall, killing five people is a textbook study of a jihadist attack. Just a day before the murders Talovic told his 17 year old Bosnian girlfriend Monika, with whom he had discussed marriage plans that he was involved in a dark plot. "Something is going to happen tomorrow that you'll never be able to forgive me about" Talovic's girlfriend told the Salt Lake Times adding that "It was supposed be the happiest...

Choking on her blood on the floor of Cabin Fever, Carolyn Tuft inched toward Kirsten, her mortally wounded daughter, to tell her that she loved her. Their faces close, she took her hand.     Mother and daughter had been in the store for just a few minutes, not even at the Valentine's Day cards yet, when Tuft heard a "pop." They were laughing and browsing, and at first Tuft paid little attention. As the danger became apparent, she couldn't know if it was safer where they were or out in the hall. She walked over to the window to see...

Salt Lake Tribune Compares Holocaust Survivor to Killer (excerpt) Posted by Julia under Republican Riot I had to do a double take when I read these opening paragraphs in Saturday’s Salt Lake Tribune: Holocaust survivor mesmerizes students He was just a little older than his audience when the Nazis starved him and showed him such unspeakable brutality. He’s still talking about it now. The reaction at Fort Herriman Middle School last week was to stand and cheer his courage. Days after a teenager went on a shooting rampage in Salt Lake City, students at Jordan School District middle schools were...

SOUTH JORDAN - Those speaking at Jeffrey Walker's funeral attempted to "pull a Jeff."     In other words, they wanted to match their friend's personality by keeping the ceremony lighthearted and compassionate.     Walker, 52, was one of five people gunned down Monday night at Trolley Square.     "Evil has touched us, but it will not leave its mark because Jeff's legacy is love, compassion, faith, hope, service, unconditional caring and love and love and love," said friend Tracy Mower as he addressed the more than 1,500 gathered at the Country Park LDS Stake Center Saturday.     Mower related the...

Family in Bosnia describes Utah gunman as child of war and upheavalALMIR ARNAUT, Associated Press Writer February 15, 2007 12:23 PM TALOVICI, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Relatives of the Bosnian teen who shot and killed five people in a Salt Lake City mall said the boy's early life was marked by war and upheaval: The family fled Serb forces on foot when he was 4 and his grandfather was killed in the war. Sulejman Talovic was a toddler when fighting broke out in Bosnia in 1992. Serb troops laid siege to the hamlet of Talovici in northeastern Bosnia, bombing it for...

While the FBI stated it has found no evidence Islamic terrorism was a motive in the Salt Lake City mall shooting, investigators have not ruled it out, a police spokeswoman told WND. But Salt Lake Police spokeswoman Robin Snyder told WND the FBI is still working with her department on the case, and investigators continue to explore the terrorism angle. "We will pursue every single lead," she said. "There is not one lead we are not willing to pursue. At this point, we don't have any idea of any motive. Nothing is ruled out." Nevertheless, Tefft – a founding member...

Jaron Dansie was inside a Salt Lake City shopping mall when 18-year old Sulejmen Talovic entered the building, pulled a gun and started shooting people at random. As he took shelter inside one of the shops on the first floor, Dansie pulled out his video camera. “What the… What the hell's going on?” Dansie can be heard saying on the video, in between a barrage of loud gunshots. Dansie, a wedding videographer, said that turning his video camera on was not the first thing on his mind. But his actions led to an intense visual record of the tragic events...

CERSKA, Bosnia (Reuters) -- The 18-year-old gunman who shot five people to death in a Salt Lake City, Utah, shopping mall was a survivor of the siege that ended in the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims in Bosnia's 1992-95 war, a cousin said on Wednesday. Sulejman Talovic, who was killed by police after Monday's shooting spree in which he also wounded four people, fled his village with his family during the Bosnia war to Srebrenica, a U.N.-protected enclave, Redzo Talovic said." "They spent two years in the town, during which Bosnian Serb forces besieged the enclave and Talovic's grandfather was...

The 18-year-old man who shot and killed at least five people Monday night at Trolley Square has been identified as Solejman Talovic, a Bosnian refugee who lived in Salt Lake City. Little additional information was released about Talovic. The Bosnian community, which numbers about 3,000 in Utah, planned a press conference later this afternoon. Talovic parked his car in the west parking lot and walked into the mall, encountering two people, whom he shot. Then he walked further into the mall and shot a woman, said Police Chief Chris Burbank. He then walked to a gift shop and shot five...

Well, Sen. John Kerry certainly did his best to offer an October surprise for Republicans at the last minute. On Monday, Kerry was in California, stumping for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides. At an event at Pasadena City College intended to highlight Democratic education policies, Kerry told students, "You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well." But, he added, "If you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." The Internet lit up like a pinball machine. Sen. John McCain...

BRIGHAM CITY, Utah (AP) - The water in the Great Salt Lake has begun rising again after years of drought, changing the landscape and starting to submerge one of Utah's best-known artifacts: an enormous earth sculpture called the Spiral Jetty. The six years of drought had allowed the curious to flock to the lakeside to see the 1,500-foot-long, salt-encrusted spiral that Robert Smithson built in 1970 using backhoes to pile up rock and earth. For decades before the dry spell, the jetty had largely been just out of sight beneath the surface of the salty water. Thanks to a winter...

Strip club a winner vs. LDS ChurchFight isn’t over: A jury is expected to decide if the downtown Crazy Goat is a public, private nuisance Salt Lake City officials may now regret the decision, but they were right to allow stripping at the downtown Dead Goat - aka Crazy Goat - Saloon, a 3rd District judge ruled Wednesday. The LDS Church certainly regrets the city’s decision and had sued over it. But Judge Denise Lindberg sided against the church on two major claims. One of the saloon’s attorneys declared the semi-nude strippers are here to stay. "This is a major...

A federal judge rejected the American Civil Liberties Union's religious conspiracy claims Monday, ruling that Salt Lake City didn't violate the Constitution by trading away public access on the LDS Church's Main Street Plaza. The ACLU responded by saying an appeal was likely. U.S. District Judge Dale A. Kimball's 82-page dismissal of the ACLU's second Main Street Plaza lawsuit rejected point-by-point the group's contention that city leaders kowtowed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when they adopted Mayor Rocky Anderson's Unity Center solution to the Main Street Plaza brouhaha last summer. That solution extinguished the city's public...

  Al-Bazoni BY MICHAEL VIGH and STEPHEN HUNT(c) 2002, THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE     Forty-eight hours before tonight's ceremony opening the 2002 Winter Olympics, federal agents arrested a former Iraqi soldier who last July was cited for trespassing at Mountain Dell Reservoir, an important source of drinking water for Salt Lake City residents.     U.S. Magistrate Judge Samuel Alba will hear testimony today from prosecutors contending that Hani Salem al-Bazoni made threats against the United States when he was arrested, that he poses a possible terrorist threat and that he should remain jailed until trial on a new charge ...

After months of negotiations, CBS has given the go-ahead to a TV movie about Elizabeth Smart and is set to announce a deal that would bring the story of the Salt Lake girl's kidnapping and eventual rescue to a nationwide audience. CBS is targeting the telefilm for the November sweeps period — close to the scheduled late October release date of the family's book, "Bringing Elizabeth Home: A Journey of Faith and Hope." Both the book and movie will tell the story of Elizabeth's kidnapping and safe return through the experiences of her parents, Ed and Lois Smart. "The focus...