Report to detail blaze, deaths of 19 firefighters

PRESCOTT, Ariz. (AP) — A highly anticipated report examining weather conditions, radio traffic and fire behavior, among other things, is expected to help explain how 19 members of an elite firefighting crew died while battling an Arizona wildfire. Officials, however, said it won't assign blame.

The Arizona State Forestry Division was set to present the roughly 120-page report to the men's families ahead of a news conference planned for Saturday morning in Prescott.

All but one member of the Granite Mountain Hotshots crew died June 30 while protecting the small former gold rush town of Yarnell, about 80 miles northwest of Phoenix, from an erratic lightning-sparked wildfire.

Early reports showed the fire caused little immediate concern because of its remote location and small size when it began June 28. But the blaze quickly grew into an inferno, burning swiftly across pine, juniper and scrub oak and through an area that hadn't experienced a significant wildfire in nearly 50 years.

The 20-member Granite Mountain Hotshots team arrived early on the morning of June 30 and headed into the boulder-strewn mountains. About nine hours later, the crew radioed that they were trapped by flames and deploying emergency shelters. Only one crew member who was assigned as the lookout survived.

The fire ended up destroying more than 100 homes and burned 13 square miles before it was fully contained on July 10.

No other wildfire had claimed more firefighters in 80 years, and it was the deadliest single day for fire crews since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The Granite Mountain team was unique among the nation's roughly 110 Hotshot crews as the first and only such unit attached to a municipal fire department.

It wasn't clear why the firefighters left the relative safety of a ridge top or if they had received warnings of the erratically changing weather that whipped the blaze into an unpredictable inferno when they dropped down into a bowl surrounded by mountains on three sides.

At one point, officials asked for half of the available western U.S. heavy air tanker fleet — six planes — to try to control the blaze. Five weren't deployed because of the limited number in the nation's aerial firefighting fleet and the dangerous weather conditions at the time. One plane was heading to Arizona from California but engine problems forced it to turn back.

Forestry officials have said that even if the planes had been available, winds were so strong they couldn't have been used to save the firefighters' lives.

Some family members hope the investigation will explain why their loved ones died. Others say it will do nothing to ease their pain.

"No matter what the report says, it won't bring him back," Colleen Turbyfill said of her son, Travis. "I miss him, and it's unbearable pain. It doesn't go away. Sometimes I can't breathe, but this report isn't going to help that one way or another."

Via Yahoo News!

Week 3: Caylee's death is presented in vivid, graphic detail

First part of week's testimony focuses on computer searches for "chloroform," "neck-breaking"Jurors see dozens of photos, hear hours of testimony regarding Caylee Anthony's remainsForensic expert: Homicide "only logical conclusion" for Caylee Anthony's deathDefense says Caylee's death was accidental drowning that "snowballed out of control" Tune in to TruTV's "In Session" from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET for live coverage of the Casey Anthony trial. Starting at 3 p.m. ET, catch the continued coverage on HLN.

(CNN) -- Potential jurors in Casey Anthony's first-degree murder trial were asked during jury selection in May if they could look at the remains of a victim as simply evidence and not let their emotions sway them one way or the other.

This week, jurors in the Florida mother's trial for the death of her daughter, Caylee, were put to the test.

Week 3 of the trial began with forensic testimony about how someone searched for "chloroform" and "neck-breaking" on the computer in the home Anthony shared with her parents in Orange County. By Thursday, panelists were fully immersed in the physical reality of the 2-year-old's death: bones, decomposition, odor and all.

The prosecution called key forensic witnesses, who described in graphic detail, the state of Caylee's remains when she was found in a wooded area on Dec. 11, 2008, six months after she went missing.

"This is the skull with the hair and tape along with some leaf litter and other debris that was received at the same time as the other specimens," Orange County Chief Deputy Medical Examiner Dr. Gary Utz said on Thursday as he described a photo of Caylee's remains.

Jurors saw images of the tiny, decaying shorts and Winnie the Pooh blanket found with Caylee's remains. Animals had chewed up Caylee's bones by the time law enforcement discovered them, according to testimony.

At times, the typically stone-faced defendant bowed her head and tried to avoid looking at graphic images of her daughter's remains. On Thursday, Anthony broke into tears and was deemed "ill" by Judge Belvin Perry. Court ended abruptly to allow her to recover.

Anthony, 25, faces seven counts in Caylee's death, including first-degree murder, aggravated child abuse and misleading investigators. If convicted, she could face the death penalty.

Anthony has denied having anything to do with her daughter's death. Her defense team asserts Caylee's death was an accidental drowning that "snowballed out of control." Defense lawyer Jose Baez attorney said in his opening statement the Caylee drowned in the family pool shortly after her family last reported seeing her and that Casey Anthony and her father, George Anthony, panicked on discovering the body and covered up her death. George Anthony denied that scenario in his testimony the first week of the trial.

Beginning Thursday, jurors saw dozens of photos and heard hours of testimony on the remains.

Despite objections from the defense, jurors saw a video in which images of Caylee's skull and the duct tape found across the front of it at the scene were superimposed over a photo of a Caylee alive, smiling, with her mother.

The prosecution argued the video showed how the duct tape could have covered both Caylee's nose and mouth, while the defense argued it was only designed to appeal to juror emotions.

Dr. Jan Garavaglia, star of the Discovery Channel's "Dr. G. Medical Examiner" and chief medical examiner in the case, offered some of the most compelling testimony of the week. Garavaglia, who examined the child's remains, testified Friday she could not say for sure how Caylee died .

But, homicide is "the only logical conclusion," she said.

During cross-examination, defense attorney Cheney Mason questioned Garavaglia's method of evaluating the manner of death, suggesting that forensic evidence, and not outside facts of the case, should determine her conclusion. Garavaglia defended her method, saying the cause of death can rarely be determined without outside information.

"The fact that it's tossed in a field to rot in bags is a clear indication that the body was trying to be hidden," Garavaglia said during cross examination. "It being put in a bag is a very big red flag for homicide, never seen in an accidental death for a child, and the fact that there's duct tape attached anywhere to that child's face is to me indication of a homicide."

The trunk

By Saturday, testimony reached discussion of bugs and larvae found in Anthony's trunk, where the prosecution alleges Caylee's body was kept in garbage bags for days after her mother knocked her out with chloroform and taped her nose and mouth.

While forensic entomologist Neal Haskell credited the bugs to decomposition, the defense argued and Haskell admitted the bugs could be attributed to a trash bag found in the trunk.

The prosecution also called Arpad Vass, a senior research scientist at Tennessee's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, who testified Monday about his examination of items from the trunk.

Vass said he was "shocked" by the high level of chloroform in the trunk carpet sample and had an immediate reaction when he opened the can containing the sample.

"I essentially jumped back a foot or two," Vass said, before confirming to Assistant State Attorney Jeff Ashton that he believed the smell was human decomposition. "The odor was extremely overwhelming. I was shocked that that little bitty can could have that much odor associated with it."

During a combative cross-examination, defense lawyer Baez attempted to cast doubt on Vass' testimony, accusing him of having a financial interest in the case and questioning his testing methods. Vass acknowledged that he has a pending patent on a device designed to detect clandestine graves. But he rejected the suggestion that his testimony in the high-profile trial could potentially inspire interest in the device and its applications.

The dogs

Tuesday and Wednesday brought key testimony of the four-legged variety. Deputy Jason Forgey of the Orange County Sheriff's Office, and Sergeant Kristin Brewer of the Osceola County Sheriff's Office, detailed the efforts of cadaver dogs Gerus and Bones, who searched critical areas in search of human remains.

Gerus detected human decomposition in both Anthony's car and in the Anthony's back yard, Forgey testified.

Brewer told jurors that Bones picked up the possible presence of human remains in the backyard near Caylee's playhouse. Images of Caylee's bright plastic playhouse were shown to jurors for demonstration.

During cross examination, Forgey and Brewer agreed that the dogs are not infallible when it comes to identifying remains and, "like humans," are imperfect.

The computers

Though Wednesday and Thursday's testimony on computer forensics was less graphic compared to what was to come, it represented some of the prosecution's most critical evidence so far.

Through the testimony of three computer experts, the prosecution worked to establish premeditation, a factor essential to convicting Anthony of first-degree capital murder.

Searches conducted on the Anthony family computer on March 17 and 21 of 2008 included "chloroform," "how to make chloroform," "household weapons" and "neck-breaking," according to testimony.

"Chloroform" was searched for 84 times, according to the testimony of John Bradley, who developed the computer program used by investigators to locate the searches.

During cross examination, Bradley agreed it is impossible to know for sure how much time was spent on each page viewed, and that some of the terms searched, like "hand-to-hand combat" and "self defense," appeared to have no relation to a case involving the death of a 2-year-old.

Week 4 is expected to bring the close of the prosecution's case and possibly the start of the defense. Only a few prosecution witnesses remain, including a trace-evidence analyst and a tattoo artist Casey Anthony visited in the weeks following her daughter's disappearance.

CNN

Leaked documents detail Gitmo detainees, al Qaeda

The documents obtained by WikiLeaks provide details on almost all of the 779 detainees held at Gitmo since 2002.The documents paint a portrait of how al Qaeda prepared for the 9/11 attacksThey also provide insights into bin Laden's thinking after the attacksThe detainees accounts were cross-checked against each other, the papers sayDocuments: Operatives travel through Iran to get into Afghanistan

(CNN) -- Nearly 800 classified U.S. military documents obtained by WikiLeaks reveal extraordinary details about the alleged terrorist activities of al Qaeda operatives captured and housed at the U.S. Navy's detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The secret documents have been made available to several news organizations, including the New York Times and the Washington Post - and some have been published by WikiLeaks, an organization that facilitates the anonymous leaking of secret information.

CNN was not among the news organizations granted early access to the latest files.

101: WikiLeaks revealed

The documents shed light on the way detainees behaved while at Guantanamo, and on how they were assessed in terms of their danger to the United States. They are intelligence assessments of nearly every one of the 779 individuals who have been held at Guantanamo since 2002, according to the Post.

The classified files described some of the detainees as being compliant while others threatened violence against guards. One stated he would fly planes into houses.

WikiLeaks releases trove of diplomatic messages

They also paint in great detail a portrait of al Qaeda as it grew stronger in Afghanistan in the 1990s, prepared for the 9/11 attacks and scattered in their aftermath.

Among the files already published by WikiLeaks and examined by CNN is that of Ahmed Khalfan Gailani, recently convicted by a New York court of taking part in the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania in 1998. The file, from 2006 when Gailani was transferred to Guantanamo, includes details of his time as a bodyguard and cook to Osama bin Laden shortly before the 9/11 attacks. Gailani is cited as telling interrogators that the al Qaeda leader had a "normal diet" and usually ate with about 15 bodyguards.

The document says that Gailani later became one of al Qaeda's few forgers of travel documents. He also opted for training in using explosives to avoid front-line combat.

A document from July 2008 profiles another bodyguard for bin Laden, Sanad Yislam al Kazimi, who stated that he "would have been willing to die for UBL" (the shorthand used for the al Qaeda leader.) It says that al Kazimi may have had knowledge of al Qaeda's nuclear and chemical programs.

Al Kazimi escaped from Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban in 2001 and returned to Yemen, where he continued to train for terrorist attacks, according to the document.

He was arrested in 2002 after being lured to Dubai while planning an attack on Port Rashid in the United Arab Emirates. It adds that while at Guantanamo, al Kazimi made "numerous threats against U.S. personnel including the President."

Al Kazimi reportedly said "he would like to tell his friends in Iraq to find the interrogator, slice him up, and make a shwarma (a type of sandwich) out of him, with the interrogator's head sticking out of the end of the shwarma."

Another Yemeni, Abdu Ali Sharqawi, is described as a "senior al Qaeda facilitator" with links to the 9/11 plotters.

He was allegedly responsible for arranging the travel of Yemeni jihadists to Afghanistan in the 1990s, and when he also moved to Afghanistan he became a confidant of bin Laden.

The 11-page document about his activities says that "on occasion detainee hiked mountain trails with UBL, who hiked them on a daily basis."

Sharqawi told his interrogators that bin Laden had been in good health, even though he had one kidney. The document suggests al Qaeda had plenty of money in the aftermath of 9/11, asserting that "detainee received and passed on over $500,000" while helping jihadists to escape Afghanistan.

According to the Washington Post, the documents provide detailed insight into Osama bin Laden's thinking and movements immediately after 9/11.

"Among other previously unknown meetings, the documents describe a major gathering of some of al Qaeda's most senior operatives in early December 2001 in Zormat, a mountainous region of Afghanistan between Kabul and Khost," the newspaper reports. "There, the operatives began to plan new attacks, a process that would consume them, according to the assessments, until they were finally captured."

The documents show that detainees' accounts were extensively cross-checked against each other, with at least four detainees confirming that al Kazimi was a bodyguard to bin Laden.

Among the more remarkable statements is one from a detainee who claimed bin Laden had written to Yemen's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, before the 9/11 attacks - requesting the release of al Kazimi (who'd been detained in 1995) and another man from jail. A short time later they were freed and went to Afghanistan.

The documents include substantial detail about the travel of the detainees.

In one instance, a Spanish jihadist by the name of Ahmad Abd Al Rahman Ahmad -- after spending time in Britain and France -- is instructed to travel to Afghanistan via Iran. The document notes: "Travel through Iran is a known modus operandi for al Qaeda operatives to get into Afghanistan via a chain of safe-houses and operatives."

According to the New York Times, the documents show that most of the 172 prisoners still held at Guantanamo have been rated as a "high risk" of posing a threat to the United States and its allies if released without adequate rehabilitation. But they also show that many others who have been released or transferred to other countries were also designated "high risk," the newspaper says.

Detainees are assessed "high," "medium" or "low" in terms of their intelligence value, the threat they pose while in detention and the continued threat they might pose to the United States if released.

The newspaper says the documents include details about detainees' illnesses and behavior at Guantanamo -- including "punching guards, tearing apart shower shoes, shouting across cell blocks." But the documents appear to shed little light on interrogation tactics at Guantanamo, which have drawn widespread criticism.

The New York Times says that the documents lay bare "the patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal."

Pentagon: WikiLeaks has damaged operations

The British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph, also reports that the documents suggest much of the evidence used to detain jihadist suspects was flimsy. It says that "people wearing a certain model of Casio watch from the 1980s were seized by American forces in Afghanistan on suspicion of being terrorists, because the watches were used as timers by al Qaeda." Most were subsequently released for lack of evidence.

Others, according to the New York Times, were not so fortunate despite a lack of evidence.

One man detained in May 2003 insisted he was a shepherd and according to his debriefers at Guantanamo Bay knew nothing of "simple military and political concepts." Yet a military tribunal declared him an "enemy combatant" anyway, and he was not sent home until 2006, the Times reports.

The U.S. Defense Department condemned the release of the documents, known as DABs.

Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell and Ambassador Daniel Fried, the Obama administration's special envoy on detainee issues, said in a statement: "The Guantanamo Review Task Force, established in January 2009, considered the DABs during its review of detainee information. In some cases, the Task Force came to the same conclusions as the DABs. In other instances the Review Task Force came to different conclusions, based on updated or other available information."

WikiLeaks gained international prominence after leaking thousands of papers about the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan. Earlier this year it released a huge cache of secret American diplomatic papers.

CNN

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