SYRIA: Was Damascus building a nuclear program?

So are the Syrians or the Americans bending facts about Kibar?

That's the site in the eastern deserts of Syria destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Sept. 6. The consequences Kibar airstrike continue to unfold. Los Angeles Times Washington bureau reporter Nicole Gaouette writes today about the bipartisan skepticism of U.S. lawmakers about the timing and substance of the Bush administration's presentations (see video below) about the site last week.

The presentations to the Senate and House intelligence committees were meant to show that North Koreans were helping the Syrians build a plutonium reactor. Instead, the evidence drew unusually strong criticism.

ISRAEL: King Solomon's judgment, 2008

Parents separated and estranged, teenage daughter commits suicide. The essence of tragedy. But the story cannot be put to rest until the daughter is, and this won't happen until the parents agree on how.

The mother asked that her daughter be cremated, a very uncommon choice in Israel. The father agreed at first but changed his mind and sought traditional burial. The mother claimed that he had no authority to intervene, as he was not the girl's biological father.

By the time the DNA testing proved his fatherhood, it was too late: The body had been cremated. All a judge could do was to issue an injunction against scattering her ashes. When police arrived at the mother's house, she said it was too late for that too and the police left with the urn and remaining ashes, which the father wants buried traditionally.

EGYPT: Chaos, war and traffic

Egyptians ruefully ponder the traffic on their streets and the chaos in their hearts. They seek, especially in rattling, boisterous Cairo, anecdotes and asides to describe their exasperating predicaments. Here’s a sobering assessment from writer Suleiman Gouda, who recently mused in the newspaper Al-Wafd:

What’s really strange is that when an Egyptian is in a capital other than Cairo, he/she behaves well every step they take and turns from a chaotic creature, who is used to unlimited chaos in his home country, into a civilized person.

Gouda goes on to say that he was startled by a glimpse at traffic statistics:

When a recent report says that the number of those killed (and injured) in accidents in Egypt hit 73,000 in a single year, this only means what is happening in our streets is a war, not an ordinary movement of traffic. The U.S. has been fighting in Iraq for five years, and the number of its soldiers killed did not exceed 4,000!

Yet, somehow, Egyptian friendliness and a wry sense of humor overcome the din of horns and the screech of brakes in a tangle of rolling eyes and shared, knowing smiles.

— Jeffrey Fleishman in Cairo

Photo: Cairo gridlock. Credit: auto.howstuffworks.com   

ISRAEL: What is behind spy arrest?

The arrest of 84-year-old Ben-ami Kadish on charges of spying for Israel continues to fuel speculation and analysis here and in the U.S. A Jerusalem Post survey showed that 71% of more than 3,000 respondents believed that the Kadish case would harm U.S.-Israeli relations.

Much of the speculation centers on the curious timing of the arrest — not only more than 20 years after Kadish's alleged crimes took place but one month before President Bush will travel here to help celebrate the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel's founding.

One interpretation was that the Bush administration was using the case to pressure Israel into greater concessions in its talks with the Palestinians. Another claimed that the U.S. Justice Department remained obsessed with proving that convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard was just part of a larger ongoing network.

ISRAEL: Exodus commander dies at 90

Before there was Hollywood's Ari Ben-Canaan, there was Yossi Harel. Barely 30 years old, he commanded the legendary ship Exodus, carrying some 4,500 Jewish refugees and Holocaust survivors from Europe to British Palestine in 1947. He died Saturday at age 90.

The ship sailed from a small port near Marseilles, France, on July 11, 1947. The British authorities, determined to stop the illegal immigration of Jews that had increased after the war, had adopted a new policy to return ships to their European point of embarkation and had warships accompany the Exodus once it left French territorial waters.

On the morning of July 17, a refugee named Dvora was on deck of what was still the SS President Warfield, watching the British warships approach. "That morning, our ship's name was not yet the Exodus.... Late in the afternoon, I saw a friend of mine, a Belgian boy, struggling with a long piece of cloth and some paint. He explained he was going to paint the name of our ship on the sheet: Hagana Ship, Exodus 1947.... After a while, the job was done. That is how our ship became exodus," she wrote in her memoirs.

IRAQ: The results were stunning

Iraqi troops have made two major assaults in recent weeks on Shiite militia forces in the oil city of Basra. For the second — more successful — of the assaults, the Iraqi government called in troops trained by U.S. Marines in Anbar province, west of Baghdad.

The after-action reports of that assault, in which a Marine lieutenant was killed, are now becoming available. The battle was dubbed Operation Charge of the Knights.

Col. Robert Castellvi, senior military advisor to the commanding general of the Iraqi army's 1st Division, is giving high marks to the troops trained by his Marines. Two brigades and a headquarters company moved 500 kilometers with 48 hours' notice and within 24 hours of arriving were engaged in combat.

Castellvi writes:

IRAQ: A close call for a knight

Abu Abed isn't your typical knight. As we wrote back in December, he is suspected of being a former Sunni Muslim insurgent, and his past is shady at best. But Abu Abed now is working alongside U.S. forces as head of a paramilitary force known as the Knights in the Land of the Two Rivers, a role that nearly cost him his life Saturday.

Two of Abu Abed's guards were killed and he suffered shrapnel wounds in the head, eye, back and other parts of the body when a bomb went off outside a building where Abu Abed had been summoned for a meeting with local leaders.

Abu Abed described the dramatic event in a phone call Sunday.

IRAN: Is Washington telling the truth, or setting stage for war?

On Friday chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael G. Mullen delivered stern words against Iran, accusing it of continuing to supply weapons and training to Iraqi militants to target American troops despite promises not to do so.

Mullen's words carry weight. He's uniformed military, not some beltway ideologue.

Still, many in the U.S. and the world feel burned by the Bush administration's pre-war claims about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and support for Al Qaeda that turned out to be false.

Others believe the allegations that Iran is messing up U.S. plans in Iraq.

What do you think? Vote in the poll below.

—Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Photo: An Iranian soldier wears a gas mask during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

IRAQ: For one fallen soldier's dad, pain lingers

A pot of coffee brews inside the one-story home on Seth Dvorin Lane, as the father of a dead American soldier salutes his son's picture and sets out to keep his memory alive another day.

His weathered home sits on a street named after Army 2nd Lt. Seth Dvorin, 24, killed by a roadside bomb near Iskandariyah, Iraq, on Feb. 3, 2004.

Seth liked playing basketball, traveling to places like Europe and Israel, flying remote-controlled helicopters and driving Mustang cars, says his father, Richard Dvorin, a refrigerator of a man, before he breaks into tears for the fifth time this afternoon.

Dvorin, 65, knows his son's story sounds like one you've heard before. He knows you probably don't care to read about another dead soldier.

He wants you to pay attention anyway.

Click here to read the rest.

—Erika Hayasaki in East Brunswick, N.J.

Photo: Richard Dvorin, 65, who keeps his son's military medals on display at home, works at a hot line for soldiers and their families, fielding calls about post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety and death. Credit: Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

IRAQ: Without hesitation

Two young Marines killed in the explosion of a suicide vehicle are being praised for saving the lives of dozens of Marines and Iraqi police by preventing the vehicle from penetrating a police compound in Ramadi.

Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter (above) and Cpl. Jonathan T. Yale were standing guard early Tuesday morning when a blue dump truck packed with 2,000 pounds of explosives came speeding toward the compound. The two quickly went through the "escalation of force" procedures: waving their arms, shouting and shooting flares.

When the truck refused to stop, Haerter and Yale stood in its path and opened fire. The truck rolled to a stop about 30 feet from the entry point and exploded, spreading destruction about 130 feet in all directions, demolishing a mosque and injuring 20 Iraqi civilians.

Haerter, 19, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., was killed instantly. Yale, 21, of Burkeville, Va., died moments later. Both were from the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force, based at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

An official after-action report says the two acted without hesitation or concern for their own lives and saved the lives of 33 Marines and 21 Iraqi police inside the compound:

"Recognizing the danger to their fellow Marines and partnered Iraqi police, Cpl. Yale and Lance Cpl. Haerter fearlessly gave their lives in their defense."

—Tony Perry in San Diego

Update 5/11/08: Haerter and Yale have been nominated by Marines to receive the Silver Star for combat bravery.

Photo: Lance Cpl. Jordan C. Haerter, before deploying to Iraq. Photo credit: Newsday (Long Island, N.Y.)