By Trista Talton – Staff writer Marine Corps Times
Posted : Tuesday Jan 15, 2008 11:56:05 EST

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — An investigating officer said Monday there was no physical evidence to support that a Marine Special Operations platoon took small arms fire following a vehicle bomb attack last year in Afghanistan.

, who was assigned to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, was part of the investigative team who went to Afghanistan nearly two months after the March 7, 2007 attack in Nangahar Province. [Blog note: TWO MONTHS LATER???]

“I don’t believe a follow-on ambush occurred,” he said. [Blog note: After he went...TWO MONTHS LATER??? Of course, the "crime scene" would be all but wiped out. In other words, Sterile!]

O’Dwyer testified the investigative team spent 60 minutes at the actual site of the attack on the six-vehicle convoy. He was the first witness of the day in the second week of the court of inquiry looking into the actions of Fox Company, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, who are alleged to have killed as many as 19 Afghan civilians according to some reports.

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Samar Khalil Spinelli, 39, a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps, pleaded guilty this past December in a Detroit federal court to conspiring with former FBI Agent and CIA employee Nada Nadim Prouty and Elfat El Aouar, the wife of fugitive restaurateur Talal Chahine, to commit citizenship fraud and passport fraud, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Murphy.

Mr. Murphy was joined in making the announcement by Brian M. Moskowitz, Special Agent in Charge of the Detroit Office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Andrew G. Arena, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office.

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For the past two years, the Gulf states have been part of a Sunni bloc established by Saudi Arabia to counter Iran’s aspirations for regional hegemony. During this period, Saudi Arabia made efforts to distance Iran from “Arab affairs,” while the Gulf states were already in political conflict with Iran over the issue of the three islands (Greater and Lesser Tunb, and Abu Moussa) that Iran had forcefully seized from the UAE in 1971, and following recent statements by senior Iranian leaders threatening Bahrain’s sovereignty. [1] Some in Saudi Arabia even called on the Gulf states to form a military alliance against Iran. [2]

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By Trista Talton – Staff writer – Marine Corps Times
Posted : Wednesday Jan 9, 2008 20:20:21 EST

(Emphasis added)>

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — After the fire and smoke began to clear from the blast, Nathanial Travers remembers hearing gunfire in front of his Humvee in the middle of the convoy.

The former staff sergeant and member of Fox Company, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command, was the first witness to testify Tuesday in the court of inquiry examining what happened March 4, 2007, following the attack by a suicide car bomber.

Maj. Fred Galvin, 38, Fox Company’s commander at the time, and Capt. Vincent Noble, 29, the platoon and convoy leader, are the main focus of the inquiry.

As the convoy of six uparmored Humvees left the site where they were attacked, on Route 1 in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, the former staff sergeant noticed vehicles on the roadside. There was a sport utility vehicle riddled with what looked like bullet holes, he said.

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