Anti-terrorism success may not help Obama in 2012

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama may have a string of counterterrorism successes and earned high marks from the public on foreign policy, but neither is likely to help him hold the White House.

For his administration, this re-election reality is a frustrating bottom line.

When the first-term senator won the presidency, questions lingered about his readiness to handle national security matters. Yet Obamahas received wide praise for operations that have killed terrorist leaders, most notably Osama bin Laden in May, and Anwar al-Awlaki on Friday.

Al-Awlaki, an American citizen targeted in the U.S. drone attack, was deemed by the administration as having a "significant operational role" in terrorist plots. They included two nearly catastrophic attacks on U.S.-bound planes, an airliner on Christmas 2009 and cargo planes last year.

Obama also can claim credit for aiding Libyan rebels in ousting Moammar Gadhafi, for supporting other democratic uprisings in the Arab world, for drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for negotiating a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

But barring unforeseen events, the nation's stubbornly high unemployment rate and turmoil in the financial markets mean people are far more likely to vote next November with the economy foremost in their minds, not the president's record on foreign policy and terrorism.

That's bad news for the administration because people give Obama far higher approval ratings on terrorism than on his handling of the economy.

In fact, Obama's approval rating on terrorism was higher than on any other issue, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in late August. It showed that 60 percent of those surveyed approved of his handling of terrorism. Just 36 percent approved of his handling of the economy, an all-time low for Obama.

Obama's overall approval rating also fell to an all-time low in the poll, 46 percent.

The re-election picture gets even gloomier given that 92 percent of those questioned said the economy was an extremely or very important issue. By comparison, 73 percent put the same emphasis on terrorism, but even they're divided over whether Obama should be re-elected.

It's also unclear whether the killing of al-Awlaki will bring Obama any new political support. The fiery American-born cleric had a hand in several high-profile terror attempts on the U.S., but his name is hardly as familiar to most Americans as bin Laden.

Obama's orders for U.S. special forces to kill bin Laden during a raid on his Pakistani compound did give the president's approval rating a bump. But it proved fleeting, further evidence of the secondary role of terrorism for voters.

"It's not 2004," said Rick Nelson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "This isn't the primary issue facing the United States. The primary issue is the economy and jobs. That issue is going to overshadow anything we do overseas."

The joint CIA-U.S. military airstrike that targeted al-Awlaki and killed a second American citizen wasn't without controversy.

The attack apparently was the first time a U.S. citizen was tracked and executed based on secret intelligence and the president's say-so, raising questions about the reach of presidents' powers.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul, a GOP presidential contender, called it an "assassination" and said Americans should not casually accept such violence against U.S. citizens, even those with strong ties to terrorism

But most other top Republicans running for Obama's job saw little downside in praising the president for his role.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry congratulated Obama, along with the military and intelligence agencies, for "aggressive anti-terror policies." Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney commended the president for his efforts to keep Americans safe and said al-Awlaki's death was a "major victory" in the terrorism fight.

With the first nominating contests about three months away, foreign policy and terrorism have been virtually absent from the Republican race. When the issues have arisen, most GOP contenders have tried to portray the president as a weak leader. It's a sentiment they hope taps into voters' frustration with the economy.

Bruce Jones, an expert on transnational threats, said Obama's success against terrorist leaders may help counter that GOP strategy.

"At the very least, it takes away from the critics the idea that he can't lead, that he doesn't understand those kinds of issues," said Jones, also a senior foreign policy fellow at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.

Beyond the counterterrorism efforts, Obama aides say they believe the president will get credit come Election Day for his foreign policy achievements in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, as well as for his support of other democratic uprisings throughout the Arab world. They say the president has boosted U.S. standing in the world, making it easier to get international backing for his policies, rather than having to go it alone.

But there is some concern among Obama backers that the one foreign policy issue most likely to find a place in the 2012 campaign is one that has achieved little success: securing peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Republicans and some Jewish voters paint him as anti-Israel, while much of the world disagrees with his opposition to Palestinian efforts to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations.

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Associated Press writer Phillip Elliott and news survey specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

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Associated Press writer Julie Pace can be reached at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

US general sees end to Libya mission

AP Exclusive

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military mission in Libya is largely complete and NATO's involvement could begin to wrap up as soon as this coming week after allied leaders meet in Brussels, according to the top U.S. commander for Africa.

Army Gen. Carter Ham, head of U.S. Africa Command, told The Associated Press that American military leaders are expected to give NATO ministers their assessment of the situation during meetings late in the week.

NATO could decide to end the mission even though ousted leader Moammar Gadhafi is still at large and his forces are still entrenched in strongholds such as Sirte and Bani Walid.

NATO's decision-making body, the North Atlantic Council, agreed on Sept. 21 to extend the mission over the oil-rich North African nation for another 90 days, but officials have said the decision would be reviewed periodically.

Ham said that the National Transitional Council and its forces should be in "reasonable control" of population centers before the end of the NATO mission, dubbed Unified Protector. And he said they are close to that now.

When NATO makes its decision, Ham said he believes there would be a seamless transition of control over the air and maritime operations to U.S. Africa Command. And, at least initially, some of the military surveillance coverage would remain in place.

"We don't want to go from what's there now to zero overnight," Ham said. "There will be some missions that will need to be sustained for some period of time, if for no other reason than to offer assurances to the interim government for things like border security, until such time that they are ready to do all that themselves."

U.S. intelligence and surveillance assets, such as drones, will likely stay in the region also to keep watch over weapons caches, to prevent the proliferation of weapons from Libya into neighboring countries.

But Ham said air strikes would likely end, unless specifically requested by the Libyan transitional government.

NATO took over command of the mission in March, after it was initially led by the U.S. in the early days of the bombing campaign. The mission was designed to enforce a U.N. resolution allowing the imposition of a no-fly zone and military action to protect Libyan civilians.

The aggressive bombing runs that battered Gadhafi forces, weapons, air control, and other key targets, gave the revolutionary forces the time and breathing room to organize and begin to push into regime strongholds. A key turning point came about a month ago when the fighters were able to seize the capital, Tripoli, effectively ending Gadhafi's rule.

Now, the National Transitional Council has taken over the leadership of the nation and is promising to set up its new interim government, even as it continues to fight forces still loyal to the fugitive leader.

Ham said NATO need not wait until Gadhafi is found and forced out of the country before ending the Libyan mission.

"The fact that he is still at large some place is really more a matter for the Libyans than it is for anybody else," said Ham, adding that President Barack Obama and other leaders made it clear that the object of the mission was about protecting the people, not killing Gadhafi.

The goal now, said Ham, is for the U.S. to eventually establish a normal, military-to-military relationship with Libya, including embassy staff and discussions about what security assistance the Libyans might want from America. He said he doesn't see a major U.S. role in training or other military assistance, because other Arab nations are better suited for that.

He added that the U.S. may be able to help re-establish Libya's Coast Guard and maritime domain.

Any U.S. military footprint in the country would remain small — probably less than two dozen troops at the embassy to work as staff and perform security.

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Online:

U.S. Africa Command: http://www.africom.mil/

Afghan president says talks with Taliban useless

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who for years pushed for reconciliation with the Taliban, now says attempts to negotiate with the insurgent movement are futile and efforts at dialogue should focus instead on neighboring Pakistan.

Karzai explained in a videotaped speech released by his office Saturday that he changed his views about trying to talk to the Taliban after a suicide bomber, claiming to be a peace emissary sent by the insurgents, killed former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani at his home on Sept. 20. Rabbani was leading Karzai's effort to broker peace with the Taliban.

"Their messengers are coming and killing. ... So with whom should we make peace?" Karzai said Friday to a gathering of the nation's top religious leaders that was videotaped.

"I cannot find Mullah Mohammad Omar," Karzai said, referring to the Taliban's one-eyed leader. "Where is he? I cannot find the Taliban council. Where is it?

"I don't have any other answer except to say that the other side for this negotiation is Pakistan," Karzai said.

Most of the Taliban leadership is thought to be living in Pakistan, and its governing council — known as the Quetta Shura — is based in the southern Pakistani city of the same name. It has long been believed that the Pakistani government has sheltered and influenced the group.

Afghanistan said Saturday it had evidence that Rabbani's assassination was planned by Talibanfigures living in Quetta.

Afghan Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi went even further, telling Afghan lawmakers Saturday that Pakistan's intelligence service, known as the ISI, was involved in Rabbani's killing — an allegation that Pakistan has denied. "Without any doubt, ISI, is involved in this," Mohammadi said.

Last week, U.S. officials leveled accusations of their own, saying Pakistan's spy agency assisted the Haqqani network — a militant group allied with al-Qaida and the Taliban — in attacks on Western targets in Afghanistan. It was the most serious allegation yet of Pakistani duplicity in the 10-year war.

The Pakistan-based Haqqani network has been described as the top security threat in Afghanistan.

NATO said Saturday it captured Haji Mali Khan, a senior Haqqani leader inside Afghanistan, describing his arrest as a "significant milestone" in disrupting the terror group's operations.

The group has been blamed for hundreds of attacks, including a 20-hour siege of the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters last month.

The United States and other members of the international community have in the past accused Pakistan of allowing the Taliban, and the Haqqanis in particular, to maintain safe havens in the country's tribal areas along the Afghan border — particularly in North Waziristan.

An Afghan government statement issued earlier in the past week said Pakistan had failed to take steps to eliminate terrorist sanctuaries. It added that if Pakistan's intelligence service is using the Taliban against Afghanistan, then the Afghan government needs to have negotiations with Pakistan, "not the Taliban."

Khan, the Haqqani leader being held by NATO, was seized Tuesday during an operation in eastern Paktia province's Jani Khel district, which borders Pakistan, the alliance said.

It was the most significant capture of a Haqqani leader in Afghanistan, and could dent the group's ability to operate along the porous border with Pakistan's lawless tribal areas.

Shortly after NATO's announcement, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid denied in a message to Afghan media that Khan had been arrested but provided no evidence that he was free.

NATO described Khan as an uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani, two sons of the network's aging leader, Jalaluddin Haqqani.

"He was one of the highest ranking members of the Haqqani network and a revered elder of the Haqqani clan," NATO said of Khan.

During the operation Tuesday, Khan surrendered without resistance and NATO forces also arrested his deputy and bodyguard, along with a number of other insurgents, the alliance said.

"The Haqqani network and its safe havens remain a top priority for Afghan and coalition forces," NATO concluded.

The NATO statement said security forces have conducted more than 500 operations so far in 2011 in an effort to disrupt the Haqqani network leadership, resulting in the deaths of 20 operatives and the capture of nearly 300 insurgent leaders and 1,300 suspected Haqqani insurgents.

In a related development, Afghanistan's intelligence service said Saturday it has given Pakistan hard evidence that Rabbani's assassination was planned in the southern outskirts of Quetta where key Taliban leaders are based.

The Taliban have not claimed responsibility for killing Rabbani.

Lutifullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence service, provided the first details about where the assassination was allegedly planned at a news conference.

"The place where Professor Rabbani's killing was planned is a town called Satellite near Quetta, Pakistan," Mashal told reporters. "The key person involved in the assassination of Rabbani has been arrested and he has provided lots of strong evidence about where and how it was planned. We have given all that evidence to the Pakistan embassy."

The Afghan intelligence documents handed over to Pakistan's embassy in Kabul include the address, photographs and a layout of a house in Satellite, Mashal said. He said the Pakistanis also have been provided with the names of individuals who discussed Rabbani's assassination at the house in Satellite.

Satellite Town is an upscale residential area very close to the city center and it is known to residents that Afghan Taliban live there.

Mashal would not disclose the identity of the person in custody, saying only that he was a second-tier figure within the Taliban hierarchy.

He said additional details would be released soon by a commission set up to investigate Rabbani's death.

Asked what Afghanistan expected Pakistan to do with the information, Mashal referred the question to the Afghan Foreign Ministry and the commission.

"This is all concrete evidence that nobody can ignore," he said.

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Deb Riechmann and Patrick Quinn contributed to this report from Kabul.

Technorati Tags: afghanistan,Taliban

Pakistan warns against U.S. attack on militants

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. military action against insurgents inPakistan would be unacceptable and the country's army would be capable of responding, intelligence chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha told a meeting of political leaders in Islamabad, according to media reports.

Express News TV cited Pasha as saying an "American attack on Pakistan in the name of (fighting) extremism is not acceptable."

However, several television news reports said Pasha had also told an all-party meeting to discuss the crisis in ties between Washington and Islamabad that Pakistan would not allow the situation to get to a "point of no return."

Pakistan has long faced U.S. demands to attack militants on its side of the border with Afghanistan.

But the pressure has escalated since the top U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, accused Pakistan last week of supporting an attack by the militant Haqqani network on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

Support is growing in the U.S. Congress for expanding American military action in Pakistan beyond drone strikes against militants, said Senator Lindsey Graham, an influential Republican voice on foreign policy and military affairs.

Islamabad is reluctant to go after the Haqqanis -- even though the United States provides billions of dollars in aid -- saying its troops are stretched fighting Taliban insurgents.

Pakistan says it has sacrificed more lives than any of the countries that joined the "war on terror" after the September 11 attacks by Islamist militants on the United States in 2001.

Pakistan's military faced withering public criticism after a surprise U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in a garrison town not far from Islamabad in May.

A similar U.S. operation against militants in North Waziristan on the Afghan border, where American officials say the Haqqanis are based, would be another humiliation for the powerful army.

Graham said in an interview with Reuters that U.S. lawmakers might support military options beyond drone strikes that have been going on for years inside Pakistani territory.

Those options may include using U.S. bomber planes within Pakistan, said, adding that he did not advocate sending U.S. ground troops into the country.

"I would say when it comes to defending American troops, you don't want to limit yourself," Graham said. "This is not a boots-on-the-ground engagement -- I'm not talking about that, but we have a lot of assets beyond drones."

Graham said U.S. lawmakers would think about stepping up the military pressure. "If people believe it's gotten to the point that is the only way really to protect our interests, I think there would be a lot of support," he said.

REVIEWING AID

Pakistan was designated a major non-Nato ally by the United States for its support of coalition military operations in Afghanistan after 9/11.

But their relationship has been dogged by mistrust. Although

regarded as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize Afghanistan, Pakistan is often seen from Washington as an unreliable partner.

Following U.S. accusations that some in the Pakistani government have aided anti-U.S. militants, Congress is re-evaluating its 2009 promise to triple non-military aid to Pakistan to a total of $7.5 billion over five years.

That aid came on top of billions in security assistance provided since 2001, which Washington is also rethinking.

Any unilateral U.S. military action to go after the Haqqanis would deepen anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, which is already running high over U.S. drone strikes and other issues, reducing the space for the government and army to collaborate with Washington.

The Haqqani network is allied with Afghanistan's Taliban and is believed to have close links to al Qaeda. It fights U.S. and NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan. The group's leader says it is no longer based in North Waziristan and feels secure operating in Afghanistan after making battlefield gains.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider and Augustine Anthony in Islamabad, Mirwais Harooni in Kabul and Missy Ryan and Susan Cornwall in Washington; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by John Chalmers)

Analysis: Pakistan's double-game: treachery or strategy?

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Washington has just about had it with Pakistan.

"Turns out they are disloyal, deceptive and a danger to the United States," fumed Republican Representative Ted Poe last week. "We pay them to hate us. Now we pay them to bomb us. Let's not pay them at all."

For many in America, Islamabad has been nothing short of perfidious since joining a strategic alliance with Washington 10 years ago: selectively cooperating in the war on extremist violence and taking billions of dollars in aid to do the job, while all the time sheltering and supporting Islamist militant groups that fight NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has angrily denied the charges, but if its critics are right, what could the explanation be for such duplicity? What strategic agendas might be hidden behind this puzzling statecraft?

The answer is that Pakistan wants to guarantee for itself a stake in Afghanistan's political future.

It knows that, as U.S. forces gradually withdraw from Afghanistan, ethnic groups will be competing for ascendancy there and other regional powers - from India to China and Iran - will be jostling for a foot in the door.

Islamabad's support for the Taliban movement in the 1990s gives it an outsized influence among Afghanistan's Pashtuns, who make up about 42 percent of the total population and who maintain close ties with their Pakistani fellow tribesmen.

In particular, Pakistan's powerful military is determined there should be no vacuum in Afghanistan that could be filled by its arch-foe, India.

INDIA FOCUS

Pakistan has fought three wars with its neighbor since the bloody partition of the subcontinent that led to the creation of the country in 1947, and mutual suspicion still hobbles relations between the two nuclear-armed powers today.

"They still think India is their primary policy," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and prominent political analyst. "India is always in the back of their minds."

In an interview with Reuters on Tuesday, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani - unprompted - complained that Washington's failure to deal even-handedly with New Delhi and Islamabad was a source of regional instability.

Aqil Shah, a South Asia security expert at the Harvard Society of Fellows, said Islamabad's worst-case scenario would be an Afghanistan controlled or dominated by groups with ties to India, such as the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, which it fears would pursue activities hostile to Pakistan.

"Ideally, the military would like Afghanistan to become a relatively stable satellite dominated by Islamist Pashtuns," Shah wrote in a Foreign Affairs article this week.

Although Pakistan, an Islamic state, officially abandoned support for the predominantly Pashtun Taliban after the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001, elements of the military never made the doctrinal shift.

Few doubt that the shadowy intelligence directorate, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has maintained links to the Taliban that emerged from its support for the Afghan mujahideen during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Until recently, there appeared to be a grudging acceptance from Washington that this was the inevitable status quo.

That was until it emerged in May that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden - who was killed in a U.S. Navy SEALs raid - had been hiding out in a Pakistani garrison town just two hours up the road from Islamabad, by some accounts for up to five years.

Relations between Pakistan and the United States have been stormy ever since, culminating in a tirade by the outgoing U.S. joint chiefs of staff, Mike Mullen, last week.

Mullen described the Haqqani network, the most feared faction among Taliban militants in Afghanistan, as a "veritable arm" of the ISI and accused Islamabad of providing support for the group's September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

The reaction in Islamabad has been one of stunned outrage.

Washington has not gone public with evidence to back its accusation, and Pakistani officials say that contacts with the Haqqani group do not amount to actual support.

However, Imran Khan, a Pakistani cricketer-turned-populist-politician, said this week that it was too much to expect that old friends could have become enemies overnight.

He told Reuters that, instead of demanding that Pakistan attack the Haqqanis in the mountainous border region of North Waziristan, the United States should use Islamabad's leverage with the group to bring the Afghan Taliban into negotiations.

"Haqqani could be your ticket to getting them on the negotiating table, which at the moment they are refusing," Khan said. "So I think that is a much saner policy than to ask Pakistan to try to take them on."

REGIONAL GAME

The big risk for the United States in berating Islamabad is that it will exacerbate anti-American sentiment, which already runs deep in Pakistan, and perhaps embolden it further.

C. Raja Mohan, senior fellow at New Delhi's Center for Policy Research, said Pakistan was probably gambling that the United States' economic crisis and upcoming presidential elections would distract Washington.

"The real game is unfolding on the ground with the Americans. The Pakistan army is betting that the United States does not have too many choices and more broadly that the U.S. is on the decline, he said.

It is also becoming clear that as Pakistan's relations with Washington deteriorate, it can fall back into the arms of its "all-weather friend," China, the energy-hungry giant that is the biggest investor in Afghanistan's nascent resources sector.

Pakistani officials heaped praise on Beijing this week as a Chinese minister visited Islamabad. Among them was army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, arguably the country's most powerful man, who spoke of China's "unwavering support."

In addition, Pakistan has extended a cordial hand to Iran, which also shares a border with Afghanistan.

Teheran has been mostly opposed to the Taliban, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims while Iran is predominantly Shi'ite. But Iran's anti-Americanism is more deep-seated.

"My reading is the Iranians want to see the Americans go," said Raja Mohan, the Indian analyst. "They have a problem with the Taliban, but any American retreat will suit them. Iran in the short term is looking at the Americans being humiliated."

ARMY CALLS THE SHOTS

The supremacy of the military in Pakistan means that Washington has little to gain little from wagging its finger about ties with the Taliban at the civilian government, which is regularly lashed for its incompetence and corruption.

"The state has become so soft and powerless it can't make any difference," said Masood, the Pakistani retired general. "Any change will have to come from the military."

Daniel Markey, a senior fellow for South Asia at the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, said the problem lies with a security establishment that continues to believe that arming and working - actively and passively - with militant groups serves its purposes.

"Until ... soul-searching takes place within the Pakistani military and the ISI, you're not likely to see an end to these U.S. demands, and a real shift in terms of the relationship," Markey said in an online discussion this week. "This is the most significant shift that has to take place."

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

Pakistan pushes back against U.S., woos China

 

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan warned the United States on Tuesday to stop accusing it of playing a double game with Islamist militants and heaped praise on "all-weather friend" China.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, speaking exclusively to Reuters, said any unilateral military action by the United States to hunt down militants of the Haqqani network inside Pakistan would be a violation of his country's sovereignty.

However, he side-stepped questions on the tense relations with the United States and offered no indications of any steps Pakistan might take to soothe the fury in Washington.

The outgoing chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, last week described the Haqqani network, the most violent faction among Taliban militants in Afghanistan, as a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's ISI spy agency and accused Islamabad of providing support for the group's September 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

"The negative messaging, naturally that is disturbing my people," Gilani said in the interview from his office in Islamabad. "If there is messaging that is not appropriate to our friendship, then naturally it is extremely difficult to convince my public. Therefore they should be sending positive messages."

Since Mullen's comments, Pakistan has launched a diplomatic counter-attack and attempted to drum up support from its strongest ally in the region, China.

Pakistani officials have been heaping praise on China since its public security minister arrived here on Monday for high-level talks.

"We are true friends and we count on each other," Gilani said in separate comments broadcast on television networks after talks with Meng Jianzhu on Tuesday.

The military, Pakistan's most powerful institution, also said it appreciated its giant Asian neighbor's support. Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani thanked Meng for China's "unwavering support".

China and Pakistan call each other "all-weather friends" and their close ties have been underpinned by long-standing wariness of their common neighbor, India, and a desire to hedge against U.S. influence across the region.

"They (the Pakistanis) are trying to use their diplomatic options as much as possible to defuse pressure on them. They hope China will help them in this crisis," said security analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi.

SLIM ACHIEVEMENTS

Asked why the United States had suddenly ratcheted up its criticism of Pakistan, Gilani implied that it reflected Washington's frustration with the war in Afghanistan ahead of a withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country in 2014.

"Certainly they expected more results from Afghanistan, which they have not been able to achieve as yet," he said. "They have not achieved what they visualized."

Rejecting allegations that Islamabad was behind any violence across its border, he said: "It is in the interest of Pakistan to have a stable Afghanistan".

The United States has been pressing Pakistan to attack the Haqqani network, which it believes is based in North Waziristan near the Afghan border. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the head of the group, says it is no longer based in Pakistan and feels safe operating in Afghanistan.

Analysts say Pakistan sees the Haqqanis as a counterweight to the growing influence of rival India in Afghanistan and is highly unlikely to go after the group.

The United States seems frustrated at its inability to influence Pakistani policy on militants.

In a meeting with her Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, at the United Nations on Monday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton urged Beijing to open a dialogue with Washington on Pakistan.

"We have stated this before, but there's clearly an urgency given recent developments and also given the close relationship that exists between Pakistan and China," a State Department official said in a briefing to reporters.

CHINA MORE POPULAR

China is vastly more popular in Pakistan than the United States, which is seen as fickle and favoring India.

Much of the Pakistani public believes that since the end of the Cold War, the United States has tilted toward India, which has fought three wars with Pakistan since the violent partition of the subcontinent in 1947.

In a demonstration of that distrust, hundreds turned out on Tuesday for anti-American rallies in Pakistani cities.

In Hyderabad, they burned pictures of U.S. President Barack Obama and Mullen, while in Karachi they protested in front of the U.S. consulate and the headquarters of the Pakistan People's Party. In Landikotal in the Khyber agency near the Afghan border, about 1,000 people turned out for a rally organized by the religious party Jamaat-e-Islami.

Also on Tuesday, a suspected U.S. drone strike on a house in Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan's tribal region on the Afghan border killed at least three alleged militants, local intelligence officials said.

Gilani pointed out that Washington did not help itself when it struck a deal on civilian nuclear cooperation with New Delhi but not Islamabad.

"There is an acute shortage of electricity in Pakistan. And there are riots. And the opposition is playing to the gallery because there is a shortage of electricity," he said.

"But they (the United States) are doing the civilian nuclear deal not with Pakistan, but with India. Now how can I convince my public that they are your (Pakistan's) friends and not the friends of India? ... the perception matters."

In a tit-for-tat deal in May, Pakistan inaugurated its second Chinese-made nuclear power reactor. China is building two more reactors at the same site, despite international misgivings about risks to nuclear safety and the integrity of non-proliferation rules.

China has also helped build the deep-sea Gwadar port on Pakistan's Arabian Sea coast, partly with a view to opening up an energy and trade corridor from the Gulf to western China, and has been a major supplier of military hardware to Pakistan.

(Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Robert Woodward)

Afghan employee kills U.S. citizen at Kabul CIA base

By Mirwais Harooni and Emma Graham-Harrison | Reuters

KABUL (Reuters) - An Afghan employee of the U.S. government opened fire inside a CIA office in Kabul on Sunday evening, killing an American and injuring a second, U.S. and Afghan officials said, in the second major breach of embassy security in two weeks.

The killing adds to a sense of insecurity already heightened by a 20 hour-siege of the diplomatic district in mid-September, and the assassination a week later of the top government peace envoy, former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

The CIA compound inside the Ariana hotel is one of the most heavily guarded in Kabul, and has been off-limits -- along with the road that runs beside it -- for almost a decade, since shortly after the Taliban's fall from power in 2001.

It also lies at the heart of the capital's heavily guarded military, political and diplomatic district, a virtual "green zone" that is almost impossible for ordinary Afghans to enter.

It was not clear if the U.S. citizens were victims of a rogue employee who had been won over to the insurgent cause, or just the escalation of an argument in a city where tensions are high and many people carry guns. There are precedents for both.

The "lone attacker" was killed, and the injured U.S. citizen was taken to a military hospital, U.S. embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall said on Monday.

"There was a shooting incident at an annex of the U.S. embassy in Kabul last night involving an Afghan employee who was killed. The motivation for the attack is still under investigation at this time," Sundwall said.

Sundwall declined comment on whether the annex housed the CIA, but Kabul Police Chief Ayub Salangi said there had been an exchange of fire at the Ariana hotel, which he described as a CIA office. He declined further comment on what happened in an area where access is restricted even for Afghan forces.

TURNED BY THE TALIBAN?

The shooting follows a string of attacks by Afghan security forces against their NATO-led mentors carried out either by "rogue" soldiers and police or by insurgents who have infiltrated security forces.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid could not immediately be reached for comment, but a senior Taliban commander reached by phone from Pakistan said the man had secretly joined the insurgents after a group of Taliban approached him to remind him "of his moral and religious duty as an Afghan."

"He used the enemy's weapons against the enemy and that's what we have been doing everywhere in Afghanistan," said the Taliban commander, who is operating in Afghanistan and asked for anonymity for security reasons.

"This place is at the heart of Kabul and we wanted to tell the Americans that we can chase them anywhere," he added.

The Ariana hotel is just a few blocks away from the Presidential Palace and the U.S. embassy, and has been used by ruling regimes for many years.

Waheed Mujhda, of the Afghan Analytical and Advisory Center in Kabul, questioned the Taliban's claim of responsibility and said the incident characterized the level of mistrust between the United States and its Afghan allies.

"This is a big security concern for the Americans and it shows they can't fully trust their Afghan staff. But the Americans never want to accept that there are serious trust and cooperation issues and they have encountered that in their security operations with Afghan forces."

HISTORY OF ATTACKS

The CIA suffered the second deadliest attack in its history on an Afghan base at the end of 2009, when a would-be informant blew himself up, killing seven CIA officers.

The agency has acknowledged "missteps" and "shortcomings" that included failing to act on warnings about the assailant from Jordanian intelligence or take security precautions.

Suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi tricked the CIA into believing he could be a useful tool in the battle against al Qaeda, and was invited inside a well-fortified U.S. compound in Khost province, near the border with Pakistan.

The CIA director at the time, Leon Panetta, made 23 changes after that attack, but noted that counterterrorism work still required working with "dangerous people in situations involving a high degree of ambiguity and risk."

Sunday's shooting came the same month that insurgents took over an unfinished high-rise near the city's heavily guarded military, political and diplomatic heart and showered rockets down on the U.S. embassy and NATO headquarters.

That attack lasted 20 hours, and the United States has blamed it on the Haqqani network of militants, who were long based in Pakistan's lawless frontier regions although they now say they have moved back into Afghanistan.

Washington accused Pakistan's spy service of offering them support. Pakistan has strongly denied the allegations.

(Additional reporting by Jibran Ahmad in PESHAWAR, Mark Hosenball in WASHINGTON and Martin Petty in KABUL;)

Senator: Consider military action against Pakistan

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee said Sunday that the U.S. should consider military action against Pakistan if it continues to support terrorist attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.

"The sovereign nation of Pakistan is engaging in hostile acts against the United States and our ally Afghanistan that must cease, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told "Fox News Sunday."

He said if experts decided that the U.S. needs to "elevate its response," he was confident there would be strong bipartisan support in Congress for such action.

Graham did not call for military action but said "all options" should be considered. He said assistance to Pakistan should be reconfigured and that the U.S. should no longer designate an amount of aid for Pakistan but have a more "transactional relationship" with the country.

"They're killing American soldiers," he said. "If they continue to embrace terrorism as a part of their national strategy, we're going to have to put all options on the table, including defending our troops."

In testimony last week to Graham's committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, said Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency had backed extremists in planning and executing the assault on the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan and a truck bomb attack that wounded 77 American soldiers. Both occurred this month.

Mullen contended that the Haqqani insurgent network "acts as a veritable arm" of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency as it undermined U.S.-Pakistan relations, already tenuous because of the war in Afghanistan. Pakistan exports violence, Mullen said, and threatens any success in the 10-year-old war.

Graham said Pakistan does cooperate with the U.S. in actions against al-Qaida. But he said the Pakistani military feels threatened by a democracy in Afghanistan and is betting that the Taliban will come back there.

"The best solution is for Pakistan to fight all forms of terrorism, embrace working with us so that we can deal with terrorism along their border, because it is the biggest threat to stability," he said. "But Pakistan is terrorism itself. They have made a tremendous miscalculation."

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Pakistan's main government coalition partner quits

KARACHI (Reuters) – Pakistan's Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the second largest party in the ruling coalition, will leave the governing alliance and sit in opposition at the federal level, the party said on Sunday.
The MQM said the decision was taken because of government fuel prices policy and means the U.S.-backed government of President Asif Ali Zardari may now collapse because it will lose its majority in the National Assembly.
"It has been decided. We will sit on the opposition benches in the National Assembly and the Senate," MQM spokesman Wasay Jalil said.
The MQM, which is the dominant political force in the country's financial capital Karachi, last week withdrew its two ministers from the federal cabinet because of what it said was the government's failure to improve security.
Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said his government would not collapse despite the MQM move, one that comes while the government tries to improve the fragile economy and contain a Taliban insurgency, problems that have kept investors away.
However, analysts said forming a new coalition would likely be a protracted, delicate process and it was more likely that early elections would be called.
An MQM statement said the decision to break with the coalition was taken because of the government's fuel price policies.
"Right at the start of the new year the government has raised the prices of petrol and kerosene oil which is unbearable for the people who are already under pressure from the already high prices," it said.
"In such a situation, the MQM considers it unfair with the people of Pakistan to sit in the government. Therefore we have decided to sit on the opposition benches in the Senate and the National Assembly.
(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider in Islamabad; Editing by Michael Georgy)

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Record floods swamp Australia's northeast

GLADSTONE, Australia (Reuters) – Large parts of Australia's coastal northeast disappeared under floodwaters on Sunday in a spreading disaster that has brought some of the highest floods on record and forced thousands from their homes.
Queensland State Treasurer Andrew Fraser described the floods as a "disaster of biblical proportions" and said the ultimate cost would exceed A$1 billion (1.02 billion).
As forecasters predicted months of more rain, hundreds of residents in the town of Rockhampton, 600 km (370 miles) north of the Queensland state capital Brisbane, fled homes amid rising waters which are expected to reach over 30 feet deep in coming days.
Local Mayor Brad Carter said the town was "like an island." Across the state, the floods have affected around 200,000 people and inundated thousands of properties.
"You can look down a street for a kilometer and see nothing but water," Carter told Reuters by telephone from Rockhampton, a town of 77,000 people. "You see people in boats moving their material in and out of houses."
One person was confirmed dead in the floods on Sunday, while an intense search was under way for a second missing.
Floodwaters were receding in some areas, leaving a mammoth cleanup job, but other areas were still collecting runoff from the Christmas deluge brought by the La Nina weather pattern.
"It is the Fitzroy River flowing through down to Rockhampton that is still rising and expected to get quite near to record levels," Gordon Banks, a senior forecaster in Brisbane with Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, told Reuters.
"Those floods in the south of Queensland are hitting records. We have not seen water that high in recorded history here."
Across the state, thousands have been forced to camp out with friends or in makeshift emergency shelters over the New Year period in a disaster which has hit coal mining and agriculture particularly hard.
Mayor Carter said Rockhampton's airport was closed, road and rail links to the town were mostly cut off, water was lapping at the floorboards of some homes and police had sent reinforcements to prevent any looting.
Rockhampton sits near the mouth of the giant Fitzroy River system, one of Australia's largest, carrying the water from last week's rains down to the coast. Officials said its level had reached 8.85 meters on Sunday.
"I am at the side of the river bank at the moment. It is flowing extremely fast," council official Tony Cullen told Reuters.
Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said flood waters in the town could reach nine meters (30 feet) on Monday and peak at 9.4 meters on Wednesday, a level similar to floods that hit in 1991 and 1954.
Although the rain has largely eased off, flood warnings remain current for many rivers in the state, some communities are expected to be isolated for up to two weeks and eventually further rain is expected.
Police said on Sunday 22 communities were still flooded or isolated. Where floodwaters have started to recede, there are fears of disease and accidents, in what one senior emergency official said would be "a heartbreaking return to homes."
Bureau of Meteorology hydrologist Jeff Perkins said floodwaters would also flow on down to western New South Wales. Normally the tropical wet season would only be beginning around now, meaning more headaches to come for farmers, miners and the general community.
"We have got a couple of months more and a good chance of further rainfall," Perkins told Reuters.
(Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)

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Iran says shot down two spy planes in Gulf: report

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran has shot down two unmanned western reconnaissance drone aircraft in the Gulf, a senior Revolutionary Guards commander was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency on Sunday.
"Many spy planes and ultra-modern aircrafts of our enemies have been shot down (by our forces) ... We have also shot down two spy planes in the Persian Gulf," said commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh, head of the elite forces' aerospace unit.
"But it is the first time we are announcing it."
He did not say when the aircraft had been shot down, but described them as "western drone reconnaissance" aircraft.
Iran is at odds with major powers over its nuclear activities, which the United States and its allies suspect are intended to enable Iran to produce nuclear bombs. Iran denies the allegations and says it wants only to generate electricity.
The United States and Israel, Iran's main foes, do not rule out military action if diplomacy fails to end the nuclear row.
Hajizadeh said the enemies -- a term used by Iranian authorities for the United States and its allies -- had been using the drones mainly in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"But there has been cases of violations of our airspace by their drones," the commander said.
Iran has dismissed reports of possible U.S. or Israeli plans to strike Iran, but says it would respond by attacking U.S. interests and Israel if any such assault was made.
Analysts say Tehran could retaliate by launching hit-and-run strikes in the Gulf and by closing the Strait of Hormuz. About 40 percent of all traded oil leaves the Gulf region through the strategic waterway.
"All their military bases are completely within Iran's missile range ... We have full control of our enemies and notice any changes taking place on our shores," Hajizadeh said.
Iran often launches military drills in the country to display its military capabilities amid persistent speculation about a possible U.S. or Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.
Alongside the regular army, Iran has a Revolutionary Guards force viewed as guardians of the Islamic ruling system. The Guards have a separate command and their own air, sea and land units, but often work with the regular military.
(Writing by Parisa Hafezi, Editing by Matthew Jones)

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Five held for plotting attack on Danish paper

COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Police arrested five people on Wednesday suspected of planning a Mumbai-style attack to kill as many people as possible in a building housing a Danish paper that outraged Muslims in 2005 with cartoons of Prophet Mohammad.
Denmark's PET security police said the suspects had planned to enter a Copenhagen office block housing several newspapers including offices of the daily Jyllands-Posten to "kill as many as possible of those around."
PET chief Jakob Scharf said the plot was probably meant to be like a deadly 2008 assault in the Indian city of Mumbai.
"It is our assessment, based on our investigation, that the plans were to try to get access to the location where the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten is situated in Copenhagen and try to carry out a Mumbai-style attack on that location," Scharf said.
"It is our assessment that this is a militant Islamist group and they have links to international terrorist networks," he told a news conference.
Many foreigners, some of India's wealthy business elite as well as poor commuters, were among the 166 people killed by 10 Pakistani gunmen in a three-day coordinated attack through some of Mumbai's landmarks, including two hotels and a Jewish center.
Scharf said authorities could not rule out the possibility that the plotters may be linked to David Headley, a Chicago man who was arrested in October 2009 and pleaded guilty in March this year to scouting targets for the Mumbai attack.
Four of the five suspects were detained at flats in two Copenhagen suburbs, and one in Stockholm, PET said.
GUN, AMMUNITION
In connection with the arrests in Denmark, police found a machine gun with a silencer, ammunition and plastic strips that could be used as handcuffs, PET said. Scharf said that the attack was planned to be carried out by January 1.
Jyllands-Posten was the newspaper that first published the Mohammad cartoons, provoking protests against Danish and European interests in the Middle East, Africa and Asia in which at least 50 people died.
Danish Justice Minister Lars Barfoed said those detained had a "militant Islamic background" and called the plan the most serious such attempt in Denmark so far.
Danish police detained a 44-year-old Tunisian national, a 29-year-old Swedish citizen, born in Lebanon, and a 30-year-old Swedish national, whose country of origin was unknown and a 26-year-old Iraqi asylum applicant, the PET said.
Simultaneously, Swedish authorities in Stockholm detained a 37-year-old Swedish citizen of Tunisian origin, all but the Iraqi were Swedish residents, it said. The suspects will be charged with attempted terrorism, PET said.
The head of Swedish security police SAPO, Anders Danielsson, told the news conference that the Denmark plot did not have any known links to December 11 bomb blasts in Stockholm.
"We have known for ... years that Sweden and the Scandinavian countries have not been safe havens, but countries where we know people have stayed and planned to commit terrorist crimes in other countries," Danielsson told Reuters.
The Nordic region, especially Denmark, attracted the rage of militant Islamists around the world after the 2005 cartoons.
Sketches of the Prophet by Swedish artist Lars Vilks in 2007 sparked similar outrage, but did not prompt immediate violence. Vilks has faced numerous death threats as well as an attempted arson attack on his home.
In Stockholm two weeks ago, a man blew himself up as he was preparing to set off bombs, possibly at a train station or a department store, according to police.
In that case an email -- thought to have come from the bomber -- was sent just before the attack, protesting against Vilks's sketches and Sweden's military presence in Afghanistan.
Both Denmark and Sweden have committed troops to U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan, while Danish soldiers were also stationed in Iraq after the U.S. invasion.
Police uncovered a plot last year to attack Jyllands-Posten, and in January the creator of the most controversial cartoon escaped an axe attack by a man with al Qaeda links.
Last September, a man who was later found to have a map with the address of Jyllands-Posten's headquarters in the city of Aarhus set off a small explosion in a Copenhagen hotel.
(Writing by Adam Cox and Niklas Pollard; additional reporting by Teis Jensen in Copenhagen, Elinor Schang Olof Swahnberg and Johan Sennero; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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Bombs, shootings hit Nigeria before election year

MAIDUGURI/YENEGOA, Nigeria (Reuters) – Bombs hit a political rally in a southern Nigerian city on Wednesday, a day after three people were shot dead in the north of the country, as tensions rise before a series of elections next year.
The two bombs exploded in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Africa's largest oil and gas industry.
Beemo Seiff, a ruling party candidate running in Bayelsa state governorship elections, was holding a rally in the state capital Yenegoa when the first blast went off.
Baylesa state police commissioner Aliyu Musa said no one had been killed but a number of people had been taken to hospital with injuries.
"It was dynamite explosives planted at the venue earlier by people who are still at large. We are investigating," said Musa. "The aim of the people responsible was to stop the rally."
Nigeria can ill-afford a security crisis before presidential, parliamentary and governorship elections next April. Some politicians and members of the police have said recent attacks are aimed at disrupting election plans.
Boko Haram, a radical Islamist sect which has claimed responsibility for bombings and church attacks on December 24, was believed to be behind the killing of three more people at a hospital on Tuesday, the police said.
The three victims, including a senior police officer, were killed when men fired shots in a teaching hospital in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.
On Christmas Eve, bombings in central Nigeria and ensuing violence between Christian and Muslim youths led to the deaths of at least 80 people, while attacks on churches in the north of the country took the lives of six more.
BOKO HARAM
Boko Haram said on its website on Tuesday it was behind the Christmas Eve bombings in the central city of Jos and attacks on churches in Maiduguri the same evening.
The group, whose name means "Western education is sinful" in the Hausa language spoken across northern Nigeria, is loosely modeled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. It demands the introduction of Islamic law across Nigeria.
Maiduguri sits in one of Nigeria's poorest regions near its northeastern borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Nigeria, a vast nation with more than 140 million people, is roughly equally divided between Christians and Muslims. Boko Haram's views are not espoused by most Nigerian Muslims.
President Goodluck Jonathan has promised to track down those responsible for the bombings and will want to ease the country's concerns over security before his controversial bid in the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) primaries on January 13.
A ruling party pact says that power within the PDP should rotate between the mostly Muslim north and largely Christian south every two terms.
Jonathan is a southerner who inherited the office when President Umaru Yar'Adua, a northerner, died during his first term this year and some northern factions in the ruling party are opposed to his candidacy.
Jonathan faces a challenge from former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, a northerner, for the ruling party nomination, and some fear any unrest in Africa's most populous nation will be exploited by rivals during campaigning.
The governor of Plateau state has said the Christmas Eve bombings were politically motivated terrorism, aimed at pitting Christians against Muslims to start another round of violence before the elections.
Nigeria was shaken by car bomb attacks in the capital Abuja in October, claimed by a rebel group in the oil-producing Niger Delta, a region where violence has also flared up in the last month.
(Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by David Stamp)

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Vatican to announce new money laundering rules

ROME (Reuters) – The Vatican will announce new rules to combat financial crime Thursday as it continues to deal with a money laundering probe that has seen 23 million euros ($30.23 million) sequestered from its banking institution.
The Vatican said in a statement Wednesday that Pope Benedict would issue a so-called apostolic letter on combating financial crime, money laundering and the funding of terrorism. The Holy See would create a financial information authority.
The Vatican bank, formally known as the Institution for Religious Works (IOR), has been under investigation for suspected violations of European Union money laundering rules since September. It denies any wrongdoing.
The IOR primarily manages funds for the Vatican and institutions around the world such as charity organizations and religious orders of priests and nuns.
Finance police have frozen 23 million euros of the IOR's funds held in an account in an Italian bank in Rome after authorities deemed that two transactions were suspicious.
One was a transfer of 20 million euros to a German branch of a U.S. bank and the other was 3 million euros transferred to an Italian bank.
The Vatican said it had simply transferred its own money between its own accounts and denied any wrongdoing.
Under Bank of Italy money laundering rules, foreign banks operating in Italy, including the IOR, must provide detailed information about the origins of funds they transfer.
(Writing by James Mackenzie; editing by Ralph Boulton)

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