Spain on maximum alert for 50th anniversary of ETA

By MANUEL MIELNIEZUK, Associated Press Writer

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Balearic Islands – The leaders of Spain's main political parties paid tribute to two slain police officers Friday as security forces guarded against a fresh attack on the 50th anniversary of the founding of the armed Basque group ETA.

Authorities blame ETA for an explosion that killed the officers near a police barracks on Mallorca island Thursday and a car bomb that wounded more than 60 people in the northern city of Burgos on Wednesday.

The Interior Ministry's represent in Mallorca, Ramon Socias, told reporters police "were still working on the hypothesis that the terrorists had not abandoned the island and were holed up in an apartment waiting for the situation to cool down a bit so that they can get out."

The ministry issued photographs of six suspected ETA members and called on the public to help track them down. The ministry did not say whether it suspected any of the six played a role in the attacks.

Spanish National Radio said police were looking for two Basque youths seen in Palma de Mallorca this week as police stepped up security prior to the annual visit of the royal family to their summer residence at Marivent palace, some six miles (10 kilometers) from where Thursday's bomb went off.

King Juan Carlos is due to arrive on the island this week.

The radio said that the Basque youths had rented an apartment in Palma but had not been seen since the attacks.

Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero flew to Mallorca early Friday with Popular Party leader Mariano Rajoy and placed medals of honor on the coffins of the officers, both members of the paramilitary Civil Guard in charge of policing rural areas and guarding official buildings.

Bells tolled at noon as people gathered in silence for five minutes outside town halls across Spain in pay their respects. Crown Prince Felipe, Princess Letizia and other authorities attended a funeral Mass at the Cathedral in Palma de Mallorca and later expressed their condolences to the relatives of the dead officers.

ETA was founded on July 31, 1959, and has killed more than 825 people since beginning its violent campaign for an independent Basque state in 1968.

If confirmed as ETA attacks, the blasts would conflict with government assertions that the group is seriously weakened after major police crackdowns in Spain and France in recent years. Their timing, two days before the milestone anniversary, may be part of an ETA effort to demonstrate it is in no danger of breaking up.

ETA is now blamed for nine attacks this year.

"The government has given orders to the security forces to be on maximum alert, to double their work, to increase even more their efforts and to protect themselves from these vile murderers," Zapatero said late Thursday.

In Madrid, armed police patrolled the streets around the headquarters of the country's two main political parities, the governing Socialists and the conservative Popular Party.

Several people were also lightly wounded in Thursday's bombing in the Palmanova beach resort area, southwest of the island's capital.

The explosion, caused by a bomb attached to the underneath of a vehicle, occurred at the height of the summer holiday season for the Mediterranean island resort, which is one of Europe's main tourist destinations.

"I was asleep outside the pool. Next thing I heard was the biggest explosion I've heard in my life," English tourist Michael Edgware told Associated Press Television News.

"I woke up and I thought 'what's going on?" he said, adding "Then I looked out and I saw fire, flames and fire brigades putting fires out. I got a bit scared."

Officials shut down the island's airports and ports for several hours while police searched for bombing suspects. Strict airport, road and boat controls were also being applied Friday.

Hours after the blast, police found another bomb attached to a police car in the same area and were forced to carry out a controlled explosion.

The attack Wednesday morning on the Spanish mainland also targeted a police compound and surrounding buildings, in which around 120 people including dozens of children were at the time of the blast. More than 60 people were reported injured.

There were no warning calls before the two attacks, for which no group has claimed responsibility.

Zapatero said the attacks were staged as Spanish police in collaboration with French counterparts were hitting ETA hard "dismantling its organization, thwarting its action, identifying its members and detaining them more rapidly each time and in greater numbers."

Spain has vowed to crush the separatist group since ETA ended what it had said was a permanent cease-fire with a 2006 bombing that destroyed a Madrid airport parking garage and killed two people.

Police: Landslides kill 10 people in Bangladesh

By FARID HOSSAIN, Associated Press Writer

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Landslides caused by heavy monsoon rains killed 10 people in southeastern Bangladesh on Friday, authorities said.

The pre-dawn deaths occurred in Bandarban district, a mountainous region 155 miles (248 kilometers) southeast of the capital, the area's police chief Quamrul Ahsan said.

United News of Bangladesh news agency reported that huge chunks of earth buried a hillside hut killing five people from the same family in Lama village. Another five people from two families died in a landslide nearby.

Landslides often caused by heavy rains are common in the mountainous region.

Bangladesh is a low-lying delta nation of 150 million people. It is often buffeted by floods and cyclones.

Bangladesh PM Hasina expands cabinetI

DHAKA (AFP) – Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina added half a dozen new faces to her cabinet Friday and shuffled other ministers in a bid to improve the government's performance.

The cabinet expansion was the second since Hasina took office in January.

The six new members, which bring to 44 the number in the cabinet including the premier, were sworn in by president Zillur Rahman at his palace.

Political commentators had suggested Hasina's cabinet members were inexperienced.

The premier said the additions were "competent people" who would make the government run more efficiently.

The new members, as well as the shuffle of existing members, brought changes to the portfolios of health, primary education, power, water resources and women and children's affairs.

The move came a day after Hasina's ruling Awami League party dropped four party heavyweights from the policymaking presidium.

Political observers said the four were dropped because they sided with the army-backed government, which ruled for two years from January 2007 and jailed Hasina for a year on corruption charges.

Hasina came to power after a landslide win in December 29 elections that democratic rule to the South Asian nation.

US general may ask for more troops for Afghan war

By ANNE GEARAN and LARA JAKES, Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON – The U.S. general in charge of turning around the war in Afghanistan is likely to recommend significant changes to U.S. and NATO operations, military officials and others familiar with his forthcoming report said. Those changes could include additional U.S. troops despite political headwind against further expansion of the war.

As Gen. Stanley McChrystal readies his assessment of the war, due next month, numerous U.S. officials and outsiders apprised of his thinking suggest McChrystal will request more American troops, probably including Marines, to be added next year.

Officials and advisers spoke on condition of anonymity because the report is not complete, and because the number of forces to be requested is in flux. Several people familiar with the report cautioned that McChrystal could opt not to ask for an increase at all — a recognition that President Barack Obama and other White House advisers would not look favorably on adding new numbers to U.S. forces after already agreeing to boost their ranks by 21,000 troops earlier this year.

McChrystal's report contains a list of recommendations that have not been released, but military and defense officials have suggested that it will identify shortfalls in the size and skills of Afghan forces and recommend additional U.S. trainers or others to help.

A senior U.S. official said the rationale for needing more forces is tied to an altered strategy to clear and hold provinces where Taliban insurgents are fleeing as they are pushed out elsewhere.

McChrystal is also likely to recommend rearranging some U.S. and NATO forces to better meet a narrowed mission of protecting Afghan civilians and starve the insurgents of vital support.

The report was commissioned by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who hand-picked McChrystal to take the helm of combat operations against Taliban insurgents that top defense officials have conceded are stalemated.

Two of McChrystal's civilian advisers, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations, said this week they expect some expansion of troops. Neither adviser would quantify those numbers.

Biddle said Thursday he thinks the total number of troops in Afghanistan should number 300,000 to 600,000, including U.S., NATO and Afghan forces.

Current forces include 62,000 U.S. troops and 39,000 allied troops, plus about 175,000 Afghan Army and police. Some of the allies plan to pull their troops home in the next couple of years.

Several of the specific recommendations are undergoing what the Pentagon calls a "troops to task" analysis, to identify whether there are sufficient troops available or suited to the job. McChrystal is expected to discuss that review and his larger appraisal with Gates in the next two weeks.

Any request for additional U.S. forces would require touchy discussions with the White House and lawmakers. President Barack Obama approved a surprise addition of 4,000 U.S. trainers earlier in the spring, after his larger announcement of 17,000 combat troops, and administration and military officials had been signaling that further additions were unlikely for now.

Estimates of the additional forces McChrystal may request have ranged from a few thousand, such as a brigade numbering 4,000 to 5,000 and assigned to train the fledgling Afghan armed forces, up to 20,000 or more.

Obama's additions will bring the U.S. presence to about 68,000 by the end of this year. That is roughly double the size of the U.S. force when Obama took office, and although Afghanistan is now considered the nation's top military priority, the White House is deeply reluctant to keep adding, or to fight a skeptical Congress over the increase.

McChrystal's predecessor left behind an unfilled request for an addition of approximately 10,000 U.S. forces, and Obama had been expected to review that request near the end of the year.

McChrystal was encouraged by superiors to assess the war bluntly and not to hold back in asking for troops, money, or equipment, and he knows he probably only has a short period to do so, defense officials and others in Washington and Afghanistan said.

To prepare the report, McChrystal gathered about a dozen military and outside civilian analysts six weeks ago and sent them on an intensive reporting trip through Afghanistan. The group finished work last week.

One of the report's authors said the group identified some basic organizational problems with the way the fight is divided among U.S., NATO and Afghan forces.

"One of the real challenges Gen. McChrystal is going to have is that up to this point the war is being fought as four separate fights: north, east, west and south," said Andrew Exum, a counterinsurgency specialist and blogger at the Center for a New American Security. "We are trying to think more holistically."

The report, is "designed to outline the situation on the ground as we saw it, talk about the mission, what it would mean to accomplish the mission and then a little bit about resources and risks," Exum said.

Speaking for himself, Exum said McChrystal faces a much wider challenge than coming up with enough troops and resources. The "operational culture" of the war has to change, he said, meaning a shift away from traditional military operation and procedures.

"Our efforts in this war will succeed or fail based upon relationships we're able to build with our Afghan partners at every level," Exum said

"It's very difficult to build those partnerships from behind an MRAP," he said, referring to the tank-like troop carriers that help protect U.S. soldiers from roadside bombs. "There's going to have to be a real assumption of risk that U.S. and other allied forces might not feel comfortable with."

UN: Civilian deaths up 24 percent in Afghanistan

By BRADLEY S. KLAPPER, Associated Press Writer

GENEVA – The United Nations said Friday the number of civilians killed in conflict in Afghanistan has jumped 24 percent so far this year, with bombings by insurgent and airstrikes by international forces the biggest single killers.

In a grim assessment of the first half of 2009, the U.N. assistance mission in Afghanistan said the Taliban and other anti-government militants have become more deadly by shifting from ambush attacks to suicide bombings, roadside explosives and targeted assassinations.

It warned that more civilians would likely be killed as insurgents try to battle a troop increase by the administration of President Barack Obama, and seek to destabilize the country before presidential and Provincial Council elections on Aug. 20. The summer is also typically the worst for fighting in Afghanistan.

Insurgent attacks are "frequently undertaken regardless of the impact on civilians in terms of deaths and injuries, or destruction of civilian infrastructure," the 21-page report said, ascribing 595 civilian deaths to the Taliban and other "anti-government elements" over the first six months.

Many of those died in suicide attacks or roadside bombs near "civilian traffic, residential compounds and marketplaces."

The United States and Western powers have become more deadly, too, partly because insurgent groups are taking cover in residential areas or luring U.S.-led forces into unintentionally killing civilians, the U.N. said.

The Taliban and others are "basing themselves in civilian areas so as to deliberately blur the distinction between combatants and civilians, and as part of what appears to be an active policy aimed at drawing a military response to areas where there is a high likelihood that civilians will be killed or injured."

The report said international forces have given high priority to minimizing civilian casualties, but along with Afghan forces have killed 310 civilians. Of those, 200 were killed in 40 airstrikes. The total death toll — including those which couldn't be attributed to either side — of 1,013 civilians is 24 percent higher than in the same period in 2008, and 48 percent higher than in 2007.

The U.N. tally is higher than an Associated Press count of civilian deaths based on reports from Afghan and international officials showing that 453 civilians have been killed in insurgent attacks this year, and 199 civilians died from attacks by Afghan or international forces. An Afghan human rights group says an additional 69 civilians died during a U.S. attack in Farah province in May, but the U.S. disputes those deaths.

Along with insurgents and Western nations, the government of Afghanistan shares responsibility "for a rising toll in terms of civilian deaths and injuries and destruction of infrastructure, including homes and assets, which are essential for survival and the maintenance of livelihoods."

The report said civilian deaths rose every month this year as compared with 2008 except February, as insurgent forces sustained attacks throughout the winter in a break from previous years when there was a lull in fighting. Other factors were the increased fighting in urban areas, more complex Taliban attacks and the return of militants fleeing warfare across the border in Pakistan. The intensified operations by U.S. forces was also cited.

May was the deadliest month, with 261 civilians killed. The Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for most of the deaths, but 81 were killed by government or international forces, the U.N. said.

The South has been the worst region as a result of instability in Pakistan and the increase in U.S. activity. Only six civilians were killed in the West of the country in April, but that figure soared in May as a result of airstrikes in Bala Baluk, Farah Province, that killed at least 63 women and children, according to the report.

The U.S. estimated that 60-65 Taliban and 20-30 civilians were killed in the battle.

The U.N. also noted what it called a "new trend" in insurgent attacks. Since May, they have attached magnetic explosive devices to vehicles to target civilians who have worked with government or international military forces. Examples were the killing of a Provincial Council candidate May 29 in Khost and, a month later in separate attacks, of a translator and another individual working for the international forces.

Insurgents have become increasingly sophisticated as well. The report said there has been a rise in coordinated attacks using explosive devices and suicide bombers to target government ministries and offices, "with the intention of incurring the largest amount of casualties." In those attacks, civilian government workers were deliberated singled out and shot, despite clearly being noncombatants, it said.

Music shops and other places selling "immoral" goods such as DVDs have been targeted. In an April attack, a young boy was killed when a bomb placed in his wheelbarrow exploded prematurely 15 meters from a government building in Aybak city. The boy had no knowledge of the bomb, the report said.

On the other side, the report said that two-thirds of the deaths caused by the Afghan government forces or its international allies came in airstrikes. Most casualties resulted from the use of close air support when troops met insurgents in villages or when armed fighters took up positions in residential areas.

The report said civilians in insurgent-dominated areas can rarely refuse shelter to a militant commander or his men, because of intimidation or traditional codes of hospitality. The Taliban and others take advantage of these factors to use civilian homes as cover and deter attacks, or to lead the government or international forces into killing civilians.

International forces have been more forthcoming about acknowledging civilian casualties, but the report expressed continued concern about their "capacity or willingness to provide information" about some incidents.

The U.N. said the report was compiled by its Afghan mission's human rights unit, and drew on independent monitoring and investigation of incidents where civilians were killed in conflict zones. It is the third year the global body has conducted such analysis in Afghanistan.

U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay called on the Afghan government, international forces and insurgents to do more to spare civilians and to "ensure the independent investigation of all civilian casualties."

Islamist sect leader in Nigeria killed in custody

By NJADVARA MUSA, Associated Press Writer

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria – The leader of the Islamist sect blamed for days of violence in northern Nigeria has been shot and killed while in police custody, officials said Thursday.

The police commander of Borno state announced on state radio that Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of the sect some call the Nigerian Taliban, has "died in police custody."

He gave no further explanation, but the state governor's spokesman Usman Ciroma told The Associated Press: "I saw his body at police headquarters. I believe he was shot while he was trying to escape."

Yusuf's death could provoke more violence, though his followers in the Boko Haram sect may be in disarray after troops shelled his compound in the northern city of Maiduguri on Wednesday. Yusuf, 39, managed to escape with about 300 followers, some of them armed. His deputy, Bukar Shekau, was killed in the attack, according to Army commander Maj. Gen. Saleh Maina.

Troops killed about 100 militants by an AP reporter's count, half of them inside the sect's mosque. Soldiers then launched a manhunt, and Yusuf was reportedly found in a goat's pen at the home of his in-laws.

Human Rights Watch called reports of Yusuf's killing "extremely worrying."

"The Nigerian authorities must act immediately to investigate and hold to account all those responsible for this unlawful killing and any others associated with the recent violence in northern Nigeria," said Corinne Dufka, the group's senior West Africa researcher.

"The local commissioner of police should be immediately removed pending an investigation into Mr. Yusuf's killing," she said in a statement.

Seeking to impose Islamic Shariah law throughout this multi-religious country, the militants attacked police stations, churches, prisons and government buildings in a wave of violence that began Sunday in Borno and quickly spread to three other northern states.

But, leading Nigerian rights groups accuse security forces of killing bystanders and other civilians. A military spokesman denied the charge and said it was impossible for rights workers to tell who was a civilian and who was a member of Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa language.

The government warned people to evacuate the area before the attack on the compound Wednesday, then shelled the compound and stormed the group's mosque inside, setting off a raging firefight with retreating militants armed with homemade hunting rifles and firebombs, bows and arrows, machetes and scimitars.

An AP reporter saw soldiers shoot their way into the mosque under fire and then raked those inside with gunshots.

The bodies of barefoot young men littered the streets of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, on Thursday morning as the army pursued the manhunt on the outskirts of the city. Police said most of the dead were fighters with Boko Haram. Army Col. Ben Anahotu said three police officers were killed.

Officials said at least 4,000 people have been forced from their homes by Wednesday afternoon, but it was not known how many have been killed, wounded and arrested.

President Umaru Yar'Adua said that security agents had been ordered to attack when the movement started gathering fighters from nearby states at its sprawling Maiduguri compound in preparation for "the holy war."

The militants are also known as Al-Sunna wal Jamma, or "Followers of Mohammed's Teachings," and some Nigerian officials have referred to them as Taliban. Analyst Nnamdi K. Obasi of the International Crisis Group said a few have fought with that radical movement in Afghanistan.

League for Human Rights director Shamaki Gad Peter said that after the siege rights workers saw the bodies of up to 20 people who were unarmed and appeared to have been shot from behind, possibly trying to escape the mayhem, he said.

Military spokesman Col. Mohammed Yerima initially denied allegations that the military intentionally killed civilians but said that the militants were indistinguishable from civilians.

"All the civilians that were living in that place were evacuated, to our knowledge," he said. "And those that remained in that enclave are loyalists and members of the group. So the issue of whether we have killed innocent civilians is not true."

He added, "The issue of identifying who is the Taliban or not, the human rights groups are not fair to security agencies because they don't have any marks on their faces. There is no way to know if this is Taliban or this is not."

Maiduguri resident Linda Dukwa said she had seen police execute two men Monday, frightening her and her family so badly that they did not venture out of their house, even for food, for days afterward.

The men "were dressed in white robes," she said, indicating they were sect members. "They were held by policemen. Then they shot their feet. After they fell on the ground, they (police) shot their heads."

National police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu denied such allegations of executions.

"We respect the rules of combat," he said.

Nigeria's 140 million people are roughly divided between Christians in the south and northern-based Muslims. Shariah was implemented in 12 northern states after Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 following years of oppressive military regimes. More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since then.

Dire poverty is at the heart of the violence, which analysts say reflects decades-old grievances of Nigerians whose governments are so corrupt and ineffective they do not deliver even basic services like running water and electricity.

Boko Haram members are particularly angry that full Shariah has not been implemented, especially the law's demand for a social welfare system helping poor people.

In recent months, police have been raiding Boko Haram hideouts and finding explosives and arms. The house at the compound in Maiduguri included a laboratory the military said was used to make bombs.

Police beat mourners in new wave of unrest in Iran

By NASSER KARIMI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian police fired tear gas and beat protesters to disperse thousands chanting "Neda lives!" Thursday at a memorial for victims of post-election violence held at the gravesite of the woman whose death made her an icon of the pro-reform movement, witnesses said.

The new wave of unrest showed the opposition's continuing ability to harness anger over the crackdown, and more protests could erupt around the inauguration next week of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose government has been virtually paralyzed by the crisis.

Thursday's memorial gathering marked the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period for Neda Agha Soltan, a 27-year-old music student who was shot to death June 20. Her dying moments were filmed and circulated widely on the Internet, making her name a rallying cry for the opposition.

"Neda is alive! Ahmadinejad is dead!" chanted protesters, many holding up single red roses tied with green ribbons, the signature color of the opposition.

Plainclothes forces dispersed the crowd with tear gas and batons — and with chants of "Death to those who are against the supreme leader," according to witnesses and state television.

The witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal. The government has banned media from covering some events, including Thursday's memorial.

Demonstrations that drew thousands more later spread to other parts of the capital, Tehran, and more clashes with security forces erupted. Police fired tear gas, shots in the air and paintballs at hundreds of protesters on Vali Asr Street and other major avenues, witnesses said. Protesters set tires and trash cans ablaze in response. There was no word on casualties.

The opposition claims Ahmadinejad's election victory was a fraud and his government has been virtually paralyzed by the 7-week-old crisis. The president has come under attack from both the opposition and his own supporters, who were angered by his appointment of a controversial first vice president he was later forced to sack.

The government says 30 people have been killed in the crackdown, though human rights groups say the true number is likely much higher. Hundreds were arrested in the sweeps, including young protesters, politicians and longtime critics of the government.

Soltan and at least 24 others killed in the crackdown are buried at Behesht-e Zahra, the vast cemetery on Tehran's southern outskirts, according to rights groups tracking the dead.

The site holds great symbolic weight. Many of those killed during the 1979 Islamic revolution are buried there, and the revolution's leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini has a gigantic mausoleum complex nearby. Those killed in Iran's 1980-1988 war with Iraq are also buried in the cemetery, and families frequently visit the graves.

During the revolution, the deaths of protesters prompted similar marches after the 40-day mourning period, which were often answered by security forces attacking mourners in a cycle that helped fuel the street uprising.

Police barred opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi from joining the crowd around Soltan's grave Thursday, witnesses said. Mousavi and his supporters claim he is the true winner of the election.

An amateur video of Thursday's memorial showed thousands marching through the cemetery, chanting and flashing victory signs. Some wore green T-shirts — the color of Mousavi's movement.

When Mousavi tried to approach the grave, hundreds of police surrounded him as supporters chanted "Yaa Hossein, Mir Hossein" — comparing their leader to the Prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein, who is the most revered Shiite saint. Police forced Mousavi to leave, said witnesses who asked not to be identified out of security concerns.

Afterward, his supporters remained at the grave, chanting, "Death to the dictator," as the crowd swelled to several thousand.

The police charge came when an ally of Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi — who was also a candidate in the election — tried to give a speech. Karroubi had to flee the site, and several of his aides were beaten and harassed, according to pro-opposition Web sites.

After the clash, thousands of supporters continued to pay their respects at Soltan's grave. Passengers riding the subway from the cemetery to central Tehran chanted slogans against Ahmadinejad, shouting, "Traitor Mahmoud, we want you to become homeless," witnesses said.

Police arrested two prominent Iranian filmmakers when they tried to lay flowers at Soltan's grave — Jafar Panahi, whose film, "The Circle," criticized the treatment of women under the Islamist government and is banned in Iran, and a female documentary maker, Mahnaz Mohammadi.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly criticized the use of force to disperse the mourners, saying it was "particularly disturbing ... to break up a group of people who are trying to exercise an important ritual under Islam, the mourning after 40 days."

Thousands more gathered at the main Mosalla mosque in central Tehran, with heavy security forces nearby and at other major intersections.

Though massive protests and deadly clashes erupted in the days and weeks after the disputed election, Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard and its allied Basij militia have since adopted a zero-tolerance stance. Demonstrators have managed to hold several smaller protests in recent weeks, however.

Thursday's protests showed the opposition movement still has momentum, fueled by growing anger over abuses of detainees and continuing arrests. Ahmadinejad is scheduled to take his oath of office before parliament on Aug. 5 and there is talk in some opposition circles of demonstrations in front of parliament and calls to wear black in mourning.

Ahmadinejad's government has been paralyzed by a double blow — the election crisis and heavy criticism from within his own conservative camp over his appointment of Esfandiar Rahim Mashai as first vice president.

Mashai came under attack by conservatives for once calling Israelis friends of Iran, and Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered Ahmadinejad to dismiss him in a humiliating setback. That was seen as a bid by Khamenei to prevent his hard-line supporters from splintering in the face of the opposition attack on the country's clerical leadership. The top clerics were already deeply divided over the election outcome and the crackdown.

Allegations of torture against jailed protesters have become an embarrassment to the clerical leadership, bringing criticism from top clerics and even fellow conservatives.

Hundreds were arrested in the sweeps, including young protesters, politicians and longtime critics of the government. Many have been held in secret locations, without contact with relatives. In recent weeks, the bruised bodies of several young protesters have been handed over to families. The opposition has said detainees were tortured to extract false confessions for the courts.

Soltan's mother, Hajar Soltan, said she was waiting for her daughter's killers to be arrested and brought to justice.

"Her death has been so painful," she told the British Broadcasting Corp. "Words can never describe my true feelings. But knowing that the world cried for her, that has comforted me. I am proud of her. The world sees her as a symbol and that makes me happy."

Barzani re-elected as Iraqi Kurd president

ARBIL, Iraq (AFP) – Massud Barzani was re-elected president of Iraq's autonomous region of Kurdistan and the two main Kurdish parties, which ran on a joint parliamentary list, won 57 percent of the vote in weekend elections, official results showed on Wednesday.

Barzani, who had been widely expected to win, secured 69.57 percent of the popular vote in Saturday's poll.

The joint Kurdistania list, comprising Barzani's Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union Kurdistan (PUK) of Jalal Talabani, meanwhile, won 57 percent of the legislative vote.

According to the results a key opposition grouping called Change won 23.57 percent of parliamentary votes, faring much better than expected.

Change, largely made up of PUK defectors, and a leftist-Islamist list called Services and Reform have condemned what they have called voter fraud in the elections, insisting they made bigger breakthroughs than preliminary results showed.

Services and Reform won 12.8 percent of the parliamentary vote, according to Wednesday's results.

Nearly 80 percent of the autonomous Kurdish region's 2.5 million voters took part in what poll officials trumpeted as a transparent election.

The vote was held at a key time in Iraq's transition as regional leaders remain locked in a bitter dispute with Baghdad over land and oil, while local voters also voiced increasing concern over corruption.

Iraq police clash anew with Iran rebel camp residents

by Ali Al-Tuwaijri

KHALES, Iraq (AFP) – Clashes flared for a second day on Wednesday between Iraqi security forces and residents of a camp housing Iran's main exiled opposition, a day after violence left two policemen dead.

More than 400 people were also wounded after Iraqi soldiers stormed the camp on Tuesday, sparking unrest that prompted the deployment of riot police to quell resistance from Camp Ashraf's residents.

"Fighting resumed when Iraqi police established a police station and hoisted the Iraqi flag," police Lieutenant Colonel Ibrahim al-Karawi said, adding that Iraqi security forces now controlled about 75 percent of the camp.

The opposition People's Mujahedeen said seven residents of the camp, in Diyala province northeast of Baghdad, were killed but there was no independent confirmation of those deaths.

Doctor Abdullah al-Timimi from the main hospital in the nearby town of Khales said the two policemen died on Wednesday from injuries sustained the previous day.

One had suffered internal bleeding following a blow to the head. The other had been stabbed in the neck, he said.

The Iraqi defense ministry was unapologetic about the raid against the camp, saying it was justified under a November security agreement with Washington.

"It's our territory and it's our right to enter, to impose Iraqi law on everybody," defense ministry spokesman General Mohammed Askari told Al-Arabiya television.

"They (camp residents) have to submit to the law, and to Iraqi sovereignty. The SOFA (Status of Forces Agreement) authorizes us to do what we did."

Under the pact, Iraqi security forces took over responsibility for the camp three months ago from US forces, which had disarmed the 3,500 or so residents following the 2003 invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein.

Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in a statement that Baghdad had "no intention to enter a fight with any of the members of the camp, but it (the government) will apply the law vehemently."

He insisted, though, that the government "will not force anyone to leave Iraq against his will" after a Mujahedeen spokesman expressed concern that camp residents who were arrested would be handed over to Tehran.

A police official earlier said 300 camp residents, 25 of them women, had been wounded along with around 110 security force personnel. More than 50 camp residents were detained.

The Mujahedeen said seven camp residents were killed and 385 wounded.

Karawi said negotiations between Diyala provincial police chief General Abdul Hussein al-Shamari and the Mujahedeen, which began on Tuesday evening, have stalled.

A US administration official said that Washington -- which still blacklists the Mujahedeen as a terrorist organization -- had received assurances that camp residents would be treated in a "humane" manner.

The storming of the camp coincided with a visit to Iraq by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates but the top US commander in Iraq, General Ray Odierno, said the US military had no advance warning.

Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani welcomed the seizure of the camp, describing the action as "praiseworthy" albeit "rather late".

Leading Iranian MP Hossein Sobhani-Nia called for camp residents to be handed over to Tehran.

The head of the exiled National Council of Resistance of Iran, which includes the Mujahedeen, condemned the raid and accused Baghdad of doing Tehran's bidding.

"This aggression is a flagrant violation of international conventions and the assurances given by the Iraqi government to the United States about the protection of the residents of Ashraf," Maryam Rajavi said in a statement.

She charged that Iran had put pressure on the Iraqi authorities to carry out the raid in a bid to distract attention from the deadly unrest inside Iran sparked by last month's hotly disputed presidential election.

The People's Mujahedeen was founded in 1965 in opposition to the shah and has subsequently fought to oust the clerical regime which took power in the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The group set up Camp Ashraf in the 1980s -- when Saddam was at war with the Islamic republic -- as a base to operate against the Iranian government.

Gates: Some US troops may be leaving Iraq early

By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer

ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT – The United States is considering speeding up its withdrawal from Iraq because of the sustained drop in violence there, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday following discussions with his top commanders in the war.

"I think there's at least some chance of a modest acceleration," this year, Gates said.

It was the first suggestion that the Obama administration might rethink its difficult choice to leave a heavy fighting force in Iraq long past the election of an American president who opposed the war.

Gates said the consideration came because the situation is "better than expected."

Perhaps one of the current 14 combat units could come home early, Gates said, which would mean a cut of roughly 5,000 people.

Continued bad blood between Iraq's Arab-led central government and the self-ruled Kurdish region in the north represents the major wild card to a faster pullout, Gates spokesman Geoff Morrell said.

Concern is growing that North-South tensions over land and resources could become a shooting war once U.S. forces leave. Gates spent much of his two-day visit in Iraq warning both sides that U.S. forces will not be around to keep the peace forever, and he offered U.S. help to mediate.

"These are some fundamental issues, and I think it's important that both the government in Baghdad and the Kurds have pursued them through political means" so far, Gates told reporters after meeting Kurdish President Massoud Barzani in Irbil, capital of the Kurdish self-rule area.

Gates said he told his hosts all sides had spent "too much in blood and treasure" since the 2003 U.S. invasion to risk losing it now.

The United States has about 130,000 forces in Iraq, with current plans calling for most combat forces — or more than 100,000 troops — to remain in the country until after Iraqi national elections in January.

Gates gave no other specifics, and stressed that the idea is preliminary and tied to continued good news in Iraq.

"It depends on circumstances; it may or may not happen," he said.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, raised the possibility during Gates' two-day trip to Iraq. If Odierno follows up with a formal recommendation, it would come sometime this fall.

It was largely because of Odierno's worry that the coming Iraqi election would trigger a rebound in violence that President Barack Obama decided on a very slow withdrawal. The decision, announced in February, disappointed many anti-war Democrats.

Under the current plan, the United States would draw down from 14 brigades to 12 this year. After the January election, the withdrawal pace would quicken, leaving about 50,000 forces in Iraq by September, 2010.

Violence is at an ebb in Iraq, and Odierno said Tuesday that he has been pleasantly surprised at how few problems have arisen following a June 30 handover of control of Iraqi cities.

American military commanders say friction between Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq is the greatest threat to security in the country, overtaking the old Sunni-Shiite divide that threatened to push Iraq into civil war three years ago.

The relatively affluent, peaceful Kurdish North is feuding with al-Maliki's government over its borders and resources. Gates met with Barzani, who claimed victory in a re-election vote last weekend that also saw large gains by an opposition slate, in Irbil, seat of the regional government.

Morrell said the U.S. military has advisers already serving as go-betweens for the Kurdish militia and Iraq's armed forces.

Gates told Barzani that the U.S. backs a set of United Nations recommendations to resolve some of the major disputes. Morrell would not characterize Barzani's response, except to say that Gates left the meeting "with the sense, just as he did in Baghdad, that the Kurds very much want to take advantage of our presence."

Odierno identified the tension in northern Iraq as the "No. 1 driver of instability."

"Many insurgent groups are trying to exploit the tensions," Odierno told reporters Tuesday. "We're watching very carefully to see that this doesn't escalate."

So far, American intermediaries are helping keep a lid on things, Odierno said.

The Kurds have been locked in a dispute with Baghdad over control of oil resources and a fault line of contested territory in northern Iraq, particularly the flash-point city of Kirkuk. The disagreements have stalled a national oil law considered vital to encouraging foreign investment. U.S. officials have warned that Arab-Kurdish tensions could erupt into a new front in the Iraq conflict and jeopardize security gains elsewhere.

Kurdish leaders say they are committed to staying in a unified Iraq, particularly since an independence push could alienate neighboring Iran, Syria and Turkey, which have their own Kurdish minorities. But Iraqi Kurdish politicians must answer to the strong nationalist sentiment among Kurds.

Reformist candidates did better than expected against two established Kurdish political parties in weekend elections, adding to the uncertainty. The reformist slate, called Change, tapped into widespread frustration over alleged corruption and intimidation by the longtime ruling establishment.

Iran's first trials of protesters to begin

By LEE KEATH, Associated Press Writer

CAIRO – Iran on Wednesday announced that the first trials of postelection protesters will begin this weekend, as anger grew even among some government supporters over abuse of those detained in the more than 6-week-old crackdown.

Accounts emerged from released prisoners about beatings and brutality during their detention. One told of being crammed with 200 other protesters in a pitch-black cell as guards waded in, beating them. Another said he and other detainees were forced to lick toilet bowls.

In recent days, there have been several deaths of young activists in prison — including the son of a prominent conservative. The announcement of trials is likely to anger the opposition, which says that detainees are being tortured into making false confessions to be used against them in court.

Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi is to lead a ceremony on Thursday for those who have died in the postelection crackdown — and the memorial could turn into a new confrontation between protesters and security forces. It is timed to coincide with the passing of 40 days since the death of Nada Agha Soltan, a young woman who was shot to death during a protest. Video of her dying moments made her an icon to the protest movement.

Mousavi and fellow pro-reform leader Mahdi Karroubi will hold the ceremony in Behesht-e Zahra — the large cemetery on Tehran's southern outskirts where some slain protesters have been buried — after authorities rejected his request to hold it at Tehran's main Mosalla mosque, Karroubi's Web site reported.

Hundreds were arrested in the crackdown against protests by hundreds of thousands of opposition supporters, who claim that the June 12 presidential election was fraudulent and that Mousavi — not hard-line incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — was the victor. Among those detained were young protesters, but also senior pro-reform politicians and prominent rights activists.

The state news agency IRNA said Wednesday that indictments had been issued against "around 20" detainees involved in "planning and carrying out sabotage" and that trials will begin on Saturday. Among the defendants are some who had contact with the Mujahedeen-e Khalq — a dissident group of Iranian exiles — and members of the Bahai faith, who are often targeted by the Iranian government, IRNA said.

They will face charges including connections to terrorist groups, planting bombs, carrying weapons and grenades, intentional attack on the police and Basij, attacking security and university facilities, "sending images to the media of the enemy" ... and damaging public property, IRNA said.

The report said this was the "first phase" of trials, and that in later phases the defendants would be "those who ordered the post election unrest," an apparent reference to opposition politicians.

On Tuesday, 140 postelection detainees were released from Tehran's Evin prison in an attempt by Iran's leadership to try to ease the uproar over prisoners. At the same time, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the closure of Kahrizak prison, a facility on the capital's southern edges where several detainees were reported to have died from abuse.

But even some in the conservative camp that backs Khamenei and Ahmadinejad said that was not enough and that those behind the abuse should be punished.

"Some died after detention due to beating. Officials said two victims died due to meningitis.It should be reviewed and oppressors should be identified and prosecuted," Ahmad Tavakkoli, a prominent conservative lawmaker, said, according to the opposition Web site Mowjcamp.

Tavakkoli said "individuals without permits" had attacked university dorms and homes — a reference to plainclothes attackers believed to be connected to the Basij militia. "They and their organizers and supporters should be identified," he said.

Accounts from released prisoners appeared on opposition Web sites this week, describing beatings and other abuse at the hands of guards and interrogators.

One told of being held at Kahrizak since his arrest in a July 9 protest, saying, "We were at least 200 people in one room, and everyone was getting beatings with sticks." He wrote that at one point the guards turned out the lights and beat the prisoners for a half hour. The protester, who said he was released on Monday, listed the names of six prisoners he believed had died during the assaults.

As in other prisoner accounts, he wrote anonymously because he had been told not to speak of his detention. His and the other accounts could not be independently confirmed.

Another released prisoner said he was taken to a police station and beaten, and then he and others were forced to lie down in a bathroom, tied their legs up behind their backs and forced them to lick a toilet.

The opposition has been complaining for weeks about abuse in prisons, saying that many are being held in secret locations by the elite Revolutionary Guards, Basij or other unknown bodies. But authorities began paying attention after the son of Abdolhossein Rouhalamini, a prominent conservative, was killed in prison, reportedly at Kahrizak.

A powerful conservative lawmaker, Ali Mottahari, said closing Kahrizak was not enough and that "those responsible for detahs in prison like that of the late Rouhalamini must be identified." He said those involved in abuse at Kahrizak could now be at other facilities.

He reprimanded government officials, asking, "Why did things reach a point that the supreme leader had to get involved? If they had followed their own positions on human rights, the supreme leader's entry wouldn't be necessary."

Several of the top clerics in Shia Islam — the "marajeh-e-taghlid," or "objects of emulation" — have also issued statements in recent days condemning abuses of prisoners.

Nigerian troops battle Islamic militants in north

By BASHIR ADIGUN, Associated Press Writer

ABUJA, Nigeria – Troops exchanged fire with Islamic militants in northern Nigeria on Wednesday, fighting that prompted many people to flee their homes, a witness said.

The report came a day after President Umaru Yar'Adua insisted the military had the situation under control.

Olugbenga Akinbule, a local journalist, said he saw fighting Wednesday morning outside the suspected hideout of a radical Muslim leader accused of orchestrating three days of violence in Africa's most populous nation. He also said more people in the city of Maiduguri were fleeing, in addition to 3,000 people he said Tuesday had been displaced.

The military had surrounded the Islamic camp on Tuesday. Government officials did not answer calls seeking information on Wednesday.

Islamic militants attacked a police station in northern Nigeria on Sunday, sparking the worst violence Nigeria has seen in months and leaving at least 55 people dead over the next few days, according to police.

Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, has been the epicenter of the dayslong violence. Authorities imposed curfews Tuesday night and security forces poured onto the streets to quell a wave of militant attacks against police.

"This situation is being brought under control," Yar'Adua told reporters Tuesday as he appealed for calm.

Nigeria's 140 million people are nearly evenly divided between Christians, who predominate in the south, and primarily northern-based Muslims. Shariah was implemented in 12 northern states after Nigeria returned to civilian rule in 1999 following years of oppressive military regimes. More than 10,000 Nigerians have died in sectarian violence since then.

The militants oppose western education and seek a harsh interpretation of Islamic Shariah law in northern Nigeria.

Late Tuesday, the army sent armored vehicles to a residential district in Maiduguri that is believed to be a stronghold of an Islamic sect behind the violence. Officers said militant leader Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf was thought to be holed up in one of the houses.

As army vehicles approached and opened fire, sect members fired back, soldiers said. An Associated Press reporter in the area saw smoke billowing above the homes.

The radical sect behind the latest violence is known by several different names, including Al-Sunna wal Jamma, or "Followers of Mohammed's Teachings" in Arabic, and "Boko Haram," which means "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa dialect.

Some Nigerian officials have referred to the militants as Taliban, although the group has no known affiliation with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Taliban's Constitution

KABUL — Laying down a code of conduct for its fighters, the Afghan Taliban has issued a book restricting the use of suicide bombings and guiding fighters on how to act on hostages and win hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

"A brave son of Islam should not be used for lower and useless targets," says the book obtained by the Doha-based Aljazeera television on Monday, July 27.

The book, "The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Rules for Mujahideen", says that Taliban fighters should avoid civilian casualties while launching attacks.

"The utmost effort should be made to avoid civilian casualties."

The suicide bombings are one of the most effective means the Taliban fighters are using against the US-led foreign troops.

On Saturday, seven suicide bombers tried to storm the eastern city of Khost, killing one civilian and wounding several others.

"Governors, district chiefs and line commanders and every member of the Mujahideen must do their best to avoid civilian deaths, civilian injuries and damage to civilian property," says the book.

"Great care must be taken."

The Taliban was ousted by the US following the 9/11 attacks to topple the group and its ally Al-Qaeda.

Since then, Taliban has been engaged in a protracted guerilla war against the US-led foreign troops, which left thousands of people dead.

Captives

The 13-chapter book also sets rules for Taliban fighters on how to deal with the West-backed Afghan government.

"Every Muslim can invite anyone working for the slave government in Kabul to leave their job, and cut their relationship with this corrupt administration," it says.

"If the person accepts, then with the permission of the provincial and district leadership, a guarantee of safety can be given."

The guideline gives Taliban leader Mullah Omar the full authority to decide on the fate of its captives.

"Whenever any official, soldier, contractor or worker of the slave government is captured, these prisoners cannot be attacked or harmed," says the book.

"The decision on whether to seek a prisoner exchange, or to release the prisoner, with a strong guarantee, will be made by the provincial leader.

"Releasing prisoners in exchange for money is strictly prohibited.

"If the prisoner is a director, commander or district chief or higher, the decision on whether to harm, kill, release or forgive them is only made by the Imam or deputy Imam."

On captured foreign troops, the book says the Taliban leader or his deputy has the full authority to decide on his fate.

"If a military infidel is captured, the decision on whether to kill, release or exchange the hostage is only to be made by the Imam or deputy Imam."

Taliban is holding hostage a US soldier, who was captured earlier this month.

Unity

The Taliban book also bans the formation of new armed groups in the central Asian Muslim country.

"Creating a new mujahideen group or battalion is forbidden," says the book.

"If unofficial groups or irregular battalions refuse to join the formal structure they should be disbanded.

"If a governor or leader has in the past had a unit or active group in another province, they should bring it to the attention of the leader of that province. That leader should then take over command of the group."

Taliban commanders have so far had a fair degree of autonomy, often deciding what operations to conduct and how to run the territory that they control.

The book also urges Taliban fighters to seek to win the hearts and minds of the local Afghan population.

"The Mujahideen have to behave well and show proper treatment to the nation, in order to bring the hearts of civilian Muslims closer to them.

"The mujahideen must avoid discrimination based on tribal roots, language or their geographic background."

Israel stopped NC jihad suspect's family in 2007

By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer

RALEIGH, N.C. – Israel denied entry two years ago to members of a North Carolina family that includes three men accused of plotting to execute terror attacks in foreign countries, an official said Wednesday.

Daniel Boyd, 39, spent three years traveling to the Middle East, secretly buying guns, and leading a group of men planning to kidnap, kill and maim people abroad, according to charges in an indictment released Monday. His family's travels caught the attention of authorities in Israel two years ago, when they denied members of his family entry to the country, an Israeli security official told The Associated Press.

Boyd was arrested Monday along with six others — including two sons — accused of being the ringleader of the group involved in three years of nefarious international travel, gun buys and military-style training trips. Authorities claim the group, including an eighth suspect believed to be in Pakistan, were gearing up for a "violent jihad," though prosecutors haven't detailed any specific targets or timeframe. If convicted, the men could face life in prison.

Boyd's wife, Sabrina, told a Raleigh newspaper that he and one of his sons, who is also charged in the North Carolina indictment, were denied entry to Israel in 2007 and detained for two days, but she denied a malevolent motive for their trip.

An Israeli security official confirmed that members of the Boyd family were denied entry to Israel in 2007. He declined to say why they were stopped or provide further details. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not officially made public.

Israeli police and the Interior Ministry, the office in charge of immigration, would not comment.

The U.S. indictment said Boyd and the two sons who were charged — Zakariya, 20, and Dylan, 22 — traveled to Israel in July 2007 to meet with two of the other defendants but returned home "having failed in their attempt at violent jihad."

Sabrina Boyd urged the public not to rush to judgment.

"We have the right to justice, and we believe that justice will prevail," she said in a statement. "We are decent people who care about other human beings."

In an interview with the News & Observer of Raleigh, Boyd said her husband and sons' trips abroad were pilgrimages, also denying allegations that a 2006 trip was for nefarious purposes. She told the newspaper on Tuesday that her husband took another son named Noah, who's not named in the indictment, to see Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem that year.

"The point of a pilgrimage is to see the Al-Aksa mosque, the Dome of the Rock, to hear the call to prayer and to make a prayer," she said.

In 2007, Daniel and Zakariya Boyd were denied entry to Israel at the airport in Tel Aviv, detained for two days, then flown to France, she said. The newspaper didn't say whether Israeli authorities gave the men a reason for denying them entry.

Prosecutors said Boyd received terrorist training years ago in Pakistan and brought the teachings back to North Carolina, recruiting followers willing to die as martyrs waging jihad — the Arabic word for holy war.

Frustrated by Raleigh-area mosques that he saw as too moderate, Boyd started breaking away this year to hold prayers in his home, prosecutors said. In the last two months, he took two group members to private property in north-central North Carolina to practice military tactics and use weapons.

"It's clear from the indictment that the overt acts in the conspiracy were escalating," U.S. Attorney George E.B. Holding said.

Boyd's wife told the newspaper she knew nothing about the training site cited by prosecutors, and she said the family had firearms because they enjoyed hunting and shooting.

Boyd's neighbors also defended the drywall contractor.

"If he's a terrorist, he's the nicest terrorist I ever met in my life. I don't think he is," said Charles Casale, 46, a neighbor in Willow Spring.

Twenty-year-old Jeremy Kuhn, said the family seemed closer and more loving than any of the other nearby households.

"If it turns out they were terrorists, I will be the most shocked person in the world," he said.

The other four men arrested range in age from 21 to 33. Only one is not a U.S. citizen, but he is a legal resident.

An attorney who met with one of the defendants, Ziyad Yaghi, 21, said Yaghi was disappointed.

"Our concern is that people are rushing to a judgment and there's no evidence that anyone's been shown," attorney Robert Nunley said.

Public defenders assigned to Boyd did not return messages seeking comment, and there were no attorneys for the other men listed in court records. They are expected to appear in court Thursday for a detention hearing, facing charges of providing material support to terrorism; conspiracy to murder, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad, and firearms counts.

Authorities believe the eighth suspect is in Pakistan, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. A second law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said the suspect was Jude Kenan Mohammad, 20. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk about the investigation.

Authorities believe Boyd's roots in terrorism run deep. When he was in Pakistan and Afghanistan from 1989 through 1992, he had military-style training in terrorist camps and fought the Soviets, who were ending their occupation of Afghanistan, according to the indictment.

Car bomb explodes in Spain, dozens injured

By ISRAEL LOPEZ, Associated Press Writer

BURGOS, Spain – A powerful car bomb exploded early Wednesday outside a barracks housing police officers and their families in this northern Spanish city, slightly injuring 46 people and causing major damage in the area. The attack was blamed on Basque separatist group ETA.

Most of the injuries from the blast were from flying glass, and 38 of the wounded were treated in hospitals, regional ministry representative Miguel Alejo said. Many of the injured were Civil Guard police officers and family members.

The bomb detonated around 4:00 a.m. (0200 GMT, 10 p.m. EDT Tuesday) and left a crater that had filled with water from broken underground pipes, Alejo said.

"The car used to cause the explosion has been displaced some 70 meters (230 feet) so that gives you an idea of the power of the blast," he said.

Police and emergency services did not receive any warning that a bomb had been planted, but the explosion had the hallmarks of an ETA attack, Alejo said. It was not immediately clear how many people were in the building at the time.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba was rushing to the scene, his office said.

ETA, which has killed more than 825 people since it launched a campaign in 1968 for an independent homeland in Basque region of northern Spain, typically phones in warnings that a bomb is about to explode giving time to authorities to evacuate the area.

The last attack blamed on the group was July 10 when a bomb exploded outside an office of the Spanish prime minister's party in the Basque town of Durango, causing significant damage but no injuries.

The group's last fatal attack took place June 19, when a bomb attached to the underside of a car killed a Spanish police detective whose job was to investigate ETA.

Television images Wednesday showed considerable damage to a 14-story barracks building in Burgos and many residential dwellings around it with windows and some walls blown in by the power of the explosion.

It is common for members of the paramilitary Civil Guard police force to live in barracks with their spouses and children.

The force is chiefly in charge of policing rural areas and guarding official buildings.

In an attack on May 14, 2008, ETA killed a Civil Guard officer in a car bombing outside a barracks in the Basque town of Legutiano. There were 29 people in the building at the time.

Burgos is an important regional capital and contains a historic city center with important tourist attractions.

ETA, whose name is a Basque-language acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom, had declared what it called a permanent cease-fire in 2006, but reverted to violence within months after peace talks with the Spanish government went nowhere.

Dozens of alleged members of the organization have been arrested in recent years in Spain and France including several of its supposed leaders.

Uighur leader says 10,000 went missing in one night

By Chisa Fujioka

TOKYO (Reuters) – Nearly 10,000 Uighurs involved in deadly riots in China's northwestern Xinjiang region went missing in one night, exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer said Wednesday, calling for an international investigation.

Kadeer's visit to Tokyo was condemned by China. The vice foreign minister summoned the Japanese ambassador in Beijing to express China "strong dissatisfaction" and to "demand the Japanese government take effective action to stop her anti-China, splittist activities in Japan," the Foreign Ministry said.

In Xinjiang's worst ethnic violence in decades, Uighurs on July 5 attacked Han Chinese in the regional capital of Urumqi after police tried to break up a protest against fatal attacks on Uighur workers at a factory in south China.

Han Chinese in Urumqi launched revenge attacks later that week.

"The nearly 10,000 (Uighur) people who were at the protest, they disappeared from Urumqi in one night," Kadeer told a news conference in Tokyo through an interpreter. "If they are dead, where are their bodies? If they are detained, where are they?"

She called on the international community to send an independent investigative team to Urumqi to uncover details of what had taken place.

The official death toll from the riots stands at 197, most of whom were Han Chinese who form the majority of China's 1.3 billion population. Almost all the others were Uighurs, a Muslim people native to Xinjiang and culturally tied to Central Asia and Turkey.

More than 1,000 people were detained in the immediate aftermath of the riots, and over 200 more in recent days, state media said. None has been publicly charged.

China has accused Kadeer, who lives in exile in Washington, of triggering the riots and of spreading misinformation. It took great glee in pointing out that pictures she said were taken in Urumqi actually came from an unrelated incident in another part of the country.

Kadeer, who rejects the Chinese accusations, said she thought the death toll was much higher after learning that there was random gunfire one night when electricity in the city was shut down.

In a measure of continued nervousness and lack of information in Urumqi, the city government was forced to deny rumors sweeping the Han population that Uighurs were kidnapping Han to exchange them for detained Uighurs, a Chinese newspaper said.

Beijing does not want to lose its grip on Xinjiang. The vast territory borders Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, has abundant oil reserves and is China's largest natural gas-producing region.

Water pollution sickens thousands in north China

BEIJING – Contaminated drinking water has sickened more than 2,600 people in northern China, including 59 who were hospitalized with fevers, diarrhea, stomach aches and vomiting, state media reported Wednesday.

Heavy rains caused contaminants to seep into a water supply in Chifeng city in Inner Mongolia, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, without saying what the contaminants were.

Residents began reporting diarrhea and vomiting over the weekend and were treated at the local hospital, Xinhua reported. The contaminated well provided water for 58,000 of the city's 4.5 million residents, it said.

Calls to the Chifeng city government office rang unanswered Wednesday.

Although the government has taken measures to control water pollution, problems such as acid rain — caused by industrial pollution in the atmosphere — remain prevalent in many Chinese cities. Raw tap water is unsafe to drink, and most Chinese have to boil it before drinking.

Despite the recent heavy rains in Chifeng, parts of China's wheat-growing northern regions are suffering their worst drought in five decades.

Xinhua also reported Wednesday that Beijing municipality will spend $22 million to plant 13,000 acres (5,260 hectares) of trees to protect two of its largest drinking water reservoirs.

Ireland to take 2 Guantanamo inmates

DUBLIN – Irish Justice Minister Dermot Ahern says his country will resettle two inmates being freed soon from the Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba.

Ahern's announcement came after a meeting Wednesday with new U.S. Ambassador Dan Rooney, and six months after President Barack Obama asked European countries to help find new homes for released inmates. So far, few countries have agreed to take ex-Guantanamo prisoners who cannot return safely to their homelands.

Ahern says Irish officials visited Washington and Guantanamo last week and identified two inmates who could be resettled in Ireland within the next two months. He says the men's identities, travel details and locations of new residences will be kept secret.

Arab human rights group barred for year by UN

By Robert Evans

GENEVA, July 27 (Reuters) - The United Nations decided on Monday to bar an Arab human rights group for a year after Algeria argued that it brought in a "known terrorist" to speak on its behalf at a meeting in Geneva.

The decision was taken without a vote, despite reservations voiced by Western countries, at the 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in what an official of the barred grouping said was a move to silence its voice.

The action against the Paris-based Arab Commission for Human Rights -- which has been fiercely critical of Israel but also of what it argues is growing oppression in Arab countries -- deprives it of the right to speak in U.N. bodies.

"This was a move taken to silence us," the body's Geneva representative Abdel Wahab Hani told reporters. "We upset everybody, including the Europeans and Americans by criticizing them too, so there was no one to stand up for us."

The suspension of recognition -- formally known as "consultative status" -- was recommended in January by the U.N.'s 19-nation Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in New York.

Western countries say the Committee has increasingly acted in recent years to keep out genuine NGOs.

The Arab Commission, founded in 1998 and run by 15 human rights lawyers who mainly live in Arab countries although some are based in Western Europe, will now be barred from the Human Rights Council, its main U.N. focus.

In a complaint to the NGO Committee, Algeria said the group violated rules last year by putting up as a speaker Swiss-based lawyer Rachid Mesli, against whom Algiers has issued an arrest warrant as a member of an "armed terrorist group".

Hani said Mesli was a lawyer who fled Algeria after being prosecuted for defending members of the now defunct Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) which fought the state in the 1990s.

U.S. and European Union delegates said on Monday that states on the Committee, which recommends to ECOSOC which NGOs should be admitted, or expelled, appeared to be acting to keep out NGO's who criticized them or with whom they disagreed.

Source: Alertnet.
Link: http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LR298565.htm.

Is China's One-Child Policy Heading for a Revision?

By SIMON ELEGANT / BEIJING

The one-child policy is such a cornerstone of contemporary China that when word got out late last week that Shanghai was encouraging some couples to have more offspring, it made headlines around the world. But on July 25, the same Chinese family-planning official whose remarks set off speculation denied that Shanghai was taking its first steps to reverse the much-hated policy. Apparently reacting to numerous overseas media reports of a change in city birth-control regulations, which was portrayed as being the first sign of a reversal, Xie Lingli was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying that a citywide policy of allowing couples in which each partner is an only child to have two children had been in place for many years. She also emphasized that the Shanghai city government's family-planning office would never actively encourage any new measure that was counter to national policy.

The reports in question were sparked by remarks Xie had made to the official media that appeared to point to a policy shift designed to address the drain that Shanghai's aging population could have on the city's economy. "We advocate eligible couples to have two kids because it can help reduce the proportion of the aging people and alleviate a workforce shortage in the future," Xie, who is director of the Shanghai Population and Family Planning Commission, was quoted as saying. The report also stated that family-planning officials and volunteers would begin to make home visits and slip leaflets under doorways to encourage eligible couples to have a second child and that emotional and financial counseling would be provided to the families.

"The policy that a couple who are both the only child in their families can have a second child has been around for years," says Wang Feng, professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine, who is currently lecturing at Shanghai's Fudan University. "The Shanghai government is doing nothing more than reiterating an old policy, but by doing so, it's calling attention to this political hot potato."

Xie's apparent backpedaling over the weekend underscores the sensitivity of the one-child policy in China. First introduced in 1979 as a measure to rein in China's booming population, the law has faced widespread opposition from its first day. Because local levels of compliance with the law make up an important part of whether district bureaucrats get promoted, officials have often turned to harsh tactics - including forced sterilization and late-term abortion - to enforce compliance.

In her original remarks, Xie noted that Shanghai will soon have to deal with a rapidly aging population. About 22% of the city's residents are over age 60 - a figure that is projected to rise to 34% by 2020. The same looming problem faces China as a whole, says Wang, who points out that the number of young people entering the workforce between the ages of 20 and 24 will drop by half in the next decade. Like many other population experts outside China, Wang believes it is only a matter of time before the pressure to change the one-child policy is irresistible. "The government should eliminate the moral barrier that's been imposed by propaganda over the past 30 years for a couple to have a second child," says Wang. "China should learn the lessons from other Asian countries and start acting now before it's too late."

Obama: US-China relations to shape 21st century

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama, opening U.S. talks with a high-level delegation of Chinese government officials, said Monday that ties between the two countries are "as important as any bilateral relationship in the world."

Saying that Washington and Beijing are in a position to vastly affect life around the world in the 21st century, Obama declared: "I believe that we are poised to make steady progress on some of the most important issues of our times."

He joined Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in launching a dialogue with a team of Chinese officials led by Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

Obama said the two countries need to forge closer ties to address challenges ranging from lifting the global economy out of a deep recession to nuclear proliferation. And he also said he was under "no illusions that the United States and China will agree on every issue" but said closer cooperation in important areas was critical for the world.

Israeli official: No option off table on Iran

By ANNE GEARAN, AP National Security Writer

JERUSALEM – Tensions between Israel and the United States over Iran bubbled up in high-level talks Monday in which Defense Minister Ehud Barak bluntly told U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates that "no option" should be ruled out.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office subsequently described the talks as occurring "in a highly positive atmosphere."

But before that, the two sides seemed to differ pointedly over a potential military strike to thwart Tehran's progress on the nuclear front.

The visiting Gates urged patience, but Barak declared: "We clearly believe that no option should be removed from the table. This is our policy; we mean it. We recommend to others to take the same position, but we cannot dictate it to anyone."

While the United States also reserves the right to use force if need be, the Obama administration is playing down that possibility while it tries to draw Iran into talks about its disputed nuclear program and other topics. Gates said Washington still hopes to have an initial answer in the fall about negotiations.

"The timetable the president laid out still seems to be viable and does not significantly raise the risks to anybody," Gates said.

The statement issued from Netanyahu's office acknowledged that "a large part" of the discussion here had been devoted to Iran.

"Secretary Gates stated that the U.S. and Israel see eye-to-eye regarding the Iranian nuclear threat and explained that the U.S. engagement with Tehran will not be open-ended," it said.

The statement added: "Prime Minister Netanyahu reiterated the seriousness to which Israel views Iran's nuclear ambitions and the need to utilize all available means to prevent Iran from achieving a nuclear weapons capability."

Iran says it is merely trying to develop nuclear reactors for domestic power generation. Israeli leaders and a significant share of the population fear the U.S. is prizing outreach to Iran over its historic ties to Israel and appears resigned to the idea that Iran will soon be able to build a nuclear weapon.

President Barack Obama says he has accepted no such thing.

The question of how to deal with Iran's rapid advancement toward nuclear proficiency has become one of the most public differences between new administrations in Jerusalem and Washington, despite overall close relations.

Both Barak and Gates said time is short, and Gates stressed that any negotiations would not become cover for Iran to run out the clock while it perfects a nuclear weapon.

"I think we're in full agreement on the negative consequences of Iran obtaining this kind of capability," Gates said. "I think we are also agreed that it is important to take every opportunity to try and persuade the Iranians to reconsider what is actually in their own security interest. We are in the process of doing that."

Gates' brief visit to Israel was partially aimed at dissuading Israel from a pre-emptive attack on Iran's known nuclear sites, although Israel has never announced any specific intention to do that. Barak's no-options-off-the-table comment, uttered three times, seemed to indicate Gates made no visible headway in getting Israel to soften its line.

Obama pledged a new outreach to Iran during last year's presidential campaign. Aides say the recent election-related political upheaval in Iran has complicated, but not derailed, that effort.

Moreover, the United States argues that a strike would upset the fragile security balance in the Middle East, perhaps triggering a new nuclear arms race and leaving everyone, including Israel and Iran, worse off.

On Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton implicitly urged Israel to set aside any plans it might have for attacking Iran, saying she hopes the Jewish state understands the value of American attempts at diplomacy.

Speaking on NBC's "Meet The Press," Clinton also said she would not reveal any specifics of a possible "defense umbrella" to protect Mideast allies against an eventual Iranian bomb.

The umbrella idea, which Clinton offhandedly mentioned last week, has fueled Israel's uncertainty over U.S. policy under Obama even though Clinton later backpedaled.

Iran rejects the idea of U.S. defensive umbrella to protect Washington's regional allies against a nuclear Iran. Foreign ministry spokesman Hasan Qashqavi told reporters Monday that "there is no need" for a U.S. defensive umbrella, just for Washington to tell Israel to "dismantle its own 200 nuclear warheads."

Britain urges new Afghan govt to defeat Taliban

by Lorne Cook

BRUSSELS (AFP) – British Foreign Secretary David Miliband warned Afghan leaders Monday that their next government must do more to defeat the insurgency and drive a wedge between the Taliban and its backers.

With Britain under pressure over mounting casualties, Miliband sought to reassure Britons about why British troops are on the front-line and called on other NATO countries to carry their share of the burden.

"The biggest shift must now be towards the Afghan state taking more responsibility," he said in a speech at NATO headquarters in Brussels, aimed mainly at the British public.

"Enduring capacity comes through the civilian side, with military support, and our aim in Afghanistan is transition," he said, in an hour-long address and question session focused on civilian, rather than military, efforts.

Afghans go to the polls for provincial and presidential elections on August 20 in a vote seen as a key test of the NATO-led efforts to foster democracy and reconstruction in the strife-torn country.

"I believe we are at an important point in Afghanistan's history and NATO's work there, a testing point," Miliband said. "The elections on August 20th need to be both credible and inclusive."

Ahead of the polls, US and NATO troops have launched major operations in the Taliban heartland near the Pakistan border, but casualties have spiked, undermining support for the alliance's most ambitious operation ever.

Miliband called on the incoming government to weed out hard-line insurgents from those Afghans involved in fighting for money, because they they have no job or who are being coerced.

"We will not force the Taliban to surrender just through force of arms and overwhelming might," he said.

The government with the help of the international community could do so, he said, by "dividing the different groups, by convincing the Afghans that we will not desert them to Taliban retribution, and by building legitimate governance."

"We need to help the Afghan government exploit the opportunity, with a more coherent effort to fragment the various elements of the insurgency, and turn those who can be reconciled to live within the Afghan constitution."

At least 20 British personnel have been killed this month in Operation Panther's Claw in the southern province of Helmund, as international forces seek to take ground from the Taliban and their supporters and hold onto it.

But while Miliband emphasised that the Afghans should do more, he insisted that NATO allies must do their share of the fighting, by sending more troops and equipment and lifting conditions placed on the way forces can operate.

"We will play our part, but we want others to play their part too," he said.

"Burden-sharing is a founding principle of the alliance. It needs to be honoured in practice as well as in theory."

He also sent a message to Afghanistan neighbour Pakistan, noting that any deal with former Taliban on both sides of the border should contain "red lines".

He said any peace deals should only involve former militants who are "prepared to shut out Al-Qaeda, and not use violence against troops or citizens in Afghanistan."

Karzai: Afghans want rules for troops changed

By ROBERT H. REID and KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writers

KABUL – President Hamid Karzai said Monday he wants new rules governing the conduct of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan and would be willing to talk with Taliban leaders who publicly renounce violence and endorse peace.

But Karzai, acknowledging shaky relations with his international partners in the war on terror, told The Associated Press in an interview that he was not prepared at this time to discuss the key Taliban demand — a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops.

Karzai said the presence of U.S. and international forces was in the Afghan national interest but should be "based on a new contract" that would minimize civilian casualties, limit searches of private homes and restrict detaining Afghans indefinitely without charge.

He also said he wants the U.S.-run prison at Bagram Air Base, where about 600 Afghans are held, re-evaluated and inmates released unless there is evidence linking them to terrorist affiliation. He said arrests are turning ordinary Afghans against U.S. and NATO forces.

Karzai has promised to pursue those demands for changes in the relationship with foreign forces if he wins a second term in the Aug. 20 presidential election. He is considered the leading contender in the 39-candidate field, though he would be forced into a runoff if he fails to win a majority of votes in the first round.

"The Afghan people still want a fundamentally strong relation with the United States," Karzai said. "The Afghan people want a strategic partnership with America" based on fighting Islamic extremism.

But he added that the partnership must ensure "that the partners are not losing their lives, their property, their dignity as a consequence of that partnership."

The 91,000 international troops based in Afghanistan include about 65,000 under NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. The rest are part of a U.S.-led coalition involved in counterterrorism and training Afghan forces. Both groups operate under different rules, which are kept secret for operational security reasons.

It is widely assumed, however, that the U.S.-led counter-terror command enjoys broader powers to search homes and detain people indefinitely if they are suspected of posing a security threat.

Last month, the new U.S. and NATO commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, issued new orders saying troops may attack insurgents hiding in Afghan houses only if international forces are in imminent danger. The measures were put into effect to quell a storm of criticism from Karzai's government about civilian casualties, which help fuel the Taliban insurgency.

During his interview, Karzai suggested those measures may not be enough to convince most Afghans to accept a long-term international role, which he said was in the interest of the Afghan people.

Karzai said no Afghan mother would weep over a son killed or wounded in the war "but that Afghan mother would very much want her other son, her husband or her daughter to be safe in their homes, to be safe in their communities, not to be bombed, not to be arrested, not to have their homes broken into at night with their front gate blown up by dynamite."

Karzai also said he wanted a dialogue with Taliban members not affiliated with al-Qaida or "in the grips of foreign intelligence agencies" in order to "reintegrate" them into Afghan society. He said those Taliban members must first repent "and announce that publicly."

He did not specify any foreign intelligence agency, but Afghan officials have in the past accused Pakistan of backing the Taliban, which Pakistan denies.

But Karzai also made clear he was not prepared to call for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign forces, which some key Taliban figures have demanded before they will enter peace talks.

Karzai acknowledged strong differences over the years with the NATO and U.S.-led forces "but I also know and the Afghan people also know that the presence of international troops in Afghanistan is bringing stability to Afghanistan."

"I would advise the Taliban not to ask for the exit of international forces in Afghanistan because that is not in the interest of the Afghan people," he said.

Instead, both sides should work toward a relationship in which foreign troops show greater sensitivity to Afghan culture and the Afghans display "better management of governmental affairs."

Karzai has come under criticism for embracing some of Afghanistan's most notorious warlords, including his vice presidential running mate Mohammad Qasim Fahim, and his defense adviser, Gen. Rashid Dostum, who has been accused of killing hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001.

Karzai defended those ties, saying many of those now branded as warlords had received "million and millions of dollars" from the United States for their help in fighting the Taliban in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

Sikhs, Hindus dread Taliban tax in Pakistan

by Sajjad Tarakzai

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – Sitting on a broken chair outside a Sikh temple in a crowded part of Peshawar, Aman Deep Singh is frantic about his future after losing his business in Pakistan's tribal district of Khyber.

When the Taliban gave Sikhs and Hindus an ultimatum -- leave the land of your forefathers or pay an Islamic tax in protection money -- Singh packed up and left his native Tirah valley for Peshawar.

"We were living under fear. Fear of militants, fear of Lashkar-e-Islam and fear of other armed groups," said Singh, his hair swept up in a turban, a long beard touching his abdomen and thick moustache covering his upper lip.

He swapped a general store in the mountains for unemployment in the northwest capital, where he struggles to feed the nine members of his family. Aman Deep is a fake name. He wants his real name hidden for his security.

As light fades to dusk, Sikhs gather for evening prayers at the Joga Singh gurdwara (temple) in a narrow street of Peshawar's Dabgari bazaar. Each man removes his shoes, washes his feet in a small pool of water and covers his head.

"I am not the only one. About 400 Sikh and 57 Hindu families migrated from (the town of) Bara and Tirah," said Singh.

Sikhs and Hindus are tiny communities in Pakistan. In the last year, hundreds have fled their homes after receiving death threats from the Taliban and other militant groups in an increasingly unstable northwest.

After US troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001, Taliban and Al-Qaeda ideologues fled to Pakistan, where they have increasingly focused their campaign and where 2,000 people have perished in bomb attacks over the past two years.

Pakistan launched a major offensive in the northwest this summer, under pressure from the United States, after Taliban fighters made deep territorial inroads.

Militants need an endless supply of funds for their weapons, communications and training.

Kidnapping, drugs and extortion are typical sources of income. Taxation and protection scams are others, and vulnerable non-Muslims are easy prey.

Local Sikhs mostly trade in cloth, and also run grocer, garment and herbal medicine shops. They are people who can afford the 1,000 rupees (12 dollars) per man, per year "jizya" tax.

In the region of Orakzai, the Taliban demanded the tax of adult male Sikhs, forcibly occupying Sikh-owned shops and houses. After two months, the tax spread to Khyber, the legendary tribal region on the main supply line to Afghanistan.

It was there that Lashkar-e-Islam, a Pakistani Islamist group headed by Mangal Bagh, announced Sikhs and Hindus would be free to live anywhere -- as long as they paid jizya.

But threats made the situation increasing tense. Hundreds of Sikh and Hindu families fled to nearby areas, especially Peshawar.

"Minorities in Orakzai and Khyber were warned by some militant groups to become Muslims or leave the area. This was a real threat," Singh said.

"They're running a parallel government. Hindu and Sikh families did not feel safe, in Orakzai, in Bara and in Tirah. We preferred to migrate, at least here we can breathe in peace and feel safe," he said.

The same sentiment was echoed by other shopkeepers from Bara.

"No female Muslim or non-Muslim is allowed out without a male relative. All women, even the elderly, have to wear a burka," said Gulab Khan Afridi, a 38-year-old Muslim.

Gulab Khan said growing a beard and wearing a cap had become compulsory, otherwise Lashkar extremists would dole out beatings or a 200 to 500-rupee fine.

"Can you believe it? A man cannot wear a ring in Bara," he added.

Much like the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Islam acts like police, enforces prayers five times a day and punishes people accused of prostitution and other vices.

Sardar Sahib Singh, a Sikh leader in the district assembly in Peshawar, said his community paid 150,000 rupees (1,825 dollars) a year to Lashkar-e-Islam in protection money.

"Our community is better off. We only pay tax, while Muslims have to work, like being guards in Lashkar trenches," he said. But families are dwindling.

"At first there were 500 Sikh families in Bara, now only 150," he said.

Scholars say only a true Islamic government, no one else, can collect jizya and on condition that those who pay feel safe, but Lashkar-e-Islam insisted the tax was proper payment for services rendered.

"Women, children and the handicapped have been exempted," Misri Gul, a spokesman for the group, told AFP.

"Jizya is according to Islamic sharia. We will provide them protection in exchange for this," he said.

Pakistan probes hardline cleric's Taliban ties

By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Pakistani authorities are investigating whether an Islamist cleric who brokered a failed peace deal with the Taliban in the Swat Valley inappropriately aided the militants, a senior government official said Monday.

Sunday's arrest of Sufi Muhammad indicated the government won't try to strike another peace deal with Taliban fighters in the northwest valley, where the army has waged a three-month offensive.

Investigators may also be trying to pressure the aging cleric for information on the location of Swat Taliban commanders, including his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, the chief militant in the valley.

Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the chief minister of North West Frontier Province, said the government hopes to bring formal charges against Muhammad soon.

"We don't even need any further evidence against him," Hoti told reporters in the main northwest city of Peshawar. "What he himself said publicly, that everybody knows. What he had said against constitution, the judiciary, the institutions. The contacts he has had with militants. The way he misled government. The way he facilitated militants. We will formally charge him on these things."

The government relied heavily on Muhammad's contacts with Taliban fighters in striking the February peace deal. But Hoti alleged that Muhammad had misled authorities during the negotiations.

The pact imposed Islamic law in the valley in exchange for an end to two years of fighting — much to the chagrin of the U.S. and other countries who warned the deal effectively ceded the valley to the Islamist militia and created a safe haven for insurgents.

The agreement collapsed in April when the Taliban advanced south out of Swat, triggering the military offensive.

Some 2 million people fled the region, and although hundreds of thousands have returned in the past two weeks as the military operation winds down, sporadic fighting continues.

Muhammad leads a banned pro-Taliban group known as the Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammedi, or the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law. He was jailed in 2002 but was freed last year after renouncing violence.

Muhammad himself does not control the armed militants in Swat. However, he mobilized thousands of volunteers to go fight in Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

The Swat Taliban's ability to re-emerge will depend more on their leaders, including Fazlullah. The army says Fazlullah has been wounded, although the Taliban reportedly deny it. None of the commanders is definitively known to have been captured or killed.

Taiwan, China leaders exchange 1st direct messages

By DEBBY WU, Associated Press Writer

TAIPEI, Taiwan – The presidents of Taiwan and China exchanged direct messages Monday for the first time since the two sides split 60 years ago — the latest sign of their warming relations.

According to a Nationalist Party statement, Chinese President Hu Jintao congratulated Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou on his election Sunday as party chairman, and told Ma he hopes his Chinese Communist Party can work with Ma's Nationalist Party in the best interest of both sides.

"I hope both our parties can continue to promote peaceful development in cross-strait relations, and help bolster mutual trust between the two sides in political affairs," Hu's telegram said. China's state-owned Xinhua News Agency has confirmed that Hu sent the note.

In return, Ma called for both sides to work on peace.

"We should continue efforts to consolidate peace in the Taiwan Strait and rebuild regional stability," Ma said.

Taiwan and China usually communicate through semiofficial channels, with Taiwan's Straits Exchange Foundation talking with its Chinese counterpart, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait. The Straits Exchange Foundation is partly funded by the Taiwanese government.

While Ma's telegram addressed Hu as the Communist Party's general secretary, Hu simply called the Taiwanese leader "Mr. Ma," in an apparent attempt to avoid touching upon the sensitive Taiwan sovereignty issue.

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949, but Beijing continues to claim the island as part of its territory. China is determined to bring Taiwan back into its fold, by persuasion if possible, by force if necessary.

Since Ma's election last May, however, relations have improved. Under Ma, the two sides have resumed high-level dialogues and forged closer trade relations.

Ma has helped facilitate direct regular air and sea links and allowed Chinese companies to invest on the island.

Hu and Ma previously exchanged telegrams directly once in 2005, when Ma was elected opposition chairman.