Baghdad Iraq -

Baghdad --- Three neighborhood security guards were killed and two injured early Friday when U.S. attack helicopters fired at their checkpoint south of Baghdad, Iraqi police said. It was the latest in a series of complaints about errant strikes, which have stoked tensions between the citizen security groups in central and northern Iraq and their American backers.Mohammed Ghuriari, who heads the so called Awakening Councils that supply fighters to protect neighborhoods in the north of Babil province, said it was the third U.S. led strike on their checkpoints in less than two months. He said 19 people had been killed and 14 injured."the U.S. led forces should learn from their mistakes." Ghuriari said in a telephone interview, "such repeated attacks will make the Awakening Councils review their stance in the agreements they signed with the U.S. forces."

----- Army Sniper On Trial For Killing Iraqi ----

Baghdad - Army Sgt. Evan Vela held back tears as he said at his court-martial Saturday that he had killed an Iraqi man who stumbled into his sniper teams camp.

Vera told the court on the second day of his trial that his superior officer, Staff Sgt. Micheal A. Hensley, ordered him to shoot the Iraqi.

I thought he was going to let him go, said Vela, who is charged with murder, planting a weapon and making false statements. I heard the word shoot. My next memory is the man dead. It took me a minute to realize the shot came from my pistol in my hand. I don't remember pulling the trigger.

Vera's case is the last of three murder trials involving the sniper team. Hensley and another one of his soldiers, Jorge G. Sandoval Jr. have been convicted on lesser charges and demoted Hensley is now a sergeant, and Sandoval, a specialist at the time of the shooting, is a private.

The shootings have raised questions about the supervision of the snipers. On Friday Hensley described planting weapons on bodies as an accepted tactic. Soldiers at pretrial hearings for Vera described seeking clearance for a baiting program. In which snipers shoot Iraqis who picked them up, but it was never implemented.

Washington D.C. -

Washington D.C. - Pentagon Won't Detail Its War Spending Plan -

When the Pentagon unveils its budget request Monday for the next fiscal year, it will back away from a commitment it made to Congress just a year ago to estimate how much the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to cost.

Last year, for the first time since the wars began, department budget officials detailed war spending plans for the year ahead at the same time it told Congress what its normal operating expenses would be.

But this year, although the Pentagon will go into great detail about how it plans to spend the billions of dollars it gets to run its normal operations, it will include only what officials call a "place-holder" for war funding.

Slain Marine Laid To Rest - R.I.P. -

Vandalia, Ohio - Family and friends wept and prayed Saturday at the funeral Mass for a pregnant Marine found slain in North Carolina.

The service for Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach drew hundreds of mourners to St. Christopher Catholic Church near Dayton.

Four uniformed Marines wheeled Lauterbach's coffin down the aisle to the strains of "Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory". A small silver casket bearing Lauterbach's unborn child, who she had named Gabriel, was placed next to it.

Federal authorities have said the man suspected of killing her, Marine Cpl. Cesar Lauren, has likely fled to Mexico.

Washington D.C. -

Washington D.C. - The Top U.S. military officer on Friday described the airstrike that killed a leading Al Qaeda commander in Pakistan as an important victory, but he refused to say whether the U.S. government had anything to do with it. Te strike was a very important one, it was a very lethal one," Navy Adm. Micheal G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Pentagon news conference. He brushed aside questions about any role the Pentagon may have played. The CIA and the Pakistani government also refused to say who might have fired the missile or missiles that are believed to have killed Abu Laith al Libi and perhaps other Al Qaeda leaders in a small compound in northwest Pakistan this week.

Washington D.C. -

Washington D.C. - The chairman of the joint Chiefs Of Staff said Friday that no decision had been made to stop the withdrawal of troops in Iraq this summer, a subtle rebuke of the top U.S. commander there, who suggested that reductions would pause after the current round of cuts was completed in July. The comments underscore the divergent views among top Defense Department officials over the long term troop commitment to Iraq. Differences have become increasingly apparent ahead of new recommendations to the White House and Congress planned as early as next month.

The World - Baghdad -

Baghdad - Bombs tore through two popular pet markets here Friday, killing 77 people, in Baghdad since a U.S. troop buildup reached its peak in July. The apparently coordinated attacks, occurring within 10 minutes of each other, were reminiscent of large-scale suicide bombings before the buildup and underscored what U.S. military officials have warned are the shifting tactics of insurgents. At least one woman with explosives strapped to her.Some Iraqi police officials said women carried the bombs at both markets.

Washington D.C. -

Top Al Qaeda Commander Killed - A top Al Qaeda commander who trained and led foreign militants assisting the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan has been killed in neighboring Pakistan, officials said Thursday in what appeared to be a significant victory for U.S. led forces hunting members of the terrorist network. The death of Libyan born Abu Laith Al Libi was reported on militant websites, which praised him as a martyr who died helping lead a "holy war" against the West. While Al Libi's death had not yet been confirmed by forensic evidence, a Western counter-terrorism official said intelligence agencies believed the postings were authentic, and that the militant had been killed within the last few days.