U.S., South African hostages killed in rescue attempt in Yemen

A U.S. journalist and a South African teacher held by al Qaeda militants in Yemen were killed along with some of their captors during a night rescue attempt by U.S. and Yemeni forces in a remote desert village, officials said on Saturday.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and a Yemeni intelligence official said Luke Somers, 33, and South African Pierre Korkie were shot by their kidnappers shortly after the raid began in the arid Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa, a province in southern Yemen long seen as one of al Qaeda's most formidable strongholds. 

Kerry said the operation, the second attempt to free Somers in 10 days, had only been approved because of information that the American's life was in imminent danger.

However, the Gift of the Givers relief group, which was trying to secure Korkie's release, said it had negotiated for the teacher to be freed and had expected that to happen on Sunday and for him to be returned to his family. 

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is seen by Washington as one of the movement's most dangerous branches. The United States has worked with the Yemeni government and via drone strikes to attack its leadership in southern and eastern parts of Yemen.

"The callous disregard for Luke's life is more proof of the depths of AQAP's depravity, and further reason why the world must never cease in seeking to defeat their evil ideology," President Barack Obama said in a statement. 

He said he had authorised the attempted rescue and said the United States would "spare no effort to use all of its military, intelligence and diplomatic capabilities to bring Americans home safely, wherever they are located".

Somers was moved from the scene of the rescue attempt but died later from his wounds, a senior official in the Yemeni president's office said.

Gift of the Givers said on its website: "We received with sadness the news that Pierre was killed in an attempt by American Special Forces, in the early hours of this morning, to free hostages in Yemen." 

It added: "The psychological and emotional devastation to (Korkie's wife) Yolande and her family will be compounded by the knowledge that Pierre was to be released by al Qaeda tomorrow ... Three days ago we told her 'Pierre will be home for Christmas'."

A South African government spokesman declined to comment.

There was no new information about three other hostages, a Briton, a Turk and a Yemeni, who had previously been held alongside Somers and Korkie, a Yemeni security official told Reuters.

Lucy Somers, the photojournalist’s sister, told the Associated Press that she and her father learned of her brother's death from FBI agents at 0500 GMT (12 a.m. EST) Saturday. 

"We ask that all of Luke's family members be allowed to mourn in peace," she said from London.

IMMEDIATE DANGER

Kerry said the decision to mount the raid was based on fears that AQAP planned to kill Somers.

"Earlier this week, AQAP released a video announcing that Luke would be murdered within 72 hours. Along with other information, there was a compelling indication that Luke's life was in immediate danger," Kerry said.

U.S. officials on Thursday said American forces had already attempted to rescue Somers, without giving details. Yemeni officials had previously disclosed the release of six Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian hostage in a raid on Nov. 25.

There were contradictory accounts of how Saturday's raid unfolded and how many of the kidnappers were killed. A Yemeni official said on Saturday morning that 10 al Qaeda suspects had died in the raid.

A U.S. official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said American special forces had conducted the operation alone at 1 a.m. in Yemen, but that the kidnappers had been alerted to their approach shortly before they arrived. 

The official said the kidnappers then "executed" the hostages, who each sustained multiple gunshot wounds. One died during the flight out and another aboard a U.S. ship.

At no point was there an exchange of fire in the part of the compound where the hostages were being held, the source said, and at no point did U.S. forces shoot into that part of the building. 

A senior U.S. official said Yemen's President Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi had given his support for the operation.

Although the United States knew there were two hostages at the location, and that one of them was Somers, it did not know that the other was Korkie, the senior Washington official said.

The rescue team was made up of about 40 members of Special Operations forces, and the raid lasted about 30 minutes from start to finish, said the U.S. officials. 

Yemen's government said in a statement carried on state media that its security forces had led the raid. It said the security forces had surrounded the house and called on the kidnappers to surrender, but they instead shot the hostages.

That led to an assault on the building in which four Yemeni security officers were also wounded, it said. The statement said the house belonged to suspected militant Saeed al-Daghaari, which another Yemeni security source told Reuters it was in the village of Dafaar in the Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa.

"It's a very small village with only 20-40 houses. There were very quick clashes with the gunmen and then it was all finished," a tribal source from the area said.

AQAP on Thursday released a video showing a man it said was Somers saying: "I'm looking for any help that can get me out of this situation. I'm certain that my life is in danger". Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of that video, which was reported on by SITE Monitoring. 

Man charged in Amtrak stabbings held on $1 million bond

A man accused of stabbing a conductor and three passengers on an Amtrak train in southwestern Michigan was charged with four counts of assault with intent to murder and is being held on a $1 million bond, officials said on Saturday.

Michael Williams, 44, is being held on a cash-only bond at the Berrien County Sheriff's Department Jail in St. Joseph, Michigan, said Deputy Craig Staneart.

Niles, Michigan police received a call from Amtrak on Friday evening about a man "acting odd and becoming agitated" on a train from Chicago to Port Huron, said Police Chief James Millin in an e-mail.

Officers came to the depot, where they saw a commotion on one of the train cars with passengers quickly exiting the train, Millin said. Police pushed past the passengers and were confronted by Williams, who was armed with a knife, Millin said.

Police subdued Williams with a taser.

The victims included one female and three males, one of whom was the conductor. The victims were taken to hospitals for treatment for non-life threatening injuries, said Amtrak spokeswoman Kimberly Woods.

Williams will be arraigned on Monday, Millin said.

Niles, a town of about 12,000 people, is about 10 miles (16 km) north of South Bend, Indiana, near the southeastern shore of Lake Michigan.

Amtrak said the incident took place on Train 364, the Blue Water line. Alternate transportation was provided for 172 passengers from the train.

Symbol of Phoenixville Firebird Festival set ablaze in arson

 

Officials say someone torched the large wooden structure of a Phoenix ahead of the Phoenixville Firebird Festival.

U.S. holiday shopping discounts deepen, last longer

Amarilis Sinchi visited Macy's at a New Jersey mall on Black Friday, but she waited until this week to purchase the red fleece pajamas she had her eye on.

The 21-year-old student ended up paying $13 at the department store, down from $30 on Friday, which has traditionally been the best day for deals during the U.S. holiday season. "The prices keep getting better," she said, planning a return to another store - Kohl's - which had dropped the price on LEGO toys.  

Retailers started discounting early this holiday season, but that hasn’t stopped them from stepping up the offers now, particularly on apparel. The increasingly fierce struggle for consumer dollars online is adding to pressure for lower prices at stores, where mobile device-toting customers compare prices as they shop.

Many deals are being extended and deepened, visits to malls and data from price tracking firms show, and analysts see many retailers' margins being compressed, especially in apparel.  

"We’re experiencing post-holiday promotions even before the holiday is in full swing," said Steven Barr, U.S. Retail and Consumer Leader at consultants PwC, who has not seen such a high level of deals at this stage of the season before. On one trip to a mall, an apparel store dropped a discount from 40 percent to 50 percent while he ate lunch.

“We expect this is going to be the most promotional holiday on record,” challenging profits in the sector, he said.

Consumers remain cautious about spending despite lower gasoline prices and an improved jobs and housing market, surveys by Reuters/Ipsos show. Wages growth has been very limited while food and healthcare costs have risen.

People do generally appear to be getting more price conscious. In a survey this summer conducted by PwC, 84 percent of respondents said they chose a store because of the prices it offers, up from 74 percent in 2013.

The 10 retailers with the most traffic and sales more than doubled the number of discounted items online during the week after Black Friday, according to data from TrackIf, a service that tracks prices across nearly 2,000 retail websites.

To be sure, retailers with unique or popular products have avoided big price cuts, and there is substantial variation between companies and types of merchandise. Many retailers have gone into the season with less inventory than previous years, and mainstream forecasters expect holiday sales will rise around 4 percent for the year, despite the discounting.

But already some retail earnings and stock prices are being hurt by weak sales and the increased level of discounting, in particular at teen clothing store chains. Teen buyers preferring to spend on phones and gadgets rather than clothes has been hurting that sector for some time.

SOME RETAILERS HURT BADLY

Shares of teen retailer Aeropostale dropped Wednesday to a 52-week low after it reported a larger-than-expected fourth-quarter loss. Like apparel retailers Express and Abercrombie & Fitch, Aeropostale was hurt by discounting and slowing demand. On Friday, teen retailer Delia*s said it would file for bankruptcy.

"The gross margins are being pressured," said Nomura retail analyst Simeon Siegel. Apparel retailers, he said, can't cut prices much more than 50 percent without losing money, so many are trying to win sales by extending the time they offer discounts.

Companies that track discounts can discern a significant change. Last year, online prices from traditional retailers were lowest on Black Friday for a variety of products in many categories, according to Market Track. But this year, for instance, it found prices of kitchenware fell in the days after Black Friday, by 13 percent at Sears and 47 percent at Macy's.

ShopSavvy, which tracks merchandise and prices for the top 100 online and in-store retailers based on their traffic and sales, compared discounts in five categories of items at 32 of these merchants on Black Friday and early this week. Computers, clothing and home and garden products showed widening discounts. Electronics and entertainment products were cheaper on Black Friday itself.

ShopSavvy CEO John Boyd said that the rise of mobile and online commerce was driving retailers to spread discounts beyond Friday. This year's move toward post-Black Friday bargains was "materially stronger" than previous years, he said.  

Most stores also didn't wait until the holiday weekend to start discounts, said ShopSavvy, which also found that many of the big retailers were offering the same deals as online retailer Amazon.com.

Ecommerce researcher Profitero found online discounts of some 41,000 toys, electronics and sporting goods at Amazon, Best Buy, Toys R Us and Walmart held steady on this week's Cyber Monday compared with last week's Black Friday.

A Macy's spokesman said the retailer plans its promotions in advance. Other retailers declined to comment on holiday pricing strategies.

Standing in the Newport Centre mall in Jersey City, New Jersey, that he has visited regularly over the last eight years, Moody's analyst Charles O'Shea said that while he's seen strong sales of electronics at stores like Best Buy and Target, many apparel retailers already were marking down merchandise.

Walking into a Sears store, he flipped over tag after tag, showing deep discounts on almost all apparel. Some stores, such as American Eagle, were offering shoppers the chance to buy one item and get 50 percent off a second.

Standing outside an Aeropostale, O'Shea pointed at a sign advertising up to 70 percent off. Inside, stacks of neatly folded sweaters were marked down to $14 from $44.50.

That's a good indication that Thanksgiving holiday weekend sales "weren't what they wanted," he said. "They have to get stuff out of there."

Protests against police violence block traffic in New York

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Protests over U.S. police violence against minorities, sparked by grand-jury decisions not to charge officers in two high-profile cases, were peaceful on their third night in New York although 20 arrests took place, authorities said on Saturday.

Protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic on the city's FDR Drive, a major artery that runs along the eastern side of Manhattan, police said.

"The protests remained very peaceful throughout the night," said Detective Michael DeBonis, a spokesman for the New York Police Department.

The wave of angry protests began on Wednesday when a New York grand jury declined to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old father of six.

The decision came nine days after a Ferguson, Missouri grand jury chose not to indict a white policeman for the shooting death in August of an unarmed black teenager, spurring two nights of arson and unrest there.

 

More protests were planned in New York for Saturday, as was the funeral of an unarmed black man shot dead by police in a Brooklyn housing project.

The death of Akai Gurley, 28, has added fuel to the public outrage over what many perceive as race-based violence by law enforcement.

The Brooklyn district attorney said on Friday a grand jury would be convened to consider charges against the officer who shot Gurley. Police have said the officer, Peter Liang, may have accidentally discharged his gun.

While the first two nights of protests saw thousands of demonstrators pouring into the streets of New York, the turnout on Friday dropped to the hundreds as a cold, steady rain fell.

Still, more than 100 people stormed into an Apple Store on Fifth Avenue to stage a brief "die-in," sprawling on the floor as shoppers and employees watched.

Similar demonstrations were staged at Macy's flagship department store in Herald Square and at Grand Central Terminal.

Protests unfolded in Chicago, Boston, Washington, D.C., New Orleans and Oakland, California where marchers chanted phrases such as "Black lives matter."

In Cleveland on Friday, the family of a black 12-year-old boy fatally shot by police filed a lawsuit against the city, a day after the federal government found the police department systematically uses excessive force.

Boy finds mummified body hanging in Dayton, Ohio, home

In an empty, dusty house, a boy stumbled upon a classic horror movie scenario this week: A mummified corpse hanging by the neck from a belt.

And officials say it had been there for five years.

Until the boy made his way inside the ramshackle house in Dayton, Ohio, on Sunday, neighbors didn't think anyone lived there, said Ken Betz, director of the Montgomery County Coroner's Office.

They thought the house was abandoned, and it looked that way.

The front door was papered with citations for the overgrown yard, and no one came and went from the address. The home was unfurnished.

Inside, however, was the body of Edward Brunton, who hanged himself with a belt in a closet in 2009, according to Betz.

Betz puts Brunton in his late 40s at the time of his suicide.

The closet shielded his body from rapid decomposition, animals and insects, resulting in the mummy-like condition the boy found it in.

"Because of the location where he was found, it was relatively protected, sunlight-protected, temperature-protected and low humidity," coroner Kent Harshbarger told CNN affiliate WDTN.

Brunton had little time to forge friendships with neighbors; he had purchased the home just months prior to his death. He also was estranged from his family and friends, thus no one ever reported him missing, Betz said.

The boy's mother, Michelle McGrath, went into the house to investigate. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until she entered the room that housed the closet.

"When I crossed the threshold of the room, is when I smelled it," she said.

She called the police.

Authorities found identification documents on Brunton's body. His estranged brother, who still recognized him, confirmed it was him.

Phoenix man held on $1m bond after arrest over priest's death

Gary Moran, 54, accused of beating the Rev Joseph Terra with a metal rod and then fatally shooting the man's assistant

A homeless ex-convict is being held on $1 million bond, accused of beating a priest with a metal rod in his residence at a Phoenix church and then wrestling away a handgun owned by the clergyman before fatally shooting the man's assistant.

Gary Michael Moran, 54, was arrested Sunday night on suspicion of first-degree murder, burglary, and armed robbery, among other charges, police announced Monday.

Authorities said Moran, an ex-convict with a history of violence and drug abuse, stole a camera from the priests and fled in Walker's car, which was found abandoned a few blocks away from the church last Wednesday night.

The attack occurred after the Rev Joseph Terra opened the kitchen door of the Mother of Mercy Mission rectory to investigate noises in a courtyard on Wednesday night, police said.

Badly injured, the 56-year-old Terra made it to his bedroom and retrieved his .357-caliber gun but was unable to fire before the attacker grabbed it, forced the priest to his knees and demanded money, according to court records.

Terra soon blacked out. When he regained consciousness, the Rev Kenneth Walker had been shot.

Walker, 28, died later that night.

Terra, who was able to give Walker last rites after the assault, remained hospitalized on Monday. He was moved out of a hospital intensive care unit Saturday and is expected to make a full recovery.

Police chief Daniel Garcia called the attack "a vicious, tragic, horrifying offense" committed by a criminal who was just released from prison in April.

Moran had served about eight years on charges that included aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

In that case, police said, Moran broke into a Phoenix apartment and stabbed a resident in the abdomen with a steak knife. They said Moran didn't know the victim or recall the crime and cited a history of drug abuse.

Moran also was sentenced to more than four years in prison after pleading guilty in 2001 to misconduct involving weapons. He was convicted in two 1989 burglaries, as well.

During his recent stint in prison, Moran was found guilty of more than a dozen infractions, including four for drug manufacturing and possession, Corrections Department records show.

"He is a career criminal, a violent felony offender," Garcia said.

During the investigation, Terra was only able to provide a limited description of the suspect, but detectives said they were later able to link Moran to the crime scene through DNA.

Witnesses also helped authorities identify Moran.

On Sunday, a man came to the police station to report that he had heard Moran "was bragging about beating a priest and robbing him," according to court records.

A day later, a woman told police Moran had given her a black bag that contained the priest's camera.

Police said Moran acknowledged his involvement in the crime.

According to court records, Moran first told investigators during his interrogation that he didn't remember what happened.

He later said he was attacked and that "there was a struggle in the hallway with the gun with one of the priests, and the other priest then came after him and he then shot that priest," the records state.

Moran's public defender didn't respond to a request for comment on Monday, and jail officials said his attorney was declining all interview requests on Moran's behalf.

The news of his arrest came just as a Mass was to be held for Walker at another church in Phoenix.

"We're relieved that he's not out there doing it again and we hope some good comes out of it for him," Walker's stepsister, Sasha Keys, said, adding that nearly $42,000 in donations had poured in from around the country.

"I'm still getting letters in the mail with checks," she said.

Will ISIS plan a 9/11-style terror plot against the U.S.?

Republicans are sounding the warning that the next 9/11-like terror plot could emerge from the regions of Iraq and Syria that are currently dominated by an extremist group bearing down on Baghdad.

As the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) - which has already captured the cities of Tikrit and Mosul and is threatening to take the capital city as well - grows in strength and numbers, will it pose an immediate threat to the United States homeland as well?

Experts say the group's increasing power and reach is concerning, though it's not entirely clear when they might be able to threaten the U.S.

"You've got motivation mixed with opportunity, ideology and foreign fighters and all of that looks like a very extreme version of Afghanistan in the '90s, plus what was happening in Iraq after the Iraq war," said CBS News National Security Analyst Juan Zarate. "This is a cauldron of future terrorist threats to the west."

The bigger danger, Zarate said, is that the U.S. does not yet know exactly what the group will look like once it evolves. While ISIS might not launch an attack on U.S. soil tomorrow, he said, "I think the grave threat here is that you have the seeds of a new terrorist movement emerging very aggressively."

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday that U.S. officials have warned the next major attack on U.S. soil could emanate from the region.

"The seeds of 9/11s are being planted all over Iraq and Syria," Graham said. "They want an Islamic caliphate that runs through Syria and Iraq...and they plan to drive us out of the Mideast by attacking us here at home."

Graham's concerns were echoed on ABC's "This Week" by Ret. Gen. Peter Chiarelli, who said that "all Americans should be concerned" by ISIS' quick rise and success in Iraq. And on "Fox News Sunday," House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., said, "I guarantee you: this is a problem that we will have to face and we're either going to face it in New York City or we're going to face it here."

"These are not monkey bar terrorists out in the desert somewhere planning some very low-level attack. These are sophisticated, command and controlled, seasoned combat veterans who understand the value of terrorism operations external to the region, meaning Europe and the United States. That is about as dangerous a recipe as you can put together," he said.

There have been some indications this might be the group's intent. Army Col. Kenneth King, who was the commanding officer of a U.S. detention camp in Iraq, told the Daily Beast recently that when current ISIS head Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released in 2009, he said, "I'll see you guys in New York."

But Michael Morell, the former acting CIA director and a CBS News analyst on intelligence, national security and counterterrorism issues, predicted it's at least a year before ISIS might pose more of a serious threat to the U.S. The current major threats to the homeland still come from al Qaeda groups in Pakistan and Yemen, he said.

But, Morell added, if it looks like the U.S. influence in Iraq is increasing once again, the threat from ISIS could also rise.

"That's one of the downsides of U.S. involvement," he told CBS News. "The more we visibly get involved in helping the [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] government fight these guys, the more we become a target."

President Obama said Friday that he has asked his national security team to "prepare a range of other options" for U.S. involvement, though he is not considering putting U.S. troops back on the ground there.

For now, Morell said that ISIS is principally targeting the Iraqi government. Over the weekend, the group posted graphic photos that appeared to show its fighters brutally killing scores of captured Iraqi soldiers. But Zarate warned about the influence of senior al Qaeda figures who traveled to Syria and could be working to turn ISIS' attention toward the west.

"You do have very senior al Qaeda figures who have migrated to the Syrian conflict to provide strategic guidance and direction and to me that's incredibly dangerous because you have operatives and strategists who have had squarely in mind to turn the attention of these groups toward the west," he said.

One of Rogers' principal concerns is the threat posed by American and European fighters who traveled to what he called "jihadist Disneyland" in eastern Syria and have been radicalized. Just last month, a U.S. citizen linked to al Qaeda terrorists carried out a suicide bombing in Syria.

ISIS "is an al Qaeda-inspired group that certainly has al Qaeda ties, that now has the capability to tap people with Western passports to send them back to Europe and the United States for terrorist activity. That's a problem for us," Rogers said.

In February, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the U.S. was "very focused" on the problem of fighters from the U.S., Canada and Europe who traveled to Syria.

FBI Director James Comey estimated in early May that the number of foreign fighters traveling to the region has grown by a few dozen since the start of the year. Several months before, he had said there were dozens of Americans trying to travel to Syria.

Morell said such fighters are a "growing concern" to the U.S., but that they pose more of a threat as one-man operations at present than a large 9/11 style attack.

ISIS has also been a separate entity from al Qaeda after it was cut off from the main group in February.

The question that remains is whether the U.S. would be able to thwart an attack if one materialized.

Zarate said the country is better prepared to deal with the threat of a terror attack, having built up its counterterrorism capabilities since 9/11. But, he added, "we are, in some ways, blind to a lot of the threats that may be emerging and unable to impact the momentum that some of these extremist groups have."

As the groups grow in strength, "we in some ways then have to play defense, which is a lot harder to do if we're not playing offense at the same time," he said.

U.S. vets 'heartbroken' as civil war overtakes Iraq

DETROIT -- Tony Blair served two tours of duty as an Army infantry sergeant during the eight-year Iraq War and was injured in a roadside bomb explosion.

Now the 55-year-old Warren, Mich., resident worries that everything he and hundreds of thousands of other American soldiers fought — and died — for will be lost as al-Qaida-inspired militants rampage through Iraq, embroiling the country in a sectarian war.

"If the Iraqi army and military police are not going to fight and hold their ground, yeah, they are going to take Baghdad," Blair said Friday, after a quick succession of major victories by the insurgency in the past week. "I'm heartbroken."

Iraq War veterans in Michigan and across the country are watching with dismay, bitterness and even sadness as the same insurgency they fought against took control of two major cities — Mosul and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit — last week.

"We spent a lot of time and effort to secure that region of the world and to have it kind of just fall apart," said Christopher Kolomjec, an attorney from Grosse Pointe Farms, who was a Marine major during heavy fighting in Fallujah in 2006 and 2007.

"You can't help but be extremely disappointed and frustrated that the sacrifice we made might be in vain. For every veteran who has been to Iraq, it is a constant battle to not become bitter."

Nick Cook, 36, of Grand Ledge did two tours in Iraq and, as an Army troop commander, lost five soldiers.

"For me, it's very upsetting," he said, "I watch what's happening there. My first six months, it was very intense fighting in Baghdad, but then there was prosperity and good news. And to see that now on the verge of collapse, and knowing I lost five soldiers, it's very hard. These kids may have died in vain."

Nearly 4,800 U.S. and coalition military personnel were killed in Iraq and more than 32,000 were wounded.

It also was a costly war financially for the U.S. The war will eventually cost U.S. taxpayers at least $2.2 trillion, including long-term care for wounded veterans, according to a 2013 study by the Costs of War project, based at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.

The Sunni insurgents are part of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the successor to the al-Qaida group that battled U.S. troops, according to Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a fellow at the Foundation of Defense for Democracies. While the group shares al-Qaida's ideology and brutality, it was formally expelled from al-Qaida in February over disagreements on tactics and leadership.

'It's very frustrating'

Kolomjec said there are no easy answers to the current situation. He said U.S. forces long struggled to win the support of the Iraqi people because they knew the Americans would eventually leave and the insurgents would remain. But the U.S. can't ignore the situation.

"The one thing we can't do is nothing," he said. "You can't just turn your back on them."

Kolomjec said he thinks the U.S. should provide air support to the Iraqi army as it attempts to hold off the insurgents, but putting American troops on the ground is a much more difficult issue.

"I don't think this country right now has the stomach for ground troops. That's my impression," he said.

Cook, who was in Iraq in 2004-05 and again in 2007-08, also said the U.S. can't ignore the bloodshed.

"I don't think we need to put troops on the ground but we do need to support the Iraqi government to help oust (the insurgents). I really feel that air superiority would give the Iraqis a chance for a new front."

Michael Matwyuk, 58, is a former Army sergeant who fought in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 and now works as a social worker for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He lives near Iron Mountain in the Upper Peninsula.

"It's very frustrating," Matwyuk said. "We didn't leave a force behind to support the Iraqi forces, and obviously that created a vacuum. The enemy takes advantage of those vacuums, and unfortunately a lot of innocent people are going to die."

'They were right there'

There is also concern among the veterans about the people for whom they fought and the friends they made and left behind.

Cook said he made many friends there, including a young Iraqi boy who served as his interpreter.

"Now he is attending Baghdad University and I'm very worried about him. What's going to happen to him?" Cook said.

Matwyuk said he, too, is worried about the many friends he made in the Iraqi army, now under siege, and the citizens he came to know.

"There was a great deal of misconception particularly during Fallujah, during the big push, that the Iraqi soldiers weren't stepping up. That was not really the case. I was in the chow lines with them and, while they may not have had the training and discipline, they were right there alongside us."

Matwyuk said he is dismayed that the hope American troops brought to the Iraqi people now appears lost.

"We're going to lose that, lose that ground, that opportunity," he said. "When you see a people like the Iraqis hold their first election, and you get an 85% turnout and they went there under the threat of being killed, that's how committed they were."

'The topic of the day'

Jeff Barnes, who did two tours of Iraq as a U.S. Army captain, spent several days last week talking to fellow veterans about the developments in Iraq while attending the National Association of County Veteran Service Officers conference in Grand Rapids.

"It was the topic of the day," said Barnes, director of the Michigan Veteran Affairs Agency. "It's painful to see the ground we fought so hard for to be lost, the time and effort, the resources and lives lost."

Blair, the Army veteran from Warren, said he doesn't see a good way to end the conflict.

"The Sunnis and Shi'ites have been at each other's throats for a long time," he said. "We cannot stop that."