Syrian security forces fire on rallies, killing 30 (AP)

By ELIZABETH A. KENNEDY, Associated Press Elizabeth A. Kennedy, Associated Press – 12?mins?ago

BEIRUT – Syrian security forces opened fire Friday on protesters and hunted them down in house-to-house raids, killing about 30 people in the deadliest day in weeks in the country's 7-month-old uprising, activists said.

The popular revolt against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime has proved remarkably resilient, with protests erupting every week despite the near-certainty the government will respond with bullets and tear gas. The U.N. estimates the regime crackdown on the protests has killed 3,000 people since March.

Much of the bloodshed Friday happened after the protests had ended and security forces armed with machine guns chased protesters and activists, according to opposition groups monitoring the demonstrations. Authorities disrupted telephone and Internet service, they said.

The Syrian opposition's two main activist groups, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordinating Committees, gave figures for the protesters killed on Friday ranging from 29 to 37.

The flashpoints were Homs and Hama in central Syria, where opposition to the regime is strong. Hama is the site of a massacre nearly 30 years ago which has come to symbolize the ruthlessness of the Assad dynasty.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the head of the observatory, said security forces in Homs were firing machine guns as they conducted raids in search of protesters and activists. In Hama, there were heavy clashes between the army and gunmen believed to be army defectors.

Syria has largely sealed off the country from foreign journalists and prevented independent reporting, making it difficult to confirm events on the ground. Key sources of information are amateur videos posted online, witness accounts and details gathered by activist groups.

Communications were spotty Friday in the Damascus suburb of Douma and in Homs. The move appeared to be an attempt to cut off the opposition's ability to organize and report on the protests.

"There was a very fierce reaction to the protests in Homs today," said Syria-based activist Mustafa Osso. Syrian forces opened fire as some 2,000 people gathered for protests, he said.

"There are many injured as well. Hospitals are having a hard time coping with the casualties," Osso told The Associated Press.

Majd Amer, an activist in Homs said sporadic gunfire could be heard as protesters poured out of mosques following Friday prayers.

It is difficult to gauge the strength of the revolt in Syria, a country of 22 million people. The crackdown does not appear to have significantly reduced the number of protests, but neither does the regime appear to be in any imminent danger of collapse.

The regime appears to lack sufficient numbers of loyal troops to garrison all the centers of unrest at the same time, so government forces will often sweep through an area in the wake of protests, breaking up new gatherings and hunting activists, before being deployed elsewhere.

The result has been a monthslong stalemate. Still, the capture and subsequent death of Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, under still-unclear circumstances, has energized the opposition. Last week, thousands of Syrians took to the streets shouting that Assad will be next.

The protests come amid efforts by the Arab League to end the bloodshed, and debates within the opposition on how to bring international pressure to bear on the regime.

On Friday, many protesters said they wanted a no-fly zone established over Syria to protect civilians in case the Syrian regime considers attacking protesters from the sky, the activist groups said.

The protesters also called for international monitors, although most opposition groups reject the idea of foreign military intervention.

The Syrian government insists the unrest is being driven by terrorists and foreign extremists looking to stir up sectarian strife.

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China says didn't know of arms sales talks with Gaddafi forces (Reuters)

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese arms firms held talks with representatives of Muammar Gaddafi's beleaguered forces in July over weapons sales, but behind Beijing's back, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on Monday.

The revelation is nonetheless likely to deal a fresh blow to China's already delicate relations with Libyan rebel forces that have ousted Gaddafi.

The ministry confirmed the gist of reports in the Globe and Mail and the New York Times that documents found in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, indicated that Chinese companies offered to sell rocket launchers, anti-tank missiles and other arms with a total of some $200 million to Gaddafi's forces, despite a U.N. ban on such sales.

A ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, said members of Gaddafi's government had come to China and held talks with a "handful" of Chinese arms company officials without the knowledge of the government.

"We have clarified with the relevant agencies that in July the Gaddafi government sent personnel to China without the knowledge of the Chinese government and they engaged in contact with a handful of people from the companies concerned," Jiang told a news briefing in Beijing.

"The Chinese companies did not sign arms trade contacts, nor did they export military items to Libya," Jiang said. "I believe that the agencies in charge of the arms trade will certainly treat this seriously."

Even if the arms talks were behind Beijing's back, the controversy could intensify mistrust between Beijing and the rebels seeking to defeat Gaddafi's shrinking forces and claim control of all Libya.

"We have hard evidence of deals going on between China and Gaddafi, and we have all the documents to prove it," a rebel military spokesman, Abdulrahman Busin, told the Times.

The arms issue comes on the heels of tensions between Beijing and the Libyan rebels over frozen funds.

On the weekend, the head of Libya's rebel National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil, said China had obstructed the release of some of Libya's frozen assets.

Although China agreed with other powers last week to unfreeze $15 billion of Libyan assets abroad, it opposed handing control of more to the interim ruling council, according to Libyan rebel spokesman Shamsiddin Abdulmolah.

"In principle, we don't have a problem" with unfreezing funds, said the Chinese spokeswoman Jiang.

"But out of a responsible attitude, we and some members of the Security Council want further explanation and information from the applicant countries about the uses of the funds and oversight of them," she said.

Libya's interim council has promised rewards for those who took a leading role in backing the revolt against Gaddafi, and that has raised concerns that China could be disadvantaged.

China is the world's second-biggest oil consumer and last year obtained 3 percent of its imported crude from Libya.

China did not use its U.N. Security Council veto power in March to block a resolution that authorized the NATO bombing campaign against Gaddafi's forces, but it condemned the expanding strikes and repeatedly urged compromise between his government and the rebels.

By the time of the visit by Gaddafi's officials, China was already courting the Libyan rebels. But China has not joined Western powers in formally recognizing the NTC as the legitimate authority in Libya, but has acknowledged its "important role" after Gaddafi's ousting.

The reports said Libyan security officials visiting China in July were received by three arms companies, including Norinco and the China Xinxing Import and Export Corporation.

Norinco has faced sanctions from the United States, which accused it of selling missile parts to Iran, in spite of Beijing's arms control rules.

Asked if the Chinese companies or their personnel could be punished over the talks with Gaddafi's officials, Jiang said: "I'm sure that the agencies in charge of Chinese arms (sales) will deal with this in a serious and conscientious way."

(Reporting by Chris Buckley; Editing by Nick Macfie)

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Libyan forces close in on Gaddafi stronghold (Reuters)

TRIPOLI (Reuters) – Libyan forces closed in on Muammar Gaddafi's home town on Sunday, saying they would seize it by force if negotiations for its surrender failed.

Libya's new rulers, trying to establish control over all the country, set their sights on the coastal city of Sirte --Gaddafi's birthplace -- and two other towns controlled by his supporters, Sabha in the southwest and Jufrah in the southeast.

One commander said his forces were within 100 km (60 miles) of Sirte from the east and others were advancing from the west.

"We will continue negotiations as long as necessary. However, the liberation of these cities will take place sooner or later," said the military spokesman of the National Transitional Council (NTC) in the eastern city of Benghazi.

"In our opinion this is a matter of days," Colonel Ahmed Bani said.

In Tripoli, the stench of rotting bodies and burning garbage still hung over the city, overrun by anti-Gaddafi forces last week. Many corpses have turned up, some of slain Gaddafi soldiers, others the victims of killings in cold blood.

A Libyan official said 75 bodies had been found at the Abu Salim hospital, which was caught up in heavy fighting, and another 35 corpses were found at the Yurmuk hospital.

The NTC and the Western powers that backed rebel forces with a five-month bombing campaign are acutely aware of the need to prevent Libya collapsing into the kind of chaos that plagued Iraq for years after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

The NTC, whose leaders plan to move to Tripoli from Benghazi this week, is trying to impose security, restore basic services and revive the oil- and gas-based economy.

GOOD OMENS

In good omens for economic recovery, officials announced that a vital gas export pipeline to Europe had been repaired and that Libya's biggest refinery had survived the war intact.

In the far west, Tunisian authorities reopened the main border crossing into Libya, restoring a key supply route for Tripoli, after Gaddafi forces were driven out on Friday.

That should help relieve a looming humanitarian crisis in the city, where food, drinking water and medicines are scarce.

Trucks loaded with food and other goods were already moving across the Ras Jdir crossing toward Tripoli, about two hours' drive away. A U.N. official said aid would be sent along the route once it was confirmed to be secure.

The streets of the capital were quiet after sporadic overnight gunfire and explosions in a city traumatized by emerging evidence of widespread summary killings that took place during last week's battles to expel Gaddafi.

Some residents ventured out to hunt for water, food and fuel. And in Martyrs' Square, known as Green Square in the Gaddafi era, traffic police reappeared in crisp white uniforms, directing cars amid a sea of bullet casings.

"I came back to work on Friday. Life is beginning to come back to normal," said one policeman, Mahmoud al-Majbary, 49.

Asked if fighters were obeying the traffic police, he said: "Not yet, we're getting there slowly. We're mainly really here to reassure the people that they are safe."

Libyans may remain fearful as long as the man who subjected them to his capricious will for 42 years remains at large.

Gaddafi, 69, is on the run, perhaps intending to lead an insurgency against his foes grouped loosely under the NTC.

NTC officials rejected any idea of talks with Gaddafi, saying he was a criminal who must be brought to justice.

"We did not negotiate when we were weak, and we won't negotiate now that we have liberated all of Libya," the NTC's information minister, Mahmoud Shammam, told a news conference.

The Associated Press earlier quoted Gaddafi's spokesman, Moussa Ibrahim, as saying Gaddafi was still in Libya and wanted to discuss forming a transitional government with the NTC.

NTC officials say Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and his spy chief should be tried in Libya, although they are wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

Sirte, 450 km (280 miles) east of Tripoli, is a vital prize for anti-Gaddafi forces, who say they prefer a negotiated handover of the city, but will storm it if need be.

"Our aim isn't bloodshed, our aim is liberation," Colonel Salem Muftah al-Refaidy, an NTC commander, said in Benghazi.

He told Reuters there was no going back to the past. "After all this bloodshed we can't say, 'Come here Muammar, come here Saif -- we're sorry, take Libya'. It's done. Game over."

He said NTC troops were within 100 km of Sirte from the east and were also approaching from Misrata to the west.

Shammam warned that negotiations could not be "endless," adding that if talks failed rebel supporters already in Sirte would rise up as they had in Tripoli before it fell.

SHORTAGES

In Tripoli, residents queued for bread or scoured grocery shops for food. Many took a stoical view of their plight.

"This is a tax we pay for our freedom," said Sanusi Idhan, a lawyer waiting to buy food.

Aymen Mohammed poured water into plastic containers for his neighbors. "There are many people here who don't have water so we're filling the bottles from our well," he said.

With Libyan television off the air, the NTC has begun using mobile phone text messages to reach the public. One issued on Sunday urged electricity workers to get back to work.

An earlier message said former Gaddafi loyalists should be treated with dignity and respect. Another said any pro-Gaddafi fighters still carrying weapons should be treated as outlaws.

Usama el-Abed, deputy chairman of the Tripoli council, said water shortages were affecting 70 percent of the city's two million people. He told reporters hospitals were all working except for the one where the killings occurred in Abu Salim.

Shammam said public sector workers would not lose their jobs. Efforts to pay the salaries of those in and around Tripoli were under way.

"Money is still tight, but things will be better in the next few days," he told a news conference in Tripoli.

The NTC hopes to gain access soon to hundreds of millions of dollars of assets frozen abroad. It also needs to get oil and gas revenue, normally 95 percent of exports, flowing again.

Bani, the military spokesman, said the gas pipeline to Europe had been repaired.

"The gas pipeline is back and running, supplying the pump stations and the Mellitah (gas processing) refinery. Gas will start flowing to Europe," he declared, without saying when such shipments would resume.

The pipeline, which supplied about 10 percent of Italy's gas imports in 2010, was shut down in February shortly after the revolt against Gaddafi began.

Libya's largest oil refinery at Ras Lanuf on the Mediterranean coast is intact despite fighting that had raged nearby and staff are preparing to restart operations at the 220,000 barrel per day plant, the general manager told Reuters.

Ras Lanuf was held by Gaddafi forces until a few days ago and the front line is only about 25 km to the west.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Abbas and Maria Golovnina in Tripoli, Robert Birsel, Alex Dziadosz and Emma Farge in Benghazi and Richard Valdmanis in Tunis Writing by Alistair Lyon; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Syrian forces kill 3 as tanks enter coastal city (Reuters)

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian troops killed three people as tanks swept into a coastal city on Saturday, activists said, in a crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad which drew criticism from an international Muslim group.

The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation, adding its voice to growing Arab pressure on Assad, called for an immediate halt to the military campaign against protesters which activists say has killed 1,700 civilians in five months.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah repeated their calls for the crackdown to stop.

Obama also spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders called for an immediate end to attacks by Syrian government forces against protesters, the White House said. It said Obama and Cameron would "consult on further steps in the days ahead." [nN1E77C03V]

Saturday's bloodshed came a day after security forces shot dead 20 people during nationwide marches in which demonstrators called for Assad's overthrow and vowed they would "kneel only to God."

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two people were killed and 15 wounded in heavy gunfire after around 20 military vehicles entered the Ramle district of Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast.

Soldiers backed by loyalist militia known as shabbiha were also deployed in the city's Sulaiba district, the group's head Rami Abdel Rahman said. "They are arresting dozens of people," he said, adding many people were fleeing the assault.

Troops and shabbiha killed one person in the town of Qusair, near the Lebanese border, and made arrests in nearby Jousiyah village, he said. The bodies of four people arrested during an assault last week in the Houla Plain, north of Homs city, were returned to their families, he added.

Syria has barred most independent media, making it hard to verify events on the ground in the unrest, one of a series of popular revolts against autocratic Arab leaders this year.

Authorities deny reports of deaths in detention and say 500 soldiers and police have been killed by armed groups they blame for the violence. State news agency SANA said three members of the security forces were killed in Friday's protests.

Since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in early August, Assad has stepped up the military campaign, launching army assaults on the central city of Hama and the city of Deir al-Zor in the eastern Sunni Muslim tribal heartland. Assad's family, which has ruled Syria for 41 years, is from the minority Alawite sect.

After a wave of Arab criticism of Damascus last week, the Saudi Arabia-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) accused Syria on Saturday of using "excessive armed force" and called on Damascus to stop the bloodshed.

OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu urged Assad "to exercise utmost restraint through the immediate halt to the use of force to suppress popular demonstrations."

Obama and King Abdullah spoke by telephone on Saturday and "agreed that the Syrian regime's brutal campaign of violence against the Syrian people must end immediately," the White House said, adding the two leaders agreed to consult closely.

The Saudi monarch, who has had fraught relations with Assad but had worked with him to reduce tension in Lebanon last year, recalled his ambassador from Damascus on Monday.

France's Foreign Ministry advised citizens against traveling to Syria and urged any French people still in the country to leave using available commercial transport. Its website cited the "aggravation of tensions."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Friday Syria would be better off without Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.

"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil or gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she said.

Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad family has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.

While Syria exports crude oil, its refinery capacity is not sufficient to meet domestic demand for fuel. Trading sources said Swiss oil traders Vitol and Trafigura agreed to supply state firm Sytrol with 60,000 tonnes of gasoline this week.

The global campaign group Avaaz urged European nations on Friday to impose immediate restrictions on purchases of Syrian oil to "dry up" funding of Assad's forces. It said more than 150,000 Avaaz members had signed a petition to that effect.

On Wednesday, Washington imposed sanctions on Syria's largest bank and its biggest mobile telephone company, controlled by Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf. The next day, U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford said more sanctions would follow unless the Syrian authorities halted the violence.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull in Washington and Nick Vinocur in Paris; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Syrian forces kill 13 protesters after Friday prayers (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces shot dead 13 protesters Friday, activists said, as tens of thousands demanded the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad, chanting "we will kneel only to God."

Defiant protest marches unfolded across the country despite a military crackdown that has triggered sanctions and condemnation abroad.

These included protests in the cities of Hama and Deir al-Zor, both of which have been stormed in tank offensives launched by Assad during the holy month of Ramadan.

The Local Coordination Committees activists said among the deaths were six in the Damascus suburbs of Saqba and Douma, two protesters killed in the commercial hub of Aleppo, and two in the northern province of Idlib on the Turkish border.

Residents said two people were also killed in Hama, just days after the army completed a week-long assault on the city which became a symbol of defiance to Assad's rule after huge crowds gathered weekly to demand his overthrow.

"Go, Bashar!" protesters chanted in rallies held in the coastal cities of Latakia and Baniyas, as well as across the southern province of Deraa where the uprising against 41 years of Assad family domination first flared nearly five months ago.

In Deir al-Zor, forces fired live ammunition at protesters coming out of a main mosque, killing one person according to the local coordination committees.

A witness said a fire broke out in the mosque after security forces shot at it. "The whole neighborhood is echoing with the sound of bullets. Worshippers are running to take cover in alleyways," he said by telephone.

Another resident said: "Assad wants to finish off the uprising before international pressure becomes too much for him. But people have gone out of almost every major mosque in Deir al-Zor, meters away from tanks that occupy every main square and roundabout."

Syrian state television said two members of the security forces were killed by gunmen in Douma, just outside Damascus.

Syrian authorities have barred most independent media, making it difficult to verify events on the ground in the unrest, among a series of popular revolts against repressive power elites across the Arab world this year.

Assad's forces have intensified assaults on towns and cities across the country since the start of Ramadan nearly two weeks ago to try to subdue mounting dissent against the ruling family, despite threats of new U.S. sanctions and calls from Turkey and fellow Arab states to end attacks on civilians.

Activists said at least 19 people were killed in raids near the Lebanon border and in the country's Sunni Muslim tribal heartland Thursday. Assad's family belongs to the minority Alawite sect that runs Syria.

More than 1,700 civilians in all have been killed in the military crackdown on protests against Assad, activists say.

Syria says 500 soldiers and police have died in the upheaval, which it blames on armed gangs and terrorists.

CLINTON URGES CUT IN TRADE TIES

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday Syria would be better off without Assad and called on nations that buy oil or sell arms to Syria to cut those ties.

"We urge those countries still buying Syrian oil or gas, those countries still sending Assad weapons, those countries whose political and economic support give him comfort in his brutality, to get on the right side of history," she said.

Syria's oil industry, with which the Assad has close links, generates most of the state's hard currency from crude output of 380,000 barrels per day.

While Syria exports crude oil, its refinery capacity is not sufficient to meet domestic demand for fuel. Trading sources said Swiss oil traders Vitol and Trafigura agreed to supply state firm Sytrol with 60,000 tons of gasoline this week.

The global campaign group Avaaz urged European nations on Friday to impose immediate restrictions on purchases of Syrian oil to "dry up" funding of Assad's security services. It said over 150,000 Avaaz members had signed a petition to that effect.

But there is little prospect of Western states putting teeth into the sanctions on Assad by targeting Syria's oil because of vested commercial interests against doing so.

Asked why the United States had not called on Assad to step down, Clinton said Washington had been "very clear" in its statements about Assad's loss of legitimacy, and wanted other nations to add their voices.

Wednesday Washington imposed sanctions on Syria's largest bank and its biggest mobile telephone company, controlled by Assad's cousin Rami Makhlouf. The next day, U.S. Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford said more sanctions would follow if the Syrian authorities did not halt the violence.

In addition to the Friday protests, nightly Ramadan prayers, or "tarawih," which follow the breaking of the fast, have given more Syrians a focus for daily protest marches.

In neighboring Lebanon, hundreds of people demonstrated in the northern, mainly Sunni Muslim, district of Akkar in support of the Syrian protesters.

Regional powers Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have all applied pressure on Assad to stop the violence.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul warned Assad not to leave reforms until it is too late in a letter delivered to the Syrian president earlier this week, Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency reported Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan spoke Thursday and agreed Syrians' demands for a transition to democracy must be met, the White House said.

(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny in Beirut; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Myra MacDonald)

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Obama honoring US forces killed in Afghan attack (AP)

By BEN FELLER, AP White House Correspondent Ben Feller, Ap White House Correspondent – 1?hr?1?min?ago

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. – Assuming the grimmest role of his job, President Barack Obama on Tuesday prepared to privately honor the remains of the fallen returning home from war, this time the troops killed in a helicopter attack that claimed more American lives than any other incident of the Afghanistan war.

Obama arrived at Dover Air Force Base to preside as the remains of U.S. forces were carried off a military cargo plane in flag-covered cases. His unscheduled afternoon trip here was kept secret to ensure the security of his helicopter flight to Delaware. Members of the media covering the trip agreed in advance not to report on it until he had landed.

After about a half-hour flight from Washington, Marine One touched down at the base. Obama was greeted by Col. Mark Camerer, commander of the 436th Airlift Wing, before climbing into a waiting limousine. The president's first stop was a private meeting with the families of the fallen.

An entrenched wartime president, Obama has been here before.

In the dark of an October morning in 2009, Obama watched solemnly as 18 Americans killed in the Afghan war came home, a visceral reminder of a war that has long slipped from the forefront of American debate. He would later call it the most powerful moment of his young presidency.

Obama is now honoring the U.S. forces killed in Afghanistan Saturday when their helicopter was shot down by a Taliban insurgent using a rocket-propelled grenade.

A total of 30 U.S. troops, seven Afghan commandos and an Afghan interpreter died.

They had been packed into a twin-rotor chopper, en route to help coalition ground forces in a battle with insurgents. Many of the Americans who died were members of the Navy's SEAL Team Six, the elite unit that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in a raid in Pakistan three months ago. None of the SEALs killed in the crash took part in the bin Laden mission.

The devastating loss comes just ahead of the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on America that prompted the war in Afghanistan.

Some of those killed had been motivated to join the Special Forces by the 9/11 attacks that bin Laden masterminded.

Two C-17 aircraft carrying the remains of 30 killed in a weekend helicopter crash arrived at the air base east of Washington.

Three days after the downing of the aircraft by insurgents, the Defense Department has not released the troops' names. Officials said it is taking time because there were so many killed. Others said privately there is hesitancy to release the names because the majority were from secretive special operations forces.

But the stories of the fallen have been emerging in the days since the crash. Those killed included young fathers, accomplished athletes and people of deep faith. One had dreams of becoming an astronaut after military service. All were deeply committed to the cause.

To Americans focused on economic crises at home, the death toll is a reminder that tens of thousands of U.S. forces will be in harm's way in Afghanistan through at least 2014.

Obama's other trip to Dover left searing images of a president standing in salute on a cold tarmac in the dead of night. One family had allowed media coverage.

In this case, reporters won't see what Obama does.

The Pentagon ruled there will be no media coverage at the Dover base because the badly damaged remains from the horrific crash are mingled and still being identified.

"We will press on, and we will succeed," Obama said Monday in his first public comments about the helicopter crash. "But now is also a time to reflect on those we lost and the sacrifices of all who serve, as well as their families. These men and women put their lives on the line for the values that bind us together as a nation."

Obama scrambled his schedule to be at Dover when the bodies returned home. He canceled an event in Virginia.

The military calls the process of moving the remains a "dignified transfer." Cases draped in American flags are carried off a giant plane, one by one, by a team of military personnel from the fallen member's respective service. Each case is placed in a vehicle and then taken to a mortuary.

Top civilian and uniformed leaders will attend the proceeding, and so will some family members.

___

Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.

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Afghan war's deadly toll on US forces hasn't eased (AP)

KABUL, Afghanistan – Despite U.S. reports of progress on the battlefield, American troops were killed in the first half of this year at the same pace as in 2010 — an indication that the war's toll on U.S. forces has not eased as the Obama administration moves to shift the burden to the Afghans.

While the overall international death toll dropped by 14 percent in the first half of the year, the number of Americans who died remained virtually unchanged, 197 this year compared with 195 in the first six months of last year, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

Americans have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting as the U.S. administration sent more than 30,000 extra troops in a bid to pacify areas in the Taliban's southern heartland and other dangerous areas. U.S. military officials have predicted more tough fighting through the summer as the Taliban try to regain territory they have lost.

President Barack Obama has begun to reverse the surge of American forces, ordering a reduction of 10,000 by the end of the year and another 23,000 by September 2012. But the U.S. military has not announced which troops are being sent home, or whether they will be withdrawn from any of the most violent areas in the south and east.

Rear Adm. Vic Beck, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Kabul, said he couldn't comment specifically on the U.S. death count, but noted that the casualties were unchanged despite the surge in forces. He attributed the overall decline in the international toll to coalition progress on the battlefield, including the discovery of a rising number of militant weapons caches. He also said Afghan security forces are increasingly taking the lead, although recent violence has raised concerns about their readiness to secure their own country.

Beck said insurgents were shifting their focus to attacking civilians, pointing to last week's attack against the Inter-Continental, a luxury hotel in Kabul, that left 20 people dead, including the nine assailants.

"The enemy is taking the fight more to innocent Afghan civilians because we're taking it to them pretty hard on the battlefield," he said.

According to the AP tally, 271 international troops, including the Americans, were killed in the first half of the year — down 14 percent from the 316 killed in the first six months of last year.

With the American deaths virtually unchanged, the decline reflects a drop off in deaths of troops from other contributing nations. In the first half of the year, 74 of these troops — from countries like Britain, France and Australia — died compared with 121 in the first six months of last year.

In the most recent deaths, NATO said two coalition service members were killed in roadside bombings — one Saturday in the west who was identified as an Italian, and another Friday in the south whose nationality was not available.

By contrast, a recent U.N. report found that May was the deadliest month for civilians since it began keeping track in 2007, and it said insurgents were to blame for 82 percent of the 368 deaths recorded. The U.N. does not usually release monthly civilian casualty figures but said it was compelled to do so in May because of the high number.

The Taliban have denied targeting civilians and insist coalition claims that insurgents have suffered heavy losses at the hands of foreign troops are false.

Monthly death tolls of foreign forces have varied so far this year, but they fell dramatically in June.

Overall, 65 international troops, including Americans, died last month. That's down 37 percent from the 103 who died in June 2010 — the deadliest month on record for foreign forces. More than 25 died last month in Helmand province in the south where fierce fighting continues in some hot spots, the AP tally showed.

"In the areas that we believe were pretty secure, there has been very little violence," U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. John Toolan Jr., the commander in Helmand province, said at a recent Pentagon briefing. He said he's still concerned about northern districts like Gereshk and Sangin.

He said his forces are working with their Afghan partners to try to keep hold of security gains made in recent months.

"I'm pretty sure, pretty confident we'll be able to do that, but it won't be without a fight," Toolan said. "But it will not be as big a fight, in my estimation, as it has been in the past."

Underscoring the dangers, a roadside bomb ripped through a van carrying a family Saturday in southern Afghanistan, killing all 13 on board — the deadliest incident in a string of attacks since Friday that killed 18 civilians, according to Afghan officials.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attacks, saying in a statement that "bombings that kill innocent civilians are the work of people who don't want the nation to have a life without sadness."

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