CIA Station Chief in Algeria Accused of Rapes

The CIA's station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News.

Officials say the 41-year old CIA officer, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. Ambassador, David Pearce, in October after the women came forward with their rape allegations in September.

The discovery of more than a dozen videotapes showing the CIA officer engaged in sex acts with other women has led the Justice Department to broaden its investigation to include at least one other Arab country, Egypt, where the CIA officer had been posted earlier in his career, according to law enforcement officials.

The U.S. State Department referred questions to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.

"It has the potential to be quite explosive if it's not handled well by the United States government," said Isobel Coleman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations who specializes in women's issues in the Middle East.

"This isn't the type of thing that's going to be easily pushed under the carpet," she said.

The CIA refused to acknowledge the investigation or provide the name of the Algiers station chief, but the CIA Director of Public Affairs, Mark Mansfield, said, "I can assure you that the Agency would take seriously, and follow up on, any allegations of impropriety."

It can be a crime for government officials to reveal the identity of a current covert intelligence officer, and CIA officials would not comment the status of the person under investigation.

One of the alleged victims reportedly said she met the CIA officer at a bar in the U.S. embassy and then was taken to his official station chief residence where she said the sexual assault took place.

The second alleged victim reportedly told U.S. prosecutors that, in a separate incident, she also was drugged at the American's official residence before being sexually assaulted.

Both women have reportedly given sworn statements to federal prosecutors sent from Washington to prepare a possible criminal case against the CIA officer.

Following the initial complaints, U.S. officials say they obtained a warrant from a federal judge in Washington, D.C. in October to search the station chief's CIA-provided residence in Algiers and turned up the videos that appear to have been secretly recorded and show, they say, the CIA officer engaged in sexual acts.

Officials say one of the alleged victims is seen on tape, in a "semi-conscious state."

The time-stamped date on other tapes led prosecutors to broaden the investigation to Egypt because the date matched a time when CIA officer was in Cairo, officials said.

Pills found in the CIA residence were sent to the FBI crime laboratory for testing, according to officials involved in the case.

"Drugs commonly referred to as date rape drugs are difficult to detect because the body rapidly metabolizes them," said former FBI agent Brad Garrett, an ABC News consultant. "Many times women are not aware they were even assaulted until the next day," he said.

A third woman, a friend of one of the alleged victims, reportedly provided a cell phone video that showed her friend having a drink and dancing inside the CIA station chief's residence in Algiers, which officials told ABC News provided corroboration the CIA officer had indeed brought the woman to his residence.

The officer in charge of the CIA station in Algiers plays an important role in working with the Algerian intelligence services to combat an active al Qaeda wing responsible for a wave of bombings in Algeria.

In the most serious incident, 48 people were killed in a bombing in August, 2008 in Algiers, blamed on the al Qaeda group.

The Algerian ambassador to the United Nations, Mourad Benmehid, said his government had not been notified by the U.S. of the rape allegations or the criminal investigation.

Repeated messages left for the CIA officer with his parents and his sister were not returned.

No charges have been filed but officials said a grand jury was likely to consider an indictment on sexual assault charges as early as next month.

"This will be seen as the typical ugly American," said former CIA officer Bob Baer, reacting to the ABC News report. "My question is how the CIA would not have picked up on this in their own regular reviews of CIA officers overseas," Baer said.

"From a national security standpoint," said Baer, the alleged rapes would be "not only wrong but could open him up to potential blackmail and that's something the CIA should have picked up on," said Baer. "This is indicative of personnel problems of all sorts that run through the agency," he said.

"Rape is ugly in any context," said Coleman who praised the bravery of the alleged Algerian victims in going to authorities. "Rape is viewed as very shameful to women, and I think this is an opportunity for the US to show how seriously it takes the issue of rape," she said.

Israel pounds Gaza for second day

Israel pounded Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip from the air on Sunday and prepared for a possible invasion after killing at least 298 Palestinians in two days of attacks.

Israel said the campaign that began on Saturday was a response to almost daily rocket and mortar fire that intensified after Hamas, the Islamist group in charge of the enclave that Israel quit in 2005, ended a six-month ceasefire a week ago.

Israel stepped up air strikes after dark on Sunday, destroying a laboratory building at the Islamic University in Gaza, a significant cultural symbol, Hamas said. Israel has accused Hamas of using the facilities to develop explosives.

During the first two days of the assault, militants fired about 150 rockets and mortars at Israel, the army said, less than had been expected. Two rockets struck near the port of Ashdod, 30 km (18 miles) from Gaza, causing no casualties.

The attacks enraged Arabs across the Middle East, where protesters burned Israeli and U.S. flags to press for a stronger response from their leaders to Israel's attack on Gaza.

Israeli tanks deployed on the edge of the Gaza Strip, poised to enter the densely populated enclave of 1.5 million Palestinians. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's cabinet approved a call-up of 6,500 reservists, a government official said.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told top commanders at a briefing on Sunday that the Israeli offensive was open-ended. Military spokesman Avi Benayahu said it could "take many days."

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Olmert, said the campaign would continue until the population in southern Israel "will no longer live in terror and in fear of constant rocket barrages."

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who hopes to become prime minister after a February 10 election, appeared to rule out a large-scale invasion to recapture the territory.

"Our goal is not to reoccupy Gaza Strip," she said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. Asked on Fox News if Israel was out to topple Gaza's Hamas rulers, Livni replied: "Not now."

The U.N. Security Council called on all sides to cease fire. But an Israeli official said Israel was feeling little international pressure to halt its operations.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum urged Palestinian groups to use "all available means, including martyrdom operations" -- a reference to suicide bombings in Israel.

Keeping pressure on Hamas after bombing runs that turned Saturday into one of the bloodiest days for Palestinians in 60 years of conflict, Israeli aircraft flattened the group's main security compound in Gaza, killing at least four security men.

Israel expanded its air campaign to the southern Gaza Strip, bombing some 40 smuggling tunnels running under the border with Egypt, a network that is a lifeline to the outside world.

Dozens of Gazans crossed into Egypt through holes opened in the border wall by bulldozers and explosives. An Egyptian border guard and a Palestinian youth died in a clash as Egyptian police tried to stop the influx, medics and Egyptian security said.

Egypt later warned Gaza residents to steer clear of the border area as Israel planned to bomb more tunnels there, a Palestinian security source said. Israel says militants use border tunnels to smuggle weapons into Gaza.

"SHOCK AND AWE"

Palestinian health officials said the deaths raised to 298 the number of Palestinians killed since Saturday, when Israel launched what one Israeli newspaper columnist described as "shock and awe" air strikes against Hamas facilities.

Hamas said 180 of its members were killed and the rest included civilians, among them 16 women and some children.

The international Red Cross said that hospitals in the Gaza Strip were overwhelmed and unable to cope with the casualties.

One Israeli was killed on Saturday by a rocket fired from Gaza. Gazan rockets have caused few Israeli casualties but have damaged property and sparked panic in many border towns.

Benayahu, the army spokesman, said Hamas had not yet responded as strongly as expected, possibly because it was "trying to recover from the blows," but that "it is too soon to eulogize" it.

Livni said Israel was trying to "target only terrorists and Hamas headquarters." "But, unfortunately, in a war ... sometimes also civilians pay the price."

Violence spread to the occupied West Bank, where Israeli soldiers opened fire at stone-throwing Palestinian protesters. Palestinian medical officials said two Palestinians were killed.

Palestinian forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah shot and wounded three people in a protest in support of Hamas. Arab citizens of Israel also held protests.

In Damascus, a senior official said Syria has suspended indirect peace talks with Israel in response to the attacks.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas who fought a 2006 war with Israel, said he asked fighters to be on standby for a possible Israeli attack.

Parents in Gaza kept their children home from school as the roar of Israeli aircraft and thunder of explosions echoed. Schools in Israel's south, due to reopen on Tuesday after the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, were ordered to stay shut.

Abbas, speaking in Cairo, accused Hamas, which seized the Gaza Strip from Fatah in 2007, of triggering Israel's raids by not extending the ceasefire that Egypt brokered in June.

U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, in its final weeks in office, put the onus on Hamas to prevent more violence.

Shoe-thrower in Iraqi military custody

The journalist who threw his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush was handed over to the Iraqi military, an Iraqi official said, as hundreds took to the streets Tuesday for a second day demanding his release.

Muntadhar al-Zeidi was turned over by the prime minister's security guards to face further investigation by the military command in charge of enforcing security in Baghdad, the official told The Associated Press.

Al-Zeidi was initially taken into custody by Iraqi security and interrogated about whether anybody had paid him to throw his shoes at Bush during a news conference Sunday in Baghdad, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

He could face charges of insulting a foreign leader and the Iraqi prime minister, who was standing next to Bush. The offense carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.

In Mosul, Iraq's third largest city located north of Baghdad, an estimated 1,000 protesters carried banners and chanted slogans demanding al-Zeidi's release.

A couple of hundred more also protested Tuesday in Nasiriyah, a Shiite city about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad, and Fallujah, a Sunni area west of the capital.

"Muntadhar al-Zeidi has expressed the feelings and ambitions of the Iraqi people toward the symbol of tyranny," said Nassar Afrawi, a protester in Nasiriyah.

In Baghdad, the head of the Iraqi Union of Journalists described al-Zeidi's action as "strange and unprofessional" but urged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to give him clemency.

"Even if he has committed a mistake, the government and the judiciary are broad-minded and we hope they consider his release because he has a family and he is still young," Mouyyad al-Lami told Associated Press Television News. "We hope this case ends before going to court."

The protests came a day after tens of thousands in throughout Iraq demonstrated in support of al-Zeidi, whose action earned him hero status throughout the Arab world.

That reflects Arab animosity toward Bush for the 2003 invasion of Iraq and dissatisfaction with the president's handling of foreign policy matters in the Middle East.

That hostility as persisted even though violence has dropped by more than 80 percent in Iraq since earlier this year when car bombings and gunfights throughout the country were rampant.

Nevertheless, Iraqi security forces and U.S. troops continue to be targeted by insurgents.

A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi police patrol exploded in central Baghdad's Andalus Square Tuesday, wounding three police officers and three civilians, said Iraqi police officer Salam Mohammed.

The U.S. military said in a written statement that troops killed three suspected insurgents and detained three others in separate operations targeting al-Qaida networks in the northern Iraq.