Gwinnett Daily Post

Israel clears out Gaza settlement without violence

GADID, Gaza Strip - Israeli forces on Friday cleared out one of the last strongholds of opposition to the Gaza pullout and began demolishing homes in an empty settlement, avoiding a repeat of previous day's violence in which youths pelted soldiers with acid, oil and sand.

After Friday's speedy operation, all but four of the 21 Gaza settlements stood empty when the army suspended the evictions for the Jewish sabbath. Israel's commander for the region, Maj. Gen. Dan Harel, said the remainder could be emptied by next Tuesday - weeks ahead of schedule.

German court convicts Moroccan Sept. 11 suspect

HAMBURG, Germany - A Moroccan man accused of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers was convicted Friday of membership in a terrorist organization but was acquitted of direct involvement in the attacks on the United States.

After a yearlong retrial, the Hamburg state court sentenced Mounir el Motassadeq to seven years in prison for membership in the al-Qaida cell that included suicide pilots Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

However, it acquitted him of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder, ruling the evidence did not show the 31-year-old was specifically involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, plot.

Pope Benedict XVI visits synagogue

COLOGNE, Germany - German-born Pope Benedict XVI on Friday became the second pope to visit a synagogue, entering to the tones of a ram's horn, praying before a Holocaust memorial and lamenting a rise in anti-Semitism.

''We need to show respect for one another and to love one another,'' Benedict said, pressing a theme of interfaith understanding that has marked his first foreign trip as pope.

Authorities rule out carbon monoxide in Greek crash

ATHENS, Greece - Carbon monoxide did not knock out some of the passengers and crew of a Cypriot airliner before it crashed in the Greek mountains, coroners said Friday, deepening the mystery as to what caused the disaster that killed all 121 people on board.

More tests were being conducted to determine what could have rendered crew and passengers aboard the Helios Airways Flight ZU522 from Larnaca, Cyprus, unconscious during the flight. The plane flew on autopilot before crashing.

Earlier tests showed that at least 26 people on the flight were still alive when it crashed. There has been speculation that an electrical fire or some other cause could have flooded the cabin with carbon monoxide or another gas.

Relative of slain Brazilian accuses police of lying

LONDON - The cousin of a Brazilian man fatally shot by police who mistook him for a terrorist said Friday that London's police chief lied about the killing and should resign.

Alessandro Pereira, 25, shed tears as he read his statement during a nationally televised news conference in London. His cousin, Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was shot in the head seven times by undercover police who followed him onto a subway train July 22, believing he was linked to a failed bomb attack on the city's transit system the previous day.

''I have always believed that those who break the law should be punished, and some people have broken the law,'' he said. ''They have killed Jean and then told lies. ... My family wants the truth."

Gunmen target Sunnis in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Three members of Iraq's largest Sunni Arab party were lined up in front of a mosque and shot to death in northern Iraq, a day after gunmen opened fire on Sunni leaders debating Iraq's constitutional process in Ramadi, injuring four people.

The violence came as followers of a radical Shiite cleric joined Sunni Arabs in staging protests against the inclusion of federalism in a new constitution, stepping up pressure on negotiators struggling to find a compromise just three days before a deadline to approve the charter.

DEA breaks up drug pipeline

WASHINGTON - Drug enforcement agents have arrested some 160 people in four U.S. cities and two countries and have broken up three major drug transportation rings with international ties in a 10-month drug-trafficking sting revealed Friday.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said the people arrested were involved in 27 U.S. distribution groups that have moved enough methamphetamine into the United States to have provided the drug to more than 22,700 users a month.

Arrests in the sting - dubbed Operation Three Hour Tour by the Drug Enforcement Administration - were made Thursday in Los Angeles, New York, New Haven, Conn., Des Moines, Iowa, the Dominican Republican and Colombia.

- From wire reports