LONDON (AP) — Scotland Yard’s assistant commissioner resigned Monday, a day after his boss also quit, and fresh investigations of possible police wrongdoing were launched in the phone hacking scandal that has spread from Rupert Murdoch’s media empire to the British prime minister’s office.
WASHINGTON — In his 2009 speech to the Muslim world, President Barack Obama announced a new effort to eradicate polio, which persists in three Muslim countries. One of the biggest hurdles had been persuading some local leaders that vaccination campaigns were independent health efforts, not nefarious programs being run by the CIA.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The outgoing commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan said Monday that the focus of the war will shift in coming months from Taliban strongholds in the south to the eastern border with Pakistan where insurgents closest to al-Qaida and other militants hold sway.
ISLAMABAD — The Pakistani army denied Wednesday that one of its majors was among a group of Pakistanis who Western officials say were arrested for feeding the CIA information before the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. is tracking possible new terror targets and stepping up surveillance of operatives previously considered minor al-Qaida figures after digging through the mountain of correspondence seized from Osama bin Laden’s hideout, officials say. The trove of material is filling in blanks on how al-Qaida operatives work, think and fit in the organization, they say.
President Barack Obama moved Monday to seal an overhaul of his national security team, selecting Army Gen. Martin Dempsey as the next Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman amid protracted battle in Afghanistan, U.S. involvement in the NATO-led effort against Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi and a winding down of the war in Iraq.
ISLAMABAD — A top U.S. emissary warned Pakistan on Monday that “actions not words” are needed to tackle militant sanctuaries, as the two countries tried to salvage their relationship two weeks after the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a garrison town close to the national capital.
The United States wants access to Osama bin Laden’s three widows and any intelligence material its commandos left behind at the al-Qaida leader’s compound, a top American official said in comments broadcast Sunday that could add a fresh sticking point in already frayed ties with Pakistan.