U.S. suspects' alleged terror plot beset by hurdles, FBI says

The alleged aspiring terrorists "liked" each other's jihadist Facebook postings. When they played paintball in Corona to prepare for Holy War, they commended each other for going full-throttle for shaheed (martyrdom) against timid opponents.

One man vowed to start hiking to get to know mountain terrain, and maybe try skydiving to see how he handled fear. Yet even as he expected to go on a suicide mission once he reached the Middle East, at home in Ontario, he briefly fretted over selling his car to fund the trip.

The federal complaint unsealed this week against four Southern California men depicts them as intent on joining Al Qaeda and killing American and coalition troops. But their alleged road to martyrdom was rutted with endless logistical problems, dubious connections overseas and their own equivocating over the smallest decisions: How do you pack for a jihad?

Ralph Deleon, 23, told two of his cohorts and an FBI informant "to bring thermal underwear, an XBox, sports magazines, and durable shoes." They cleanly shaved to avoid suspicion in transit to the Middle East — just before their friend in Kabul, the fourth defendant, told them to arrive with full beards to gain the trust of the Taliban.

That friend got sick and had to miss his scheduled suicide mission. His cohorts in the U.S. told him to hold off on his next mission at least until they arrived, so he could introduce them to their handlers before he killed himself. They had already talked him out of leaving Afghanistan altogether for Yemen.

Miguel Santana, 21, Arifeen Gojali, 21, and Deleon booked their tickets from Mexico City to Istanbul on Thursday, and were taken into custody during a vehicle stop in Chino the next day, authorities said. Santana is a Mexican national who was in the process of getting his U.S. citizenship. Deleon is a legal permanent resident from the Philippines. Gojali is an American of Vietnamese descent.

The central figure in the alleged plot is Sohiel Kabir, 34, a native Afghan and naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in Pomona and served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000 to 2001. He converted Santana and Deleon to Islam in 2010, then left for Afghanistan to make arrangements for the three of them to join the Taliban or Al Qaeda. (Santana and Deleon subsequently recruited Gojali in September.) Kabir was apprehended Saturday in Kabul.

Federal officials took the defendants' plans extremely seriously, and expended "extraordinary resources" to track and stop them, said David Bowdich, special agent in charge of counter-terrorism in Los Angeles, at a news conference Tuesday.

Undercover FBI operatives began chatting with Santana online in February, and the informant had infiltrated the group by March.

"Not only were they playing paintball, they were going to shooting ranges," Bowdich said. "They saw this as jihad."

The charges appear to be based largely on the work of the undercover informant, who has been on the FBI payroll for more than four years and has received $250,000 and "immigration benefits" for his work. According to the affidavit included in the criminal complaint, he was once convicted of trafficking pseudoephedrine, a chemical precursor to methamphetamine.

News of the arrests rattled neighbors of the defendants, who lived in quiet neighborhoods in Ontario, Upland and Riverside.

Just a few months earlier, Deleon was regularly playing basketball in the driveway of his parents' Ontario home with his 15-year-old next-door neighbor, Martin Garcia.

"I was in shock. I was like, damn!" Garcia said. "He's actually a really nice guy. He'd offer to take me out to dinner when we played basketball together."

"Then he became Muslim. He would try to influence me to become Muslim, tell me all these nice stories and it sounded pretty cool."

Deleon's younger brother told Garcia that Deleon was moving to Afghanistan.

"He just said he was tired of all that life," Garcia said. "He was just a regular teenager, partying and all that before."

Ulises Vargas, 23, said he attended classes at Ontario High School in 2006 with Deleon, and ate lunch with him and other friends almost daily. Deleon was outgoing — someone who played on the football team, made Homecoming Court and cracked jokes at lunch.

"It's surreal because it's somebody that you knew," Vargas said.

Deleon's father politely declined to comment, saying only, "It's too difficult."

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Hamas Strengthens as Palestinian Authority Weakens

RAMALLAH, West Bank — In the daily demonstrations here of solidarity with Gaza, a mix of sympathy and anguish, there is something else: growing identification with the Islamist fighters of Hamas and derision for the Palestinian Authority, which Washington considers the only viable partner for peace with Israel.

“Strike a blow on Tel Aviv!” proclaimed the lyrics of a new hit song blasting from shops and speakers at Monday’s demonstration, in a reference to Hamas rockets that made it nearly to Israel’s economic and cultural capital. “Don’t let the Zionists sleep! We don’t want a truce or a solution! Oh, Palestinians, you can be proud!”

Pop songs everywhere are filled with bravado and aggression. But this one reflects a widespread sentiment that does not augur well for President Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority, which is rapidly losing credibility, even relevance. The Gaza truce talks in Cairo, involving Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, offer a telling tableau. The Palestinian leader seen there is not Mr. Abbas, but Khaled Meshal, the leader of the militant group Hamas, who seeks to speak for all Palestinians as his ideological brothers in the Muslim Brotherhood rise to power around the region.

Israel is also threatening Mr. Abbas, even hinting that it may give up on him, as he prepares to go to the United Nations General Assembly on Nov. 29 to try to upgrade the Palestinian status to that of a nonmember state. The Israelis consider this step an act of aggression, and even some Palestinians say it is somewhat beside the point at this stage.

“His people are being killed in Gaza, and he is sitting on his comfortable chair in Ramallah,” lamented Firas Katash, 20, a student who took part in the Ramallah demonstration.

For the United States, as for other countries hoping to promote a two-state solution to this century-old conflict, a more radicalized West Bank with a discredited Palestinian Authority would mean greater insecurity for Israel and increased opportunity for anti-Western forces to take root in a region where Islamism is on the rise.

Since Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006, threw the Fatah-controlled authority out of Gaza a year later, Mr. Abbas has not set foot there. Yet he will be asking the world to recognize the two increasingly distinct entities as a unified state.

Manar Wadi, who works in an office in Ramallah, put the issue this way: “What is happening in Gaza makes the Palestinian Authority left behind and isolated. Now we see the other face of Hamas, and its popularity is rising. It makes us feel that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t offer a path to the future.”

In Cairo on Monday, Mr. Meshal seemed defiant and confident in his new role, daring the Israelis to invade Gaza as a sixth day of Israeli aerial assaults brought the death toll there to more than 100 people, many of them militants of Hamas and its affiliates. Rockets launched from Gaza hit southern Israel, causing some damage and panic, but no casualties, leaving the death toll there at three.

“Whoever started the war must end it,” Mr. Meshal said at a news conference. “If Israel wants a cease-fire brokered through Egypt, then that is possible. Escalation is also possible.”

Officials in the authority have been holding leadership meetings, staying in close touch with the talks in Cairo and issuing statements of solidarity. They have also sent a small medical delegation to Gaza and argue that there is a new opportunity to forge unity between the two feuding movements. But they are acutely aware of their problem.

“The most dangerous thing is the fact that what we could not do in negotiations, Hamas did with one rocket,” one official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “The people had such excitement seeing the occupiers run in panic. It’s a very dangerous message.”

Mr. Abbas, whose popularity has been on the decline as the Palestinian Authority faces economic difficulty and growing Israeli settlements, also ran into trouble not long before the Gaza fighting began when he seemed to give up on the Palestinian demand of a right of return to what is now Israel.

Many Palestinians believe that Israel launched its latest operation in Gaza to block the Palestinian Authority’s United Nations plans by embarrassing it. Israeli officials say that is ridiculous: the operation’s purpose is to stop the growing number of rockets being fired at their communities, and Israelis interrupted their deliberations over the United Nations bid to wage the military campaign.

But Israel says anything that does not involve direct negotiations is a waste of time. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly threatened to take severe retaliatory steps against the Palestinian Authority, including cutting off badly needed tax receipts to Palestinian coffers, should Mr. Abbas go ahead at the United Nations.

In a speech here on Sunday night at a Palestinian leadership meeting, Mr. Abbas repeated his determination to go to New York and ask for a change in status to that of nonmember state. He has chosen the symbolically significant date of Nov. 29, when the General Assembly voted in 1947 to divide this land into two states, one Jewish and the other Palestinian Arab.

The United States has asked Mr. Abbas not to do so, but instead to resume direct negotiations with Israel, which have essentially been frozen since 2008.

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Dancing with the Stars: Couples Perform Crazy Combinations in Semi-Finals

TV Watch

Dancing With the Stars

By Aaron Parsley

11/19/2012 at 11:05 PM EST

Shawn Johnson and Derek Hough

Craig Sjodin/ABC

It's the semi-finals!

The remaining five couples on Dancing with the Stars faced two rounds of competition on Monday. First, the pairs performed mixed-up routines, blending uncommon styles with unusual themes. Then, they celebrated the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's hit album Bad with more traditional ballroom numbers.

Keep reading for all the details and scores ...

Melissa Rycroft & Tony Dovolani
Last week's top scorers kicked off the night with a caveman hustle. "Fred and Wilma have never danced so well," Len Goodman said, while Bruno Tonioli said they lost footing during the turns. They scored a 27.5. But their red-hot Argentine tango to "Dirty Diana" was a perfect 30. "That was beyond anything I could have imagined for you," a thrilled Carrie Ann Inaba said. "I would be really disappointed if you're not here next week," Len added.

Shawn Johnson & Derek Hough
Hough said he would rather put mustard on ice cream than combine their Knight Rider theme with the Bhangra style. But the judges ate up the routine – and awarded the pair a perfect 30. In round two, their Argentine tango sparked disagreement on the panel. Bruno and Len held up 10s but Carrie Ann knocked off a point. "Every line was perfect, but dance is sometimes more than just movement and I thought that you lacked the real passion of the Argentine tango," she said.

Apolo Ohno & Karina Smirnoff
Their big top jazz routine was another sticking point for Carrie Ann and Bruno. She found the mime-themed dance "very disjointed," "out of sync" and "quite sloppy." He found it "edgy, surreal" and a "great mixture of jazz movement." They earned 27 points. But there was no arguing over their rumba to "Man in the Mirror," which earned a perfect 30. "It was like the sea," Len said. "There was wave after wave of effortless motion. There was a subtlety to it, there was a calmness. It captivated. It was fabulous."

Emmitt Smith & Cheryl Burke
The goal of their espionage lindy hop was to be cartoonish. Though that was tough for the former Dallas Cowboy, the judges were pleased and awarded the pair 27 points. "It was like a Looney Tunes version of James Bond," Bruno said. "It was the most fun performance I've seen you do." Their tango to "Leave Me Alone" was more of a challenge, but Len still gave Smith credit: "You've coped marvelously well with two dances that didn't really suit you," he said.

Kelly Monaco & Val Chmerkovskiy
Their surfer flamenco was super sexy – Val ended up in nothing but Speedo! – but the judges had issues with their technique, and handed out only 25.5 points. "It had a lot of aggression and a lot of fire. But the flamenco has very, very exact placement and it wasn't there," Bruno said. Carrie Ann called it "robotic." But they added 28.5 points with a romantic rumba to "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." "That was smoldering, driven by desire, consumed by lust," Bruno said. "The chemistry between you two is literally singeing."

Two couples are heading home Tuesday night, leaving just three to compete in next week's finale. Who deserves a chance at the mirror-ball trophy? Discuss in the comments below.

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New push for most in US to get at least 1 HIV test

WASHINGTON (AP) — There's a new push to make testing for the AIDS virus as common as cholesterol checks.

Americans ages 15 to 64 should get an HIV test at least once — not just people considered at high risk for the virus, an independent panel that sets screening guidelines proposed Monday.

The draft guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are the latest recommendations that aim to make HIV screening simply a routine part of a check-up, something a doctor can order with as little fuss as a cholesterol test or a mammogram. Since 2006, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also has pushed for widespread, routine HIV screening.

Yet not nearly enough people have heeded that call: Of the more than 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, nearly 1 in 5 — almost 240,000 people — don't know it. Not only is their own health at risk without treatment, they could unwittingly be spreading the virus to others.

The updated guidelines will bring this long-simmering issue before doctors and their patients again — emphasizing that public health experts agree on how important it is to test even people who don't think they're at risk, because they could be.

"It allows you to say, 'This is a recommended test that we believe everybody should have. We're not singling you out in any way,'" said task force member Dr. Douglas Owens, of Stanford University and the Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System.

And if finalized, the task force guidelines could extend the number of people eligible for an HIV screening without a copay in their doctor's office, as part of free preventive care under the Obama administration's health care law. Under the task force's previous guidelines, only people at increased risk for HIV — which includes gay and bisexual men and injecting drug users — were eligible for that no-copay screening.

There are a number of ways to get tested. If you're having blood drawn for other exams, the doctor can merely add HIV to the list, no extra pokes or swabs needed. Today's rapid tests can cost less than $20 and require just rubbing a swab over the gums, with results ready in as little as 20 minutes. Last summer, the government approved a do-it-yourself at-home version that's selling for about $40.

Free testing is available through various community programs around the country, including a CDC pilot program in drugstores in 24 cities and rural sites.

Monday's proposal also recommends:

—Testing people older and younger than 15-64 if they are at increased risk of HIV infection,

—People at very high risk for HIV infection should be tested at least annually.

—It's not clear how often to retest people at somewhat increased risk, but perhaps every three to five years.

—Women should be tested during each pregnancy, something the task force has long recommended.

The draft guidelines are open for public comment through Dec. 17.

Most of the 50,000 new HIV infections in the U.S. every year are among gay and bisexual men, followed by heterosexual black women.

"We are not doing as well in America with HIV testing as we would like," Dr. Jonathan Mermin, CDC's HIV prevention chief, said Monday.

The CDC recommends at least one routine test for everyone ages 13 to 64, starting two years younger than the task force recommended. That small difference aside, CDC data suggests fewer than half of adults under 65 have been tested.

"It can sometimes be awkward to ask your doctor for an HIV test," Mermin said — the reason making it routine during any health care encounter could help.

But even though nearly three-fourths of gay and bisexual men with undiagnosed HIV had visited some sort of health provider in the previous year, 48 percent weren't tested for HIV, a recent CDC survey found. Emergency rooms are considered a good spot to catch the undiagnosed, after their illnesses and injuries have been treated, but Mermin said only about 2 percent of ER patients known to be at increased risk were tested while there.

Mermin calls that "a tragedy. It's a missed opportunity."

___

Online:

Task force recommendation: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org

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Pitzer College teams up with Robert Redford to form conservancy

A Southern California liberal arts college announced Monday that it has created the Robert Redford Conservancy for Southern California Sustainability, emulating the actor's penchant for combining art, media and environmental science to educate students about policymaking.

Pitzer College, one of the first to launch an environmental studies program, teamed up with the actor and devoted preservationist known for his consistent and effective advocacy.

The program will combine the school's core values of conservation and sustainability and blend it with its liberal arts and media curriculum. Redford is a trustee and special advisor to the college on environmental matters.

"Part of this is to create a body of knowledge that our students will carry out of the institution," said Lance Neckar, director of the conservancy. "And science is great but only effective if you can actually communicate well about it."

The conservancy was established with a $10-million gift from Nicholas and Susan Pritzker, parents of a Pitzer graduate who support such philanthropic organizations as the Clean Energy Trust, among others.

The new program will preserve and occupy a historic infirmary on nearly 12 acres next to the Claremont college campus. The infirmary was built in a coastal sage scrub ecosystem, one of the most endangered. The rare habitat will be used as a living library for students participating in the conservancy.

"We tend to ship students off to rain forests and more exotic places to look at our environmental predicament, but what a magnificent natural laboratory we have at our disposal right at Claremont," said Pitzer environmental analysis professor Paul Faulstitch.

"We see that good things happen when people put their minds to it when policy and regulations are directed toward positive change," Faulstitch said. "But I would argue that in Pitzer's 40 years of doing environmental studies, there's no time that has been more critical than the time that we have now."

Pitzer is the smallest of the seven Claremont Colleges, with about 1,000 students. It boasts the same number of Fulbright scholars among its alumni as Harvard University.

During a news conference at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, Redford reminisced about growing up in a community just east of Santa Monica and "how beautiful it was, how clean the air was." Brentwood, Westwood and Santa Monica were all separated by green space, he said.

"Suddenly I felt that the city I was born in no longer felt that way. It no longer felt like home," he said. "This giant machine that was made up of buildings and concrete and pavement, it ultimately became skyscrapers and freeways. That machine was slowly pushing the city that I loved into the ocean."

As urban sprawl consumed and changed the landscape, Redford said he too began to change.

"As long as there is an inch of possibility [for conservation efforts] then I think we have to give it everything we have to do something about it," he said.

dalina.castellanos@latimes.com

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Gaza Clash Escalates With Deadliest Israeli Strike

Bernat Armangue/Associated Press

Smoke rose over Gaza City on Sunday, as Israel widened its range of targets to include buildings used by the news media.

CAIRO — Emboldened by the rising power of Islamists around the region, the Palestinian militant group Hamas demanded new Israeli concessions to its security and autonomy before it halts its rocket attacks on Israel, even as the conflict took an increasing toll on Sunday.

After five days of punishing Israeli airstrikes on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and no letup in the rocket fire in return, representatives of Israel and Hamas met separately with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Sunday for indirect talks about a truce.

The talks came as an Israeli bomb struck a house in Gaza on Sunday afternoon, killing 11 people, in the deadliest single strike since the conflict between Israel and Hamas escalated on Wednesday. The strike, along with several others that killed civilians across the Gaza Strip, signaled that Israel was broadening its range of targets on the fifth day of the campaign.

By the end of the day, Gaza health officials reported that 70 Palestinians had been killed in airstrikes since Wednesday, including 20 children, and that 600 had been wounded. Three Israelis have been killed and at least 79 wounded by unrelenting rocket fire out of Gaza into southern Israel and as far north as Tel Aviv.

Hamas, badly outgunned on the battlefield, appeared to be trying to exploit its increased political clout with its ideological allies in Egypt’s new Islamist-led government. The group’s leaders, rejecting Israel’s call for an immediate end to the rocket attacks, have instead laid down sweeping demands that would put Hamas in a stronger position than when the conflict began: an end to Israel’s five-year-old embargo of the Gaza Strip, a pledge by Israel not to attack again and multinational guarantees that Israel would abide by its commitments.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel stuck to his demand that all rocket fire cease before the air campaign lets up, and Israeli tanks and troops remained lined up outside Gaza on Sunday. Tens of thousands of reserve troops had been called up. “The army is prepared to significantly expand the operation,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of a cabinet meeting.

Reda Fahmy, a member of Egypt’s upper house of Parliament and of the nation’s dominant Islamist party, who is following the talks, said Hamas’s position was just as unequivocal. “Hamas has one clear and specific demand: for the siege to be completely lifted from Gaza,” he said. “It’s not reasonable that every now and then Israel decides to level Gaza to the ground, and then we decide to sit down and talk about it after it is done. On the Israeli part, they want to stop the missiles from one side. How is that?”

He added: “If they stop the aircraft from shooting, Hamas will then stop its missiles. But violence couldn’t be stopped from one side.”

Hamas’s aggressive stance in the cease-fire talks is the first test of the group’s belief that the Arab Spring and the rise in Islamist influence around the region have strengthened its political hand, both against Israel and against Hamas’s Palestinian rivals, who now control the West Bank with Western backing.

It also puts intense new pressure on President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt, a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood who was known for his fiery speeches defending Hamas and denouncing Israel. Mr. Morsi must now balance the conflicting demands of an Egyptian public that is deeply sympathetic to Hamas and the Palestinian cause against Western pleadings to help broker a peace and Egypt’s need for regional stability to help revive its moribund economy.

Indeed, the Egyptian-led cease-fire talks illustrate the diverging paths of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, a Palestinian offshoot of the original Egyptian Islamist group. Hamas has evolved into a more militant insurgency and is labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and Israel, while the Brotherhood has effectively become Egypt’s ruling party. Mr. Fahmy said in an interview in March that the Brotherhood’s new responsibilities required a step back from its ideological cousins in Hamas, and even a new push to persuade the group to compromise.

Reporting was contributed by Ethan Bronner, Irit Pazner Garshowitz and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem, and Peter Baker from Bangkok.

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Shirtless photo a “joke,” says FBI agent who began Petraeus inquiry

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The FBI agent who began the investigation that led David Petraeus to resign as CIA director said that a shirtless photo he sent to a woman at the center of the probe was a “joke” sent to many friends, and was not meant to be sexual.

Frederick Humphries told the Seattle Times in an interview published Thursday that the photo in the unfolding adultery scandal that brought down Petraeus was sent to Tampa, Florida, socialite Jill Kelley in 2010.

Humphries, who has been identified in media reports on the scandal mainly as the “shirtless” FBI agent, was a “top-notch” operative, according to a prosecutor who worked with him on the “millennium bomber” case years ago.

Andrew Hamilton, now a senior deputy prosecutor for King County, Washington, said Humphries was assigned to the case partly because he spoke excellent French. Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted of plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport on New Year’s Eve 1999, claimed to be from Quebec and spoke French.

“That’s the first time I met him, as a case agent,” Hamilton told Reuters. “We spent a lot of time together over the next couple years getting ready for trial, and I couldn’t have asked for more as a case agent. He was very, very thorough, and very honest. We always thought we were very lucky to have him.”

Five months ago, Kelley ignited the FBI investigation that led to Petraeus when she asked Humphries whether the bureau could look into harassing emails she had been receiving.

The investigation eventually revealed that the emails to Kelley were sent by Paula Broadwell, an Army reserve officer in military intelligence and co-author of a biography of Petraeus.

The FBI investigation revealed Broadwell’s affair with Petraeus, who cited the relationship when he resigned as CIA chief last week. The probe also ensnared General John Allen, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, whom agents found had exchanged “flirtatious” emails with Kelley, law enforcement officials said.

(Editing by David Lindsey and Jim Loney)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Justin Bieber Brings His Mom to the American Music Awards

By Maggie Coughlan

11/18/2012 at 09:35 PM EST

Pattie Mallette and Justin Bieber

Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters/Landov

Mother knows best!

Despite his recent split from Selena Gomez, Justin Bieber still had a date for the 40th American Music Awards on Sunday: his mother, Pattie Mallette.

Malette – who recently penned Nowhere But Up: The Story of Justin Bieber's Mom – looked thrilled to pose for photographs with her son.

When Bieber won the first award of the night, for favorite pop/rock male artist, his proud mother, 38, beamed.

"I want to say this is for all the haters who thought I was just here for one or two years. I feel like I'm going to be here for a very long time," the singer said as he accepted the award.

The award was a highlight during a rocky week for Bieber, who on Friday reunited with Gomez, 20, for dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Los Angeles. But just five minutes after entering the restaurant, the couple emerged with Gomez looking visibly "mad," says a source.

Later that night, Bieber Tweeted "Things aren't always easy. there is a lot of pressure. im figuring it all out. im trying. but i care, i notice, i still hear u. #Beliebers."

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EU drug regulator OKs Novartis' meningitis B shot

LONDON (AP) — Europe's top drug regulator has recommended approval for the first vaccine against meningitis B, made by Novartis AG.

There are five types of bacterial meningitis. While vaccines exist to protect against the other four, none has previously been licensed for type B meningitis. In Europe, type B is the most common, causing 3,000 to 5,000 cases every year.

Meningitis mainly affects infants and children. It kills about 8 percent of patients and leaves others with lifelong consequences such as brain damage.

In a statement on Friday, Andrin Oswald of Novartis said he is "proud of the major advance" the company has made in developing its vaccine Bexsero. It is aimed at children over two months of age, and Novartis is hoping countries will include the shot among the routine ones for childhood diseases such as measles.

Novartis said the immunization has had side effects such as fever and redness at the injection site.

Recommendations from the European Medicines Agency are usually adopted by the European Commission. Novartis also is seeking to test the vaccine in the U.S.

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Petroglyph thefts near Bishop stun federal authorities, Paiutes

BISHOP, Calif. — Ancient hunters and gatherers etched vivid petroglyphs on cliffs in the Eastern Sierra that withstood winds, flash floods and earthquakes for more than 3,500 years. Thieves needed only a few hours to cut them down and haul them away.

Federal authorities say at least four petroglyphs have been taken from the site. A fifth was defaced with deep saw cuts on three sides. A sixth had been removed and broken during the theft, then propped against a boulder near a visitor parking lot.

Dozens of other petroglyphs were scarred by hammer strikes and saw cuts.

"The individuals who did this were not surgeons, they were smashing and grabbing," U.S. Bureau of Land Management archaeologist Greg Haverstock said last week as he examined the damage. "This was the worst act of vandalism ever seen" on the 750,000 acres of public land managed by the BLM field office in Bishop.

The theft required extraordinary effort: Ladders, electric generators and power saws had to be driven into the remote and arid high desert site near Bishop. Thieves gouged holes in the rock and sheared off slabs that were up to 15 feet above ground and 2 feet high and wide.

Visitors discovered the theft and reported it to the BLM on Oct. 31. BLM field office manager Bernadette Lovato delivered the bad news to Paiute-Shoshone tribal leaders in Bishop.

"It was the toughest telephone call I ever had to make," Lovato said. "Their culture and spiritual beliefs had been horribly violated. We will do everything in our power to bring those pieces back."

The region is known as Volcanic Tableland. It is held sacred by Native Americans whose ancestors adorned hundreds of lava boulders with spiritual renderings: concentric circles, deer, rattlesnakes, bighorn sheep, and hunters with bows and arrows.

For generations, Paiute-Shoshone tribal members and whites have lived side by side but not together in Bishop. But desecration of the site, which Native Americans still use in spiritual ceremonies, has forced reservation officials and U.S. authorities to come together and ask a tough question: Can further vandalism be prevented?

"How do we manage fragile resources that have survived as much as 10,000 years but can be destroyed in an instant?" asked archaeologist David Whitley, who in 2000 wrote the nomination that succeeded in getting the site listed on the National Register of Historic Places. "Do we keep them secret in hopes that no one vandalizes them? Or, do we open them to the public so that visitors can serve as stewards of the resources?"

The easy answer is to police the site and others listed under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. But that's not possible given the condition of cash-strapped federal lands agencies, authorities said.

Authorities said the petroglyphs aren't worth a great deal on the illicit market, probably $500 to $1,500 each. But they are priceless to Native Americans, who regard the massive tableaux as a window into the souls of their ancestors.

The site is one of dozens of such locations managed by the BLM office in Bishop. A small army of volunteers has stepped up surveillance of the area.

For archaeologists, the images carved into a half-mile-long volcanic escarpment depict the culture and spiritual notions of the ancient tribes that once populated the sage flats and river valleys of the Eastern Sierra.

Paiute tribal historic preservation officer Raymond Andrews observed sacred law by quietly chanting a traditional prayer when he approached the site earlier this month.

Standing beneath a panel of geometric renderings believed to have been carved by shamans, Andrews took a slow, deep breath and said, "We still use this sacred place as a kind of church to educate tribal members and children about our historical and spiritual connections. So, our tribal elders are appalled by what happened here."

Federal authorities and Native American leaders plan to mark each defaced petroglyph with a small sign pointing out that, as archaeologist Haverstock put it, "this damage was done by malicious, selfish individuals."

The BLM is offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the thieves. Damaging or removing the petroglyphs is a felony. First-time offenders can be imprisoned for up to one year and fined as much as $20,000, authorities said. Second-time offenders can be fined up to $100,000 and imprisoned up to five years.

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

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