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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 2016)
Page 10 The Skanner October 12, 2016 News Activists Say Death Toll Rises in Bombings of Syria’s Aleppo New Challenges in Syria as Militants Weaponize Drones BEIRUT (AP) — An intensive day of bombing in Syria’s besieged rebel-held Aleppo city let at least 25 people dead, including i ve children, overwhelming rescue workers who continued a day later Wednesday to search for survi- vors under the rubble, according to ac- tivists and a civil defense spokesman. The Britain-based Syrian Observa- tory for Human Rights said Wednes- day that Tuesday’s bombings killed 25 people. But the Syrian Civil Defense, a team of i rst responders in rebel-held areas, and activist media platform Aleppo Media Center put the death toll at 41. The bombings resumed Tuesday and continued into Wednesday, shattering a relative lull in the nearly month-old intensive aerial campaign from Syrian and Russian warplanes on the stricken territory. The Observatory said Wednesday at least 358 civilians have been killed in eastern Aleppo since a U.S.-Russian cease-i re collapsed on Sept. 19. The U.N. says over 100 children have been killed in the campaign, which has also included a limited ground of ensive. Syria Civil Defense workers pulled at least one boy alive from under the rubble Tuesday, amid cheers from onlookers in eastern Aleppo’s al-Far- dous neighborhood. The boy emerged covered in dust and dazed from the l attened building, grapping his res- cuer tightly. His mother survived but remains in critical condition, said Ibra- him al-Haj, a member of the i rst-re- sponder team, also known as the White Helmets. The boy had lost his father and brother in previous bombings, ac- cording to al-Haj. WASHINGTON (AP) — Militant groups like Hezbollah and the Islamic State group have learned how to wea- ponize surveillance drones and use them against each other, adding a new twist to Syria’s civil war, a U.S. military oi cial and others say. A video belonging to an al-Qaida of - shoot, Jund al-Aqsa, purportedly shows a drone landing on Syrian military bar- racks. In another video , small explo- sives purportedly dropped by the Iran- backed Shiite militant group Hezbollah target the Sunni militant group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, formerly known as the Nusra Front. A U.S. military oi cial, who spoke anonymously because he wasn’t au- thorized to discuss the matter publicly, said the U.S. military is aware of the de- velopment. Commanders have warned troops to take cover if they see what they might have once dismissed as a surveillance drone, he said. The head of the Airwars project, which tracks the international air war in Iraq, Syria and Libya, said the wea- ponized drones are clumsy but will scare people. “There are a million ways you can weaponize drones — i re rockets, strap things in and crash them,” Chris Woods said. He added: “This is the stuf every- one has been terrii ed about for years, and now it’s a reality.” Clinton Aide Links Trump Campaign to Russian Email Hacking WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — Hillary Clinton’s top adviser said the FBI is investigating Russia’s possible role PAST EVE NT SYRIAN CIVIL DEFENSE- WHITE HELMETS VIA AP World News Briefs In this picture taken, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2016, provided by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, Syrian Civil Defense workers take out a boy, alive, from the rubble, in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, Syria. Activists and rescue workers say an intensive day of bombing on besieged rebel-held parts of Aleppo has left at least 25 people dead, including i ve children. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says Wednesday that Tuesday’s bombings killed 25 people. The Syrian Civil Defense, a team of i rst responders, and activist media platform Aleppo Media Center put the death toll at 41. in hacking thousands of his personal emails, an intrusion he said Donald Trump’s campaign may have been aware of in advance. If true, the assertion from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta would amount to an extraordinary link between Russia and an American presidential campaign. Podesta said the alleged ties could be driven either by Trump’s policy positions, which at times echo the Kremlin, or the Repub- lican’s “deep engagement and ties with Russian interests in his business af- fairs.” To Podesta, the central i gure in the swirling controversy is longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, who has said he has been in touch with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Po- desta also raised as evidence an August tweet in which Stone said Podesta’s “time in the barrel” was coming. The tweet was sent shortly at er WikiLeaks published scores of hacked emails from other Democratic oi cials. “I think it’s a reasonable assumption, or at least a reasonable conclusion, that Mr. Stone and the Trump campaign had advance warning about what Assange was going to do,” Podesta told reporters aboard the Clinton campaign plane. Po- desta acknowledged the evidence was “circumstantial.” Stone, in an email to The Associated Press late Tuesday, said Podesta’s accu- sations were “categorically false” and “without foundation.” Closed US Restaurants, Damaged homes: Matthew May Cost $10B For a storm that inl icted less dam- age than many had feared, Hurricane Matthew nevertheless impaired or destroyed more than 1 million struc- tures, forced businesses from Florida to North Carolina to close and put thou- sands temporarily out of work. In many af ected areas, small-busi- ness owners were still assessing the damage. “I’ve never had anything like this in 12 years of business,” said Ami Zipper- er, who has two garden supply stores in the Savannah, Georgia, area. Zipperer said she doesn’t know how much she’s lost or what insurance will cover. She said about 10 percent of her in- ventory of plants was damaged, but the bigger challenge will come from losing $5,000 to $7,000 a day in revenue. One store is still closed and many homeowners in the area, Zipperer said, aren’t focused right now on landscap- ing. All told, the storm probably caused $10 billion in damage, according to an estimate from Goldman Sachs. Insurance companies will likely be li- able for about $4 billion to $6 billion of that total, according to an estimate Sat- urday by CoreLogic, a real estate data provider.