September 6, 2008
Recent works by Matthew McAllester
McAllester was born in London and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. He obtained a B.A. in English from the University of Sussex, England, and an M.A. in English from Clark University, Mass.
He joined Newsday as an intern in 1994, becoming the Middle East Correspondent in 1999. He has covered conflicts in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, Israel and the Palestinian Territories, Afghanistan and Iraq.
McAllester has authored two books: "Beyond the Mountains of the Damned: The War inside Kosovo" and "Blinded by the Sunlight: Emerging from the Prison of Saddam's Iraq."
REPORTING FROM LONDON
Detainee suspected in massacre
LONDON - When federal agents conducted their nationwide sweep last week of men believed to have been soldiers and police officers in the Bosnian Serb units that perpetrated the Srebrenica massacre, one name stood out among the 26 arrested: Nedjo Ikonic.
Two histories hidden in the workforce
Dusty Rhodes has a strict rule for the roughly 30 Bosnians working for him: no arguing or fighting among Muslims, Serbs and Croats over what happened in the wars of the former Yugoslavia.
Former Bosnian Serb soldiers arrested
Federal agents raided homes in five cities Monday, arresting 19 Bosnian Serbs whose units allegedly participated in the Bosnian war's Srebrenica massacre, sources told Newsday.
U.S. torture statute put to the test
For 12 years the U.S. federal Torture Statute lay unused. Wednesday, federal prosecutors finally unleashed it.
REPORTING FROM TURKEY
Muslim fears eased by pope
ISTANBUL, Turkey - In a dramatic gesture of reconciliation with the Muslim faith he had so recently offended, Pope Benedict XVI prayed inside Istanbul's Blue Mosque yesterday.
REPORTING FROM TURKEY
Silence in Turkey's genocide controversy
Mesrob II, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and all Turkey, was silent for a second.
A small Turkish flock for pope
ISTANBUL, Turkey - After spending his first day in Turkey doing his best to reconcile with Islam, Pope Benedict XVI spent his second of four days in the country connecting with the tiny Christian population here.
Refusal to acknowledge Armenian genocide
Mesrob II, the Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul and all Turkey, was silent for a second.
Pope tries to smooth relations in Turkey
Pope Benedict XVI arrived in Turkey Tuesday and immediately began a charm offensive directed at Muslims and Turks angered by comments he made about Islam 10 weeks ago.
War crimes suspect sent back to Bosnia
ISTANBUL, Turkey - This time last year Mladen Blagojevic was living in his neatly tended ranch home in the sprawl of Phoenix with his wife and young son. This week, he's in his homeland of Bosnia - sitting in a cell and facing the prospect of being charged with war crimes, his life in the safety of American suburbia over.
REPORTING FROM LEBANON
Finding heartache amid the rubble
Someone found a few bottles of cologne. The rescue workers - not that there was anyone they could rescue alive - threw some on the ground, poured some on the trapped bodies and sprayed each other's face masks.
MIDEAST CRISIS
Dead expatriate's sister grieves in L.A.
The body was among the furniture on the floor of the living room. It was Mohammed Hamoudi and he was an American citizen.
Defiance among Hezbollah
The Israelis had gone, and within hours, Hezbollah was back in control.
REPORT FROM LEBANON
Fierce fighting in the final hours
It was the last full day of war - or so the politicians were saying - and it had left Ahmed Skafi with a sliced-up body and a dead friend.
A friendly rivalry 3,000 years ago
The kings of Tyre and Israel once battled it out in riddles, not bombs.
Peril on the streets
All but the crazy or the desperate are staying inside now or perhaps walking gingerly under awnings at the side of the road and in the narrow alleys of Tyre's old city. Yesterday and the night before, Israel delivered the message that any moving vehicle was now a target.
REPORTING FROM LEBANON
Amid the explosions, town's people depart
The staff at the Jabal Amel hospital mingled yesterday outside the emergency room, as they do all day at the moment, waiting for arrivals.
Witnessing the horrors of war
First came two explosions. They rang through the main street leading south into this ancient city. They came out of nowhere, perhaps from one of the Israeli drones buzzing in the skies.
Historic seaside town targeted
Israeli commandos crept through orchards of banana and orange trees early yesterday before raiding an apartment where Hezbollah fighters were storing weapons.
REPORTING FROM LEBANON
Strikes reach farther
Israel further isolated Lebanon's capital city Friday by destroying bridges on the main north-south highway - the last relatively safe main road out of Beirut to neighboring Syria. Hezbollah, meanwhile, launched its deepest rocket strike yet into Israel.
Israel vows to keep fighting
Israel's apologetic but defiant reaction to yesterday's events in the Lebanese town of Qana underscores the difference between this war and most Arab-Israeli conflicts waged during the past three decades: In the minds of many Israelis, their country's very existence is now at stake.
REPORTING FROM ISRAEL
Threat of attack quiets Israeli vacation spot
To drive into northern Israel is to enter a land that becomes stranger and stranger with each passing mile.
From exile, he's eager to fight
Six years ago, Fouad spent his days in southern Lebanon fighting the guerrillas of Hezbollah. Now, he spends his nights finding cover from their rockets in an underground bomb shelter in this northern Israeli town, a Lebanese Shia Muslim living in exile in Israel and wishing he were back fighting his old enemy face to face.
Heavy fighting exacts Israeli toll
Israel's attack on Lebanon turned costly for the Israeli army yesterday when Hezbollah guerrillas killed at least eight soldiers in fierce fighting in a town less than 3 miles inside Lebanon. At least 22 more soldiers were injured in what Israeli officers described as intense combat in the Hezbollah stronghold of Bint Jbeil.
As history repeats, unwilling to be driven out
The scars on Shimon Biton's body, still hurting after 36 years, tell him to stay.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
What went wrong? No simple answers
Like a hyena picking over the last, dry bones of a carcass, Mohammed Silme was still trying to extract scrap metal from the rubble of what was the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom.
Palestinians grieve deaths of civilians
Once Ayman Hajaj shook off the initial shock of the explosion in his family's garden, he looked at where his mother, sister and brother had been sitting.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
Picking up the pieces in Gaza
Every day of his life, Mahmoud Ankar wears a T-shirt or sweatshirt with his name and the telephone number of his parents printed on the front. "Anyone who finds him please call," reads the rest of the message.
Israeli hints at deal
As Israel's military continued its attack on Palestinian neighborhoods in northern Gaza Friday, its minister of public security said in a speech that Israel might be willing to release Palestinian prisoners if the kidnappers of an Israeli soldier set him free.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
Israelis push into Gaza
The Israeli military pushed into residential neighborhoods in the northern Gaza Strip yesterday, killing at least 21 Palestinians. One Israeli soldier was shot dead by a Palestinian fighter, the Israeli army said - the first Israeli to die in the offensive.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
Burying the dead comes down to numbers
Osama Tawil, funeral director to militants, learned his lesson during a battle in 2004: Make sure there are enough refrigerators to hold all the bodies until the fighting has died down.
Mubarak joins effort to free soldier
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak flew to Saudi Arabia yesterday in a bid to enlist King Abdullah in his efforts to solve the crisis over the kidnapped Israeli soldier.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
Militants give ultimatum
The deadline set by Palestinian kidnappers who had threatened to kill Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit expired yesterday with no word from either side.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
Fight within Hamas
Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal is using the crisis over a kidnapped Israeli soldier to win an internal battle in Hamas, pushing it away from the political arena and back to armed struggle, Palestinian officials and leading figures have told Newsday.
Kidnapping holds echoes of the past
The kidnappers of the young Israeli soldier knew that his comrades would be searching for him, and that the end would come quickly if the Israelis found their safe house.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
Mediator works to free Israeli
While Israel continued to target sites in Gaza with shelling and missiles Friday, hope for a solution to the crisis shifted to Syria as the Egyptian intelligence chief worked to persuade the leader of Hamas to order the release of a kidnapped Israeli soldier.
REPORTING FROM GAZA
A militant’s final deadly mission
Three or four weeks before he died, Hamed Rantisi's mother recalled yesterday, the 20-year-old started leaving the house at about 5 in the morning, claiming he had a new job selling clothes in the local market.
Putting the heat on
Israel continued its campaign to secure the release of a kidnapped soldier yesterday, firing missiles at two targets in Gaza and arresting 64 Hamas legislators and cabinet ministers.
Israel on attack
Israel sent thousands of ground troops and fired artillery shells into Palestinian territory yesterday, stepping up pressure to secure the release of a soldier kidnapped Sunday by Palestinian militants.
REPORT FROM IRAQ
A renewed threat
The platoon of Kurdish fighters stood at attention in three lines, staring straight ahead in the direction of their homeland and their target: Turkey.
REPORTING FROM MONTENEGRO
People without a country
Bedri Shala has his reasons for not wanting to go home to Kosovo.
MATTHEW MCALLESTER FROM MONTENEGRO
Serbia loses dream of greatness
The news that Montenegro had broken away from Serbia made the young Serbian nationalist leader physically sick.
Near independence
The people of Montenegro appeared to say yes yesterday to independence, no to remaining ties to Serbia and good-bye forever to the ghost of Yugoslavia.
On tourism's heels, a country may be born
On the rippling waters of the unspoiled Bay of Kotor sit the warships that make up what remains of the once-formidable Yugoslav navy. Many are docked in the repair facility in this quiet town of 15,000, but most likely not for much longer. They are being sold off, and millionaires' yachts are due to take their place.
REPORTING FROM NEPAL
Rebels' new challenge: Assessing loyalty
This time last week, the young Maoist guerrillas based in this village in southern Nepal were among the thousands expecting to take over the country within days or even hours.
Nepal's Maoists soften stance
In an overnight reversal of policy, Nepal's Maoist rebels announced yesterday they would lift the blockades that have created shortages of food, fuel and other supplies to the capital and other cities.
REPORTING FROM NEPAL
Signs of hope amid unrest
Hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators took to the streets of the capital yesterday to claim victory on the morning after King Gyanendra announced he would recall parliament.
REPORTING FROM NEPAL
Headway in Nepal
In a major concession to the pro-democracy protesters who have all but crippled his country, King Gyanendra agreed last night to reinstate the parliament he dissolved in 2002.
Prodding forces to shift loyalty
Every time trekking guide Santa Ghale has marched with thousands of other pro-democracy demonstrators toward police and army lines, he has wondered whether his brother is leveling his gun at him.
Newsday reporter wins 'Oz' award
The Asia Society has awarded its fourth Osborn Elliott Prize for Excellence in Asian Journalism to Newsday reporter Matthew McAllester for his series entitled "Nepal: a country on the brink."
WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.
A law awaits its first defendant
When federal investigators find foreign war crimes suspects living in the United States, there are two ways to go after them.
WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.
From Nazi hunters to modern foes
For the past two and a half decades, historians and investigators in the tiny Office of Special Investigations in the Justice Department have been hunting Nazis.
WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.
Sanctuary in the Sun
When the Muslim women and children needed to be separated from the men of Srebrenica so that the men could be executed, the Bratunac Brigade's military police platoon helped take the women and children away, senior Bosnian Serb commanders have testified in war crimes trials in The Hague.
ANONYMITY IN ARIZONA
A cycle of retaliation
Mladen Blagojevic's father walked through his muddy garden with a hammer in his left hand and a cigarette drooping from his lips. He wore an old military jacket, heavy black boots and a black woolen hat to keep Bosnia's piercing winter cold off his head.
WAR CRIMINALS IN THE U.S.
Elusive justice
There are only female voices to be heard in Emina Hidic's apartment. Her mother gasps and sobs as she tells her decade-old story of a place called Srebrenica. Hidic's 12-year-old daughter speaks quietly, sweetly. She has grown up in a family robbed of its men, in a home where sadness lingers like a permanent scent.
'Scratching the surface'
A thousand ongoing cases involving suspected foreign war criminals, torturers and human rights abusers living in the United States might seem a lot. But not to federal investigators and lawyers.
He escaped by pretending to be dead
Two Bosnian Muslims survived the massacre at Branjevo Military Farm, where Marko Boskic was one of the executioners. In 2000, one of the men testified in the trial of Bosnian Serb Gen. Radislav Krstic, who was later convicted of aiding and abetting genocide
Hamas campaigns in private after ban on public electioneering
If it can't campaign like the rest of the Palestinian parties, Hamas will campaign in secret.
REPORT FROM ISRAEL
A farm-grown leadership
Behind the sandstone walls, down a narrow road from a two-lane highway cutting through Israel's sprawling urban coastal Plain of Sharon is hidden a man-made oasis of orange groves, avocado trees and sheep pens. This is Kfar Malal, a cooperative farm that was a malarial wasteland before Jewish pioneers began working it in the early years of last century.
REPORTING FROM JERUSALEM
Sharon's doctors wait, watch
Doctors tending to the ailing Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will meet this morning to discuss when his anesthetic should be reduced, allowing them an opportunity to gauge possible damage to his brain.
REPORTING FROM ISRAEL
Concern amid their dislike
If any Israelis have reason to wish their prime minister ill, it is the people of Nitzan.
Sharon has more surgery
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's condition improved Friday after he underwent a second operation on his brain, said the director of the hospital outside Jerusalem where he is being treated.
ARIEL SHARON: A LEADER INCAPACITATED
A void in Israel
Doctors will keep Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in an induced coma for up to three days following major brain surgery to repair the "severe trauma" caused by his stroke on Wednesday night, a hospital official said yesterday.
Power of design
If France is searching for solutions to the urban problems that are at the root of two weeks of rioting, it might look to this suburb north of Paris and a huge housing project named La Caravelle.
REPORT FROM FRANCE
Their shattered dreams
Standing at her old gas stove, Tonkhonte Traore was preparing an evening meal of steak, sauce and her son Bouna's favorite dish of dumplings. It was just after 6 p.m. on Oct. 27, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, and the day's fasting was over.
'They don't listen to us'
Most times he's been in a police station, the young Frenchman of Algerian descent recalled, it has been in handcuffs. So it felt particularly good to wreck and torch the local police office last week.
Suspect unapologetic to end
The sallow skin on Nebojsa Minic's semi-paralyzed, skull-like face was tight and smooth over cheekbones, chin and the empty valleys of once-full cheeks. The Serb's large ears flopped against the hospital pillow like empty socks. You could have put your hand around his once-powerful, tattooed legs and almost touched thumb to finger. To make himself understood, he would nod or shake his head slightly. But even as the rest of his body was dying, the blue eyes of the man who in the Kosovo war of 1999 allegedly terrorized the town of Pec were still alive.
Israel turns to West Bank
Israel may be pulling down homes and ending its 38-year occupation of the Gaza Strip, but here in the West Bank, building is booming and the country's grip on the contested territory is tightening.
Last settlements emptied but beliefs remain full
The last Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip emptied yesterday with dignity and sorrow, not the fury that marked the end of some other settlements.
And then there were 4 in Gaza
GADID, Gaza Strip - Israeli soldiers and police cleared one more settlement in Gaza Friday, leaving just four with any substantial settler presence left to evacuate. Then, they paused for the Jewish Sabbath.
Holdouts find no sanctuary
NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip - Israeli soldiers and police yesterday stormed two synagogues that had become bastions of resistance to withdrawing from the Gaza Strip, then dragged out their countrymen in rough and emotional confrontations.
THE GAZA EVICTIONS
Militants not appeased
Kamal Taleb Nassar sat in his family's meeting hall and, in order of their deaths, proudly intoned the names of relatives who have died in the service of the militant Palestinian group Hamas.
No eviction for her pain
The settlers of Neve Dekalim cried yesterday because they are leaving their homes, and the Israeli soldiers evicting them cried because they are forcing their fellow Jews from their homes.
NEPAL: A COUNTRY ON THE BRINK
Local militias add to Nepal’s deadly mix
Already caught in the war between Nepal's Maoist rebels and the king's often brutal army, many Nepalis now fear that a new, third armed force could be the most lethal: local militias that have behaved like vigilantes and could tip Nepal into chaos.
Sense of homecoming for Palestinians
It has never happened before. Palestinians are about to gain land from Israelis. And the wise man of Fundo Qawmiya will be one of the first.
NEPAL A COUNTRY ON THE BRINK
Looking for word from those who VANISH without a trace
No, said the young journalist as he spoke through the metal grille in the prison visiting room, it was not being held in the central jail that caused him such fear. It was being let out that worried him.
Drawn into the arms of the MAOISTS
At 62, Juki Buda has already lived more years than most women of her generation in Nepal. Perhaps it's the hope for vengeance that keeps her alive.
An unsettling exodus for Gaza residents
On the white wall of what was the living room in the gutted three-bedroom house is a heart, drawn in black. "The Malach family lived here. 9-11-00. 11-8-05," reads the message inside the heart.
LONDON TERROR: THE OVERVIEW
Explosions were quick and deadly
The three bombs that exploded on London's subway system Thursday morning were all detonated within 50 seconds rather than 26 minutes as previously thought, British police said yesterday. Officials also said the bombs were made of high explosives and were not homemade.
LONDON TERROR: THE OVERVIEW
A city looks for its loved ones
Throughout this shaken city Friday, distraught wives, sisters, husbands and friends handed out hastily copied photographs of the missing. They pasted them on walls and lampposts and delivered them to hospital waiting rooms.
LONDON TERROR
Eyewitness accounts
John Maingay was looking over some papers at his desk in the British Medical Association building in central London yesterday morning when his phone rang.