OMAHA, Neb. — A federal judge overturned Nebraska’s ban on flag mutilation Thursday, clearing the way for Kansas church protesters to continue trampling on the U.S. flag when they protest at military funerals.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf said the law can’t be applied as long as Megan Phelps-Roper and fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church “otherwise act peacefully while desecrating the American or Nebraska flag during their religiously motivated protests.”

It was unclear whether the ruling applied only to the church members or to everyone in Nebraska. An earlier temporary block of the law applied only to Phelps-Roper.

The judge declined to explain the intent of his ruling when reached by The Associated Press.

A message left Thursday with the Nebraska attorney general’s office wasn’t immediately returned.

Attorney General Jon Bruning has previously said the flag-protection law passed in 1977 is not consistent with later U.S. Supreme Court rulings that labeled flag desecration a form of protected speech.

Bruning has said he wouldn’t fight to save the Nebraska law. If he chooses not to appeal, Kopf’s decision would close the case.

Members of the Topeka, Kan., church protest at servicemember funerals around the country because they believe U.S. troop deaths are punishment for the nation’s tolerance of homosexuality. Group members often trample on the U.S. flag, wear it and display it upside-down as part of their protests.

In July, Phelps-Roper filed the federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Nebraska’s flag law, saying it infringed on her right to free speech. The law barred intentionally “casting contempt or ridicule” upon a U.S. or Nebraska flag by mutilating, defacing or burning it or by trampling on it.

Phelps-Roper’s attorney, Margie Phelps, said Thursday the church has been “expressively using the flag a lot in Nebraska.”

NEW ORLEANS, La. – An oil platform exploded and burned off the Louisiana coast Thursday, the second such disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in less than five months. This time, the Coast Guard said there was no leak, and no one was killed.

The Coast Guard initially reported that an oil sheen a mile long and 100 feet wide had begun to spread from the site of the blast, about 200 miles west of the source of BP’s massive spill. But hours later, Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said crews were unable to find any spill.

The company that owns the platform, Houston-based Mariner Energy, did not know what caused the explosion.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Mariner officials told him there were seven active production wells on the platform, and they were shut down shortly after the fire broke out.

Jindal said the company told him the fire began in 100 barrels of light oil condensate, but officials did not know yet what sparked the flames.

The Coast Guard said Mariner Energy reported the oil sheen. In a public statement, the company said an initial flyover did not show any oil.

Photos from the scene showed at least five ships floating near the platform. Three of them were shooting great plumes of water onto the machinery. Light smoke could be seen drifting across the deep blue waters of the gulf.

By late afternoon, the fire on the platform was out.

The platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of Louisiana’s Vermilion Bay. Its location is considered shallow water, much less than the approximately 5,000 feet where BP’s well spewed oil and gas for three months after the April rig explosion that killed 11 workers.

Responding to any oil spill in shallow water would be much easier than in deep water, where crews depend on remote-operated vehicles to access equipment on the sea floor.

A Homeland Security update obtained by The Associated Press said the platform was producing 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200 gallons of oil.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration has “response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water.”

All 13 of the platform’s crew members were rescued from the water. They were found huddled together in insulated survival outfits called “Gumby suits” for their resemblance to the cartoon character.

“These guys had the presence of mind, used their training to get into those Gumby suits before they entered the water,” Coast Guard spokesman Chief Petty Officer John Edwards said.

The captain of the boat that rescued the platform crew said his vessel was 25 miles away when it received a distress call Thursday morning from the platform.

The Crystal Clear, a 110-foot boat, was in the Gulf doing routine maintenance work on oil rigs and platforms. When Capt. Dan Shaw arrived at the scene of the blast, the workers were holding hands in the water, where they had been for two hours. They were thirsty and tired.

“We gave them soda and water, anything they wanted to drink,” Shaw said. “They were just glad to be on board with us.”

Shaw said the blast was so sudden that the crew did not have time to get into lifeboats. They did not mention what might have caused the blast.

Crew members were being flown to a hospital in Houma. The Coast Guard said one person was injured, but the company said there were no injuries. All of them were released by early Thursday evening.

Jindal met with some of the survivors. He would not identify them except to say most were from Louisiana.

Environmental groups and some lawmakers said the incident showed the dangers of offshore drilling, and urged the Obama administration to extend a temporary ban on deepwater drilling to shallow water, where this platform was located.

“How many accidents are needed and how much environmental and economic damage must we suffer before we act to contain and control the source of the danger: offshore drilling?” said Rep. Frank Pallone, a New Jersey Democrat.

Mike Gravitz, oceans advocate for Environment America, said President Barack Obama “should need no further wake-up call to permanently ban new drilling.”

There are about 3,400 platforms operating in the Gulf, according to the American Petroleum Institute. Together they pump about a third of the America’s domestic oil, forming the backbone of the country’s petroleum industry.

Platforms are vastly different from oil rigs like BP’s Deepwater Horizon. They are usually brought in after wells are already drilled and sealed.

“A production platform is much more stable,” said Andy Radford, an API expert on offshore oil drilling. “On a drilling rig, you’re actually drilling the well. You’re cutting. You’re pumping mud down the hole. You have a lot more activity on a drilling rig.”

In contrast, platforms are usually placed atop stable wells where the oil is flowing at a predictable pressure, he said. A majority of platforms in the Gulf do not require crews on board.

Many platforms, especially those in shallower water, stand on legs that are drilled into the sea floor. Like a giant octopus, they spread numerous pipelines and can tap into many wells at once.

Platforms do not have blowout preventers, but they are usually equipped with a series of redundant valves that can shut off oil and gas at different points along the pipeline.

Numerous platforms were damaged during hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The storms broke pipelines, and oil spilled into the Gulf. But the platforms successfully kept major spills from happening, Radford said.

“Those safety valves did their job,” he said.

Industry representatives sought to minimize Thursday’s incident and distance it from the well blowout in April.

“We have on these platforms on any given year roughly 100 fires,” said Allen Verret, executive director of the Offshore Operators Committee.

Federal authorities have cited Mariner Energy and related entities for 10 accidents in the Gulf of Mexico over the last four years, according to safety records from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

The accidents range from platform fires to pollution spills and a blowout, according to accident-investigation reports from the agency formerly known as the Minerals Management Service.

In 2007, welding sparks falling onto an oil storage tank caused a flash fire that slightly burned a contract worker. The Minerals Management Service issued a $35,000 fine.

Mariner Energy Inc. focuses on oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf. In April, Apache Corp., another independent oil company, announced plans to buy Mariner in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $3.9 billion, including the assumption of about $1.2 billion of Mariner’s debt. That deal is pending.

On Friday, BP was expected to begin the process of removing the cap and failed blowout preventer from its ruptured well, another step toward completion of a relief well that would seal the leak permanently. The Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, setting off a three-month leak that totaled 206 million gallons of oil.

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials launched a broad legal offensive against Pakistan’s Taliban on Wednesday, placing the group on its international terrorism blacklist and charging its leader with planning last year’s suicide bombing in Afghanistan that killed seven CIA employees.

The Pakistani group, known as the Tehrik-e-Taliban or TTP, was officially designated a “foreign terrorist organization,” a classification that imposes additional State and Treasury department sanctions. The Pakistani Taliban threatens U.S. national security, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a note published in the Federal Register.

The Justice Department then unsealed charges against the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud. He is accused of planning the December 2009 attack in which a suicide bomber detonated explosives at a CIA base in Khost, Afghanistan, killing a Jordanian intelligence officer and the CIA employees.

Conviction on the two conspiracy charges, which were entered on Aug. 20, would likely mean life in prison.

“The various actions taken today against the TTP support the U.S. effort to degrade the capabilities of this dangerous group,” State Department counterterrorism coordinator Daniel Benjamin said. “We are determined to eliminate TTP’s ability to execute violent attacks, and to disrupt, dismantle and defeat their networks.”

In addition to the CIA bombing, Pakistan’s Taliban has been blamed for the failed May 1 car bombing in New York’s Times Square. Pakistan’s government accuses the group of being behind the 2007 assassination of Pakistani politician Benazir Bhutto and the April 2010 suicide bombing against the U.S. consulate in Peshawar that killed six Pakistanis.

“These charges are part of a multipronged U.S. government effort to disrupt and dismantle Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan,” Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said. “It is our intention to hold Mehsud accountable for his actions and we will work with our partners in the intelligence community, the military and law enforcement, as well as our counterparts overseas, to achieve that objective.”

The State Department is offering a $5 million bounty for Mehsud and another top Taliban leader, Wali Ur Rehman, and the Treasury Department has placed financial and travel sanctions on Mehsud and others identified with the group.

“America must take all steps necessary to contain and eliminate Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan,” said Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand, a Democrat.

The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban Movement, is a loose federation of tribal and regional factions initially led by Baitullah Mehsud. It maintains strongholds along the northwestern tribal belt, where the militants are also believed to be providing havens for senior al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden.

Baitullah Mehsud was killed in an Aug. 5, 2009, CIA missile strike in northwestern Pakistan. He was replaced by his military chief, Hakimullah Mehsud.

Earlier this year, U.S. and Pakistani officials believed that Hakimullah Mehsud had been killed in a January missile strike. In April, however, intelligence officials determined that he was alive, and soon afterward he appeared in two new videos released by the Pakistani Taliban.

He is believed to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

The missile strike that was believed to have killed Mehsud took place about 10 days after the release of a video showing the militant leader seated next to Jordanian doctor Humam Khalil al-Balawi, who carried out the Dec. 30 suicide attack against the CIA base at Camp Chapman in eastern Afghanistan.

The charging documents say al-Balawi, wearing traditional Afghani clothing and carrying a cane, was approached by base security after he got out of his car. The bomber, a Jordanian doctor, then reached under his clothes and ignited the weapon, which later swabbing show included the explosives RDX and PETN.

Investigators found the bomber’s legs after the suicide attack and confirmed his identity through DNA matches with his relatives. They also found parts of the cane.

RAMADI, Iraq – Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that history will judge whether the war in Iraq was worth it.

In Iraq to mark the formal close of the U.S. combat mission and the departure of the top U.S. war commander, Gates visited troops at Camp Ramadi in western Iraq.

Asked whether the U.S. was still at war in Iraq, Gates answered succinctly, “I would say we are not.”

Fewer than 50,000 U.S. troops are still in Iraq, down from more than 165,000 at the height of the fighting.

Gates was less definitive about whether the 7 1/2-year war was worthwhile. That judgment “really requires a historian’s perspective,” and will depend in part on whether Iraq emerges as a democratic anchor in the Middle East, Gates told reporters after his Ramadi visit.

“I believe our men and women in uniform believe we have accomplished something that makes the sacrifice, the bloodshed, not to have been in vain,” he said. “How it all weighs in the balance remains to be seen.”

Although the remaining troops’ main role is to help train Iraqi forces over the next year, they are not out of harm’s way. Recent U.S. deaths in Iraq have come from homemade explosives that deliberately target U.S. vehicles or soldiers, or attacks on gatherings where insurgents knew Americans would be.

Several thousand U.S. special operations forces will continue to hunt al-Qaida and other terrorist fighters, accompanying Iraqi commandoes. U.S. forces will remain armed, and will return fire or fight in self-defense.

Gates said the United States would consider keeping some military forces in place past next year, if the Iraqi government requests it. All U.S. forces are set to leave by the end of 2011 under an agreement with the Iraqi government.

Wednesday’s transition from a combat stance to an “advise and assist” role was largely symbolic. U.S. troops have been leaving Iraq in huge numbers for the past year, while their front-line combat roles dwindled.

The war is no longer the political rallying point it was when U.S. force numbers, and casualties, were at their height three years ago. But it is still unpopular, with a majority of Americans unconvinced that the war was worth fighting.

“The problem with this war, I think, for many Americans, is that the premise on which we justified going to war turned out not to be valid,” Gates told reporters after meeting with troops in Ramadi.

“Even if the outcome is a good one from the standpoint of the United States, it’ll always be clouded by how it began.”

Ramadi, home of one of the U.S. military’s new advisory brigades, is in the heart of Anbar province, the cradle of the Sunni insurgency against the initial U.S. occupation. Gates said Anbar holds a special and haunting significance for the U.S. military. Several members of his staff were wounded or saw their comrades killed in the province during the worst years of the fighting.

The difference between that time and now was illustrated by the questions soldiers asked him. Some of their top concerns included health care, retirement and the fate of combat pay now that the combat mission is officially over.

Lt. Col. Buddy Houston, deputy brigadier commander of the 4/3 Advise and Assist Brigade in Ramadi, said there have been no incidents in the last 14 months where Iraqis asked for direct combat help.

“I can’t imagine a violent situation where we would have to go back in and re-engage,” Houston said.

He added that he didn’t anticipate, “even under the worst-case scenario,” that a civil war could break out in Iraq as U.S. troops leave.

The al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network lost more than 30 fighters and a commander during the Aug. 28 attack on two US forward operating bases in eastern Afghanistan.

The International Security Assistance Force said that US and Afghan troops “killed more than 30 Haqqani Network insurgents” during the early-morning assault on Forward Operating Bases Salerno and Chapman. Thirteen of of those killed were wearing suicide vests, ISAF stated. A US intelligence official told The Long War Journal that 35 Haqqani Network fighters were killed during the clashes. ISAF had initially estimated that 21 Haqqani Network fighters and a senior facilitator named Mudasir were killed during and immediately after the assault.

After the fighting, Afghan and Coalition forces “capitalized on intelligence tips” and captured a Haqqani Network commander who was “involved in planning the attacks.” Two of the commander’s associates were also detained during the raid, which took place near Bakhtanah in Khost’s Sabari district.

Last night, another Haqqani Network commander involved in the attack was detained along with several of his fighters during a raid near Khodizali in Khost’s Terayzai district.

A US intelligence official described the Haqqani Network attack in Khost over the weekend and other recent assaults at Kandahar Airfield, Bagram Airbase, and Jalalabad Airfield as futile efforts that have served as a meat grinder for Taliban foot soldiers.

“These sorts of FOB [forward operating base] attacks have become little more than exercises in target practice here,” the official said. “They show up, we watch them; we kill them.”

In the attacks on Forward Operating Bases Salerno and Chapman, two of the Haqqani Network fighters were observed while cutting through the wire, and were killed once a security team was dispatched. Only four US Soldiers were wounded during the fighting at both bases, and all have since returned to duty.

Brigadier General Josef Blotz, the senior ISAF spokesman, described the frontal assaults on US forward operating bases as “ill-conceived” attempts that serve only to endanger those executing the attacks.

“The insurgents’ attempts to attack ISAF or Afghan government facilities were defeated again,” said Blotz said. “The insurgent leadership who direct these ill-conceived attacks far from the actual battlefield knows their low-level fighters have no chance of success against these targets.”

US maintains pressure on the Haqqani Network

US military and intelligence officials told The Long War Journal that they believe the Haqqani Network has been under pressure due to the high tempo of operations against the group’s leaders and facilitators. These officials have detected strains between the group’s leadership and its lower-level fighters.

Over the past several months, Afghan and Coalition special operations forces have been launching nightly raids in the Haqqani Network strongholds of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika, and have killed and captured dozens of leaders and facilitators, along with scores of fighters.

Several top commanders were captured over the past few days. A recent raid in Khost on Aug. 26 netted an important senior Haqqani Network commander who “coordinates and conducts attacks against Afghan and coalition forces, including suicide bombings” and who also traffics weapons and supplies to fighters in the region. The commander and several of his fighters were captured after intelligence indicated that “the group was gathering for an upcoming complex attack consisting of suicide bombers and a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device in the area.”

The commander, who was not named, has links to the highest levels of the Haqqani Network. A US intelligence official who tracks the Haqqani Network said the commander has been in direct contact with both Jan Baz Zadran and Badruddin Haqqani. Zadran, a top aide to Siraj Haqqani, the leader of the Haqqani Network, is the group’s logistical and financial coordinator, and also acquires weapons and ammunition for the network. Badruddin is one of Siraj’s brothers and serves as a senior military commander.

In another operation, Afghan and Coalition forces killed a commander known as Naman and seven of his fighters during a raid on Aug. 28 near Kowti Sheyl in Paktia’s Zurmat district. The commander was responsible for “coordinating and conducting indirect fire and direct fire attacks against Afghan and coalition forces” and also “also coordinated the movement of improvised explosive devices, ammunition, supplies and fighters.”

Sixteen protesters at a military funeral in Omaha were doused with pepper spray from passing motorists, police said.

The funeral for Marine Staff Sgt. Michael Bock, killed in Afghanistan, included about 600 members of the Patriot Guard Riders, who protectively ringed the church, and members of the Westboro Baptist Church, who say that military deaths are a sign that God disapproves of homosexuality.

Members of the church attended the funeral, holding up signs that say, “Thank God for Dead Soldiers,” and “AIDS Cures Fags,” CNN reported Sunday.

Police arrested George Vogel on 16 counts of misdemeanor assault and one count of child neglect. Allegedly, Vogel’s child was in the truck when he drove past the funeral and extended his arm to spray the protesters.

“Initial indications are he was probably targeting [members of] the Westboro Baptist Church,” said Omaha Police Department spokesman Michael Pecha.

There were conflicting reports on the interaction between the Patriot Guard Riders, the church group, and counter-protesters, who also showed up.

“We don’t get close to them. We have our backs to them,” said Scott Knudsen, one of the Patriot Guard Riders.

But church group member Shirley Phelps-Roper said several Patriot Guard Riders joined the counter-protesters, who had “jostled” members of the church, the newspaper said.