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Taliban say they’ve not found body of al Qaeda leader

KABUL — The Taliban have not found the body of Ayman al-Zawahiri and are continuing investigations, group spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said on Thursday, after the United States said they killed the al Qaeda leader in an airstrike in Kabul last month.

The United States killed Zawahiri with a missile fired from a drone while he stood on a balcony at his hideout in July, US officials said, in the biggest blow to al Qaeda since US Navy SEALS shot dead Osama bin Laden more than a decade ago. — Reuters

 Japan police chief to resign over Abe shooting, citing ‘fresh start’

TOKYO — Japan’s National Police Agency chief said on Thursday he will resign to take responsibility for the murder of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, citing the need for a “fresh start” for the organization and its security duties.

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Itaru Nakamura is the most senior official to step down in connection with Abe’s assassination at a campaign rally in the western city of Nara on July 8, where experts have said security was seriously flawed.

“In the process of verifying our new security plan, we have come to realize that our security duties would need a fresh start,” Nakamura told a news conference.

“To mark our fresh start with a new security plan, it is only natural for us to build a new organization.”

Security in Nara on the day of the shooting had been widely seen as insufficient, experts have said.

Bodyguards could have saved Abe by shielding him or pulled him from the line of fire in the 2.5 seconds between a missed first shot and the second, fatal round of gunfire, eight security experts who reviewed the footage have told Reuters.

The chief of the Nara police also announced his intention to resign, Japanese media said.

Japanese officials, including Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, have acknowledged flaws in the security around Abe’s appearance at the election campaign event.

The National Police Agency previously told Reuters the killing had been the result of police failing to fulfil their responsibility, adding that it had set up a team to review security and protection measures and develop preventive steps.

The suspected assassin, arrested at the scene moments after the shooting, is undergoing psychiatric evaluation, Japanese media reported last month. – Reuters

Uvalde school board fires police chief criticized for shooting response

LUBBOCK, Texas — The Uvalde, Texas, school board on Wednesday fired the school district’s embattled police chief for his much-criticized handling of the response to a shooting rampage that killed 19 children and two teachers in the city three months ago.

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously to fire Pete Arredondo, to the applause of family members of victims who attended. Arredondo, who led a small police force tasked with patrolling school grounds, had been on unpaid administrative leave since shortly after the May 24 shooting.

Arredondo did not attend the meeting. A written statement from his attorney, George Hyde, was emailed to board members just before the board met. It cited death threats Arredondo has received and what it said was the district’s lack of efforts to provide any protection for him.

Hyde also wrote that the district was in the wrong for dismissing Arredondo, saying it did not carry out any investigation “establishing evidence supporting a decision to terminate” him.

Arredondo has come under scathing criticism for his handling of the massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, a small town in Texas Hill Country, about 80 miles (129 km) west of San Antonio.

Parents of children slain and wounded in the deadliest US school shooting in nearly a decade had demanded the school board dismiss Arredondo.

He was forced to resign his seat on the Uvalde City Council on July 2. Three weeks later, the board was scheduled to decide Arredondo’s fate as the school district police chief, but postponed the meeting due to “process requirements” at the request of his attorney.

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Arredondo acted as “incident commander” in charge of law enforcement’s response to the shooting.

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DPS officials said 19 officers waited for an hour in a hallway outside adjoining classrooms where the gunman was holed up with his victims before a US Border Patrol-led tactical team finally made entry and killed the suspect.

Arredondo, they said, chose not to send officers to confront the suspect sooner, believing the immediate threat to students had abated after an initial burst of gunfire in the classrooms.

Arredondo, who oversaw a six-member police force before he was fired, has said he never considered himself the incident commander and that he did not order police to hold back on storming the suspect’s position. — Reuters

US first lady Jill Biden tests positive for rebound case of COVID-19

WASHINGTON — US first lady Jill Biden has tested positive in a rebound case of COVID-19 but is not experiencing any symptoms, while President Joe Biden continues to test negative for the virus, officials said on Wednesday.

Jill Biden tested positive on Wednesday by antigen testing, following a negative test the previous day, and the White House’s medical unit has notified close contacts, her deputy communications director said.

“The First Lady has experienced no reemergence of symptoms, and will remain in Delaware where she has reinitiated isolation procedures,” her deputy communications director, Kelsey Donohue, said in a statement.

Jill Biden, 71, first tested positive for COVID-19 on Aug. 16. She had ended her first isolation on Aug. 21 after a course of Paxlovid, an antiviral medication.

President Biden tested negative for COVID on Wednesday morning in antigen testing, the White House said.

A White House official said the president would wear a mask for 10 days when indoors and near others. The White House will also maintain President Biden’s increased cadence of testing and report those results, the official said. — Reuters

Pakistan court extends pre-arrest bail of former premier Khan for a week

ISLAMABAD — A Pakistani court on Thursday extended former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s pre-arrest bail in a terrorism case for one week, his lawyer said, shortly after the former premier appeared in court in person amidst tight security.

Khan’s lawyer and political aide Babar Awan told Reuters bail had been granted until Sept. 1, after which they will apply for another extension.

Police filed charges against former cricket star Khan over what they said was a threat in a speech last week when he spoke about police torture of an aide who faces sedition charges for inciting mutiny in the military.

In the speech, Khan said he “would not spare” the Islamabad police chief and a female judge who remanded his aide to police custody, adding he would take legal action against them.

Police cited that comment and said the purpose of the speech was to spread terror among the police and the judiciary and prevent them from doing their duty.

Khan’s bail in the matter was to expire on Thursday, but the court granted him one more week after his court appearance.

“We asked for a longer time because Imran Khan is contesting elections on many seats and he needs to go on campaign, but court gave us just a week,” Awan told Reuters. — Reuters

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