7 militants killed by Pakistan citizens' militia

By PAUL ALEXANDER, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – A citizens' militia trying to drive out the Taliban killed seven militants in a two-hour firefight in Pakistan's troubled northwest, police said Sunday.

Ejaz Ahmed, police chief in the Upper Dir region, said another militant was injured in the fighting late Saturday night near the village of Patrak, about four miles (seven kilometers) east of Dir Khas, the region's main town and district headquarters.

Several civilian militias, known as lashkars, have emerged in Upper Dir since a suicide bombing on a mosque two weeks ago that was blamed on the Taliban killed at least 33 people. The militias carry out patrols and have been pursuing remnants of Taliban who had tried to expand their influence into the area.

Ahmed said scores of militants have been trapped and killed by the militias in several villages, with police cutting off escape routes. The Taliban who were killed Saturday had been trying to flee when they came across the militiamen and opened fire, he said.

"Due to heavy losses, militants have been attempting to escape the area under cover of dark, and last night's incident was one such attempt," Ahmed said. He said no civilians were killed in the fighting.

The report could not immediately be confirmed due to military restrictions on media access to the area.

In the most striking example of growing anti-Taliban sentiment, up to 1,600 tribesmen in Upper Dir cleared three villages of Taliban fighters two weeks ago, killing at least six militants.

There were no immediate reports on fresh fighting in the nearby South Waziristan tribal area, where shelling and bombing of suspected militant targets has been increased and ground troops have been moving into position in the past week since the government announced the military would go after Pakistan's Taliban commander, Baitullah Mehsud.

A military statement Saturday said 37 extremists died when troops retaliated after the militants tried to block the main South Waziristan road near the town of Sarwaki. They were the first militant casualties of the offensive in South Waziristan to be confirmed by the army.

South Waziristan is Mehsud's tribal stronghold, a chunk of the remote and rugged mountainous region along Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan where heavily armed tribesmen hold sway and al-Qaida and Taliban leaders are believed to be hiding.

Pakistan is shifting the focus in its fight against militancy from the northwestern Swat Valley, where troops have been pushing Taliban fighters back for almost two months, to a new and much tougher battleground in the Afghan border region.

Washington supports both operations, and sees them as a measure of nuclear-armed Pakistan's resolve to take on a growing insurgency after years of failed military campaigns and faltering peace deals. The battle in the tribal region could also help the war in Afghanistan because the area has been used by militants to launch cross-border attacks on U.S. and other troops.

NKorea criticizes US nuclear protection of South

By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea has accused the United States of plotting atomic war against the communist regime, saying President Barack Obama's recent reaffirmation of nuclear protection of South Korea only exposed his government's intention to attack.

The accusation comes as Washington and regional powers consider a new South Korean proposal to meet soon to find a way to resolve the global standoff over the North's nuclear programs.

In North Korea's first response to last week's meeting between Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington, its government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said that Obama's commitment to South Korea's security, including through U.S. nuclear protection, only revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.

"It's not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion," said the commentary published Saturday.

The weekly also said the North will also "surely judge" the Lee government for participating in a U.S.-led international campaign to "stifle" the North.

Tension on the Korean peninsula has spiked since the North defiantly conducted its second nuclear test on May 25. North Korea later declared it would bolster its atomic bomb-making program and threatened war in protest of U.N. sanctions for its test.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. Washington, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons deployed there.

In what would be the first test case for the new U.N. sanctions, U.S. officials said Thursday the U.S. military had begun tracking a North Korean-flagged ship which may be carrying illegal weapons. The officials said the ship left a North Korean port Wednesday.

On Sunday, South Korean television network YTN quoted an unidentified South Korean intelligence source as saying the ship is believed to be sailing toward Myanmar. Seoul's Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and the National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report.

On Saturday, a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said Seoul has proposed five-way talks with the U.S., China, Russia and Japan to find a solution to the North's threats.

The U.S. and Japan have agreed to participate, while China and Russia have yet to respond, the official told The Associated Press, requesting anonymity because he was discussing a plan still in the works.

North Korea and the five countries began negotiating under the so-called "six-party talks" in 2003 with the aim of giving the communist regime economic aid and other concessions in exchange for dismantling its nuclear program. In April, however, the North said it was pulling out of the talks in response to international criticism of its controversial April 5 long-range rocket launch.

The South Korean official said it remains to be seen where or when the meeting — if it materializes — will take place, but one possibility is on the sidelines of a regional security forum scheduled in Phuket, Thailand, in July.

He said the North could be approached for talks, as they are scheduled to attend the Phuket meeting. The communist nation has little interaction with the world, but it does attend the annual ASEAN Regional Forum.

The Foreign Ministry official said Lee proposed the idea of bringing together officials of the five countries during his summit with Obama.

Iran raises death toll in clashes to at least 20

By NASSER KARIMI and WILLIAM J. KOLE, Associated Press Writers

TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian state media reported on Sunday 13 more deaths in confrontations between protesters and security forces and the government condemned key European powers for expressing concern about the disputed presidential election.

The report brought Iran's official death toll for a week of unrest to at least 20. English-language Press TV, which is broadcast only outside the country, said 13 people it called "terrorists" died Saturday in clashes between demonstrators contesting the result of the June 12 election and black-clad police wielding truncheons, tear gas and water cannons.

State television inside Iran also reported 100 injured in Saturday's violence. But it quoted the deputy police chief claiming officers did not use live ammunition to dispel the crowds. Sunday's reports also said rioters set two gas stations on fire and attacked a military post.

Amnesty International cautioned that it was "perilously hard" to verify the casualty tolls.

"The climate of fear has cast a shadow over the whole situation," Amnesty's chief Iran researcher, Drewery Dyke, told The Associated Press.

On Sunday, the streets of Tehran were eerily quiet.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki held a news conference where he rebuked Britain, France and Germany for raising questions about reports of voting irregularities in hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election — a proclaimed victory which has touched off Iran's most serious internal conflict since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Thousands of supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, who claims he won the election, squared off against security forces in a dramatic show of defiance of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Underscoring how the protesters have become emboldened despite the regime's repeated and ominous warnings, witnesses said some shouted "Death to Khamenei!" at Saturday's demonstrations — another sign of once unthinkable challenges to the virtually limitless authority of the country's most powerful figure.

Iran has also acknowledged the deaths of seven protesters in clashes on Monday. On Saturday, state media also reported a suicide bombing at the shrine of the Islamic Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least two people and wounded eight. Another state channel broadcast images of broken glass, but no other damage or casualties, and showed a witness saying three people had been wounded. But there was no independent verification of the shrine attack or the deaths.

State TV quoted an unidentified witness as saying a man wearing an explosives belt blew himself up at the mausoleum's main gate.

Iran has imposed strict controls on foreign media covering the unrest, saying correspondents cannot go out into the streets to report.

Mottaki criticized Britain, France and Germany for raising questions about Ahmadinejad's victory. Mottaki accused France of taking "treacherous and unjust approaches" and said Britain "has always created problems" in relations.

The New-York based International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran said Sunday that scores of injured protesters who had sought medical treatment after Saturday's clashes were arrested by security forces at hospitals in the capital.

It said doctors had been ordered to report protest-related injuries to the authorities, and that some seriously injured protesters had sought refuge at foreign embassies in a bid to evade arrest.

"The arrest of citizens seeking care for wounds suffered at the hands of security forces when they attempted to exercise rights guaranteed under their own constitution and international law is deplorable," said Hadi Ghaemi, spokesman for the campaign, denouncing the alleged arrests as "a sign of profound disrespect by the state for the well-being of its own people."

"The government of Iran should be ashamed of itself. Right now, in front of the whole world, it is showing its violent actions," he said.

Rockets hit US base at Bagram, kill 2 US troops

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – A rare rocket attack on the main U.S. base in Afghanistan early Sunday killed two U.S. troops and wounded six other Americans, including two civilians, officials said.

Bagram Air Base, which lies 25 miles (40 kilometers) northeast of Kabul, is surrounded by high mountains and long stretches of desert from which militants could fire rockets. But such attacks, particularly lethal ones, are relatively rare.

Two U.S. troops died and six Americans were wounded, including four military personnel and two civilians, said Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, a U.S. military spokeswoman.

The top government official in Bagram, Kabir Ahmad, said several rockets were fired at the base early Sunday. A spokesman with NATO's International Security Assistance Force said that three rounds landed inside Bagram and one landed outside. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't the office's top spokesman.

The wounded personnel were taken to the main hospital on Bagram for treatment. ISAF said it wasn't known if any Afghan civilians living near the base were harmed in the attack.

It wasn't immediately clear if New York Times reporter David S. Rohde was at Bagram on Sunday when the rockets hit.

Rohde escaped from kidnappers in Pakistan on Friday after more than seven months in captivity and was flown to Bagram on Saturday. Embassy officials then gave him an emergency passport and FBI officials were watching him, a U.S. official said Sunday on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.

A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, claimed responsibility for the rocket attack. Mujahid also said the Taliban had no involvement in the kidnapping of Rohde and didn't know anything about his escape.

In February 2007, a suicide bomb attack outside Bagram killed 23 people while then-Vice President Dick Cheney was at the base. The attacker never tried to penetrate even the first of several U.S.-manned security checkpoints, instead detonating his explosives among a group of Afghan workers outside the base. The Taliban claimed responsibility.

Bagram is a sprawling Soviet-era base that houses thousands of troops, mostly from the 82nd Airborne Division. Most forces there are American, but many other countries also have troops at the base.

Activity at Bagram is high 24 hours a day, with jets and helicopters taking off at all hours. The base has expanded greatly the last several years and sits next to many houses and the village of Bagram itself.

The two deaths bring to at least 80 the number of U.S. forces killed in Afghanistan this year, a record pace. Last year 151 troops died in Afghanistan.

President Barack Obama ordered 21,000 additional troops to the country this year to fight an increasingly violent Taliban insurgency. There are now about 56,000 U.S. troops in the country, a record number.

Pakistan can isolate extremists: Obama

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – US President Barack Obama said in an interview Sunday he was confident Pakistan can "isolate extremists" and that the United States had no plans to send troops to the insurgency-hit country.

"I have confidence in the Pakistani people and the Pakistani state in resolving differences through a democratic process and to isolate extremists," Obama said in an interview broadcast Sunday by private Dawn News television.

Worsening Taliban-linked attacks have killed nearly 2,000 people in Pakistan since July 2007.

Pakistani security forces launched an offensive to dislodge Taliban guerrillas from three northwest districts around Swat valley in late April, after militants flouted a peace deal and thrust towards the capital Islamabad.

The US administration, which has put nuclear-armed Pakistan at the heart of its strategy to battle Al-Qaeda, has welcomed the Swat offensive.

Obama said that the United States would support the Pakistani government and military in its anti-militant efforts.

"There's been a decision that's made that we support, that the Pakistani military and the Pakistani government will not stand by idly as extremists attempt to disrupt the country."

However, Obama said that the United States had no plans to send its troops to Pakistan.

"I will tell you that we have no intention of sending US troops into Pakistan. Pakistan and its military are dealing with their security issues," he said when asked about US missile strikes into Pakistani tribal areas.

Missile attacks by unmanned drone aircraft used by US armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are a source of tension between Washington and Islamabad.

Pakistan publicly opposes the strikes, saying they violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the populace. Since August 2008, more than 40 such strikes have killed nearly 400 people.

Referring to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who led the freedom movement that resulted in the creation of an independent state of Pakistan in August 1947 from British-ruled India, Obama said Pakistan could overcome its own problems.

"Dating back to Jinnah, Pakistan has always had a history of overcoming difficulties. There's no reason why it can't overcome those difficulties today," he said.

16 people killed in eastern China factory blast

BEIJING – An explosion at a factory in eastern China killed 16 people and injured dozens Sunday, authorities said.

The blast happened at 3 a.m. Sunday (1900 GMT Saturday) in an office building at a factory producing quartz sand in Fengyang, a county in Anhui province, a statement on the State Administration of Work Safety's Web site said.

The statement said 43 were injured, one seriously.

The cause of the explosion was not immediately clear. The Fengyang county government said it was still collecting information.

Xinhua News Agency said most of those killed were factory workers, while the injured were all nearby residents.

The administration's statement said the factory is owned by Jingxin Mining Ltd. Co., a private company. Calls to the company rang unanswered Sunday.

New York Times reporter escapes Taliban captivity

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – A New York Times reporter known for making investigative trips deep inside dangerous conflict zones escaped from militant captors after more than seven months in captivity in Afghanistan and Pakistan by climbing over a wall, the newspaper said Saturday.

David S. Rohde, 41, was abducted Nov. 10 along with an Afghan reporter colleague and a driver south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had been traveling through Logar province to interview a Taliban commander, but was apparently intercepted and taken by other militants on the way.

The Times reported that Rohde and Afghan reporter Tahir Ludin, 35, on Friday climbed over the wall of a compound where they were held captive in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan.

The two then found a Pakistani army scout, who led them to a nearby base, the Times said. On Saturday, the two were flown to the U.S. military base in Bagram, Afghanistan, the Times reported.

A U.S. military spokeswoman, Lt. Cmdr. Christine Sidenstricker, said the military had not been involved. She could not say whether the U.S. State Department or CIA had flown the two to the military facility.

Rohde, reported to be in good health, said his driver remained with their captors.

In Washington, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the U.S. is "very pleased" that Rohde is safe and returning home. He said the escape "marks the end of a long and difficult ordeal."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton thanked the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan for their assistance in ensuring Rohde's safe return. She said she was "greatly relieved" that he was safe and would be reuniting soon with his family.

Afghan officials confirmed the kidnapping in the days after the abduction, but The Associated Press and most other Western news outlets respected a request from the Times to not report on the abductions because the publicity could negatively affect hostage rescue efforts and imperil Rohde's life.

"From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David's family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several governments and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger to David and the other hostages. The kidnappers initially said as much," Bill Keller, the Times' executive editor, said in a story posted on the Times' Web site.

"We decided to respect that advice, as we have in other kidnapping cases, and a number of other news organizations that learned of David's plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support."

"We are very relieved that our New York Times colleague escaped safely, and this episode has ended happily," said AP Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski. "It was an unusual and difficult news judgment to withhold reporting on his abduction, but our practice is to avoid transmitting stories if we believe they endanger someone's life."

The Times said there had been "sporadic communication" from Rohde and his kidnappers during the last seven months but that no ransom money had been paid and no prisoners released.

Kristen Mulvihill, Rohde's wife, told the Times that the two had been married for nine months, "and seven of those David has been in captivity." She thanked the Times, the U.S. government and "all the others" who helped the family during the kidnapping.

The FBI said in a statement that it had been investigating Rohde's kidnapping, working closely with the Times and Rohde's family. It said Rohde contacted family members Friday to tell them he had escaped. The FBI said it was working with the U.S. State and Defense departments to see that he receives medical attention and is reunited with his family.

Rohde was on leave from the Times when he was taken. He had traveled to Afghanistan to work on a book about the history of American involvement in Afghanistan when he went to Logar to interview a Taliban commander. Before setting out, he notified the Times' bureau in Kabul on whom to notify if he did not return, the Times said.

Logar province, where Rohde was seized, has seen an influx of militants over the last two years. Residents last year said the government had little control outside the provincial capital and that Taliban and other militants frequently set up checkpoints on highways.

In January, the U.S. military deployed more than 3,000 troops to Logar and neighboring Wardak to combat the insurgent safe havens near Kabul's doorstep.

It was not clear who took Rohde captive, and the Times did not reveal his abductors. Logar province has militants loyal to Taliban leader Mullah Omar but also to renegade warlord Siraj Haqqani, whom the U.S. has accused of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings.

Violence has risen steadily across Afghanistan over the last three years, and Rohde was taken during a period when attacks against Westerners spiked. A Canadian journalist, Mellissa Fung, was kidnapped in Kabul and a Dutch reporter was taken just outside Kabul around the time Rohde was abducted. Both were released within a month.

The militants who kidnapped Rohde transferred him about 100 miles (165 kilometers) southeast to Pakistan's North Waziristan region. The Pakistan government said in a statement earlier this year that Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, had asked for its help in obtaining Rohde's release.

Holbrooke, Clinton and former President George W. Bush's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, were actively involved in seeking Rohde's release.

Rohde's father, Harvey Rohde, told the Times that he regretted that his son had made the trip but that he understood his motivation "to get both sides of the story, to have his book honestly portray not just the one side but the other side as well."

Rohde was part of the Times reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize in May for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan last year.

He also won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting while working for The Christian Science Monitor for reporting on the massacre of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.

During that time, Rohde was taken prisoner by Serbian officials and held for 10 days, during which he was deprived of sleep and interrogated relentlessly, according to a Web page on Rohde created by journalism students at Columbia University. Serb officials accused him of being a NATO spy, the page says.

The Columbia site says Rohde knew the reporting trip would be dangerous and that his editors would likely not allow him to make it. So he sent his editors an e-mail that he knew they would receive too late to stop the trip, the site says.

When he was released, he was greeted by many cameras at the airport, which he did not like, his older brother, Lee Rohde, told the Times.

"The last thing he ever wants is to be the story. He's supposed to be the storyteller," Lee Rohde said.

Rohde is the author of "Endgame: The Betrayal and Fall of Srebrenica."