Weapons

A former Indonesian general pleaded guilty in federal court in Baltimore yesterday after he was ensnared in an undercover operation targeting illegal arms dealers. In September, federal customs agents arrested six South Asian arms dealers who were accused of paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to ship restricted, high-tech weapons to rebels in Sri Lanka and the Indonesian Army. The elaborate sting was centered in Baltimore last year, where federal agents put up a Singapore arms broker at an Inner Harbor hotel and took him to a shooting range in Harford County so he could test-fire machine guns.

Lonny Baxter, a former Maryland men's basketball standout who admitted last year to shooting a gun near the White House, plans to plead guilty next week to a related federal firearms violation, his attorney confirmed yesterday. Baxter, who was released from jail in October and has been playing for Montepaschi Siena in Italy's first division, was charged yesterday in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt with failing to disclose weapons he shipped by express mail from Texas to College Park. His lawyer, Richard A. Finci, said Baxter would plead guilty next Thursday.

WASHINGTON -- The FBI lost 160 laptops - including at least 10 containing sensitive or classified data and one with agents' names and addresses - between February 2002 and September 2005, according to a report released yesterday by the Justice Department. Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also reported that a similar number of weapons disappeared during the same period. Fine's report grew out of an audit examining improved FBI efforts to keep tabs on its equipment. Progress has been made, he said, but more needs to be done.

TIJUANA, Mexico -- Disarmed municipal police patrolled alongside armed state police Friday, a sight that brought some comfort to many in this border city, where municipal police are often equated with corruption and drug-fueled violence. Municipal officers, their holsters empty, directed traffic and made the rounds a day after stopping work in response to being stripped of their weapons by the Mexican military. The army operation in Tijuana and a similar incursion in the southern state of Michoacan, some analysts say, have been a political boon to President Felipe Calderon, who recently took office, enabling him to project an image of strength and decisiveness.

The recent furor over U.S.-supplied weapons missing in Iraq raises the question of whose hands U.S. weapons are finding their way into in other parts of the world. Since the terrorist attacks on the United States six years ago today, the answer has been, increasingly: to human rights abusers and undemocratic regimes. Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, the United States began recruiting partners to assist in the myriad efforts necessary to stamp out international terrorist networks. In many cases, the United States chose to partner with countries repeatedly criticized by the State Department for human rights violations, lack of democracy and even past support of terrorism.

An Eastern Shore couple arrested during a drug raid at their home Friday evening had a cache of weapons and ammunition, three pipe bombs and a Molotov cocktail, police said yesterday.Police said that when they raided the house in the 9400 block of Black Dog Alley in Easton about 9: 30 p.m. as part of a two-month investigation, they found the weapons, $10,000 worth of drugs, $2,726 in cash and paraphernalia.Charles Edward Cheezum Jr., 38, and his wife, Brenda Lee Cheezum, 36, were charged with numerous drug and weapon offenses, said Maryland state police spokesman Pete A. Piringer.

WASHINGTON -- In NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo, the lack of sophisticated technology among the U.S. allies, the failure to use ground troops and the absence of effective computer warfare prolonged the 78-day conflict and left the United States to do the bulk of the fighting.Moreover, such failings could easily be repeated in future conflicts and must be addressed, according to comments by top defense leaders and reports prepared by NATO commanders and Pentagon officials.Among the top concerns was the ability of President Slobodan Milosevic to spare the destruction of his air defense system by craftily using it for short periods or by simply turning it off. As a result, even the U.S. military's high-tech weapons could not pinpoint his radar and anti-aircraft systems, forcing allied aircraft to fly at higher altitudes to avoid those threats.

A DECADE AGO, Pentagon critics wondered whether all the high-cost military hardware bought during the 1980s would perform as expected. It did. As the Persian Gulf war moved toward its spectacular conclusion, the doubters were silenced.Today, America's military superiority is unparalleled. In technology and training, our forces are well ahead of any potential adversary -- a position they are expected to hold for a decade or more.But after that, the concerns begin to multiply.The weapons deployed in the gulf were based on research and testing that occurred many years before.

More than three months after discovering cracks in dozens of pistols, the Baltimore County Police Department has armed 52 new officers with more powerful handguns in an effort to update its aging gun stock.In September, 52 damaged weapons -- SIG-Sauer P226s, a 9 mm handgun used by law enforcement agencies around the world -- were taken out of service. Officials said the cracks made the guns slightly less accurate. The search for a replacement weapon began soon after because of fears other guns would develop cracks.

Howard County police are considering four types of guns to replace the ones officers have carried for 11 years, saying the new equipment would be more economical and have better stopping power.Officials have narrowed their preferences to four -- a .357 semiautomatic SIG-Sauer, a .40 SIG-Sauer, a .45 SIG-Sauer and an updated version of what they now use, a 9 mm.The main differences among the semiautomatic weapons are the size and velocity of the bullets they use and the histories of the weapons, said Sgt. David Richards of the staff inspections unit.

Olney Marine killed in Iraq The Pentagon says a Marine from Maryland has died in Iraq. Twenty-six-year-old Sgt. James R. McIlvaine of Olney was killed Thursday while supporting combat operations in Al Anbar province in Iraq. He was assigned to 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif. Associated Press City police internal affairs head leaving 2 The head of the Baltimore Police Department's internal investigations division submitted retirement paperwork this week, the latest shake-up of the agency's command staff.

The radical reshuffling of America's military priorities proposed by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates this week makes an important turn away from the wasteful spending on the kinds of wars we used to fight to better prepare for the nontraditional conflicts we are likely to face. Maryland would gain because billions in Pentagon spending would be shifted toward intelligence, surveillance and research programs headquartered here, most importantly, at the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, which intercepts and decrypts secret communications around the world.

The narcotics trafficking, gun violence and dead bodies linked to northern Mexico's drug cartels are reason enough for U.S. lawmakers to get serious about overhauling weapons laws in this country. With federal agents tracing hundreds of weapons used by Mexican drug organizations to gun dealers in the U.S., this problem has become both a national security issue and a foreign policy concern. The mayhem attributed to the drug cartels isn't confined to towns south of the border. Federal prosecutors in Maryland announced last week that 29 people had been indicted on narcotics charges for allegedly selling drugs supplied by the notorious Sinaloa Cartel based in northwest Mexico.

Baltimore police and FBI agents seized 16 weapons and more than $100,000 worth of drugs during raids on three homes in the Armistead Gardens neighborhood yesterday. Officials said George D. Lee, 40, Douglas Everhart, 28, and Earl E. Shifflet, 17, were arrested on felony drug and weapons charges, and police said additional arrests were pending. Among the items seized in the 5:30 a.m. raids, carried out in the former military housing project in East Baltimore, were 2 kilograms of powder cocaine and 100 grams of crack cocaine, a loaded 9 mm handgun, two 9 mm assault rifles, a 28-gauge sawed-off shotgun and several older-model rifles and shotguns.

Haniffa bin Osman, a 57-year-old Singapore man, was sentenced to three years in federal prison for money laundering and conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization operating within Sri Lanka, the Maryland U.S. attorneys office said yesterday. Osman's scheme, which included plans to export weapons - including grenade launchers and surface-to-air missiles - was unraveled by undercover law enforcement agents posing as weapons dealers, prosecutors said.

What should be the most important issue in this election is one that is rarely, if ever, addressed: Why is U.S. military spending at the highest point, in inflation-adjusted dollars, than at any other time since the end of World War II? Why, without a sophisticated military opponent in sight, is the United States spending trillions of dollars on the development of high-tech weapons systems that lost their purpose with the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago? The 2009 defense budget commits the United States to spending more (again, in real dollars)

The guns came from his uncle's house. One tumbled from the boy's pocket and onto the classroom floor. The other, police said, was found in his locker after a teacher took the child to the principal's office. The boy is 7 years old and in first grade at Randallstown Elementary School. He was suspended and faces possible expulsion. But police said he will not be charged with any crime, because there is no reason to believe he intended to use the weapons - even though both were loaded, with bullets in the chamber, ready to fire.

BAGHDAD -- Iraqi police officials have dropped plans to disarm policewomen and give their guns to male officers after an outcry from critics, who said the move was a sign of religious zealots' rising influence in Iraq. Despite the turnabout, which police confirmed yesterday, the U.S. military general who introduced women into the police force said they remained hindered in their attempts to practice real policing skills. "Even with the revocation order, we will have to watch very closely the actions taken in regards to the remaining female Iraqi police," said U.S. Army Brig.

A Baltimore County judge handed down a sentence without jail time yesterday for a former gun dealer charged with illegally providing a weapon to a man who died in a firefight with police last year. Sanford M. Abrams, an outspoken firearms advocate in Maryland who once served on the board of the National Rifle Association, entered an Alford plea to a single charge of illegally selling a restricted weapon. The plea approved by Circuit Judge John Grason Turnbull II allowed Abrams to maintain his innocence but forced him to concede that the state had enough evidence to convict him. In turn, Abrams, 58, of Owings Mills, received a five-year suspended prison sentence and one year of probation.

LOS ANGELES -- To the dismay of some city leaders, a gun company is marketing a line of high-end pistols named for the Los Angeles Police Department's Special Investigation Section, an elite group of plainclothes detectives with a history of fatally shooting suspects. The guns were created for the undercover unit at the LAPD's request. Kimber, a Yonkers, N.Y.-based gun maker, is marketing a slightly modified version to the public, touting the weapons as the "hot new SIS pistols" on its Web site.