U.S. men in Iran to be freed soon with Talabani help: envoy (Reuters)

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Two U.S. citizens convicted of spying in Iran will be freed soon after Iraqi President Jalal Talabani negotiated their release with Iranian officials, an Iranian daily quoted an Iraqi envoy to Tehran as saying.

Shane Bauer, 28, and Josh Fattal, 29, were arrested on the border with Iraq in 2009 where they said they were hiking. They were found guilty of illegal entry and espionage and were sentenced last month to eight years in prison.

On Wednesday, Iran's judiciary rejected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement that Bauer and Fattal would be freed "in a couple of days."

"The Iraqi president contacted top Iranian officials after the pair's families asked for his mediation ... They will be handed over to the Swiss embassy in Tehran early next week," the Thursday edition of Sharq daily quoted Nazem Dabbagh as saying.

The Swiss embassy represents U.S. interests in Tehran since Washington broke off diplomatic ties after the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.

During a meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns on Thursday, Iraq's Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari confirmed Baghdad's intervention in the two men's case.

"The Iraqi government has made intensive efforts to obtain the release of the two Americans. We sent letters, many times, to a high level (in Tehran)," Zebari said in Arabic.

"It was the (Iraqi) president, PM and foreign minister who did that. They (Iranian officials) promised us more than once to release them. Now we have a clear promise and we are waiting for them to be released."

Relations between Iran and Iraq, which fought an eight-year war in the 1980s, have improved since the ousting of Saddam Hussein in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

Many Iraqi politicians, mainly Shi'ite and Kurdish, spent years in exile in Iran when Saddam was in power.

The United States accuses Iran and its elite Revolutionary Guards of funding, training and equipping Iraqi militias. Iran denies a role in the violence, which it blames on the presence of U.S. troops, and says it wants a stable neighbor.

The lawyer for the U.S. men said on Tuesday the two would be released on $500,000 bail each. Iran's judiciary said their release was under review.

Bauer and Fattal were arrested on July 31, 2009, along with a third American, Sarah Shourd. She was allowed home on $500,000 bail in September 2010.

Washington has denied they were spies and on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she was encouraged by Ahmadinejad's remarks.

The release of the two could ease tension between Tehran and Washington, particularly before Ahmadinejad visits New York next week to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

Iran and the United States are at odds over the Islamic state's disputed nuclear program, which Washington says is a cover to build bombs.

Tehran denies this, saying its nuclear program is aimed at generating power and has so far refused to halt its nuclear work.

(Additional reporting by Waleed Ibrahim; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; editing by Rosalind Russell)

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Libya sends envoy to Niger, seeking Gaddafi (Reuters)

BENGHAZI, Libya/AGADEZ, Niger (Reuters) – Libya's new leaders sent envoys to neighboring Niger on Wednesday to try to prevent Muammar Gaddafi and his entourage evading justice by fleeing across a desert frontier toward friendly African states.

"The NTC has sent a delegation to Niger to discuss the possible arrival of Gaddafi," Fathi Baja, the head of political affairs for the National Transitional Council, told Reuters in Benghazi, saying the ousted strongman may be close to the Niger or Algerian borders, waiting for an opportunity to slip across.

"I think he's near one of these borders ... and he's looking for a chance to leave. We're asking every country not to accept him. We want these people for justice," Baja said.

Reports on Gaddafi's whereabouts remain decidedly sketchy. Another senior NTC official said Gaddafi had been tracked this week to an area in the empty Sahara of Libya's south.

Gaddafi is wanted by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. British Foreign Secretary William Hague told parliament any country where he was found should hand him over to be tried, remarks that were echoed by U.S. ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz.

With his overthrow, however, have come revelations of the extent to which U.S. and British officials were until recently cooperating with Gaddafi -- once a pariah in the West but rehabilitated by Washington and London in the past decade.

Papers found by Reuters in Tripoli showed a British arm of U.S.-based General Dynamics was modernizing tanks and troop carriers for a feared brigade led by Gaddafi's son Khamis, as recently as January, after "Arab Spring" protests began in neighboring Tunisia.

The firm said the equipment might have been part of a $135 million May 2008 contract with its British subsidiary, part of what it termed at the time "the United Kingdom's initiatives to improve economic, educational and defense links with Libya."

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director with Human Rights Watch, said: "I think the lesson is that if you are going to sell weapons to dictators, at some point down the line you're going to be deeply embarrassed."

Niger has officially denied receiving a convoy of scores of Libyan army vehicles. French and Niger military sources told Reuters the convoy had arrived near the northern city of Agadez late on Monday via Algeria, which last week welcomed Gaddafi's wife, daughter and two of his sons.

A French military source said Gaddafi might be preparing to meet up with the convoy and seek refuge in Burkina Faso, another nearby African state. Burkina Faso denied any such plan.

U.S. Ambassador Cretz said the 69-year-old fugitive Gaddafi remained a threat while at large: "A Gaddafi free in Libya could pose a continuing danger to the success of the new government to make sure its writ is spread throughout the country."

NATO powers which helped topple Gaddafi have spy satellites and other intelligence resources that could help track fugitives. But Cretz, briefing reporting online, said: "We will participate to the extent that we are asked to, but as of right now it's a question for the Libyan authorities to find Gaddafi."

Among other discoveries in the wake of the Gaddafis' flight, a home video showing the former leader playing with one of his grand-daughters reveals a mix of playfulness and, possibly, paranoia: "Do you not love me?" he asks, repeatedly.

ENVOYS

NTC official Baja said envoys from Mahmoud Jibril, Libya's interim prime minister, would meet Niger's President Mahamadou Issoufou to discuss "any infiltration of Gaddafi groups to Niger." He added: "I don't think Niger will accept Gaddafi."

NTC officials said some vehicles that arrived in Niger were laden with looted Libyan gold and banknotes. The United States said on Tuesday the convoy included senior aides to Gaddafi, and urged authorities in Niger to hold any war crimes suspects.

The French military source said Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam may have planned to meet the convoy in Niger, a poor and landlocked former French colony, before heading to Burkina Faso.

Hisham Buhagiar, who coordinates efforts by the NTC to find the ousted strongman, said he had evidence Gaddafi may have been near Libya's southern village of Ghwat, some 300 km (200 miles) north of the border with Niger, three days ago.

"The last tracks, he was in the Ghwat area. People saw the cars going in that direction," Buhagiar said in an interview late on Tuesday. "We have it from many sources that he's trying to go further south, toward Chad or Niger."

WANTED MEN

Burkina President Blaise Compaore denied discussing giving Gaddafi sanctuary. "We have no information regarding the presence of Libyans on our soil since these events, and we have had no contacts with anyone in Libya about a request for political asylum," he told reporters in the capital Ouagadougou.

Compaore has ruled for 24 years after taking power, like Gaddafi, in a military coup. Like many other African states, Burkina Faso benefited from oil-funded Libyan aid under Gaddafi.

Niger has also tried to distance itself. Officials have confirmed that Gaddafi's security chief Mansour Dhao has been let in, in what they called a humanitarian gesture. Its interior minister denied the arrival of hundreds of Libyan vehicles.

Government sources in Chad, another poor African neighbor, said it had asked France to send drones to monitor the border area and believed this would deter Gaddafi from trying to enter.

As with all efforts so far to find Gaddafi, two full weeks after rebels overran his Tripoli headquarters, the trail is hazy, in a region where people are few and far between.

U.S. officials have said Gaddafi was still in Libya, but Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said he was not sure: "I think he's been taking a lot of steps to make sure that in the end he could try to get out if he had to, but as to where, when, and how that'll take place, we just don't know."

Gaddafi's fugitive spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, insisted in a call to Reuters on Tuesday that he had not left. "He is in Libya. He is safe, he is very healthy, in high morale."

NTC commanders said last week they thought Gaddafi, 69, was in the besieged tribal bastion of Bani Walid, 150 km (100 miles) south of Tripoli, planning a counter-strike with heir apparent Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi. But it appears the senior figures are not there now, NTC officials say.

A standoff with NTC fighters outside the town has lasted for days. Outside Bani Walid on Wednesday, residents leaving through a sun-scorched NTC checkpoint at the nearby settlement of Wishtata painted an increasingly desperate picture.

"People are terrorized," said Salah Ali, 39. "But many still support Gaddafi because they were paid by the regime, because many have committed crimes and are afraid of arrest."

Aid agencies have also raised concerns about conditions for civilians in the coastal city of Sirte, Gaddafi's birthplace and another redoubt of tribal leaders still loyal to him. Libya's southern desert is also not under the control of the NTC.

Nearby, Niger's desert north is now an escape route for many Gaddafi supporters, including Africans he hired as mercenaries to bolster his forces this year. The vast area, the size of France, is awash with bandits, rebellious nomads and a growing number of al Qaeda-linked gunmen blamed for deadly kidnappings.

Gaddafi is no stranger to the area, having used his oil wealth to fund development projects and dabble in politics by backing and seeking to mediate an end to various rebellions.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas, Christian Lowe and Alex Dziadosz in Tripoli, Sherine El Madany in Ras Lanuf, Maria Golovnina in Wishtata, Barry Malone, Sylvia Westall and Alastair Macdonald in Tunis, Sami Aboudi, Amena Bakr and Omar Fahmy in Cairo, Nathalie Prevost in Niamey, Abdoulaye Massalatchi in Agadez, David Brunnstrom in Brussels, Mathieu Bonkoungou in Ouagadougou and Richard Valdmanis and Mark John in Dakar; Editing by Peter Graff; Writing by Alastair Macdonald)

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U.S. must stay in Afghanistan or risk more attacks: envoy (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – The United States must keep fighting the Taliban or risk more attacks like those of September 11, 2001, because the insurgent group is a ruthless enemy that has not cut ties to al Qaeda, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul said.

Ryan Crocker, a career diplomat who was ambassador in Iraq, also warned the United States would have to spend billions more in the coming years to bolster Afghanistan's government and security forces as its own troops prepare to return home.

"What we have to do is I think demonstrate the strategic patience that is necessary to win a long war," he told Reuters, in an interview ahead of the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

"It is going to require more resources, its going to require time. I hope we can bring all those to bear, because as hard, painful, as expensive as this has been in blood and treasure, it has cost a lot less than 9/11 did."

Crocker flew into New York early on the morning of September 11, 2001, and saw the twin towers of the World Trade Center collapse as he drove into Manhattan after landing.

He has carried his boarding pass from that flight around the world with him, to a decade of senior positions at the heart of the conflicts that followed in the wake of the attacks.

"My life to a significant degree was never the same after 9/11 ... what drives me is what happened that day, and what I saw. And not that I need a reminder, but this is just a small memento of why we are in this fight and why we need to stay in it."

He described building a stable Afghanistan as "the ultimate guarantee that there will not be another 9/11."

After nearly a decade of fighting in Afghanistan the Taliban have greater reach than any time since they were ousted from power, and civilian casualties -- the majority caused by insurgents -- are at the highest since 2001.

"These are tough, determined guys, and we have got to stay in the fight, because if we decide we are done, without completing the mission along the lines I laid out earlier, well the Taliban is going to be back," Crocker said.

Polling showed Afghans do not want the Taliban back, however, and broadly support their own security forces. Western mistakes, especially careless spending, had been corrected, he added.

"I think we all made mistakes, the international community, in the way we put resources into this country. Often without due consultation with Afghan partners, without Afghan buy-in, without appropriate oversight," he said.

"I think we are on the right path now. Yes these are mistakes, but boy the people who are doing the finger pointing ought to come out here and try and get it right in the smoke and dust of a hot war."

WAR-WEARY AMERICA

Over 1,600 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan, and the war has cost nearly $450 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. It also stirred up vocal domestic opposition.

Foreign forces have now started handing over control of some areas to the Afghan police and army, and the NATO-led coalition expects to have all combat troops home by the end of 2014.

Crocker hopes this plan will bolster support for the next few years of fighting and institution-building.

"Americans, they are war-weary, it has been a decade, but they also see a plan for future transition. So I think we will be able to maintain the necessary commitments as we move forward to 2014," he said.

The United States is also expected to have some presence in the country beyond that date, with Kabul and Washington currently in trying to hammer out a "strategic partnership" agreement to define the U.S. role longer-term.

Stopping the Taliban fighting their way back to power -- whether with U.S. troops on the ground or through support for Afghan forces -- is critical to U.S. security, Crocker added.

"With the Taliban will come al Qaeda, and we will have the same situation that we had pre-9/11, and that to me is an utterly unacceptable outcome," he said in his Kabul residence, in the heart of the heavily guarded embassy.

"That is a risk of our national security that I think no sane person would willingly take."

Despite preliminary contacts with insurgent groups, Crocker also said he did not expect a negotiated settlement in the short-term, because without stronger military pressure insurgents would not accept changes in Afghanistan, including improvements in women's rights.

"The Taliban needs to be further weakened to the point where they will come to the table prepared to accept the conditions we have set jointly with the Afghans," he said.

"That's not the Taliban I think we are engaged with today."

Crocker dismissed critics who argue that limited progress in Afghanistan is due in part to the shift in focus to Iraq.

"If for example in 2002, 2003 or 2004 we had substantially increased the number of our forces without an active Taliban threat, which didn't come until later, I think there is every chance the Afghans would have seen us as occupiers," he said.

"We could have had a backlash of proportions that would have given us even a worse situation today."

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and Ed Lane)

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UN envoy meets with both sides of Libyan conflict (AP)

By KARIN LAUB and BOUAZZA BEN BOUAZZA, Associated Press Karin Laub And Bouazza Ben Bouazza, Associated Press – 2?hrs?6?mins?ago

ZAWIYA, Libya – The United Nations' special envoy for Libya said Tuesday that he was meeting with representatives of both sides of the conflict, days after rebels made a dramatic advance that brought them within 30 miles of Moammar Gadhafi's stronghold in the capital Tripoli.

A Tunisian security official said the discussions late Monday centered on a "peaceful transition" in Libya. The official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity matter, said the rebels reacted angrily to the proposal with one member of their delegation throwing a shoe during the meeting to show his deep disdain.

Abdel-Elah al-Khatib, Jordan's former foreign minister, arrived in the Tunisian capital Tunis Monday for the meetings with representatives of both Gadhafi and the rebels. He said there were no direct negotiations as he met the two sides separately in the neighboring country. He did not identify those he met or say what they discussed, speaking to reporters after a meeting Tuesday with Tunisian Foreign Minister Mouldi Kefi al-Khatib.

The Tunisian security official said the U.N. envoy might also meet with a representative of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Chavez's envoy has been on the Tunisian isle of Djerba for the past few days.

The U.N. denied its special envoy was taking part in the meetings. In a statement sent to The Associated Press in Tunis, saying it had "no concrete information about talks supposedly taking place in Tunisia."

Back in Libya, a rebel advance over the weekend into the strategic city of Zawiya on the Mediterranean coast, just 30 miles from Tripoli, put the opposition force in the strongest position since the 6-month-old civil war began to attack the capital. Residents were fleeing Tripoli and other cities on the coast in long lines of cars, fearing the fighting would soon reach them.

The Obama administration said Monday that the U.S. was encouraged by the rebel advances and hoped they had broken a monthslong stalemate with Gadhafi's forces.

In a sign of the regime's growing distress, U.S. defense officials said Libyan government forces tapped into their stores of Scud missiles this weekend, firing one for the first time in the half-year conflict with rebels. No one was hurt. The missile was fired toward a second front line in the east of the country around the town of Brega.

The missile launch was detected by U.S. forces shortly after midnight Sunday and the Scud landed in the desert about 50 miles (80 kilometers) outside Brega, said one U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations. It was launched about 50 miles (80 kilometers) east of Sirte, a city on the Mediterranean coast about 230 miles (370 kilometers) east of Tripoli. Sirte is Gadhafi's hometown and a bastion of support for him.

Noting that Scuds are not precision guided missiles, officials said they couldn't tell if Brega was the target.

NATO spokesman Col. Roland Lavoie cited the firing of a "Scud-like" short-range ballistic missile over the weekend. Although the missile landed far from any rebels, Lavoie said it still represented a direct threat to innocent people.

"The missiles are highly inaccurate (and) their use against an urban area is utterly irresponsible," he said.

On Tuesday, rebels and Gadhafi forces fought for control of Zawiya on a main road leading from Tunisia in the west to Tripoli. Rebels are trying to cut off two major supply routes into the capital from Tunisia in the west and another in the south. The routes are critical with NATO imposing a no-fly zone over Libya. Rebels said Monday they also cut oil pipelines from Zawiya to Tripoli. Oil-rich Libya's only functioning refineries are in Zawiya.

Medics at a field hospital on the outskirts of Zawiya said that 15 people were killed the day before in an artillery strike, including a woman and a child, and that one person was killed Tuesday.

On the second front in the east, NATO planes could be heard overhead in Brega as rebels patrolled a ghost town. Furniture and clothing were strewn all over the residential compound, and many houses were broken into, their windows shattered and walls pocked with bullet holes.

Smoke was seen rising from the industrial town as fighting raged.

Rebel and regime forces have battled over the strategic port city of Brega throughout the conflict, and control has swung back and forth between the two sides.

In Tripoli, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim confirmed that former interior minister Nassr al-Mabrouk Abdullah had defected from the Gadhafi regime and left to Egypt.

"He was under psychological and social pressure and he could not resist it, but the battle continues," said Ibrahim.

On the diplomatic front, Moscow said it was "deeply disturbed" that NATO had "overstepped" its aerial campaign in Libya.

A Russian official said that his country as well as some other members of the U.N. Security Council were unhappy with the destruction of infrastructure and attacks on power supplies in government-controlled areas.

The NATO spokesman Lavoie denied that the alliance was overstepping its mandate.

"We take the side of the people of Libya," said Lavoie. "When we strike a tank, it is because we understand it does represent a threat to the local population."

_____

Bouazza reported from Tunis, Tunisia. Rami al-Shaheibi contributed to this report from Brega, Libya.

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