Washington, D.C.

Arrested South Korean figure donated to Kerry campaign

John Kerry’s campaign collected a maximum $2,000 check from the recently arrested son of South Korea’s disgraced former president, and some of its fund-raisers met several times with a South Korean government official who was trying to organize a Korean-American political group.

The Kerry campaign said it did not know about the $2,000 donation from Chun Jae-yong or his background until informed by The Associated Press and has decided to return the money to avoid any appearance of impropriety.

Chun Jae-yong was arrested in February by South Korean authorities on charges of evading taxes on $14 million in inheritance money. His father, former president Chun Dooh-hwan, was convicted in 1997 on bribery charges.

Washington, D.C.

9-11 commissioner downplays al-Qaida interaction with Iraq

The chairman of the Sept. 11 commission said Sunday that al-Qaida had much more interaction with Iran and Pakistan than it did with Iraq, underscoring a controversy about the Bush administration’s insistence there was collaboration between the terrorist organization and Saddam Hussein.

Thomas Kean made the comment even as he and other commissioners tried to steer clear of the debate over one of the administration’s primary justifications for invading Iraq.

“We believe … that there were a lot more active contacts, frankly, with Iran and with Pakistan than there were with Iraq,” said Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey.

“Al-Qaida didn’t like to get involved with states, unless they were living there …,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

San Francisco

Fewer troops dismissed for homosexuality

Even with concerns growing about military troop strength, 770 people were discharged for homosexuality last year under the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, a new study shows.

The figure, however, is significantly lower than the record 1,227 discharges in 2001, just before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Since “don’t ask, don’t tell” was adopted in 1994, nearly 10,000 military personnel have been discharged — including linguists, nuclear warfare experts and other key specialists.

The statistics were obtained from the Defense Manpower Data Center and analyzed by the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Algeria

Islamic militant linked to al-Qaida killed

Troops killed one of North Africa’s most wanted Islamic militants, who had sought to link his bloody insurgent movement in Algeria to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network, the military said Sunday.

The death of Nabil Sahraoui, head of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat, marked a major victory for Algerian government efforts to suppress Islamic militant violence and left his armed extremist organization with no clear leader.

The Salafist Group, known by its French acronym GSPC, is one of two groups that have led a violent insurgency against Algeria’s military-backed government since 1992. More than 120,000 Algerians have been killed in insurgent violence and government campaigns to suppress it.

Sahraoui, who was in his mid- to late-30s, took over leadership of the Salafist group last year and declared its allegiance to al-Qaida.