September 20, 2002

A woman who was angry after leaving a department store was caught on a surveillance tape looking around as she helped her young daughter into a vehicle and then brutally beat the child, authorities said. "I've been a police officer 23 years and that's probably the most violent thing I've seen happen to anyone, much less a child." Police Chief Anthony Hazen [ cbsnews ] UPDATE: She surrenders, and is really really sorry....that she got caught. 2:06:28 PM

Less than two weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI headquarters blocked an agent's request to aggressively pursue one of the future hijackers, a congressional investigator said in a report today. The agent warned "someday someone will die." The unidentified New York-based FBI agent had asked headquarters Aug. 29, 2001, to allow his office to use its "full criminal investigative resources" to find Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of two hijackers who intelligence agents had identified as attending an al-Qaida meeting in Malaysia in January 2000. 2:02:43 PM

Why the Palestinians keep terrorizing.   A really good commentary from Gerald Steinberg who teaches politics and heads the Program on Conflict Management and Diplomacy at Bar Ilan University in Israel. The main sources of continuing terror attacks are emotional and irrational demands for revenge and competition for leadership and power. The vengeance resulting from deep hatred and anger cannot be eliminated through negotiated agreements, but requires intensive security measures to destroy the explosives and unravel all of the terror networks. Arafat has never moved in this direction, and the competition between Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other militias is likely to grow until all these groups are dismantled by Israeli security. [ NationalReview ] 9:37:52 AM

Five Israelis were killed and other 63 were wounded, ten of them in a critical health condition in a suicide operation carried out by a Palestinian in Tel Aviv on Thursday. It was the second of its kind within 24 days following the Um al-Fahem operation on Wednesday. The Palestinian national resistance movement, Hamas, claimed responsibility for the operation, noting that it falls in the context of continued Intifada that will last until the Israeli occupation ends. [ Arabicnews.com ] 9:30:12 AM