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(Continued from page 25)
• Iraqi intelligence officials offered the AP the letters, as well as the first known photograph of the Nusra Front leader, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the head of one of the most powerful bands of radicals fighting the Syrian government in the country's civil war.
• The officials said they obtained the information about al-Golani after they captured members of another al-Qaida group in September. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak to journalists.
• "I was told by a soldier that he observed some of the workers of the U.N. and he will kidnap them. I ask God for his success," read an excerpt of a letter given by officials from Iraq's Falcon Intelligence Cell, an anti-terrorism unit that works under Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
• The officials said other letters planned the kidnapping and killing of other foreigners, and Syrian and Iraqi civilians.
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Today in History
The Associated Press
• Today is Thursday, Dec. 26, the 360th day of 2013. There are five days left in the year. The seven-day African-American holiday Kwanzaa begins today. This is Boxing Day.
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• Today's Highlight in History:
• On Dec. 26, 1776, the British suffered a major defeat in the Battle of Trenton during the Revolutionary War.
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• On this date:
• In 1799, former President George Washington was eulogized by Col. Henry Lee as "first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
• In 1862, 38 Santee Sioux Indians were hanged in Mankato, Minn., for their roles in an uprising that had claimed the lives of hundreds of white settlers. The Civil War Battle of Chickasaw Bayou, resulting in a Confederate victory, began in Mississippi.
• In 1908, Jack Johnson became the first African-American boxer to win the world heavyweight championship as he defeated Canadian Tommy Burns in Sydney, Australia.
• In 1933, Nissan Motor Co. was founded in Yokohama, Japan, as the Automobile Manufacturing Co.
• In 1943, the German battleship Scharnhorst was sunk by British naval forces (Continued on page 27)
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