Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: GtoRA2 on March 24, 2003, 01:31:40 PM
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The one where a 101st trooper tossed three grenades in a tent?
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just that he was aparently muslem and upset about having to fight other muslems
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FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — A sergeant accused of killing a fellow serviceman by throwing grenades into tents at a military command center in Kuwait told his mother he feared persecution because he is a Muslim and reportedly had recently been reprimanded for insubordination.
Sgt. Asan Akbar of the 101st Airborne Division's 326th Engineer Battalion was in custody, said George Heath, a civilian spokesman at Fort Campbell. Heath said Akbar had not been charged with a crime but was the only person being questioned in the attack that also wounded 15 other soldiers Sunday, three seriously.
Jim Lacey, a correspondent for Time magazine, said in a television news broadcast that military criminal investigators said Akbar was recently reprimanded for insubordination and was told he would not join his unit's push into Iraq.
Heath also said Akbar had been having "an attitude problem."
The motive in the attack "most likely was resentment," said Max Blumenfeld, another U.S. Army spokesman.
The Army identified the dead soldier as Capt. Christopher Scott Seifert, 27, of Easton, Pa. Heath said Seifert was married. A spokesman for Seifert's mother and father -- Thomas and Helen Seifert, also of Easton -- said the family would not immediately speak with reporters.
"We do want to honor Chris. We have suffered a loss in our family. We are grieving right now," said spokesman Mark Drill.
A woman who said she is Akbar's mother, Quran Bilal, told The Tennessean of Nashville that she was concerned her son might have been accused because he is a Muslim, adding he was not allowed to participate in the first Gulf War because of his religion.
"He said, 'Mama, when I get over there I have the feeling they are going to arrest me just because of the name that I have carried,'" Bilal told the newspaper for a story published on its Web site Sunday night.
She said in a telephone interview from her Baton Rouge, La., home that the military had not contacted her and expressed disbelief in the accusations against her son, who she said spells his first name Hasan.
"He wouldn't try to take nobody's life," she said. "He's not like that. He said the only thing he was going out there to do was blow up the bridges."
A message left by The Associated Press at a listing for Bilal was not immediately returned Sunday.
The attack happened in the command center of the 101st Division's 1st Brigade at Camp Pennsylvania at 1:30 a.m. Sunday (5:30 p.m. EST Saturday).
One grenade went off in the command tent, Blumenfeld said. The tent, the tactical operations center, runs 24 hours a day and would always be staffed by officers and senior enlisted personnel.
Names of the wounded were not released. However, a newspaper photo of the 1st Brigade's commander, Col. Frederick Hodges, showed him with blood on his uniform and his arm in a sling.
Akbar was born Mark Fidel Kools. His mother said she changed his name to Hasan Akbar after she remarried when he was a young boy. Public records found by The Associated Press showed listings for Hasan Akbar under the name Kools as well.
The FBI combed Akbar's apartment complex in Clarksville, Tenn., early Sunday, looking for clues, The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper in Clarksville reported.
One address for Mark Fidel Kools in Los Angeles is the Bilal Islamic Center, a collection of small buildings and mobile homes around a mosque that's under construction. Two members said they did not know Kools under his family name or his Muslim name, Hasan Akbar.
"We have a whole lot of Hasans and Akbars here," said Mohammed Akbar Lee, who identified himself as a security guard at the center.
Mark Fidel Kools came to the University of California, Davis, in 1988, school spokeswoman Lisa Lapin said. He was a double major in aeronautical and mechanical engineering, and graduated with a bachelor's degree as Hasan Karim Akbar nine years later, apparently because "he stopped and started several times" with his classes, Lapin said.
Heath said Akbar should eventually come back to Fort Campbell, though military officials could decide to convene a court martial board in Kuwait. He said he was not sure what kind of penalty Akbar could face if convicted, including the death penalty.
"I don't think that the military has executed but one person, maybe two, and they may have two in jail with the death penalty, and appeals ongoing," Heath said.
Dennis Olgin, 56, a former Army prosecutor who now practices criminal and military law in Louisville, said it's possible Akbar could be charged with intentional murder, one count of attempted murder for everyone that was sleeping in the tent and aggravated assault.
Olgin said the soldier could be charged with treason, but said the murder charge would be easier to prove.
"Life would be the minimum for the murder charge," Olgin said. "Since it was in combat, it's possible that he could get the death penalty. That would be up to a jury and it would have to be unanimous."
The three soldiers with the most significant injuries from the attack were in serious but stable condition Sunday, Heath said.
Heath said the attack obviously weighed heavily on soldiers' minds.
"When somebody's firing at you, you know who the enemy is. When they're standing in the same ... chow line, or using the same shower with you, it's hard to recognize. It's had a detrimental effect, probably, on the morale."
It also frightened loved ones back home.
"I was very scared because I didn't know where my wife was," said Robert Ward, whose wife, Lorna, is a specialist in the 101st Airborne Division. "All I could think of and worry about was I prayed that it wasn't my wife. I just couldn't believe that it was one of ours that actually did it."
The 101st Airborne is a rapid deployment group trained to go anywhere in the world within 36 hours. The roughly 22,000 members of the 101st received deployment orders Feb. 6. The last time the entire division was deployed was during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which began after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait.
Most recently, the 101st hunted suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Camp Pennsylvania is a rear base camp of the 101st, near the Iraqi border. Kuwait is the main launching point for the tens of thousands of ground forces -- including parts of the 101st -- who have entered Iraq.
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Now why am I not surprised...
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Originally posted by Hortlund
Now why am I not surprised...
? please explain ... at what exactly?
A side note... this jerk's (Akbar not Hortlund) Mother lived in my town (Moreno Valley, CA) until about a month ago. Local neighbor said "the police were constant visitors".
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LOL, this is a gem:
"He said, 'Mama, when I get over there I have the feeling they are going to arrest me just because of the name that I have carried,'" Bilal told the newspaper for a story published on its Web site Sunday night.
Guilty conscience? Pre-meditation?
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Originally posted by midnight Target
? please explain ... at what exactly?
Lets just call it dual loyalties.
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now who coulda guessed it.
Hope they fry ackbars arse.
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"We have a whole lot of Hasans and Akbars here," said Mohammed Akbar Lee......
lol
Some one get Kools a bag of pork rinds.......
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Execution.
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He is only fit to be hanged.
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"Dual Loyalties"
On the news this morning was an Iraqi family. Their son is a Marine and has been sent to Kuwait. The entire family supports Bush, the war and the local Islamic temple.... go figure?
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If I we're the CO of that unit, I'd have made sure he was "killed in the attack."
Way too much paperwork at this point - and now that the public has been brought into it, Im sure they'll give him a prison sentance.
If they shoot him Ill be very surprised. Havent you guys heard? This is the kinder, gentler military.
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Originally posted by midnight Target
"Dual Loyalties"
On the news this morning was an Iraqi family. Their son is a Marine and has been sent to Kuwait. The entire family supports Bush, the war and the local Islamic temple.... go figure?
People are different MT. Different people value different things. Some are more religious than others. Pretty much everyone has his own interpretation of the scriptures of his religion. People also have different loyalties. Some remain loyal to their nation, some to their religion. Some people put their country before their religion, some put their religion before their country.
Can you tell what category someone is in just by looking at him or talking to him?
I'm just saying, that on a general level, it strikes me as a horribly bad idea to have fundamental moslems in the combat units sent into Iraq. There are other places they can serve right now, like in Korea.
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if he really did do it id put him in a sealed ripstop tent and throw 6 grenades in with 5 second fuses.then watch him beat himself against the sides as the time ticks down :D
then when people question what happened to him you can say he was a suicide bomber and was killed in the original attack on the command tent :) simple eh ? :)
oh and id allow all those with injuries to throw the grenades
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Hortlund,
Fundamentalism of any stripe is inconsistant, if not directly contrary, with democratic values in a free society. That is the true danger and driving force behind many conflicts we are facing in our world. This individual was obviously unstable and sociopathic but I didn't see any mention of fundamentalism in that article in regards to his faith. Did you? Or did you just assume that because of your own beliefs?
kbman
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I live in Louisville. Yesterday in biology class I was talking to two retired Army guys who said that they knew someone who had served with the fragger. They said that he was a real slimebag and they didnt know how he attained the rank of Sgt.
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Originally posted by kbman
Hortlund,
Fundamentalism of any stripe is inconsistant, if not directly contrary, with democratic values in a free society. That is the true danger and driving force behind many conflicts we are facing in our world. This individual was obviously unstable and sociopathic but I didn't see any mention of fundamentalism in that article in regards to his faith. Did you? Or did you just assume that because of your own beliefs?
kbman
Apparently it wasn't any one thing, but a combination.
During interviews, his friends said he had told them he was against the war, and what we were doing to the Iraqis was "sick".
His military comrades say he was really ticked at being left behind.
You really have to screw up to get left behind. Either he just really wasn't doing his job, was in hot water for something he had done, or if he was spouting off about how wrong the war was to his military cohorts, maybe they just didn't trust him.