Mystery surrounds suburban dad, accused terrorist

(News Today) - Faisal Shahzad had two faces, investigators and people who knew him say.

He was a suburban father in Connecticut, married to an American citizen educated in Colorado. Wife Huma Mian, pretty and smiling in a Facebook picture, wore a traditional Muslim head scarf and posted on her page that she loved to shop.

Shahzad, a Pakistani who became a naturalized U.S. citizen in April 2009, worked as a financial analyst in Connecticut before leaving that job last June. His neighbors describe him as quiet and nice, but a little odd -- a man who liked to jog at night wearing all black and who once remarked that he didn't like the sunlight.

Shahzad is suspected of trying to blow up a Nissan Pathfinder in Times Square on Saturday.

He was arrested Monday night at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York as his flight to Dubai was about to take off, law enforcement officials said.

Shahzad, 30, has been charged with five counts in connection with the case, according to documents filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in New York. The documents say he admitted to law enforcement officials that he attempted to detonate the bomb and that he recently received bomb-making training in the Waziristan region of Pakistan.

Shahzad returned to the United States via a one-way ticket from Pakistan on February 3, according to a criminal complaint. He told immigration officials upon his return that he had been visiting his parents in Pakistan for the previous five months, the complaint said. Shahzad has a Karachi identification card, a sign of Pakistani residency, and his family is from northwestern Pakistan, according to Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

His father is a retired senior officer in the Pakistani Air Force, Shahzad's cousin, Kafayat Ali, said on Tuesday. The father, Bahar Ul Haq, a former air vice marshal, lives in the Peshawar suburb of Hayatabad in Pakistan.

Pakistani authorities in Karachi picked up for questioning Iftikhar Mian, the father-in-law of suspect Faisal Shahzad, and Tauseef Ahmed, Shahzad's friend, on Tuesday, two intelligence officials said.

An intelligence source said Wednesday that a different associate of Shahzad also was detained on Tuesday. That associate allegedly was instrumental in making possible a meeting between Shahzad and at least one senior Taliban official in Pakistan last July, a senior Pakistani official said Wednesday.

It's unclear where Faisal Shahzad's wife, Mian, is now, although he told immigration officials in February that she was in Pakistan.

Shahzad came to the United States and attended college, earning a bachelor's degree in computer applications and information systems from Connecticut's University of Bridgeport in 2000. He earned an MBA at the school in 2005.

He started working as a junior financial analyst for Affinion Media Group in Norwalk, Connecticut, in 2006, leaving voluntarily in June 2009, according to Affinion spokesman Michael Bush.

In October 2008, Shahzad reported getting married to Mian, who graduated from the University of Colorado-Boulder with a degree in degree in business with emphasis in accounting, university spokesman Bronson Hilliard said. A student from 2000 to 2004, Mian lived in a dorm the first few years, and then in family housing with her sisters her last two years at the school.

Mian's Facebook page, which has apparently been disabled, had a picture with her smiling and wearing a hot pink head scarf.

Shahzad, Mian and two children and Mian's two sisters lived in Shelton, Connecticut, for about three years, moving out in July 2009, according to neighbor Brenda Thurman.

Mian spoke English, but was apparently so insecure about her language ability that she told people she did not, Thurman said.

"I never knew she spoke English until it was time for her to move," Thurman said.

Thurman saw him in his yard with his children, a boy and a girl, and the family usually wore traditional Muslim attire, Thurman told WTNH-TV.

Thurman said her daughter often played with Shahzad's daughter, but she herself didn't have much contact with the family.

"He also came out and played with them on occasion. He really loved his kids," Thurman told CNN's "Larry King Live" on Tuesday.

She said Shahzad gave her daughter an old computer of his. Investigators were in the process of confiscating the computer on Tuesday, she said.

Shahzad's wife told Thurman in July 2009 that the family was moving to Missouri. A few weeks after they left their home, the lender foreclosed on the property and changed the locks, Thurman said.

At the Bridgeport, Connecticut, residence where authorities say he lived most recently, agents with the FBI and local police, including members of a bomb squad, conducted a search, and investigators removed filled plastic bags.

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Eleven dead as record flooding engulfs Tennessee

(News Terupdate) - Flooding from two days of heavy rain in Tennessee is thought to be responsible for at least 11 deaths there, the Nashville and state emergency management offices said Sunday.

The Mayor's Office of Emergency Management in Nashville announced Sunday night that it had confirmed five fatalities in Davidson County -- which encompasses Nashville -- thought to be flood-related.

Earlier Sunday, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said it had confirmed seven flood-related fatalities throughout the state, including -- at the time of that announcement -- one in Davidson County.

Up to 20 inches of rain has fallen in parts of the state since Saturday and more was expected Sunday.

The rains have washed out major roads, caused evacuations, and prompted dam failures. In Nashville, Tennessee, alone, more than 600 people were rescued from the water this weekend, Mayor Karl Dean said at a press conference Sunday afternoon.

iReport: Experiencing the Tennessee floods? Send photos, video

"All of our major creeks and the Cumberland River are near flood level, if not at flood level," Dean said, referring to the waterway that bisects Nashville. "The ground is entirely saturated, and the rain continues to fall. There's nowhere for the water to go."

The western two thirds of Tennessee has seen between 6 and 20 inches of rain since Saturday, with flooding spreading to Kentucky on Sunday.

Video: Nashville resident captures 'practically a class two rapids' on her neighborhood streets

Dean said Sunday that more rain has fallen in Nashville in the last 24 hours than has ever been recorded in the city.

"We are still at this point in rescue stage and will be until the water begins to subside," he said.

Dean urged residents to stay home Sunday and, if they could, to skip work on Monday, when Nashville schools will be closed.

The floods shut down parts of several interstates around Nashville on Saturday and Sunday, including interstates 24, 40 and 65.

An emergency shelter set up at Nashville's Lipscomb University was at capacity with approximately 200 people, Dean said Sunday. The Red Cross reported approximately 400 people in 22 shelters throughout Tennessee.

The floods left 36,000 houses around Nashville without power on Sunday and led to the evacuation of three area nursing homes, affecting over 250 patients, Dean said.

While some streams around Nashville were starting to recede on Sunday, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was planning to release dammed upstream water Sunday night, which could cause more flooding around Nashville, city emergency management chief Stephen Halford said.

The water needed to be released to keep the Army Corps equipment safe, Halford said.

The National Weather Service issued a civil emergency message Sunday to central and western Tennessee, telling people to stay off roads because too many are closed and people are getting stranded.

The National Weather Service also issued a flood emergency Sunday for much of central Kentucky -- where tens of thousands were trying to get home after this weekend's Kentucky Derby -- and in south central Indiana.

In Louisville, Kentucky, the National Turnpike and Gene Snyder Freeway were closed on Sunday.

In addition to flooding fatalities, one Tennessean died over the weekend in a tornado in Hardeman County, the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency said Sunday.

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At least 5 dead in Tennessee flooding; tornado warnings in Arkansas

(News Terupdate) - Severe flooding killed at least five people in central Tennessee on Saturday, officials said, as floodwaters inundated roads, highways and homes in and around the Nashville area.

The National Weather Service also said 33 of 75 counties in Arkansas are under a tornado warning, and 25 counties in Tennessee are under a tornado watch.

Two people were killed Saturday when floodwaters swept them away as they tried to seek safety on the roof of their SUV about 80 miles northwest of Nashville, Stewart County emergency management spokesman Clint Mathis said.

Three more people were reported dead in counties near Nashville, Tennessee Emergency Management spokesman Jeremy Heidt told CNN.

Between 6 and 10 inches of rain has fallen in 12 hours in the area, causing "extremely dangerous" flooding, the National Weather Service said.

"This is one of the most severe rain events Nashville has ever experienced," Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said in a statement.

Dean said more than 50 water rescues had been conducted Saturday, and more were under way.

"I urge all Nashville residents to stay home and stay off the roads," Dean said.

At least 2,000 people were displaced after two levees broke in Millington, a small city near Memphis, Millington Police said.

Video from CNN affiliate WZTV showed more than a dozen vehicles submerged in several feet of swift-moving water on I-24 in Nashville.

Rescue workers helped drivers escape as water surrounded their cars, CNN affiliate WSMV reported. The floodwaters pushed a home off of its foundation and into the middle of I-24.

Video from WZTV showed a school annex building floating down the interstate before breaking into pieces.

WSMV: Section of I-24 closed by massive flooding

Officials are advising residents to stay off roads, as many have become impassable.

Janel Lacy, a spokeswoman for the Nashville mayor's office, said that in addition to I-24 in Davidson County, 20 other local roads were closed.

CNN iReporter Andrew Ellis sent in a video of a "raging river" of water rushing over an open field where people usually play soccer and golf in Lexington, Tennessee.

"The flooding brought the town to a standstill. No one could get in and no one could get out," he said. "Many homes, vehicles and entire neighborhoods either were or still are under water."

CNN iReporter Jennifer Alter said her dad helped her push her car out after she got stuck on Christmasville Road in Jackson, Tennessee, on the way to work early Saturday morning.

"We went back to check it a few hours later and the road was gone," she said.

Lacy said one shelter had opened at Lipscomb University, and officials planned to open others.

The rain is expected to continue into Sunday morning, she said.

Heidt said floodwaters were expected to crest around 11 p.m. CT (midnight ET) Saturday.

The weather service has reported record flooding at Mill Creek, near Antioch, Tennessee.

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At least 45 dead in Somalia mosque attack

Mogadishu, Somalia (News Terupdate) - Twin explosions at a mosque in Somalia's capital on Saturday killed at least 45 people and wounded many more, hospital officials and the African Union's peacekeeping force in the country said.

The mosque is in the heart of Mogadishu's Bakara Market, a stronghold of Al-Shabaab, the militant group waging a war against the government in an effort to implement a stricter form of Islamic law.

The bloody incident took place about 1 p.m., according to Ali Muse, a local ambulance service director. He said hundreds were wounded, and he expects the casualty figures to rise.

Fighting ensued in the city hours after the incident, when a pro-government militia group slugged it out with militants.

An Al-Shabaab spokesman, Ali Dhere, initially blamed "foreign elements" for the attack, but an AU peacekeeping official said no group has claimed responsibility.

Dahir Mohamud Gelle, the government information minister, called the attack "barbaric" and said it illustrates "a total lack of wisdom and a disrespect to the holy places."

The special representative of the chairman of the AU Commission for Somalia, Ambassador Boubacar Gaoussou Diarra, deplored the killings of innocents and any attacks targeting mosques and other public places.

"Indiscriminate attacks on public places like today's incident cannot be condoned. I, on behalf of the African Union, would like to call upon all warring parties in the Somali Conflict to stop such barbaric attacks on innocent civilian population," Diarra said.

The Horn of Africa nation has not had a stable government since 1991, and fighting between the rebels and government troops has escalated the humanitarian crisis in the famine-ravaged country.

Al-Shabaab is on the U.S. list of terror organizations because of its ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

A local journalist said two explosions detonated on the lower floor of the two-story Abdala Shideye Mosque when people assembled for midday prayers.

The mosque was still standing but seriously damaged, said the journalist, who saw the results of the carnage.

Survivors told him that two high-ranking Al-Shabaab officials died and another was seriously wounded. The journalist said everybody in and outside the lower floor was either killed or injured.

The AU said it is unclear whether the explosions were caused by suicide bombs.

Al-Shabaab fighters guarded the mosque, described by several local journalists as a facility strictly serving the militant movement.

After the blast, the journalist said, gunmen with Ahlu Sunna, a pro-government Sufi Muslim militia, fought near the market with members of Al-Shabaab and Hizbal al-Islam, another Islamist extremist group. Ali Muse said he counted at least two dead and 13 wounded in the fighting.

Heavy fighting engulfed the swath of city for two hours, and sporadic gunfire and mortar blasts rang out as fighting died down.

Witnesses said the Sufi militia took ground from the militants and was moving toward the market.

An Ahlu Sunna spokesman, Sheikh Yusuf Abu Qadi, expressed sorrow over the bombing and blamed it on Hizbal al-Islam, which has had rocky relations with Al-Shabaab.

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Somalia rebels battle pirates, government troops

Mogadishu, Somalia (News Terupdate) - Islamist rebels advanced on a pirate haven in central Somalia and battled government troops in Mogadishu in a clash that killed at least 10 people, ambulance crews and a local journalist reported Sunday.

Fighters from the al Qaeda-linked militia al-Shabaab were advancing on Harardhere, the pirate stronghold on the Somali coast, a local journalist in contact with pirate sources told CNN. The pirates recently captured a boat loaded with weapons from Yemen that were intended for the militia, and had stopped paying bribes to the Islamists, said the journalist, whose identity is not being disclosed for security reasons.

The journalist said a spokesman for al-Shabaab, which is trying to topple Somalia's U.N.-backed transitional government, said the Islamists are only a few kilometers from Harardhere. The journalist reported that the pirates appeared to be retreating from Harardhere to the port town of Hobyo, Somalia with their captured ships.

No further details were immediately available, and the European Union naval force that patrols the waters off Somalia said it had no information about the situation.

U.N. reports have found that Yemen is a source for arms shipments into Somalia despite a longstanding U.N. embargo on weapons. The Yemeni government, which is battling its own al Qaeda uprising, has attempted to crack down on arms dealing within its territory but also faces an influx of Somali refugees.

The advance on Harardhere, about 430 km (270 miles) north of Mogadishu, came the same day a clash between al-Shabaab fighters and government forces left at least 10 people dead and 40 wounded, ambulance crews reported. Heavy shelling followed an attempt by government troops to ambush al-Shabaab fighters, witnesses reported.

Al-Shabaab has ties to al Qaeda and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, but it has taken control of much of Mogadishu and southern Somalia.

The fighting has escalated a long-running humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa nation, which has not had an effective central government since 1991.

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Taliban suspected of sickening female Afghan students

(News Terupdate) - Afghan authorities will investigate the sudden illness of students and staff at three schools in the past week in northern Afghanistan, the Afghan Human Independent Rights Commission said on Sunday. Local doctors suggested the Taliban may be the perpetrators of possible poison attacks.

"During the last seven days three cases of poisoning [have] occurred in Kunduz Province," said Syed Karim Talash, the director of the commission office in the province.

At least 88 girls and teachers became ill in separate cases at three girls' schools.

The cause of the illnesses was not known, but Talash said poison gas was suspected.

"It is really big concern for us, and big concern for the family of the girls," Talash said.

Dr. Mohammad Qasam Khamoosh, who treated girls from two schools, said "unknown gases" were responsible for the mass illnesses.

These are "terrorist activities against education in the country," he said.

Girls were not allowed to attend school during the Taliban's rule. Girls' schools have been open in the region since 2001.

Khamoosh said authorities were able to gather a sample of the gas, which has been sent off for testing.

Kunduz province has seen a drastic influx in terrorist activity, particularly by the group known as Hizb-e-Islami, led by the notorious leader Gulbudeen Hekmatyar. It's an independent group that has increasingly worked under the Taliban umbrella in recent years.

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Rescuers comb debris for survivors after Mississippi tornado

Yazoo City, Mississippi (News Terupdate) - Rescue crews in Mississippi continued to search for survivors Sunday from a powerful tornado that ripped through the state a day earlier, killing 10 people, injuring dozens of others and leveling scores of homes.

Two children and a 3-month-old baby were among the victims.

Two sisters, 9 and 14, were killed inside a mobile home, Choctaw County Coroner Keith Coleman told CNN.

The tornado tore a path nearly a mile wide and decimated neighborhoods as it raked cities from the central western border with Louisiana northeastward to Alabama. It leveled a church, sheared roofs off houses, overturned cars, snapped down hundreds of trees and plunged large swaths of the state in darkness as it toppled power lines.

The same storm system that unleashed Saturday's twister delivered severe weather to other parts of the South on Sunday, with tornadoes hitting Alabama and South Carolina.

On Sunday, a tornado in Darlington County in northern South Carolina overturned as many as four mobile homes and toppled trees and downed power lines.

Three people were hospitalized with minor injuries, according to Linwood Epps of the county's emergency management agency. He said that the local Cain Elementary school was damaged, with part of its roof missing.

The National Weather Service on Sunday gave the Mississippi tornado a preliminary rating of at least 3 on the Enhanced Fujita Scale of 0-5, with wind speeds of up to 160 miles per hour and a preliminary path width of one and a half miles.

Were you affected by the tornado? Send in pics, video

Ron Sullivan, a store owner in Choctaw County, said he was lucky to be alive after the storm hit around midday Saturday. "They always talk about you hearing the train," Sullivan told CNN. "There was no train. There was a bomb."

He said two customers were walking toward the door of his store when the tornado struck and that "when they opened the door, it hit and blew me back."

"The only thing that went through my mind were two things -- 'Please don't let anything else fall on me' and 'I hope my wife is OK,' " Sullivan said.

The hardest-hit counties were Yazoo and Choctaw, where assessment and rescue crews continued operations Sunday, though a spokesman for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency said there weren't any specific reports of people trapped inside the rubble.

Authorities had recorded at least 681 homes damaged across six counties, according to MEMA spokesman Greg Flynn.

The agency was reporting 33 injuries, but it hadn't received counts from Yazoo and Choctaw counties.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said he has not yet requested emergency federal aid but plans to do so on Monday. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency were scheduled to arrive Monday, anticipating an application for a disaster declaration, Flynn said.

Nearly 80 Mississippi National Guard troops, including 50 military police, had been deployed to Choctaw and Yazoo counties, MEMA reported. Forty highway safety patrol troops were also sent to the affected areas.

Five of the dead were from Choctaw County, in the north central part of the state; four were from Yazoo County, north of Jackson; and one was from Holmes County, also in north central Mississippi, said Flynn.

Barbour, who was in Yazoo City where his home is located, called the twister gigantic and said that "in places (it) seemed to be to be several miles wide."

Only 38 people stayed overnight in shelters in Yazoo City, Flynn said, adding that most of the affected were able to stay with family or friends.

Mississippi residents shared stories of tragedy and survival on Sunday.

"You could just feel the glass and debris flying in and cutting you," said Stacy Walker, who took cover in a hair salon in Yazoo City where she worked. "It felt like minutes and minutes. but I'm sure it was just seconds the time that it lasted."

Walker made it out safe but later learned that a high school friend died protecting her children.

Dale Thrasher was inside Yazoo City's Hillcrest Baptist Church when it was flattened by the tornado. "I went in the sanctuary and got under the pulpit table and the whole building fell around me," he said. His injuries: "Three little scratches."

In all, 12 counties reported injuries, with some of the injured airlifted to a level one trauma center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.

Local coverage from CNN affiliate WAPT

President Obama has "been briefed on the tragedy in Mississippi and the situation is being followed by the White House," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Mississippi residents reported that the path of the twister was a half-mile to a mile wide, said Mark McAllister, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Jackson.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said the twister had traveled 150 miles across Mississippi, starting in the western part of the state and moving northeast before weakening as it moved into Alabama.

Early Sunday morning, Alabama's emergency management officials confirmed a tornado touched down in Marshall County in the state's north.

At least one mobile home park and some homes in Albertville were destroyed, said CNN affiliate WAFF in Huntsville, Alabama.

On Sunday, Nancy Brooks surveyed the damage to her Albertville home, which was extensive. Part of home's roof was blown off, and debris littered the floors, which were now barely visible.

Brooks awoke to the sound of the incoming tornado, only to witness a moment later a large tree branch rip into her bedroom just feet from where she sleeps.

"I'm very lucky, I'm very fortunate," she said, as friends helped her begin the cleanup process.

Saturday's tornado was part of a broad band of storms that stretched from Missouri to the panhandle of Florida, Jeras said.

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Al Qaeda confirms death of 2 top leaders

Baghdad, Iraq (News Terupdate) - Al Qaeda in Iraq has confirmed in a statement posted online that two of its two most senior leaders have been killed.

The confirmation, posted late Saturday night on Islamist websites, comes a week after U.S. officials announced the deaths of Abu Ayyub al-Masri and Abu Omar al-Baghdadi.

The two men were killed in a joint Iraqi-U.S. operation in a strike on April 18 near Tikrit, U.S. officials said.

"We find it quite difficult that we are announcing the news of the loss of the Islamic nation once again. The loss of two great Jihadi leaders who are known for their heroism on the path of struggle," said the statement signed by Abu Al-Walid Abdel Wahab Al-Mashadani, the minister of the Religious Committees in the Islamic State of Iraq.

The U.S. military has said the deaths dealt a "potentially devastating blow" to the terrorist group.

"The death of these terrorists is potentially the most significant blow to al Qaeda in Iraq since the beginning of the insurgency," the commander of U.S. Forces-Iraq, Gen. Raymond Odierno, said in a news release last week.

In an interview with CNN, Odierno said it would be "very difficult" for the al Qaeda network to replace the two men.

Al-Masri, a native of Egypt, was military leader of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Al-Baghdadi was leader of the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella group that includes al Qaeda in Iraq.

The U.S. military said al-Baghdadi held the title "Prince of the Faithful."

Odierno said al-Masri was the link in Iraq to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda -- "that was the foreign element of al Qaeda that was established here."

Al-Masri became the head of al Qaeda in Iraq in 2006 after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. attack.

Al-Masri's assistant and al-Baghdadi's son, who also were involved in terrorist activities, were killed as well, the U.S. military said.

A U.S. soldier was killed during the assault when a U.S. helicopter crashed, the military said in the news release.

An Iraqi intelligence cell pursuing high-level leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq gathered information for the operation, said Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

The two men were hiding in a hole within a house, where their bodies were eventually found by security forces, he said.

The arrests of other senior leaders of al Qaeda in Iraq in the past couple of days led authorities to discover the safe house, al-Maliki said.

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Cult leader, ex-Nazi Schaefer dies in Chile

(News Terupdate) - Paul Schaefer, a former Nazi who fled Germany in 1961 and founded a cult-like commune in Chile, died Saturday in a prison hospital.

He was 88.

Schaefer was serving a 20-year sentence at the national penitentiary in Santiago for sexually abusing children at the notorious commune known as Colonia Dignidad (The Dignity Colony).

The commune in southern Chile, also called Villa Baviera, was created as a place to safeguard Germanic traditions. Under Schaefer's rule, contact with outsiders was largely forbidden.

Some of Schaefer's crimes date to the 1970s and 1980s, during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who had visited the commune.

Former members of the colony have admitted that human rights violations and sexual abuse of children occurred there, saying in a 2006 letter published in a leading Chilean newspaper that they were led by Schaefer's influence.

Schaefer had been in prison since 2006 when he was extradited to Chile from Argentina, where he had been living in hiding.

Schaefer died Saturday morning of cardiopulmonary arrest, the penitentiary said.

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Mississippi tornado leaves at least 10 dead

(News Terupdate) - A tornado almost a mile wide tore through Mississippi on Saturday, killing at least 10 people and causing significant injuries and damage as it raked cities from the central western border with Louisiana northeastward to Alabama.

Two of the dead were children and one was a 3-month-old baby, according to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) spokesman Jeff Rent.

The death toll is expected to rise as rescue crews reach hard-hit areas where structures have been badly damaged, said another MEMA spokesman, Greg Flynn.

Five of the dead were from Choctaw County, in the north central part of of the state, four were from Yazoo County, north of Jackson, and one was from Holmes County, also in the north central Mississippi, he said.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who was in Yazoo City where his home is located, called the twister "gigantic" and said that "in places [it] seemed to be to be several miles wide."

Some residents were trapped in badly damaged homes, he said.

"They're working to get to the people and rescue as many as they can," said Dan Turner, a spokesman for the governor, reporting "significant injuries" in at least three counties.

Residents from the region shared tales of tragedy and survival on Saturday evening.

Dale Thrasher was inside Yazoo City's Hillcrest Baptist Church when it was flattened by the tornado.

"I went in the sanctuary and got under the pulpit table and the whole building fell around me," he said.

His injuries: "three little scratches."

Rob and Ashley Saxton were driving to a Yazoo City restaurant owned by Rob's father -- planning to take shelter in the restaurant's walk-in freezer ahead of the tornado -- when the twister blew out the car's windows at a red light. The car was tossed across the intersection, then picked up again and flung into the restaurant.

"When the windows exploded it wasn't like anything I've ever experienced," Rob Saxton said. "It was amazing. It scared us plumb to death."

Watch Gov. Barbour's update on storm damage in Yazoo City Video

In all, 12 counties were reporting injuries, with some of the injured airlifted to a Level 1 trauma center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, said Jeff Rent, a MEMA spokesman.

The hospital has 27 patients with injuries sustained in the tornado, including eight adults in critical condition and six children in serious condition, according to spokesman Jim Albritton.

Many tornado victims were seeking attention at King's Daughters hospital in Yazoo City, where only one doctor was on duty Saturday night, said Jess Silvino, a nurse there.

The hospital is expecting "another one or two waves of victims" as crews are able to fully access the tornado's path, said Richard Summers, chairman of emergency medicine at the medical center.

The hospital has crews in Yazoo City and Lexington that have been "amazed and astounded" by the amount of damage they're seeing, Summers said.

The state's emergency management officials have set up a command post near U.S. 49 in Yazoo City and the state has activated a 25-person rapid response team from Hattiesburg that is capable of search and rescue operations.

my601.com: Local reports of damage, fatalities

The governor said he is activating local members of the National Guard in Yazoo City to maintain order.

President Obama has "been briefed on the tragedy in Mississippi and the situation is being followed by the White House," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.

Barbour said that he has not yet requested emergency federal aid but that he plans to do so on Monday.

"FEMA is in contact and coordination with our state and local partners and stand ready to help if a request is made," said Brad Carroll, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agancy.

Mississippi residents reported that the path of the twister was a half-mile to a mile wide, said Mark McAllister, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Jackson.

CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said the tornado had traveled 150 miles across Mississippi, starting in the western part of the state and moving northeast before weakening as it moved into Alabama.

In Yazoo City, Fire Chief Roy Wilson said that between 20 to 30 houses were destroyed, and said some people were trapped inside structures. Wilson said he didn't yet have confirmed numbers on injuries.

"It's in pretty bad shape so far," he said of the city.

Speaking to reporters in Yazoo City, Barbour said that 17 injured have been taken to a hospital via ambulance and that two others were airlifted to Jackson.

"By God's grace [the tornado] did not go into the most central part of the city, the most populous. However, it went through the southern edge and eastern edge of town in a number of large neighborhoods," he said. "A number of businesses have been destroyed and others severely damaged -- there are churches that have been obliterated."

The sheriff's department in nearby Hinds County is sending two dozen deputies and 100 inmates to assist with the response in Yazoo County and to clear debris, MEMA said.

Have you been affected by severe weather? Send in pics, video

In Eagle Lake, near the Louisiana border, about 30 homes were destroyed, Turner said. In Holmes County, 50 homes sustained structural damage, the National Weather Service reported.

Parts of three highways were closed due to downed trees and other damage: State Highway 3 in Yazoo County and State Highways 14 and 17 in Holmes County, according to the the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

On I-55, traffic was down to a single lane in each direction in parts of Holmes County and in the area north of Pickens, the transportation department said.

Linda Green, a dispatcher with the Issaquena County Sheriff's Department, said there was minimal damage in the area around Valley Park, and a few power lines were down.

No injuries have been reported in Valley Park after the twister ripped through around 11:30 a.m. (12:30 p.m. ET), she added.

Valley Park is in Issaquena County, while Yazoo City is located in Yazoo County. Issaquena County is in the western part of the state, north of Vicksburg.

Saturday's tornado was part of a broad band of storms that stretched from Missouri to the Florida Panhandle, Jeras said.

The storm system struck Louisiana before it moved into Mississippi. A Tallulah, Louisiana, police dispatcher said a chemical plant in the city had been damaged, but could not give further details.

Turner, the Mississippi governor's spokesman, said emergency response teams had been slowed by people out surveying the effects of the storm.

"One of the biggest obstacles is, of course, people are curious and want to get out and see the damage," he said. "We've urged people to stay away from those areas, not only because it slows down the emergency response, but there are also still live electrical wires, there are open gas lines that will have to be shut down."

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Lawyers hopeful for 'sorcerer' on death row

(News Terupdate) - A Lebanese man sentenced to die for "sorcery" in Saudi Arabia remains on death row but may not be executed -- at least not yet, the man's lawyer said.

May El Khansa said that Lebanon's justice minister met with Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Lebanon this week in an effort to spare the life of her client, Ali Hussain Sibat.

The Saudi ambassador told Lebanon's justice minister, Ibrahim Najjar, that Sibat wouldn't be beheaded because a final verdict had not been reached, El Khansa said, citing an account of the conversation that she received from the Lebanese justice minister.

Religious police in Saudi Arabia charged Sibat with sorcery as he visited the country in 2008. A court convicted him and sentenced him to death.

Saudi authorities have not disclosed details of the charge for which Sibat has been condemned. They also have declined to comment about the case.

Najjar could not be reached for comment this week, but he has told CNN that he considered the sentence "disproportionate."

"As far as I know, such an act doesn't deserve such a punishment," he said last month, "unless there is something else -- something that I have not had the possibility to study or to examine myself."

Sibat used to offer predictions and advice to callers on a Lebanese television network. Saudi Arabia's religious police charged him with sorcery while he was on an Islamic pilgrimage in the countr€y in 2008.

Outraged international rights groups have called on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to pardon Sibat.

His lawyer says her conversation with the Lebanese justice minister gave her reason to hope.

"I trust Miniser Najjar," El Khansa told CNN, "and I know he's doing so much to make sure Ali Sibat will be released.

"I have put my trust in the Saudi justice system and hope he will soon be allowed to come back to Lebanon," said El Khansa, who has asked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to pardon her client.

Sibat, the married father of five, was convicted by a court in Medina and sentenced to death in November, El Khansa said. He appealed, and his case was sent back to the trial court for reconsideration. But the judges in Medina upheld their original verdict in March, she said.

Sibat's wife made an emotional plea for mercy last month.

"All I ask is for the Saudi king and the Saudi government to show him mercy -- let him come back to his country and his family," Samira Rahmoon said.

Source : CNN

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6 police, 1 civilian dead in Juarez shootout

(News Terupdate) - A noon shootout left six police officers and a civilian dead on the streets of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Friday, city officials said.

Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said five of the dead were federal police officers and one was a female city officer, all part of the joint police task force formed to combat drug violence in the border town.

Another federal officer was gravely wounded, Reyes said, and a city officer was wounded but not with life-threatening injuries.

A civilian was hit by shrapnel but those injuries were also not serious, he added.

Reyes said the incident began when two patrol cars, one from federal police and one from city police, stopped several people they had been investigating.

Gunmen in three other cars attacked the police convoy with a variety of weapons, including AK-47s, he said, based on bullets and shell casings found on the scene.

The gunmen, who escaped in a gray Dodge Durango and a green Dodge Caravan, may have been drug dealers, Federal Police said. The attack may have been in response to several recent arrests in Juarez, including eight people apprehended Thursday for possession of weapons, drugs and a stolen van, the agency said.

The mayor said it wasn't immediately clear why the police had stopped the people or whether the incident was drug related. Investigators are treating the incident "as a direct attack on police officers," he said.

Federal police launched an aerial search for the gunmen's vehicles but there have been no arrests.

Reyes said at a meeting with federal police that he was ordering an increase of patrol cars so there will be three or four cars per location.

About 800 cars patrol the city, Reyes said. The city police force consists of 3,000 officers, bolstered by 5,000 federal officers.

Source : CNN

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