World / Nation Briefs March 8, 2012

Iran apparently cleaning up secret work

VIENNA - Satellite images of an Iranian military facility appear to show trucks and earth-moving vehicles at the site, indicating an attempted cleanup of radioactive traces possibly left by tests of a nuclear-weapon trigger, diplomats told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

The assertions from the diplomats, all nuclear experts accredited to the International Atomic Energy Agency, could add to the growing international pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, which Tehran insists is for peaceful purposes.

While the U.S. and the EU are backing a sanctions-heavy approach, Israel has warned that it may resort to a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear facilities to prevent it from obtaining atomic weapons.

Two of the diplomats said the crews at the Parchin military site may be trying to erase evidence of tests of a small experimental neutron device used to set off a nuclear explosion. A third diplomat could not confirm that but said any attempt to trigger a so-called neutron initiator could only be in the context of trying to develop nuclear arms.

Syrian biological weapons affect U.S. military plan

WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the nation's top military leader delivered a sober assessment Wednesday of Syria's sophisticated air defenses and its extensive stockpile of chemical weapons in a strategic reality check to the demand for U.S. military action to end President Bashar Assad's deadly crackdown on his people.

President Barack Obama's 2008 rival - Republican Sen. John McCain - has called for the president to launch airstrikes against Assad to force him from power and end the bloodshed. The United Nations estimates that more than 7,500 Syrians have been killed, with hundreds more fleeing to neighboring nations to avoid the slaughter.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Obama has asked the Pentagon for a preliminary review of military options, such as enforcement of a no-fly zone and humanitarian airlifts. He insisted that the military would be ready if the commander in chief made the request.

New account tells of bin Laden's final days

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan - Osama bin Laden spent his last weeks in a house divided, amid wives riven by suspicions. On the top floor, sharing his bedroom, was his youngest wife and favorite. The trouble came when his eldest wife showed up and moved into the bedroom on the floor below.

Others in the family, crammed into the three-story villa compound where bin Laden would eventually be killed in a May 2 U.S. raid, were convinced that the eldest wife intended to betray the al-Qaida leader.

The picture of bin Laden's life in the Abbottabad compound comes from Brig. Shaukat Qadir, a retired Pakistani army officer who spent months researching the events and says he was given rare access to transcripts of Pakistani intelligence's interrogation of bin Laden's youngest wife, who was detained in the raid.

Qadir was also given rare entry into the villa, which was sealed after the raid and demolished last month. Pictures he took, which he allowed The Associated Press to see, showed the villa's main staircase, splattered with blood. Other pictures show windows protected by iron grills and the 20-foot high walls around the villa.

Qadir's research gives one of the most extensive descriptions of the arrangements in bin Laden's hideout when U.S. SEAL commandos stormed in, killing bin Laden and four others. His account is based on accounts by an official of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency who escorted him on a tour of the villa, the interrogation transcription he was allowed to read, and interviews with other ISI officials and al-Qaida-linked militants and tribesmen in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.

Nursing aide put patient photos on Facebook

PORTLAND, Ore. - An Oregon nursing assistant spent eight days in jail after a jury found her guilty of taking disturbing photos of elderly or disabled patients and posting them to her Facebook wall.

A jury convicted Nai Mai Chao, 26, of invasion of personal privacy late last month. She was released from prison on Friday.

She was accused of taking graphic photos of patients using bed pans and posting them on Facebook. The pictures date to April 2011.

The pictures show at least two patients - one of a patient lying down and another of the back of a patient's head. The rest of the pictures are of the contents of bed pans.

- The Associated Press