Deaths from Pakistan election rally blast up to 25

Family members stand near a boy injured in an explosion at a local hospital in Pakistani tribal area of Parachinar, Monday, May 6, 2013. A bomb blast tore through a political rally held by an Islamist party in northwest Pakistan Monday, killing many people and wounding dozens more as the country?s already bloody election race gets even more dangerous ahead of the May 11 vote. (AP Photo/Ali Murtaza)

Family members stand near a boy injured in an explosion at a local hospital in Pakistani tribal area of Parachinar, Monday, May 6, 2013. A bomb blast tore through a political rally held by an Islamist party in northwest Pakistan Monday, killing many people and wounding dozens more as the country?s already bloody election race gets even more dangerous ahead of the May 11 vote. (AP Photo/Ali Murtaza)

People stand near a man injured from an explosion, at a local hospital in Pakistani tribal area of Parachinar, Monday, May 6, 2013. A bomb blast tore through a political rally held by an Islamist party in northwest Pakistan Monday, killing many people and wounding dozens more as the country?s already bloody election race gets even more dangerous ahead of the May 11 vote. (AP Photo/Ali Murtaza)

PARACHINAR, Pakistan (AP) ? A government official says the death toll from a Taliban bombing of a political rally held by an Islamist party in northwestern Pakistan has risen to 25.

The number of deaths from Monday's bombing of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party's rally in the Kurram tribal region initially stood at 16.

Javed Khan said on Tuesday that one of the wounded passed away and eight more people were found to have died in the blast but their bodies were so mutilated they weren't brought to the hospital.

Khan said five of the 70 wounded remain in critical condition.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying it was targeting a candidate who supported operations against the militants.

The Taliban have staged multiple attacks in the run-up to the May 11 elections.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-05-07-AS-Pakistan/id-2f6009db22de48cfa4286082c4a618f0

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Syrian rebels shoot down regime helicopter in east

BEIRUT (AP) ? Syrian rebels shot down a military helicopter in the country's east, killing eight government troops on board a day after opposition forces entered a sprawling military air base in the north, activists said Monday.

In the past months, rebels fighting to topple President Bashar Assad have frequently targeted military aircraft and air bases in an attempt to deprive his regime of a key weapon used to target opposition strongholds and reverse rebel gains in the 2-year-old conflict.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Monday posted a video online showing several armed men standing in front of the wreckage. One of the fighters in the footage says it's a helicopter that the rebels shot down late Sunday in the eastern province of Deir el-Zour, along Syria's border with Iraq.

As the man speaks, the camera shifts to a pickup truck piled with bodies. The fighter is then heard saying that all of Assad's troops who were aboard the helicopter were killed in the downing. He says Islamic fighters of the Abu Bakr Sadiqq brigade brought down the helicopter as it was taking off from a nearby air base in the provincial capital of Deir el-Zour.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said eight troops were killed.

On Sunday, rebels occupied parts of a military air base in northern Syria after days of fighting with government troops who were defending the sprawling facility near the border with Turkey for months, the Observatory said.

Assad's warplanes were pounding rebel positions inside the Mannagh air base Monday as clashes between rebels and government forces raged on, the Observatory said, adding there was an unknown number of casualties on both sides.

The day before, rebels moved deep into the air base despite fire from government warplanes, capturing a tank unit inside the base and killing the base's commander, Brig. Gen. Ali Salim Mahmoud, according to another activists group, the Aleppo Media Center.

The fighting came hours after Israeli warplanes struck areas in and around the Syrian capital, setting off a series of explosions as they targeted a shipment of highly accurate, Iranian-made guided missiles believed to be bound for Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, officials and activists said.

The attack, the second in three days and the third this year, signaled a sharp escalation of Israel's involvement in Syria's civil war. Syrian state media reported that Israeli missiles on Sunday struck a military and scientific research center near Damascus and caused casualties.

The Syrian conflict started with largely peaceful protests against President Bashar Assad's regime in March 2011, but eventually turned into a civil war that has killed more than 70,000 people according to the United Nations.

More than one million Syrians have fled their homes during the fighting and sought shelter in the neighboring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Millions of others have been displaced inside Syria.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/syrian-rebels-shoot-down-regime-helicopter-east-054433904.html

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Unprovoked Attack On Syria: US-backed Israel Commits Egregious ...

The US feigns disassociation with Hitlerian act of Israeli aggression ? as was planned since 2007.

Tony Cartalucci
Activist Post
Image: The West has carefully cultivated Israel into ?regional bully.? Immune from international condemnation, it is now being used to commit egregious war crimes against neighboring Syria, in hopes of provoking a retaliation and giving the US and its regional axis the justification it has long sought to militarily intervene.

Unprovoked, Israel has attacked Syria numerous times over the past 2 days, including attacks on the Syrian capital of Damascus, in what appears to be a series of intentional provocations designed to drag the region into a wider conflict its US sponsors can then enter militarily. Neither attacked directly by Syria, nor able to cite credible evidence in regards to perceived threats Israel claims to be reacting to, the assault on Syria represents a Chapter VII breach of the United Nations Charter.

What?s more, is that while the US feigns disassociation with Israel?s breach of international peace, after jointly fueling a genocidal sectarian conflict within Syria?s borders for the past two years, it is documented fact that the US and Saudi Arabia planned to use Israel to conduct military attacks against Iran and Syria, they themselves could not justify politically, legally, or strategically.

What is now hoped is that Syria and Iran retaliate militarily, allowing the ?other shoe to drop,? and for the US, UK, France, and their regional axis to directly intervene in Syria, and with any luck, Iran.

Insidious Ploy Engineered and Documented in 2007-2009

As early as 2007, it was reported that a US-Saudi-Israeli conspiracy to overthrow the governments of Iran and Syria by arming sectarian terrorists, many linked directly to Al Qaeda, was already set in motion. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker article, ?The Redirection,? stated (emphasis added):

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia?s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

Of Israel and Saudi Arabia?s partnership it specifically stated:

The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.

Additionally, Saudi Arabian officials mentioned the careful balancing act their nation must play in order to conceal its role in supporting US-Israeli ambitions across the region. It was stated even then, that using Israel to publicly carry out attacks on Iran would be preferable to the US, which would ultimately implicate the Saudis. It was stated:

?The Saudi said that, in his country?s view, it was taking a political risk by joining the U.S. in challenging Iran: Bandar is already seen in the Arab world as being too close to the Bush Administration. ?We have two nightmares,? the former diplomat told me. ?For Iran to acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I?d rather the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does it, we will be blamed.??

This ploy was further developed in 2009 by the Fortune 500-funded (page 19) Brookings Institution in their document, ?Which Path to Persia?? In regards to Iran, and now clearly being utilized against Syria, the gambit was described as follows (emphasis added):

?it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) ?-?page 84-85, Which Path to Perisa?, Brookings Institution.

And:

Israel appears to have done extensive planning and practice for such a strike already, and its aircraft are probably already based as close to Iran as possible. as such, Israel might be able to launch the strike in a matter of weeks or even days, depending on what weather and intelligence conditions it felt it needed.? Moreover, since Israel would have much less of a need (or even interest)? in securing regional support for the operation, Jerusalem probably would feel less motivated to wait for an Iranian provocation before attacking. In short, Israel could move very fast to implement this option if both Israeli and American leaders wanted it to happen.

However, as noted in the previous chapter, the airstrikes themselves are really just the start of this policy. Again, the Iranians would doubtless rebuild their nuclear sites. They would probably retaliate against Israel, and they might retaliate against the United States, too (which might create a pretext for American airstrikes or even an invasion).?-?page 91, Which Path to Perisa?, Brookings Institution.

And Israel not waiting for a plausible justification to attack Syria is exactly what has just happened. It should also be noted in particular, the last paragraph which gives insight into what the US-led axis plans to do after this egregious international crime ? that is ? to incrementally engulf the region into a conflict it finally can justify its own entry into open military aggression.

What Should Syria and its Allies Do??

Syria, Iran, Russia and other nations that support the besieged nation most certainly were aware of the Brookings document ?Which Path to Persia?? and familiar with this strategy. It would be hoped that anything of value that the Israelis would seek to attack in order to provoke a much desired retaliation and subsequent war, would have been provided additional protection, or moved entirely out of range of potential Israeli attacks.

A media campaign to illustrate the hypocritical and very revealing convergence between Al Qaeda (the so-called Free Syrian Army or FSA) and Israeli interests would undermine whatever remaining support the battered and failing Western-backed terror campaign inside Syria may still have.

Additionally, Israel?s selection by the US to carry out this attack was done specifically because Israel has long-ago exhausted its international legitimacy. What it is doing in Syria is a blatant international crime, in direct violation of international law. Currently, Syria and its allies hold the moral high ground against an enemy who is no longer fooling the world. If it is calculated that Syria can survive Israel?s unprovoked brutality, it would be best to do little or nothing, and incur internationally the same outrage that accompanies Israel?s brutality against the Palestinians.

MORE HERE>>

Source: http://www.zengardner.com/unprovoked-attack-on-syria-us-backed-israel-commits-egregious-international-crime/

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Bangladesh official: Disaster not 'really serious'

A woman covers her nose to block out the smell of decomposing bodies as people in the background identify bodies at a makeshift morgue where victims of the collapse of a garment factory buildings are brought Friday, May 3, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Authorities suspended the mayor of the suburb of Savar, where the building was located, and arrested an engineer who called for the building?s evacuation last week but was also accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A woman covers her nose to block out the smell of decomposing bodies as people in the background identify bodies at a makeshift morgue where victims of the collapse of a garment factory buildings are brought Friday, May 3, 2013 in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Authorities suspended the mayor of the suburb of Savar, where the building was located, and arrested an engineer who called for the building?s evacuation last week but was also accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

Women cover their noses as they look through body bags in hopes of identifying a family member, a victim of the garment factory building collapse, in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, May 3, 2013. More than 500 victims bodies have been recovered from the Bangladesh garment-factory building that collapsed last week, authorities said Friday. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

A Bangladeshi woman, holding a photo of her missing son, cries at a graveyard after a garments factory building collapse in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday May 3, 2013. Authorities suspended the mayor of the suburb of Savar, where the building was located, and arrested an engineer who called for the building?s evacuation last week but was also accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. (AP Photo/Palash Khan)

A woman holds a photo of her missing sister after a garment factory building collapsed last week in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday May 3, 2013. Authorities suspended the mayor of the suburb of Savar, where the building was located, and arrested an engineer who called for the building?s evacuation last week but was also accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. (AP Photo/Ismail Ferdous)

A woman is comforted by family members and others after she identified the body of her relative recovered from the rubble of the garment factory building which collapsed last week, in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh, Friday, May 3, 2013. Authorities suspended the mayor of the suburb of Savar, where the building was located, and arrested an engineer who called for the building?s evacuation last week but was also accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) ? The death toll in the factory-building collapse in Bangladesh rose to more than 530 on Saturday, a day after the country's finance minister downplayed the impact of the disaster on the garment industry, saying he didn't think it was "really serious."

Finance Minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith spoke as the government cracked down on those it blamed for the disaster in the Dhaka suburb of Savar.

It suspended Savar's mayor and arrested an engineer who had called for the building's evacuation last week, but was also accused of helping the owner add three illegal floors to the eight-story structure. The building owner was arrested earlier.

The government appears to be attempting to fend off accusations that it is in part to blame for the tragedy because of weak oversight of the building's construction.

During a visit to the Indian capital, New Delhi, Muhith said the disaster would not harm Bangladesh's garment industry, by far the country's biggest source of export income.

"The present difficulties ... well, I don't think it is really serious ? it's an accident," he said. "And the steps that we have taken in order to make sure that it doesn't happen, they are quite elaborate and I believe that it will be appreciated by all."

The government made similar promises after a garment factory fire five months ago that killed 112, saying it would inspect factories for safety and pull the licenses of those that failed. However, that plan has yet to be implemented.

Asked if he was worried that foreign retailers might pull orders from his country, Muhith said he wasn't: "These are individual cases of ... accidents. It happens everywhere."

Muhith, a long-time government official from a prominent family, has been criticized for insensitive comments in the past ? even by his own party. Last year when thousands of small investors lost their savings and poured into the streets seeking government intervention, Muhith said it wasn't responsible and the investors were at fault.

The official death toll from the April 24 collapse reached 531 Saturday and was expected to climb, making it likely the worst-ever garment-factory accident. It surpassed long-ago disasters such as New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, which killed 146 workers in 1911, and more recent tragedies such as a 2012 fire that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and one in Bangladesh that same year that killed 112.

At the site of the collapse, workers used cranes to remove concrete rubble to search for bodies. The official number of missing has been 149 since Wednesday, though unofficial estimates are higher.

"We are still proceeding cautiously so that we get the bodies intact," said Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hassan Suhwardy, commander of the area's army garrison supervising the rescue operation.

A government investigator said Friday that substandard building materials, combined with the vibration of the heavy machines used by the five garment factories inside the Rana Plaza building, led to the horrific collapse.

Mainuddin Khandkar, the head of a government committee investigating the disaster, said substandard rods, cement, bricks and other weak materials were used in the building's construction.

About 15 minutes before the collapse, the building was hit by a power blackout, so its heavy generators were turned on, shaking the weakened structure, he said.

"The vibration created by machines and generators operating in the five garment factories contributed first to the cracks and then the collapse," he said, adding a final report would be soon submitted to the government.

Police official Ohiduzzaman said Friday that engineer Abdur Razzak Khan was arrested a day earlier on a charge of negligence. He said Khan worked as a consultant to Rana Plaza owner Mohammed Sohel Rana when the illegal three-floor addition was made to the building.

Rana called Khan to inspect the building after it developed cracks on April 23, local media reported. That night Khan appeared on a private television station saying that after his inspection he told Rana to evacuate the building because it was not safe.

Khan, a former engineer at Jahangirnagar University near Savar, said he told government engineers the building needed to be examined further.

Police ordered the building evacuated, but witnesses say Rana told people gathered outside the next morning that the building was safe and that garment factory managers told their workers to go inside. It collapsed hours later.

Authorities also suspended the mayor of Savar, Mohammad Refatullah, for alleged negligence, said Abu Alam, a top official of the local government ministry.

Alam said an official investigation had found that the mayor ignored rules in approving the design and layout of the doomed building. The mayor is from the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which has criticized his suspension as politically motivated.

The government also effectively suspended Kabir Hossain Sardar, the top government administrator at Savar, following reports that he declared the building safe after inspecting the cracks a day before the collapse. Sardar had close links with Rana. Alam said the government was taking action against everyone involved with Rana and his building.

Rana was arrested earlier and is expected to be charged with negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work, crimes punishable by a maximum of seven years in jail. Authorities have not said if more serious crimes will be added.

The Bangladesh High Court has ordered the government to confiscate Rana's property and freeze the assets of the owners of the factories in Rana Plaza so the money can be used to pay the salaries of their workers.

The minimum wage for a garment worker is $38 a month, after being nearly doubled this year following violent protests by workers. According to the World Bank, the per capita income in Bangladesh was about $64 a month in 2011.

Among the garment makers in the building were Phantom Apparels, Phantom Tac, Ether Tex, New Wave Style and New Wave Bottoms.

___

AP Videojournalist Archana Thiyagarajan in New Delhi contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-05-03-Bangladesh-Building%20Collapse/id-0a2de9d69612477f8d802ddd100384b9

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Ex-Gov. Sanford seeks 2nd chance in South Carolina

FILE ? In this April 30, 2013, file photo former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford speaks to supporters during a campaign stop at the Historic Rotary Club of Charleston at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C. In a bizarre campaign that has roiled the state, Sanford and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch are locked in a surprisingly contentious contest to win a House seat in a solidly Republican district along the South Carolina coast. The special election is Tuesday, May 7. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt, File)

FILE ? In this April 30, 2013, file photo former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford speaks to supporters during a campaign stop at the Historic Rotary Club of Charleston at the Citadel in Charleston, S.C. In a bizarre campaign that has roiled the state, Sanford and Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch are locked in a surprisingly contentious contest to win a House seat in a solidly Republican district along the South Carolina coast. The special election is Tuesday, May 7. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt, File)

Democratic candidate Elizabeth Colbert Busch, center, speaks with attendees during a campaign stop at the Charleston Maritime Center on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 in Charleston, S.C. (AP Photo/Rainier Ehrhardt)

BEAUFORT, S.C. (AP) ? One congressional candidate is a former Republican governor seeking redemption after his career imploded in a public saga involving lies, the Appalachian Trail and an Argentine mistress. His Democratic opponent is a famous comedian's sister who's trying to benefit from her rival's damaged reputation.

In a bizarre campaign that has roiled South Carolina, Mark Sanford and Elizabeth Colbert Busch are in a surprisingly contentious contest for a U.S. House seat in a solidly Republican district that GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney carried by 18 percentage points last year.

Tuesday's special election is for the seat that Republican Tim Scott held until he was appointed to the Senate. The race has been jumbled by expected low turnout, Sanford's past and an aggressive late-in-the-game Democratic ad campaign to exploit it.

If Colbert Busch wins, she instantly will become one of the most endangered Democrats in the 2014 elections. If Sanford wins, it could mark a career turnaround.

Early on, Sanford, a third-term congressman before he was governor, appeared to have a significant edge in the district along the Atlantic coast. He beat back primary challengers with an apology-focused campaign and a plea that voters give him a second chance. But all that changed a few weeks ago with the revelations that his ex-wife had accused him in court documents of trespassing at her home on Super Bowl Sunday.

Sanford disputes that, but has struggled to explain the alleged episode that reminded voters of the 2009 scandal in which he used a story about hiking on the Appalachian Trail to cover up a visit to his then-mistress in Argentina. Sanford avoided impeachment but was censured by the Legislature over state travel expenses he used as part of the affair, and he paid a record ethics fine.

Sanford's campaign has slid since the trespassing allegations surfaced.

National Republicans, already struggling with a poor showing among women voters in last year's presidential election, quickly pulled advertising dollars. In doing that, they abandoned the race and made clear that they didn't think the Republican could recover.

Democrats have tried to take advantage of the moment, sensing an opportunity to gain a seat on GOP turf.

The fundraising arm of House Democrats and Democratic-leaning outside groups aired TV ads assailing Sanford for betraying their trust. After initially declining to make Sanford's dalliance an issue, Colbert Busch changed course last week, telling voters during a televised debate that Sanford used taxpayer money to "leave the country for personal purpose."

Sanford's past has generated more than your run-of-the-mill political interest.

A website that promotes adulterous affairs slapped Sanford's image on a highway billboard outside the district, urging people to seek their own "running mate." Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt endorsed Sanford, calling him "America's great sex pioneer." Flynt later complained when the ex-governor refused to accept the endorsement or a $2,600 donation.

South Carolina Republicans are worried.

"The thing that concerns me the most is the outside money that's coming in," said Katon Dawson, a former state Republican chairman. "He doesn't have the heavyweights he's used to having backing him up in the campaign and she does. He's never been in that position before."

Sanford, once considered a potential presidential candidate, twice won the state by leveraging both strategic help from his now ex-wife, Jenny, and a huge bank account that swamped opponents on TV.

Now, he's accusing Democrats of trying to buy the district and complaining about "a million dollars' worth of spending dumped on my head." He's also trying to tie his opponent to U.S. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California, appearing at events with a cardboard cutout of the former speaker.

"I think Mark's goal was to nationalize the race," said the state's senior senator, Republican Lindsey Graham. "If it's a personality contest, then we could be in trouble. If it's about the direction of the country, who controls the House, I think we'll win."

Despite the spending and his past, Sanford still could win.

He is well-known in the Charleston-area district, having represented most of it for three terms in Congress during the 1990s. In his two races for governor, he won the region by a wide margin and has never lost a political race. A tea party favorite, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, endorsed him last week.

On his final sprint, Sanford is pressing a conservative message.

In Beaufort, where he attended high school, Sanford pledged last week to pare spending. He also projected a command of local issues during a visit to the Chamber of Commerce. He went out of his way to praise hometown hero Candice Glover, a St. Helena Island native who is a contestant on "American Idol."

Sanford made no direct mention of the scandal, and none of his potential constituents asked him about it during a question-and-answer session. He did respond to a question asking him to compare the "Greatest Generation" of World War II with younger Americans today: "I think we can always learn from life ? period. Life is a great teacher ? the ups and the downs of life."

But he directly addressed the scandal only when reporters asked about it.

"Do I have blemishes? Yes. Do we all have blemishes? Yes," he told reporters. "It goes back to what our minister said ... 'Do the events of your life refine or define your life?'"

Colbert (KOHL'-buhrt) Busch is the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert (kohl-BEHR'), the star of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report." She took a leave of absence from her position as the director of business development for Clemson University's Wind Turbine Drive Testing Facility to run for Congress.

She largely has stuck to issues such as job creation and debt reduction while ads from outside groups pound the former governor.

"We're staying focused on what the district wants," she told reporters after knocking on doors Thursday in a Charleston neighborhood.

Colbert Busch rejected the notion that Pelosi would play a factor in how she would represent the district and said she would be solely focused on the economic needs of the region.

"No one tells me what to do except the people of the 1st Congressional District. That's it," she said.

The race probably will be decided by which side can get more of their core supporters to the polls, which is a difficult feat in a special election.

Republicans note that in a 16-way race in the March 19 GOP primary, Sanford received about 20,000 votes and then picked up about 26,000 votes in a runoff against Curtis Bostic two weeks later. Colbert Busch collected about 16,000 votes in the primary to secure the nomination.

"She's just got a huge challenge," said Andy Brack, a onetime aide to former U.S. Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C., and an unsuccessful candidate himself for the 1st District seat as a Democrat in 2000.

To win, Brack estimated that Colbert Busch would need to get most of the non-Sanford Republican primary vote ? "a Herculean task. But there are some people who are going to vote against Sanford ? and they're just going to come out of the woodwork because of his past troubles."

Dawson said the tough ads could suppress turnout among Republicans disenchanted with Sanford's past.

"Voter turnout is going to be everything," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Bruce Smith in Charleston, S.C., contributed to this report.

___

Follow Ken Thomas on Twitter: http://twitter.com/AP_Ken_Thomas

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/apdefault/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-05-04-Congress-South%20Carolina/id-1caf61532d2b4f99b36b9257160b1451

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