Tucson Marines Kyle Heppler and Shelby Shields are engaged to be married, which will happen when he returns from his deployment.

Shelby Shields and Kyle Heppler are engaged to be married, but their engagement is a bit different than most.

Rather than picking out dinnerware patterns or cake designs, Shields, 19, is stationed in Japan while Heppler, 20, is being deployed for the third time in his military career. The first two deployments took him to Iraq. This time he’s going to Afghanistan.

Most newly engaged couples don’t have to wonder if the groom will be alive to see the wedding.

“I think the scariest moment in my whole career was when I got orders for another deployment, just a week after asking Shelby to marry me,” Marine Lance Cpl. Heppler wrote in an e-mail from North Carolina, where he was sent from Japan to await his deployment.

“I remember the exact moment Kyle told me he was being deployed again. We were walking to the PX and he stopped me on the side of the road and said, ‘I have some really bad news,’” Marine Lance Cpl. Shields wrote in an e-mail from Okinawa.

“I felt my heart drop into my stomach and all I could do was hug him and hold on for dear life because my legs felt like Jell-o and I thought if I let go I might fall.”

The couple figured since Heppler had already been to Iraq twice in his three years with the Marines, they could make plans without worrying about another deployment.

“But that’s the Marine Corps,” Shields wrote, not with malice but with simple truthfulness.

Besides, based on the way that they met, the two are pretty used to drama.

They met in 2001, when Heppler was Shields’ friend’s boyfriend.

“I know, bad,” Shields wrote. “But she introduced me to him and we didn’t talk again until the messy breakup.”

Shields even played “middle man” on the phone when the actual breakup was going down. She kept Heppler’s number. He kept hers.

“Very soon after we were talking on the phone every night and the rest is history,” she said.

Their mutual love for service got them both into the military. Sort of.

“I joined the Marines in order to give back to my country what it’s given me, become a master at the Marine Corps martial arts program and to see the world,” Heppler said.

Shields signed up, in part, because Heppler was already enlisted. And she couldn’t stand the thought of four years of college after high school.

“If you would have asked me three or four years ago if I ever saw myself in the military I would probably laugh at you,” Shields said. Her original career goal, decided at age 3, was to be dolphin trainer. She later became interested in design.

Neither regrets their decision to become a Marine, regardless of how many times Heppler may get sent to Iraq.

“Every time I go home I’m reminded of what a good decision the Marine Corps was for me,” Shields said. “I love my friends dearly but a bunch have dropped out of college or are close to it, or still have no idea what they want to do with their life and wasted all that money.”

Both miss Tucson, their family, their dogs. Both also look forward to the care packages sent from home.

Shields especially appreciates the packages from Tucson Area Marine Moms, of which her mother is a part.

Heppler has gotten a laugh from a do-it-yourself Brazilian waxing kit and a half-empty tube of toothpaste a Maryland fifth grader stole from his parents.

“His mother apparently told him that we can’t shave or brush our teeth very often,” Heppler said.

Even the dangerous deserts of Iraq have humorous moments.

“The funniest thing I’ve ever seen was in Iraq during a sandstorm,” Heppler wrote. “A Marine I knew was in a Port-O-Potty while it was happening. Wind gusts of near 100 mph blew the stall over while he was in it. It took us 30 minutes to get him out because we were laughing so hard.”

Please note: this story was written last week and never published due to circumstance beyond our control.

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Shelby Shields in uniform.

U.S. Marine Lance Cpl. Kyle Heppler

VIENNA – Roxana Saberi, the American journalist freed after about four months in an Iranian prison on spying charges left the country, flying to the Austrian capital with her parents and a friend early Friday.

After landing at the airport, Saberi said she planned to spend a few days in Vienna to recover from her ordeal.

“I came to Vienna because I heard it was a calm and relaxing place,” Saberi said. “I know you have many questions but I need some more time to think about what happened to me over the past couple of days.”

Her father, Reza Saberi, said they were staying with a friend in Austria.

Saberi, poised and smiling, thanked all those who supported her during her ordeal — including Austria’s ambassador to Iran and his family.

“Both journalists and non-journalists around the world, I’ve been hearing, supported me very much and it was very moving for me to hear this,” Saberi said.

Saberi, referring to several statements made about her case over the past few days, stressed she was the only one who knew what really happened.

“Nobody knows about it as well as I do and I will talk about it more in the future, I hope, but I am not prepared at this time,” she said.

The 32-year-old journalist, who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, and moved to Iran six years ago, was arrested in late January and was convicted of spying for the United States in a brief, closed-door trial that her Iranian-born father said lasted only 15 minutes.

She was freed on Monday and reunited with her parents, who had come to Iran to seek her release, after an appeals court reduced her sentence to a two-year suspended sentence.

The United States had said the charges against Saberi were baseless and repeatedly demanded her release. The case against her had become an obstacle to President Barack Obama’s attempts at dialogue with the top U.S. adversary in the Middle East.

At one point, Saberi held a hunger strike to protest her imprisonment, but she ended it after two weeks when her parents, visiting her in prison, asked her to stop because her health was weakening.

Saberi had worked as a freelance journalist for several organizations, including National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp.

After her arrest, Iranian authorities initially accused her of working without press credentials, but later leveled the far more serious charge of spying. Iran released few details about the allegations that she passed intelligence to the U.S.

KABUL – Insurgents attacked a prison in eastern Afghanistan before dawn Friday, sparking a gunbattle with guards during which one prisoner was killed and another escaped, police said.

Meanwhile, NATO forces said one of its service members was killed Thursday by a bomb strike in southern Afghanistan. The international force did not provide further details or the nationality of the victim, under its policy of waiting for national authorities to announce deaths.

Prisons, along with police stations and other government buildings, have been repeated sites of Taliban attacks as the extremist religious group has stepped up its battle against the Afghan authorities in the past three years.

The militants did not manage to break into the prison in eastern Laghman province on Friday, but a group of more than a dozen prisoners charged an interior gate, breaking through to the outer wall, said provincial Police Chief Gen. Abdul Karim.

One prisoner managed to get away by jumping over the wall, while police shot another one dead as he attempted to flee, Karim said. Both of the men had been imprisoned for criminal offenses and were not known to have Taliban connections, he said.

Police captured one of the attackers and wounded some others, he said. No police or guards were injured.

Last summer, Taliban fighters attacked the prison in southern Kandahar province in a multi-pronged assault that included a suicide truck bomb, a suicide bomber on foot and gunmen freeing the prisoners. About 870 prisoners escaped, including roughly 400 jailed insurgents. The government has since worked to improve security at prisons across the country.

This week, President Barack Obama put his stamp on the bloody eight-year conflict by replacing the general in charge of the effort and installing a new ambassador. The Obama administration hopes the leadership shake-up — along with an additional 21,000 troops deploying this summer — will help reverse the militants’ momentum.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – A top U.N. official headed to Sri Lanka on Friday on an urgent mission to safeguard civilians trapped by fighting as thousands of desperate war refugees escaped across the front lines into government territory.

Government officials say they have cornered the Tamil Tiger rebels in a tiny coastal strip and stand poised to end this island nation’s quarter-century civil war.

However, international concern has grown for tens of thousands of civilians under threat from the heavy artillery bombardments shaking the war zone, and the Red Cross warned of “an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe” for the hundreds of wounded trapped without treatment.

Nearly 4,000 civilians waded across a lagoon overnight and broke out of the war zone, while another thousand waited to flee, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said Friday. The rebels fired on those leaving, killing four and wounding 14 others, he said.

About 200,000 civilians have escaped the war zone in recent months and are being held in overwhelmed displacement camps.

The rebels have denied accusations they were holding the civilians as human shields and shooting at those trying to flee. Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government has barred journalists and most aid workers from the conflict zone.

Hoping to end the bloodshed, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon sent his chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, to Sri Lanka for a second time to try to bring the conflict to a peaceful conclusion.

Nambiar is expected to meet with top government officials after he arrives Saturday and push for ways “to secure the safety of the 50,000 to 100,000 civilians remaining inside the combat zone,” U.N. spokesman Gordon Weiss said.

Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that in light of the ongoing war, the United States had raised questions about Sri Lanka’s application for a $1.9 billion IMF loan that the government desperately needs.

“We think that it is not an appropriate time to consider that until there is a resolution,” she said in Washington.

The U.N. says 7,000 civilians were killed and 16,700 wounded in the fighting from Jan. 20 until May 7, according to a U.N. document given to The Associated Press by a senior diplomat. Since then, doctors in the war zone say more than 1,000 civilians were killed in a week of heavy shelling that rights groups and foreign governments have blamed on Sri Lankan forces. Sri Lanka denies firing heavy weapons into the war zone.

On Thursday, doctors and health aides abandoned the only hospital in the war zone because of the intense shelling, according to a health official in the war zone who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

About 400 badly wounded patients remained inside in desperate need of treatment, along with more than 100 bodies waiting to be buried, the official said. The medical staff huddled in a nearby bunker and tried to ignore the cries of patients begging for help, he said.

A Red Cross ferry attempting to deliver desperately needed food aid and evacuate the wounded had to turn back for the third day Thursday because of the violence.

“Our staff are witnessing an unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe,” Pierre Krahenbuhl, the International Committee of the Red Cross’ director of operations, said of the patients in the hospital.

The Red Cross said the trapped civilians inside the war zone were taking cover in bunkers they had dug in the ground and were finding it even more difficult to get scarce drinking water and food.

“We need security and unimpeded access now in order to save hundreds of lives,” he said in a statement from Geneva.

An internally displaced Sri Lankan ethnic Tamil woman tends to an injured boy at a makeshift hospital in Mullivaikal, Sri Lanka, Wednesday.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Artillery shells tore through a hospital packed with wounded civilians in Sri Lanka’s war zone for a second day Wednesday, killing at least 50 people, setting an ambulance ablaze and forcing the medical staff to huddle in bunkers for safety, doctors said.

Health workers at the makeshift medical facility said they were so overwhelmed by the crush of the wounded and the unrelenting shelling of the area they could do little but give gauze and bandages to the roughly 1,000 patients waiting for treatment.

The strike on the hospital came as the government marched on with its offensive to destroy the reeling Tamil Tiger rebels and end their quarter-century quest for a separate homeland.

There has been a wave of artillery bombardments across the war zone that began over the weekend and has barely let up in five days, health workers said. The weekend attacks alone may have killed as many as 1,000 people, doctors said.

The government says its troops are not responsible for the shelling and that the military has not fired heavy weapons in the area in weeks.

But Human Rights Watch says satellite images and witness testimony contradict that claim and has accused both sides of using the estimated 50,000 civilians packed into the tiny coastal strip controlled by the rebels as “cannon fodder.”

The shelling was so intense Wednesday that a Red Cross ferry waiting off the coast to deliver food aid and evacuate the wounded had to turn back for a second day, the agency said.

Two artillery shells hit the medical facility about 1 p.m., slamming into an administrative office and a ward filled with patients already wounded by previous shell attacks, Dr. V. Shanmugarajah told The Associated Press by telephone.

Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah, the top health official in the war zone, said the attack killed at least 50 people, including patients, relatives and a health aide, and wounded about 60 others.

Heavy shelling of the war zone continued throughout the day, he said.

“We are unable to treat the people properly because a lot of aides have fled the hospital. We go into bunkers when there is shelling and try to treat them as much as we can when there is a lull,” he said by telephone.

One shell that struck the compound set an ambulance on fire, according to video footage of the aftermath of the attack. Scores of people crowded beneath tarps outside the hospital building waited for care as someone wailed in the background.

More than 1,000 civilians — many with amputations or chest wounds — had been waiting for treatment at the hospital when it was struck, and every 10 minutes or so another one or two died from lack of care, said a third hospital official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the government had not authorized him to speak to the media.

Overwhelmed doctors have been reduced to handing out bandages to the seriously wounded, the official said. More than 100 dead bodies have been left inside the compound because no one will risk burying them amid the constant shelling, he said. The strike was the third to hit the hospital this month.

A Red Cross worker and his mother were also killed in shelling, the third Red Cross staff member killed by shrapnel in the war zone in the past two months, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“This latest tragic incident shows how dangerous it is for everyone in the area,” said Paul Castella, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Colombo.

Rebel spokesman Seevaratnam Puleedevan said shells also hit a home for mentally handicapped women, killing 38 and wounding more than 40.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government has barred journalists and aid workers from the war zone.

The government has come under heavy international criticism for the large civilian toll of its offensive against the rebels, who are cornered in a two square-mile (five square-kilometer) strip of land.

The military said it pressed ahead with its offensive into that strip Wednesday, capturing one of the rebels’ heavy guns and fending off a suicide attack by four rebel boats laden with explosives.

The U.N. Security Council demanded Wednesday that the Tamil Tigers stop fighting and allow tens of thousands of civilians being used as human shields to leave the war zone. It also called on the government to stop firing heavy weapons, help trapped civilians evacuate and allow for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid.

The council press statement — which is not legally binding — expressed grave concern at the worsening humanitarian crisis.

Burst of gunfire from U.S. soldier touches varied lives

ABOVE: A family photo shows Pfc. Michael Edward Yates Jr. and his son Kamren. BELOW: Licensed clinical social worker Cmdr. Charles Keith Springle

Keith Springle, who grew up swimming and fishing off the North Carolina coast and seemed destined as a boy to join the Navy, was in Iraq because it was his duty as a military psychologist. Dr. Matthew Houseal, a 54-year-old Army reservist and psychiatrist, was there because he felt he needed to be.

Regardless of how they came to be there, both made it their mission to help their fellow service members cope with the stress of life in the combat zone. Soldiers like the Maryland rebel who liked tinkering with guns and despised “pencil pushers”; or the Peru native who, whether he was walking the streets of New Jersey or the dirt roads of Iraq, was a magnet for candy-seeking kids; or the shy video gamer from Missouri whose refusal to back down probably cost him his life.

Stress brought the five together earlier this week at a Baghdad clinic, the emotionally wounded and the healers. And stress is what killed them.

Authorities say Sgt. John M. Russell, who was nearing the end of his third tour in Iraq, was deeply angry at the military when he walked into the combat stress clinic at Camp Liberty on Monday and opened fire.

Killed were Springle, 52, a Navy commander from Beaufort, N.C.; Houseal of Amarillo, Texas; Army Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, of Paterson, N.J.; Spc. Jacob D. Barton, 20, of Lenox, Mo.; and Pfc. Michael E. Yates Jr., 19, of Federalsburg, Md., who had met Russell shortly before the shootings.

The paths that brought these six men together traced a grid across the globe, from South America to rural Missouri, from the islands of Alaska to deepest Antarctica, before intersecting so tragically in an Army clinic.

Family and teachers said Jacob Barton was a quiet student who loved graphic novels and science fiction. Growing up with his grandmother in the house, he sometimes had trouble relating to kids his own age.

“His grandmother was foremost on his mind at all times,” said Rod Waldrip, Barton’s high school English teacher at Rolla High School, where Barton graduated last year. “He sometimes wouldn’t do after-school activities because he had to see if she was OK. She was his main concern.”

Rose Coleman said her grandson was adjusting to life in the Army and that he “seemed to like it.”

Although he was reserved, he wasn’t afraid. Waldrip remembers seeing Barton come to the rescue of somebody who was getting bullied.

“He wouldn’t say much unless there was some injustice being done, and then he would speak up.”

Coleman said the Army told the family that Barton died trying to shield another man from the shooting.

“And he tried to talk the guy with the gun to put his gun down,” she said.

Springle knew mental health issues in the past weren’t being addressed and wanted to be proactive in treating the issues faced by soldiers and their families, said Staff Sgt. Robert Mullis of the Boone-based 1451st Transportation Company of the N.C. National Guard, who was part of a civilian outreach program with Springle.

“He saw it as preventive maintenance,” Mullis said of Springle. “They’ve just been through some tough experiences. He was reaching out trying to try and stop a big beast before it got started.”

Springle grew up in the little fishing village of Lewiston, N.C., just east of Beaufort. Cousin Alton Dudley said the pair were a kind of saltwater Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.

“It was a carefree life,” said Dudley, a fishing boat captain who was nine years older than Springle. “I am sure that he joined the Navy so that he could be at sea or close to it.”

All who knew him talked about Springle’s sense of humor and upbeat attitude. But Springle, whose son and son-in-law have each done a tour in Iraq, took the issue of combat stress very seriously. While deploying to Iraq was his duty, his work on the homefront with the Citizen-Soldier Support Program was a labor of love.

“This was volunteer work,” said Bob Goodale, director of behavioral mental health for the Chapel Hill-based program. “He was doing this because it was the right thing to do: training civilian providers so they were better equipped to serve the families and the service members.”

At 54, Houseal, a major in the Army Reserves, was under no obligation to go to Iraq. But he was already something of an adventurer.

For 11 months in 1991, the University of Michigan graduate served as the physician for about 20 people working at the Amundsen-Scott Station near the South Pole in a climate research project funded by the National Science Foundation, said Mike O’Neill who was the group’s electronics technician.

“He came in at the last minute not knowing anybody,” said O’Neill, who works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Colorado. “That’s one of the reasons I really respected him.”

The Amarillo man had worked for a dozen years at the Texas Panhandle Mental Health and Mental Retardation clinic, said executive director Bud Schertler. He left Texas for Iraq in late January and was assigned to the 55th Medical Company in Indianapolis, which ran the clinic where the shootings occurred.

Bueno-Galdos couldn’t wait to serve his adopted country and did so exceptionally, earning three Army Commendation Medals.

He was 7 when his family emigrated from Mollendo, Peru, for better economic opportunities. The youngest of four children, Chinito – a term of endearment that literally means “little Chinaman” – became a U.S. citizen in high school and joined the Army as soon as he graduated.

Back home in Paterson, he never made a trip to the corner bodega without a group of neighborhood children tailing behind, knowing he would buy them candy or a soda, his family recalled. It was the same in Iraq, where he was on his second tour.

Yates displayed zeal for serving in the Army, but perhaps not the locale where he was serving, as evidenced by his MySpace page.

His profile lists his location as “(expletive), Iraq.”

Yates’ mother, Shawna Machlinski, said her son joined the Army, not out of a sense of duty, but because he didn’t see many other options. Besides, his stepfather and two stepbrothers were all military men.

Yates liked the military, especially going out on what he called “stealth missions.” His problems started when he went back after spending nearly the entire month of April at home. His son, Kamren Mister, celebrated his first birthday on April 7.

But the visit left him anxious. He wasn’t home long enough, but he’d still been away from “my military family” too long. Once back in Iraq, his mother said, he began to think about things he wished he’d done while visiting Maryland.

When the strong emotions began surfacing, she said, he was transferred to headquarters company “so he could stay out of combat.”

“He didn’t like headquarters at all,” said Machlinski. “He said they’re stupid pencil pushers.”

Despite the stigma, Yates volunteered to go to the stress clinic.

“I need help dealing with this,” he told his mom.

Yates had been at the clinic nearly a week when he called home Sunday for Mother’s Day.

Sometime during that time, he bumped into Russell.

Yates told his mother that Russell seemed like a nice enough guy, but after three tours, he clearly hated the Army.

“Man, this guy’s got issues,” she remembers him telling her.

Russell, 44, who was a little more than a month shy of finishing his third tour, told his family that the clinic was hurting him more than helping.

Now, he faces charges of murder and aggravated assault.

He reverses position because of damage photos might do

WASHINGTON – President Obama will try to block the court-ordered release of photos showing the abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan, reversing his position and ceding to military concerns the images could stoke anti-American passions overseas.

The White House had said last month it would not oppose an appeals court ruling that set a May 28 deadline for releasing dozens of photos from military investigations of alleged misconduct.

But American commanders in the war zones have expressed concern about damage the photos might do.

When photos emerged in 2004 from the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, showing grinning American soldiers posing with detainees – some of the prisoners naked, some being held on leashes – the pictures caused a huge anti-American backlash around the globe, particularly in the Muslim world.

Obama, explaining his change of heart, said the photos had already served their purpose in investigations of “a small number of individuals.” Those cases were all concluded by 2004, and the president said “the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken.”

“This is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action,” Obama said of the photos.

The effort to keep the photos from becoming public represented a sharp reversal from Obama’s repeated pledges for open government.

Obama’s reversal puts him in step with some Republicans. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., sent kudos via Twitter. “Strongly agree,” he said.

———

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

• A suicide car bomber killed seven people and wounded 21 others Wednesday outside a U.S. military base in the same part of eastern Afghanistan where militants stormed government buildings a day earlier, police said.

• Ninety-five Afghan children are among the 140 people said to have died in a recent U.S.-Taliban battle in western Afghanistan, a lawmaker involved in the investigation into the deaths said Wednesday. The U.S. military disputed the claim.

• Tempers boiled over Wednesday at a refugee camp in Pakistan when a scuffle broke out as police escorted a truck carrying mattresses and water, but the incident did not last long and there were no reports of injuries.

The Associated Press

KABUL – A suicide bomb attack killed six civilians Wednesday outside a U.S. military base in the same part of eastern Afghanistan where militants tried to storm government buildings the day before, police said.

A vehicle drove up to a gate outside Camp Salerno, on the edge of Khost city, in the early morning and exploded, Khost province police spokesman Wazir Pacha said. Six civilians were killed and 16 others wounded, he said.

U.S. forces confirmed the attack, saying four Afghan security guards were killed in the blast and 12 wounded.

“We don’t know how many local nationals were wounded or killed,” said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a U.S. military spokeswoman. There were no casualties among international troops, she said.

The attack comes a day after 11 Taliban suicide bombers struck government buildings in Khost city, sparking running gunbattles with U.S. and Afghan forces that killed 20 people and wounded three Americans.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Shells hit the only hospital in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone Wednesday, killing at least 50 people in the second such attack in two days, a doctor said. Medics at the makeshift facility said they were using brief lulls between explosions to tend to patients but had little to offer beyond gauze and bandages.

It was the third attack this month on the hospital and comes on the heels of shelling this past weekend that killed as many as 1,000 civilians. On Tuesday, shells struck the admissions ward, killing 49. But trapped in the tiny coastal strip as the government presses ahead with its offensive against the rebels, the wounded had little alternative but to converge by the hundreds to seek treatment.

Scores of people crowded beneath tarps outside the hospital building waiting for care as a person wailed in grief in the background, according to a video footage.

The military has denied firing any heavy weapons in recent weeks, but Human Rights Watch says both sides are using the estimated 50,000 civilians packed into the last rebel-held territory as “cannon fodder.” The Red Cross said one of its workers was killed in shelling Wednesday.

The Tamil Tigers are cornered in a two square-mile (five square-kilometer) pocket of land. The military said it pressed ahead with its offensive into that strip Wednesday, capturing one of the rebels’ heavy guns and fending off a suicide attack launched by the group’s naval wing.

On Wednesday afternoon, the area around the hospital came under heavy shell attack, Dr. V. Shanmugarajah told The Associated Press by telephone — the third time it has come under fire this month and just one day after the last attack. One shell landed in an administrative office of the hospital, while another hit a ward filled with patients already wounded by previous shelling, he said.

Dr. Thurairaja Varatharajah, the top health official in the war zone, said the attack killed at least 50 people, including patients, relatives and a health aide, and wounded about 60 others.

He said heavy shelling continued throughout the day.

“We are unable to treat the people properly because a lot of aides have fled the hospital. We go into bunkers when there is shelling and try to treat them as much as we can when there is a lull,” he said by telephone.

More than 1,000 civilians — many with amputations or chest wounds — were waiting for treatment at the hospital when it was struck, and every 10 minutes or so another one or two died, according to a third hospital official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by the government to speak to the media.

Overwhelmed doctors have been reduced to handing out gauze and bandages to the seriously wounded, the official said. More than 100 dead bodies have been left inside the compound because no one will risk burying them amid the constant shelling, he said.

Rebel spokesman Seevaratnam Puleedevan said shells also hit a home for mentally handicapped women, killing 38 and wounding more than 40. The health officials said they were not able to confirm that attack.

Shelling also killed Red Cross worker Mayuran Sivagurunathan and his mother and prevented a Red Cross ferry off the coast from delivering food aid and evacuating the wounded, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The aid group said it was not sure if its employee was killed in the hospital attack.

“There are many shells falling. I don’t know if it was the same attack,” Red Cross spokesman Marcel Izard said.

Reports of the fighting are difficult to verify because the government has barred journalists and aid workers from the war zone.

The government has come under heavy international criticism for the large civilian toll of its offensive against the Tamil Tiger rebels. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called the conflict zone “as close to hell as you can get,” and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton joined him in expressing alarm at the civilian casualties.

Human Rights Watch said witness testimony and satellite images of the area taken Sunday and analyzed by experts “contradict Sri Lankan government claims that its armed forces are no longer using heavy weapons” in the war zone.

The group also accused the rebels of using the civilians as human shields and shooting those who try to escape.

“Neither the Sri Lankan army nor the Tamil Tigers appear to have any reluctance in using civilians as cannon fodder,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science analyzed satellite photos of the area taken Sunday morning — after a night of heavy shelling was reported in the area — and compared it to an image taken four days before. The report was done at the request of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

“By comparing before-and-after satellite images, we were able to see a significant movement of the region’s human population, suggesting widespread displacement. We also saw destroyed structures and circular, crater-like features consistent with widespread shelling,” said Lars Bromley, director of the association’s Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights project.

One area, which had been densely packed with tents and other structures in the earlier photo was nearly empty Sunday morning. Another photo provided by Amnesty showed two white circles near a cluster of trees that were identified as impact craters.

While Bromley said the images did not show who was behind the destruction, Human Rights Watch said a health official in the area had told them the artillery was being fired from an area under government control.

Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara denied troops were responsible for any shelling, saying the war zone had grown too small for the use of such weapons. He said exploding booby traps set by the rebels could account for the craters and the reports of shelling.

MARDAN, Pakistan – Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have fled fighting between the army and Taliban militants in a northwestern valley, raising the risk that public support could turn against an offensive Washington sees as a must-win battle.

The U.S. announced $4.9 million worth of aid for the refugees, many of whom arrived Monday in parched camps where children held empty food bowls and men lined up in the baking sun, questioning how they would survive.

“It’s hell for us,” said Zaida Bibi, 20, as she glanced around her new accommodations, a mostly bare tent in the Mardan area, its floor covered by a thin tarpaulin that proved little cushion against the rugged earth.

At least 360,000 Pakistanis displaced by recent fighting have registered in camps and other centers since early May, the U.N. said. That’s on top of some 500,000 people displaced by offensives that date to August 2008 — though it’s unclear how many of those remain refugees.

Most of the newly displaced are expected to stay with relatives or friends. But some 30,000 are settling into U.N. camps, spokeswoman Ariane Rummery said. The agency announced Monday it will airlift 120 tons of relief supplies to help refugees in the region.

The U.N. is working in at least five camps with the new refugees, though the government has established several sites elsewhere. The figures could rise if fighting proceeds.

The military operation is focused in the Swat Valley, a major Taliban stronghold, and surrounding districts. Pakistani warplanes bombed suspected insurgent positions in the area Monday, while the government claimed it had killed up to 700 Taliban in four days of fighting.

Islamabad’s tough military response has earned praise from the U.S., which wants al-Qaida and Taliban militants routed from havens where they can plan attacks on American and NATO forces in nearby Afghanistan.

It has also earned broad support from Pakistanis, including many in the region who fled after enduring Taliban brutality for the past two years.

Still, the newly displaced are desperate for a quick finish to the offensive, and they worry about what will be left of their homes.

Swat, with 1.5 million residents, was once a tourist haven dubbed the “Switzerland of Pakistan” for its Alpine scenery. It lies less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad, and not far from the Afghan border.

It’s also near the lawless Pakistani tribal areas, where al-Qaida and the Taliban have strongholds and where the U.S. says al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden may be hiding.

A suspected U.S. missile strike killed at least eight people in the South Waziristan tribal region early Tuesday, Pakistani officials said. The identity of the victims was not immediately clear, said the officials, who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly to the media.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the government, which had urged residents to leave the region to avoid casualties, was devoting millions of dollars to help the refugees.

“These people have left their areas to save the country — we appreciate their sacrifices,” Gilani said. “The nation is ready to provide them all required facilities.”

But Pakistani political analyst Mehdi Hasan said the government must act quickly.

“If the disappointment of the people and the resentment of displaced persons increases, then it will be difficult for the government to continue this military action,” he said.

At a Mardan camp where some 12,000 people had already settled, Naheed Amir, a health worker with the aid group Ummah Welfare Trust, said she was seeing more than 300 patients a day with a range of illnesses from diarrhea to eye infections.

Some of the displaced families said they’d had nothing to eat but lentils over the past few days, and that they needed electricity, more water and better relief from the heat.

Many of those who fled went well beyond the northwest, traveling as far as the southern city of Karachi.

The military launched the most recent offensive after the insurgents in Swat used a peace deal to impose their reign in other neighboring areas, including a stretch just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital.

The army says 12,000 to 15,000 troops in Swat face 4,000 to 5,000 militants, including small numbers of foreigners and hardened fighters from the South Waziristan tribal region.

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – A mortar shell struck the only functioning medical facility in Sri Lanka’s northern war zone Tuesday, killing 47 patients and bystanders and wounding more than 50 others, the rebels and a health worker in the area said.

The attack came after a weekend of heavy shelling that killed hundreds of civilians in the area. The military has denied accusations that it was still shelling the tiny coastal strip still under rebel control, which is packed with an estimated 50,000 civilians.

Rebel spokesman Seevaratnam Puleedevan told The Associated Press that a shell hit the hospital Tuesday morning. “They are still counting the dead bodies,” he said.

A health worker at the makeshift hospital confirmed the attack, saying one mortar shell landed in the admissions ward that had been set up in a temporary shelter about 7:30 a.m., killing 47 patients and bystanders and sending patients fleeing for their lives.

A hospital administrator was among those killed and another 56 people were wounded, the staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Shelling was still going on hours after the attack, but the hospital was not again hit, the worker said.

Puleedevan said civilians were fleeing in all directions inside the tiny war zone seeking safety.

“There’s no place to seek shelter or protect themselves,” he said.

He called on the international community to force the government to stop its offensive against the rebel group.

Ex-special forces officer to head Afghan fight

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates (wearing suit) and U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan (seated, right), then-commander of the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, listen Friday to Afghan governors and local officials during a visit to Forward Operating Base Airborne in the mountains of Wardak Province, Afghanistan. Gates fired McKieran on Monday.

WASHINGTON – President Obama fired the top U.S. general in Afghanistan on Monday, replacing him with a former special forces commander in a quest for a more agile, unconventional approach in a war that has gone quickly downhill.

With the Taliban resurgent, Obama’s switch from Gen. David McKiernan to Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal suggested that the new president wants major changes in addition to the additional troops he’s ordering into Afghanistan to shore up the war effort.

McKiernan, on the job for less than a year, repeatedly pressed for more forces. Although Obama has approved more than 21,000 additional troops this year, he has warned that the war will not be won by military means.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates echoed that view at a grim Pentagon news conference announcing the leadership overhaul.

“As I have said many times before, very few of these problems can be solved by military means alone,” he said. “And yet, from the military perspective, we can and must do better.”

“It’s time for new leadership and fresh eyes.”

A new team of commanders will now be charged with applying Obama’s revamped strategy for challenging an increasingly brutal and resourceful insurgency. The strategy, a work in progress, relies on the kind of special forces and counterinsurgency tactics McChrystal knows well, as well as nonmilitary approaches to confronting the Taliban. It would hinge success in the seven-year-old war to political and other conditions across the border in Pakistan.

McKiernan, named to his post by then- President George W. Bush, had expected to serve into next year but was told he was out during Gates’ visit to Afghanistan last week.

Gates said he asked for McKiernan’s resignation “with the approval of the president.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, and McKiernan’s military boss, Gen. David Petraeus, both said they supported the switch.

The White House said the recommended change came from the Pentagon.

“The president agreed with the recommendation of the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that the implementation of a new strategy in Afghanistan called for new military leadership,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement.

McChrystal is a former special forces chief credited with nabbing one of the most-wanted fugitives in Iraq. Taking a newly created No. 2 slot under his command will be Lt. Gen. David Rodriguez, a veteran of the Afghanistan fight who has been Gates’ military shadow, the top uniformed aide who travels with him everywhere.

By year’s end, the United States will have more than 68,000 troops in the sprawling country, about double the total at the end of Bush’s presidency but far fewer than the 130,000 in Iraq.

McKiernan and other U.S. commanders have said resources they need in Afghanistan are tied up in Iraq.

Although Obama had pledged to add forces in Afghanistan while shutting down the Iraq war, his new administration has sought firmer control over the pace and scope of any new deployments. Gates and Mullen have both warned Obama that a very large influx of U.S. troops would be self-defeating.

Asked if McKiernan’s resignation would end his military career, Gates said, “Probably.” But he praised the general’s long service, and when pressed to name anything McKiernan had failed to do, Gates demurred.

“Nothing went wrong, and there was nothing specific,” he said.

Gates, too, was appointed to his position by Bush. He noted that the Afghan campaign has long lacked people and money in favor of the Bush administration’s focus since 2003 on the Iraq war.

“But I believe, resources or no, that our mission there requires new thinking and new approaches from our military leaders,” he said. “Today we have a new policy set by our new president. We have a new strategy, a new mission and a new ambassador. I believe that new military leadership also is needed.”

McKiernan issued a short statement in Kabul.

“All of us, in any future capacity, must remain committed to the great people of Afghanistan,” McKiernan said. “They deserve security, government that meets their expectations, and a better future than the last 30 years of conflict have witnessed.”

In June 2006 Bush congratulated McChrystal for his role in the operation that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. As head of the Special Operations Command, McChrystal’s forces included the Army’s clandestine counterterrorism unit, the Delta Force.

He drew criticism for his role in the military’s handling of the friendly fire shooting of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a former NFL star, in Afghanistan.

An investigation at the time found that McChrystal was “accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions” contained in papers recommending that Tillman get a Silver Star award.

McChrystal acknowledged he had suspected several days before approving the Silver Star citation that Tillman might have died by fratricide, rather than enemy fire. He sent a memo to military leaders warning them of that, even as they were approving Tillman’s Silver Star. Still, he told investigators he believed Tillman deserved the award.

McChrystal

———

McCHRYSTAL BIO

NAME: Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal

EXPERIENCE : Director of The Joint Staff, August 2008-present; Commander, Joint Special Operations Command and commander, Joint Special Operations Command Forward, 2006-2008; commanding general, Joint Special Operations Command, 2003-06; vice director for operations, J-3 The Joint Staff, 2002-03; chief of staff, XVIII Airborne Corps and Fort Bragg, 2001-02; assistant division commander for operations, 82d Airborne Division; commander, 75th Ranger Regiment, 1997-99.

EDUCATION: B.S., U.S. Military Academy; M.A. in national security and strategic studies, U.S. Naval War College; M.S. in international relations, Salve Regina University.

BAGHDAD – A U.S. Army sergeant who was due to leave Iraq soon after multiple tours has been charged with murder and aggravated assault in the fatal shooting of five fellow soldiers at a U.S. military counseling clinic in Baghdad, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Sgt. John M. Russell of the 54th Engineering Battalion based in Bamberg, Germany was charged with five counts of murder and one count of aggravated assault in Monday’s shooting, Maj. Gen. David Perkins told reporters.

It was the deadliest case of soldier-on-soldier violence since the Iraq war began in 2003 and has drawn attention to the issue of combat stress and frequent deployments to battle zones.

Russell was taken into custody by military police outside the clinic following the shooting at Camp Liberty, Perkins said.

Perkins said two of the dead were officers — doctors from the Army and Navy — and the others were enlisted personnel seeking treatment at the clinic. He did not identify the victims by name.

He said a probe has also begun into whether the Army has enough mental health facilities in Iraq to care for stress cases.

The U.S. military is coping with a growing number of stress cases among soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan — many of whom are on their third or fourth combat tours. Some studies suggest that about 15 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq suffer from some sort of emotional problems.

Perkins gave few details of the shooting since the investigation is ongoing and added that there were conflicting accounts of what happened.

He said the alleged assailant had been referred to the clinic by his superiors, presumably because of concern over his mental state. Perkins said Russell was “probably” on his third tour of Iraq but was due to leave soon.

Perkins said the assailant’s weapon had been taken away, but somehow he got a new weapon, entered the clinic and opened fire.

In Washington, a Pentagon official said the alleged assailant had been escorted to the clinic, but once inside got into an argument with the staff and was asked to leave. After he and his escort drove away, Russell allegedly took control of the escort’s weapon and returned to the clinic, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

President Barack Obama, who visited an adjacent base last month, said in a statement that he was “shocked and deeply saddened” by the report.

At the Pentagon, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the shooting occurred “in a place where individuals were seeking help.”

“It does speak to me about the need for us to redouble our efforts in terms of dealing with the stress,” Mullen said.

Violence has dropped sharply in Iraq since the high point in 2007, but attacks continue, especially in the north.

Also Tuesday, a suicide bomber rammed his car into an Iraqi police truck in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing five policemen and a civilian.

Kirkuk is the center of Iraq’s oil production in the north and is contested between its Kurdish, Turkomen and Arab populations.

TEHRAN, Iran – American journalist Roxana Saberi said Tuesday she is very happy to be free and reunited with her parents and thanked those who helped win her release after four months in an Iranian prison, as new details emerged of her conviction on charges of spying for the United States.

One of Saberi’s lawyers said she was originally convicted in part because she had visited Israel and because she kept a confidential Iranian government document about the U.S. war in Iraq, which she obtained while working as a freelance Web translator for a powerful body connected to Iran’s ruling clerics.

Speaking to reporters in Tehran for the first time since her release Monday, a smiling Saberi said she did not have any specific plans but wanted to spend time with her family. She looked thin but energetic, dressed in a bright blue headscarf, black pants and a black dress.

“I am very happy that I have been released and reunited with my father and mother. I am very grateful to all the people who knew me or didn’t know me and helped for my release,” she said in brief remarks outside her home in north Tehran. “I don’t have any specific plans for the time being. I want to stay with my parents. ”

Her Iranian-born father Reza Saberi told reporters the family was making plans to return home to the United States but probably would not be ready to leave on Tuesday or Wednesday.

“She has lost a lot of weight,” he said, adding that now “she is eating well. She is recovering.”

He said his daughter “was not tortured at all” while in custody but that she made incriminating statements about herself under pressure. He said his daughter initially pleaded guilty to the charges under pressure but retracted her statements later and the appeals court accepted that. He did not elaborate on the sort of pressure.

The younger Saberi was freed after an appeals court reduced her original eight-year prison sentence to a two-year suspended sentence.

The 32-year-old journalist, who has dual Iranian and American citizenship, was convicted of spying for the United States in mid-April in a swift, secret trial before a security court that her father said lasted only 15 minutes.

One of Saberi’s lawyers, Saleh Nikbakht, revealed new details of the case on Tuesday. He said Saberi had copied and kept a “confidential document” about the U.S. war in Iraq that was issued by a research center connected to the Iranian president’s office, and that this was used against her in her original conviction.

Saberi obtained the document while she was working as a freelance translator for the Expediency Council, a powerful body in Iran’s ruling clerical hierarchy, Nikbakht said. The council’s role is to mediate between the legislature, presidency and ruling clerics over constitutional disputes. The lawyer said Saberi was occasionally working as translator for council’s Web site two years ago.

During her trial, prosecutors also cited a trip to Israel that Saberi made in 2006 as evidence against her, the lawyer said. The Iranian government bars its citizens from visiting Israel.

In her appeal court session on Sunday, Saberi admitted to the court that she possessed the document, saying she copied it out of “curiosity,” but she said she didn’t share it with American officials, Nikbakht said. She apologized for doing so, and the court reduced the charge against her from espionage to possessing confidential documents.

She also acknowledged visiting Israel but said her activities there were not directed against Iran, he said.

Her original conviction was also on charges of working with a “hostile country” referring to the United States. But Nikbakht said the appeals court dropped that charge, ruling that the U.S. is not a hostile country because it and Iran are not at war.

Washington had called the espionage charges against Saberi “baseless” and repeatedly demanded her release. The case was an irritant in U.S.-Iran relations at a time when President Barack Obama was offering to restart a dialogue with Tehran after decades of shunning the country.

But Saberi’s release cleared one obstacle to closer contacts. It could also help hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad win some domestic political points a month before he faces a re-election challenge from reformers who seek to ease Iran’s bitter rivalry with the United States.

Saberi, who was crowned the 1997 Miss North Dakota, moved to Iran six years ago and had worked as a freelance journalist for several organizations, including NPR and the British Broadcasting Corp. She was arrested in late January.

Associated Press Writer Nasser Karimi in Tehran contributed to this report.

Pakistan says 400 killed; thousands of refugees flee valley

MINGORA, Pakistan – Tens of thousands of civilians, many on foot or donkey-led carts, took advantage of a lifted curfew to flee Pakistan’s embattled Swat Valley on Sunday, while the army said it had killed 400 to 500 militants in its battle against the Taliban.

The hemorrhaging of residents from the scenic valley that once attracted many tourists threatened to greatly exacerbate an existing internal refugee crisis for a nuclear-armed nation already facing economic, political and other woes.

The army offensive has garnered praise from the U.S., which wants Pakistan to root out havens on its soil where Taliban militants can plan attacks on American and NATO forces across the border in Afghanistan. In an interview aired Sunday, Pakistan’s president urged international support for the fight and insisted the army had enough troops in the northwest to handle the threat.

As they left Swat’s main town of Mingora, some residents cursed the situation and condemned the Taliban, while others blamed Pakistani leaders for bowing to the West. “Show our picture to your master America and get money from him,” some taunted.

The desperate Swat residents were trying to leave any way they could – on motorbikes, animal-pulled carts, rickshaws or foot. A ban on civilian vehicles entering the valley complicated the exodus for those without cars. Some chided an Associated Press reporter for slowing them down by asking questions.

“We are going out only with our clothes and a few things to eat on the long journey,” said Rehmat Alam, a 40-year-old medical technician walking out of Mingora with 18 other relatives. “We just got out by relying on God.”

Fighter jets and helicopter gunships have pounded Swat and surrounding districts over the past few days after Taliban fighters in the valley moved out and tried to impose their reign in other areas, including a stretch just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

The army’s nine-hour suspension of the curfew Sunday could signal a more intense operation now that more civilians have left. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said 400 to 500 militants had been killed since the operation’s launch last week.