Nation & world briefing
U.S. diplomat shot to death in Jordan
Michael Matza
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
AMMAN, Jordan — A U.S. diplo
mat was killed Monday morning in
Amman as he was preparing to leave
home to go to work at the American
embassy.
The diplomat was identified as
Laurence Foley, a senior administra
tor with the U.S. Agency for Interna
tional Development. The agency
gave his age as 60.
Foley was shot eight times in the
head, chest and stomach. Jordanian
police said Foley’s wife, Virginia, dis
covered her husband’s body Monday
in a pool of blood in their driveway,
near his burgundy Mercedes-Benz.
It was the first killing of a U.S. diplo
mat since 1998, when 12 Americans
died in a bombing at the U.S. embassy
in Kenya. That attack was tied to
Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
No one has claimed responsibility
for Foley’s killing, but officials imme
diately stepped up security at the
U.S. embassy. Jordanian soldiers
guarded the embassy’s walls and pa
trolled the perimeter in jeeps
mounted with machine guns. The
embassy warned Americans in Jor
dan to take special precautions.
Jordan is an ally of the United
States in the Middle East, and it
signed a peace treaty with Israel in
1994. But King Abdullah has dis
agreed with U.S. threats to use mili
tary force to topple Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein, warning it could
unleash unrest throughout the re
gion. The U.S. threats against Iraq
also have fueled anti-American sen
timent among Jordan’s population,
the majority of whom are Palestinian
refugees. Jordan also has thousands
of Iraqi refugees who fled during the
1991 Persian Gulf War.
The Jordanian government has
aggressively pursued Islamic ex
tremists in the kingdom and has of
fered its assistance to the United
States to help infiltrate groups asso
ciated with al-Qaida.
Foley had worked for the U.S. gov
ernment for 37 years, the last 14 for
USAID, which dispenses American
foreign aid around the world. He pro
vided administrative support for
$250 million worth of USAID pro
grams in Jordan.
Jordanian Information Minister
Mohammed Affash Adwan declined
to speculate on motives but called
the killing “an aggression on Jordan
and its national security.” Jordanian
officials, led by King Abdullah,
pledged to bring the killer to justice.
© 2002, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Students rally in largest D.C. protest since Vietnam
Jessica Coomes
Daily Kent Stater (Kent State U.)
WASHINGTON, D.G. (U-WIRE) —
More than 100,000 protesters
flocked to the capital Saturday to
voice loud, peaceful objections to a
possible war in Iraq, which many
contended is linked to U.S. oil inter
ests. Organizers said it was the
largest rally in Washington since the
Vietnam era.
“Normal, everyday people think
this war is wrong — it’s not just ac
twists,” said Maureen Havelka, a
Kent State senior psychology major
who attended the protest.
Speeches by actress Susan Saran
don and the Revs. Jesse Jackson and
A1 Sharpton highlighted the four
hour rally. The crowd spanned from
the Vietnam Veterans War Memorial
to a pond by the Washington Monu
ment. a distance of about one-third
of a mile.
Protesters then overflowed into
Washington’s closed streets, drift
ing shoulder-to-shoulder with bob
bing heads and signs, chanting
adamantly in a procession around
the White House.
International ANSWER, Act Now
to Stop War and End Racism, spon
sored the event and coordinated oth
er major rallies Saturday in San
Francisco and around the world.
While President George W. Bush is
calling for a regime change in Iraq,
speakers and protesters repeatedly
called for a change of power in the
United States.
Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attor
ney General, said the United States
has weapons of mass destruction,
which makes the government a
“hypocrisy,” not a democracy.
“Regime change needs to begin at
home,” Clark said.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson ques
tioned the country’s priorities and
demanded change. But when it mat
ters, Jackson said, democracy will
work, and protesters should trust it.
“This time the silent majority is
on our side,” Jackson explained.
“Americans do not want this war.”
Michael Barnes, a volunteer for
ANSWER, said 100,000 protesters is
a conservative estimate, and the
crowd may have been as large as
200.000 people.
He said regular protests attract
10.000 to 20,000 people, and Satur
day’s large audience gives the issue
more legitimacy and shows the anti
war position is widely supported.
U. of Arizona student kills three teachers, self
John M. Broder
New York Times
TUCSON, Ariz. — An aggrieved
student killed three instructors at
the University of Arizona nursing
school Monday morning and then fa
tally shot himself, the Tucson police
said. The medical complex at the
university was locked down as Tuc
son police and bomb squad officers
searched for explosives.
The police identified the gunman
as Robert S. Flores Jr., 41, a student
at the nursing school. College offi
cials said he was failing his course
work and fellow students described
him as belligerent and potentially
dangerous. A school staff member
raised an alarm about him more
than a year ago, saying he was de
pressed and capable of violence, but
there had been no follow-up action
taken, according to the chief of the
university’s police force.
Richard Miranda, chief of the Tuc
son city police, said Flores apparent
ly entered the nursing school build
ing shortly before 8:30 Monday
morning and methodically sought
out his victims, all of them female
nursing instructors.
The first victim was Robin E.
Rogers, 50, who was shot multiple
times with a handgun as she
worked in her office on the second
floor, Miranda said.
Flores then walked into a fourth
floor classroom and shot his second
victim, Barbara Monroe, as she stood
in front of about 20 students in a
class on critical care. Several stu
dents in an adjacent classroom
called campus and Tucson police.
But before they responded, the po
lice said, Flores walked to the back of
the classroom and shot his final vic
tim, Cheryl McGaffic, 44. He then
turned to two students he apparently
knew and ordered them to leave the
classroom, witnesses told the police.
Moments later, he released the re
maining students, who ran in terror
to other classrooms or out into the
parking lot next to the medical com
plex. The police quickly rounded up
the witnesses and sequestered them
in a building housing the university’s
office of alumni affairs.
Flores then apparently shot himself,
Miranda said, falling on a backpack
that the police feared might contain
explosives. By late Monday afternoon
the police still had not moved Flores’
body as they tried to determine if the
backpack posed a danger.
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