Wednesday Headlines of Interest

U.S. Offering Reward for Information on Soldiers Missing in Iraq

BAGHDAD — U.S. aircraft dropped leaflets Wednesday in a thinly populated farming area south of Baghdad, offering a $200,000 reward for any information on three missing American soldiers believed captured by Al Qaeda terrorists.

The new search tactic came as a senior U.S. military official in Baghdad told FOX News there was reason to believe the missing GIs were still alive. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would only say the assessment was based on intelligence.

U.S. officials said the leaflet drop in the so-called Triangle of Death was part of an intensified search involving thousands of troops. Searchers are trying to isolate areas where the captives may have been taken to prevent their captors from moving them.

"The captors don't have freedom of movement," said U.S. Army Maj. Kenny Mintz. "If they have the soldiers, they can't move them from where they are. We're doing a deliberate search of the areas."

The Islamic State of Iraq, the Al Qaeda-linked terror group that claimed to have abducted the 10th Mountain Division soldiers after an attack Saturday that left four other U.S. soldiers dead, warned the Americans in a Web statement to call off the hunt "if you want their safety."

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Pakistani Christians Seek Government Protection After Threats to Convert by Pro-Taliban Forces

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Christians in a Pakistani town beset by pro-Taliban militants sought government protection Wednesday, the eve of a deadline for them to convert to Islam or face violence.

About 500 Pakistani Christians in Charsadda, a town in the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan, received letters earlier this month telling them to close their churches and convert by Thursday or be the target of "bomb explosions."

Several Christians, a tiny minority in the predominantly Muslim country, have fled town and others are living in fear, community leaders said.

Some complained that police were not taking the threat seriously.

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U.S. Government's Arabic-Language Channel Airs Anti-Israel Comments from Hamas, Hezbollah

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

WASHINGTON — Overseers of the United States government's Arabic-language satellite television network say a speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was not screened for anti-Israel content before broadcast because no supervisor spoke Arabic.

"Mistakes were made," Joaquin Blaya, of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, told the House Middle East subcommittee Wednesday, referring to the broadcast last December and others by the network, Al-Hurra, that he said "lacked journalistic or academic merit."

The subcommittee chairman, Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, a Democrat, said in several instances Nasrallah used the U.S. government's satellite television network as a platform for inciting a crowd to violence against Israel.

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