US: Kabul attack a propaganda win for Taliban (AP)

By HEIDI VOGT and AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Heidi Vogt And Amir Shah, Associated Press – 1?hr?48?mins?ago

KABUL, Afghanistan – The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan on Wednesday acknowledged the Taliban gained a propaganda victory in a 20-hour assault focused on the U.S. Embassy, which left 27 police, civilians and insurgents dead. But he insisted the attack was not a sign of vulnerability in the Afghan capital.

Still, the sophistication and vehemence of the attack, in which insurgents fired rockets into the U.S. Embassy compound from a nearby unfinished high-rise where they may have stored heavy weapons ahead of time, raised fresh doubts about the Afghans' ability to secure their nation as U.S. and other foreign troops begin to withdraw. Afghan forces have nominally been in control of security in the capital since 2008 — but it took heavy involvement by U.S. and NATO forces to route out the latest attackers.

And spectacular attacks in the well-protected capital have become more common. This week's strike was the third deadly attack in Kabul since late June.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault. Kabul's deputy police chief said it was likely the Pakistan-based Haqqani network carried it on behalf of the extremist group. U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker also blamed the Haqqanis, who have emerged as one of the biggest threats to Afghanistan's stability, working from safe areas across the border in Pakistan's tribal region.

It took 20 hours through the night for Afghan, U.S. and NATO troops to root out six insurgents holed up in the 12-story building on the Abdul Haq traffic circle, pounding them with barrages from attack helicopters as police and soldiers worked their way up floor by floor. From their roost, the insurgents had clear shots on the nearby U.S. Embassy and a nearby NATO compound, battling Afghan forces in a gunfight that lit up the night with tracer fire.

At 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, the Afghan Interior Ministry announced that the final holdouts had been killed. Police could be seen clapping their hands in celebration on the building's roof, while others carried the mangled bodies of six insurgents down flights of rough concrete stairs and piled them into the back of a waiting ambulance.

Eleven Afghan civilians were killed in the battle, more than half of them children, along with five Afghan police officers, said U.S. Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan. Besides the insurgents in the building, four other attackers served as suicide bombers in coordinated attacks in several areas of Kabul — three of them killed by police before they could detonate their explosives.

Allen said that the attack had no impact on operations and did not mean that Afghan security forces weren't doing their job, arguing that many more potential attacks have been thwarted. However, he said it gave a propaganda victory to the Taliban.

"I'll grant that they did get an IO (Information Operations) win," Allen told reporters in the capital. NATO's senior civilian representative, Simon Gass, called the attack "an extremely frightening even for the citizens of Kabul."

Both these men and Crocker, the U.S. ambassador, argued that the insurgents are depending on headline-getting attacks because they can't actually take and hold ground. But in Kabul, the fear expressed by some residents showed the effectiveness of the current campaign.

Thirty-six-year-old Ghulam Sadeq, who works in a government office, said he doesn't trust the government or the security forces to keep him safe.

"It's true that the security forces were able to defeat attackers and prevent more casualties, but why couldn't they keep them from entering the city? Basically they are unable to stop them, or the insurgents have people helping them," Sadeq said.

Key questions were how the attackers managed to get their heavy arsenal so close to the embassy — into a building that Afghan and U.S. officials had long recognized was a potential platform for an attack. It appeared likely that either weaponry had been stored in the building ahead of time or that some insurgents had entered in advance with a supply of guns and ammunition.

A team of six police officers had been charged to guard the building — a 12-story concrete structure that looks like it was destined to become office space or a shopping center but where building had been halted for some time. Wahidullah Ahmad, a policeman who was overseeing the scene after the attack, said he did not know if any of those guards were among those killed.

One witness said the attackers were equipped with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and possibly a mortar. They also boasted an 82 mm recoiless rifle, a powerful weapon that usually fires shells designed to destroy tanks and is very heavy to carry, much less rush up a building's stairs in the heat of an assault.

The attack began after midday Tuesday when a minivan packed with insurgents was stopped at a checkpoint at Abdul Haq square, which is about 300 yards (meters) from the U.S. Embassy, according to U.S. and Afghan officials.

There were a series of large explosions starting around 1:30 p.m. At least one militant set off a suicide blast near the square. Others drove the vehicle into the partially constructed high-rise, which they took over.

Explosions shook the neighborhood as insurgents fired rockets from the building. Six or seven rockets hit inside the embassy compound during the fighting, and a rocket-propelled grenade that hit an embassy building wounded four Afghans. No NATO or U.S. Embassy employees were hurt.

There was a simultaneous barrage of explosions around the nearby Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood, home to a number of other foreign missions. NATO and Afghan forces started to slowly move up floor by floor in an attempt to ferret out the fighters and U.S. helicopters provided fire from overhead.

The insurgents' Toyota minivan was rigged with explosives, and Afghan police spokesman Hashmat Stanekzai said it likely ferried the weapons. In the van, police also found burqas — the body and face-covering robe worn by many Afghan women in public — that the attackers likely used as diguises to get past police checkpoints, he said.

U.S. and NATO officials praised the Afghan forces for routing the enemy, but international troops played a major role.

AP photos show international troops inside the building throughout the clearing operation, apparently directing both the Afghan police alongside them and passing information to helicopters overhead.

Helicopter gunships took out three of the last four insurgent holdouts, said an Afghan police inspector at the site, Shafiqullah Ibrahim.

Crocker said the attack would not affect the transfer of security responsibilities from the U.S.-led military coalition to the Afghan security forces. Foreign forces are to completely withdraw their combat troops by the end of 2014.

He said it also underlines the problem of the safe havens that the Taliban's Haqqani allies enjoy in the lawless tribal areas over the border in Pakistan, including north Waziristan. Nearly all Taliban attacks in and around the capital have been carried out by the Haqqanis — including a weekend truck bombing in eastern Wardak province that wounded 77 U.S. soldiers.

"It's tough when you're trying to fight an insurgency that has a lot of support outside the national borders," Crocker said. "It's complicated, it's difficult but clearly for a long term solution those safe havens have to be reduced."

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Associated Press writers Patrick Quinn and Rahim Faiez contributed to this report from Kabul.

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Mexico's Calderon berates U.S. after casino attack (Reuters)

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – President Felipe Calderon declared three days of mourning on Friday and demanded a crackdown on drugs in the United States after armed men torched a casino in northern Mexico, killing at least 52 people.

Under intense pressure as violence soars, Calderon said he would send more federal security forces to the city of Monterrey, where gunmen set fire to an upmarket casino on Thursday in one of the worst attacks of Mexico's drugs war.

Lashing out at corrupt officials in Mexico and "insatiable" U.S. demand for drugs for fomenting the violence, Calderon urged Congress to stamp out drug consumption and stop illegal trafficking of weapons across the border into Mexico.

"We're neighbors, we're allies, we're friends, but you are also responsible," a somber and angry Calderon said to the United States in a speech after meeting his security advisers.

Pledging to step up the fight on organized crime, Calderon said Mexico was under attack from "true terrorists", and told all Mexicans to come forward and denounce those responsible.

"They aren't and cannot be the ones in charge of our streets, our cities and our future," he said, shortly before departing to Monterrey to take stock of the situation.

President Barack Obama called the attack "barbaric" and said his government stood shoulder to shoulder with Mexico in the battle against the gangs.

"We share with Mexico responsibility for meeting this challenge and we are committed to continuing our unprecedented cooperation in confronting these criminal organizations," Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

Washington provides money and resources to Mexico in the drugs war, but joint cooperation has been damaged by mistrust, a botched U.S. plan to track down weapons smugglers and the killing by suspected hitmen of a U.S. customs agent in Mexico this year.

Calderon first ordered a crackdown against the cartels when he took office in late 2006 and several senior traffickers have been arrested. However, turf wars between rival cartels have killed about 42,000 people, battering Mexico's reputation.

The president insists his campaign has weakened the cartels but critics say it simply brought a surge in violence and has done little or nothing to slow the flow of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs into the United States.

The carnage has hurt support for Calderon's conservative National Action Party (PAN), which already faces an uphill battle to retain the presidency in elections next July.

BITTER BLOW

The casino attack is particularly bitter for Calderon because the victims were mainly well-to-do civilians with no link to the conflict, in an area that has traditionally been a electoral stronghold for the business-friendly PAN.

Monterrey, which lies about 230 km (140 miles) from the Texas border, is a relatively wealthy city of about 4 million people and is home to some of Mexico's biggest companies. It was for many years seen as a model of economic development but it has been ravaged by the drugs war over the past two years.

The president was unrepentant on Friday and sought to pin blame for the violence on corrupt judges and politicians in "certain parts" of the country. It appeared to be an attack on the main opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which controls the majority of Mexico's states.

With a big lead in opinion polls, the PRI is on track to oust the PAN from power next year and analysts expect the ruling party to intensify efforts to discredit its bitter rival as the presidential vote nears.

Survivors from Thursday afternoon's attack said armed men burst into the Casino Royale and threatened gamblers before dousing gasoline on the carpets and setting it on fire.

"My wife came here for a celebration," a weeping man told Milenio TV. "She was having dinner with her friends."

Media reports said the majority of the dead were women.

Security camera footage showed four vehicles pulling up outside the front of the casino and waiting while the assailants went into the gambling hall.

Within three minutes, black smoke was billowing from the front doors and people could be seen fleeing in panic.

(Additional reporting by Dave Graham, Victor Hugo Valdivia and Michael O'Boyle in Mexico and Laura MacInnis in the United States; Editing by Kieran Murray)

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Tank, navy attack on Syria's Latakia kills 24-witnesses (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian tanks and navy ships shelled the main Mediterranean port city of Latakia Sunday, residents and rights groups said, killing 24 people as President Bashar al-Assad's forces launched an offensive by land and sea to crush protests against his rule.

Since the beginning of the fasting month of Ramadan on August 1, Assad's forces have stormed major urban centers and outlying regions where protests demanding political freedom and an end to 41 years of Assad family rule have been attracting crowds in larger numbers, human rights campaigners said.

"I can see the silhouettes of two grey vessels. They are firing their guns and the impact is landing on al-Raml al-Filistini and al-Shaab neighborhoods," one witness told Reuters by phone from Latakia, where tanks and armored vehicles were deployed three months ago to crush dissent against Assad in mainly Sunni neighborhoods of the mixed city.

"This is the most intense attack on Latakia since the uprising. Anyone who sticks his head out of the window risks being shot. They want to finish off the demonstrations for good," he said.

Each night, an average of 20,000 people have been rallying daily to demand Assad's removal in different areas across the city after Ramadan evening prayers, known as "tarawih," the witness said.

The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union said 32 civilians were killed Sunday. Among them were 24 in Latakia, including a two-year-old girl, Ola al-Jablawi. The deaths came after security forces shot dead 20 people during nationwide marches on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of the casualties were from machineguns targeting heavily populated residential districts.

"After heavy firing, troops and shabbiha (militiamen loyal to Assad) have reached the main square in al-Raml al-Filistini, where the crowds have been demonstrating peacefully for freedom and the downfall of the regime," said a statement by the grassroots activists' group.

The official state news agency denied that Latakia was hit from the sea and said two police and four unidentified armed men were killed when "order preservation forces pursued armed men who were terrorizing residents.. and using machineguns and explosives from rooftops and from behind barricades."

Nevertheless, the assaults by Syrian security forces are being met with increasing international condemnation. United Nations deputy political affairs chief Oscar Fernandez-Taranco was quoted by diplomats in New York Wednesday as saying that Assad's forces killed nearly 2,000 Syrian civilians since March -- 188 since July 31 and 87 on August 8 alone.

The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation called on Saturday for an immediate halt to the military campaign against protesters. U.S. President Barack Obama and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah repeated their calls for the military assaults to stop.

Obama also spoke to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the leaders called for an immediate end to attacks by Assad's forces, the White House said. It said Obama and Cameron would "consult on further steps in the days ahead," which could result in more sanctions on Assad, with Washington calling on Europe and China to consider sanctions on Syria's oil industry, a key source of hard currency for the ruling hierarchy.

SECTARIAN SPLIT

Syrian authorities have expelled most independent media since the beginning of the uprising making verifying events on the ground difficult.

Residents and rights campaigners said security forces and shabbiha members continued house to house raids Sunday in the northwestern Idlib province on the border with Turkey, in the southern Hauran Plain, cradle of the uprising, Damascus suburbs and in the countryside of the city of Hama, which remains besieged by the military.

Hundreds of people were arrested, adding to at least 12,000 Syrians who have been detained since the uprising and thousands of political prisoners in Syria from before, they added.

Assad, from Syria's Alawite minority, has repeatedly said Syria is facing a foreign conspiracy to divide the country of 20 million. The authorities blame "armed terrorist groups" for the bloodshed, and say 500 police and troops have been killed.

But Assad's statements appear to have found little resonance among the majority Sunni population of Latakia, where, similar to urban centers in the rest of the country, the ruling minority has encouraged Alawites to move from their traditional mountain regions, luring them with cheap land and jobs in the public sector and security apparatus.

The Latakia port figures highly in the Assad family domination of the economy, with Bashar al-Assad's late uncle Jamil having been in virtual control of the facility, and a new generation of family members and their friends taking over.

Demonstrations against Assad during the five-month uprising have been biggest in Sunni neighborhoods of Latakia, including Salibiya in the center of the city and Raml al-Filistini and al-Shaab on the southern shore.

Troops and tanks have been besieging the two neighborhoods for months, residents say, with garbage going uncollected and electricity regularly being cut.

In March, leading Syrian opposition and civic figures, including Aref Dalila, a prominent economist from Latakia, issued a declaration denouncing sectarianism and committing to non-violent democratic change in the wake of disturbances involving the shabbiha.

Dalila, an Alawite, has repeatedly warned against Latakia being used by the authorities to whip up sectarian fears among Alawites of a backlash against them if they lose power, instead of concentrating on transforming Syria into a democracy where all sects would enjoy equal treatment under a new constitution.

(Editing by Rosalind Russell)

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New face of chimpanzee attack victim revealed (AP)

HARTFORD, Conn. – The new face of a Connecticut woman who was mauled by a chimpanzee two years ago was revealed for the first time Thursday in photos showing a startling transformation.

The pictures of Charla Nash were first shown on NBC's "Today" show and in Hearst Connecticut Newspapers on Thursday morning. They were later released by Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, where she had face transplant surgery in May.

Nash, 57, didn't appear on "Today" because relatives said she was too weak to do an interview. In a statement released by the hospital, Nash thanked all the doctors, nurses and other medical experts who helped her over the past two years.

"I will now be able to do things I once took for granted," Nash said in the statement. "I will be able to smell. I will be able to eat normally. I will no longer be disfigured. I will have lips and will speak clearly once again. I will be able to kiss and hug loved ones. I am tremendously grateful to the donor and her family."

The show aired footage of Nash in a hospital bed, nodding to visitors, her face smooth and features appearing nearly normal.

"Today" also reported that Nash was able to eat eggs with cream cheese after the transplant — the first solid food she's had since the attack.

Nash, who's now living in a Boston-area nursing home, was attacked in February 2009 by a neighbor's 200-pound pet chimpanzee, which went berserk after its owner asked Nash to help lure it back into her house in Stamford, Conn. The animal, named Travis, ripped off Nash's nose, lips, eyelids and hands before being shot to death by police.

Nash was left with no eyes and only a small opening where her mouth once was. She could only eat pureed food, and she was barely understandable when she talked.

In late May, she underwent a full face and double hand transplant in Boston. She received skin, underlying muscles, blood vessels, nerves, a hard palate and teeth from a dead person who hasn't been named. It was the third full face transplant in the U.S.

But doctors later had to remove the hands because of complications that developed when Nash caught pneumonia. Nash said she's hoping to attempt another double hand transplant one day.

Asked by "Today" what she would say to the donor's family, Nash's daughter, Brianna, said she'd tell them how grateful she is.

"What they've done for us is just so amazing," she said. "This has really given my mom the hope to move forward, a chance at a life again."

Nash's family is suing the estate of the chimpanzee's owner, Sandra Herold, for $50 million and wants to sue the state for $150 million, claiming officials failed to prevent the attack. Herold died last year of an aneurysm.

Nash's brother, Steve Nash, told The Associated Press that his sister has maintained a positive outlook since the mauling, and the family hopes she can get the double hand transplant in about six months. She also has only a top row of teeth and doctors are planning to install a lower row soon, he said.

"It's brought my sister to a better quality of life. It makes you feel good, and we're very thankful," Steve Nash said about the face transplant. "She's preparing the best she can to be a blind person."

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Online:

NBC's "Today" show: http://on.today.com/pdWJSe

Hearst Newspapers: http://www.hearst.com/newspapers

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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.

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Associated Press writer Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.

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India: Terror attack kills 17, wounds 81 in Mumbai (AP)

By RAJESH SHAH and MUNEEZA NAQVI, Associated Press Rajesh Shah And Muneeza Naqvi, Associated Press – 3?mins?ago

MUMBAI, India – Near-simultaneous bomb blasts rocked three busy neighborhoods during evening rush hour in India's busy financial capital Wednesday, killing 17 people in what the government called an apparent terrorist attack on the city besieged by militants nearly three years ago.

Blood-covered bodies lay on the streets and people hugged and wept. Others carried the wounded to taxis. Crowds gathered in the blast areas as police questioned witnesses, and bomb squads inspected the undercarriages of vehicles searching for clues and other explosives.

Motorcycles were charred, shopfronts shattered and a bus stop ripped apart. A photograph showed victims crowding into the back of a cargo truck to be taken to a hospital.

The first blast struck the Jhaveri Bazaar at 6.54 p.m., tearing through the famed jewelry market. A minute later, a second blast hit the busy business district of Opera House, several miles (kilometers) away in southern Mumbai. At 7:05 p.m., the third bomb exploded in the crowded neighborhood of Dadar in central Mumbai, according to police.

Because of the close timing of the bomb blasts, "we infer that this was a coordinated attack by terrorists," Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said.

Indian officials refused to speculate on who might be behind the blasts. Past attacks have been blamed on Pakistan-based militants, and Indian officials have accused Pakistan's powerful spy agency of helping coordinate and fund some of those strikes, including the Mumbai siege.

A U.S. official says there are no claims of responsibility, or firm indication of which terrorist group might be behind the attack at this time. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

"The entire city of Mumbai has been put on high alert," Chidambaram said. "I would appeal to the people of Mumbai and people all over the country to remain calm and to maintain peace."

An eyewitness at Jhaveri Bazaar described two motorcycles exploding in flames and saw at least six bodies.

"People were shouting 'Help me, help me,'" the man told Headlines Today television.

Another witness showed cell phone clips of several bodies sprawled across the street to the NDTV news station.

Prithviraj Chavan, the top official in the state of Maharashtra, where Mumbai was located, said the blasts killed 17 people and wounded 81 others. Chidambaram said the toll was likely to rise.

The blasts marked the first major attack on Mumbai since 10 militants laid siege to India's financial capital for 60 hours in November 2008.

That attack, which targeted two luxury hotels, a Jewish center and a busy train station, killed 166 people and escalated tensions between India and Pakistan. Peace talks were suspended and resumed only recently.

Pakistan's government expressed distress on the loss of lives and injuries soon after Wednesday's blasts were reported.

Some media incorrectly reported the blasts happened on the birthday of Ajmal Kasab, the only surviving gunmen from the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Kasab, who was sentenced to death in Mumbai, was born on Sept. 13.

Mumbai has been on edge since the 2008 attack. In December, authorities deployed extra police on city streets after receiving intelligence that a Pakistan-based militant group was planning an attack over New Year's weekend. Police conducted house-to-house searches in some neighborhoods for four men who authorities believe entered the city to carry out a terrorist attack, and computer-aided photographs of the four suspects were released.

In March 2010, Mumbai police said they prevented a major terrorist strike after they arrested two Indian men, who, police said, were preparing to hit several targets in the city. In September, police issued a terror alert for the city during a popular Hindu festival.

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Naqvi reported from New Delhi. Associated Press writers Ravi Nessman in New Delhi and Kimberly Dozier in Washington contributed to this report.

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Syrian protesters attack US embassy (AP)

BEIRUT – Syrian government supporters smashed windows at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus on Monday, raised a Syrian flag and scrawled graffiti calling the American ambassador a "dog" in anger over the envoy's visit last week to an opposition stronghold, witnesses said.

French Embassy security guards in the capital fired in the air to hold back supporters of President Bashar Assad's regime who were also protesting the French ambassador's visit to the same city, Hama, in central Syria. Protesters smashed embassy windows and shattered the windshield of a diplomatic SUV outside the compound. The French flag was removed and replaced with a Syrian one.

"God, Syria and Bashar. The nation that gave birth to Bashar Assad will not kneel," read graffiti written outside the embassy. One witness said three protesters were injured when guards beat them with clubs. The witness asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation.

There was no immediate word on casualties among protesters at the American Embassy demonstration.

A U.S. official said the Obama administration will formally protest the attack and may seek compensation for damage caused when a mob breached the wall of the compound before being dispersed by Marine guards.

The official said the State Department would summon a senior Syrian diplomat on Monday to condemn the assault and demand that Syria uphold obligations to protect foreign diplomatic missions. The official said no buildings were entered and there were no injuries to embassy personnel. But the official said the attackers damaged the chancery building.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly, said Syrian security forces were slow to respond to the attack.

The Syrian regime called the French and American ambassadors' visits to Hama last week interference in the country's internal affairs and accused the envoys of undermining Syria's stability.

The protests erupted after U.S. Ambassador Robert Ford harshly criticized the Syrian government's crackdown on a popular uprising.

Some 1,600 civilians and 350 members of security forces have been killed since demonstrations began, activists say. Syria blames what it calls "armed gangs" and Muslim extremists for the violence.

Hiam al-Hassan, a witness, said about 300 people had gathered outside the French Embassy while hundreds others were at the American diplomatic compound.

"Syrians demonstrated peacefully in front of the French embassy but they were faced with bullets," said al-Hassan.

On Sunday, Ford attacked the Syrian government for allowing pro-government protests while beating up anti-regime demonstrators. The pro-Assad protests in Syria are known as "mnhebak," or "we love you."

"I have not seen the police assault a "mnhebak" demonstration yet," Ford wrote on the embassy's Facebook page. "On July 9, a "mnhebak" group threw rocks at our embassy, causing some damage. They resorted to violence, unlike the people in Hama, who have stayed peaceful."

"And how ironic that the Syrian Government lets an anti-U.S. demonstration proceed freely while their security thugs beat down olive branch-carrying peaceful protesters elsewhere," he said. "I saw no signs of armed gangs anywhere not at any of the civilian street barricades we passed," Ford added.

Monday's protests coincided with government-organized talks in Damascus on possible political reforms after four months of unrest.

However the talks did not stop Syrian forces from pressing their crackdown on the opposition.

Before the embassy attacks, Syrian troops stormed the country's third-largest city with armored personnel carriers and heavy machine guns, a rights activist. At least two people were killed and 20 wounded in the attacks in Homs, activists said.

The clashes in Homs in central Syria suggest the Assad regime will not ease its four-month-old crackdown on the opposition despite proposing some political changes.

Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa called Sunday for a transition to democracy in a country ruled for four decades by the authoritarian Assad family dynasty. But the talks, which wrap up Monday, are boycotted by the main anti-government factions and are unlikely to produce any breakthroughs to immediately end the bloodshed.

The two days of meetings, however, were seen as a major concession by Assad's regime after the most serious challenge to its rule.

In Homs, an activist in the city told The Associated Press clashes occurred after security forces on Sunday killed the son of an anti-regime tribal leader. The unrest lasted until 5 a.m. (0200 GMT) Monday.

Street lights were turned off then troops started entering neighborhoods, shooting with heavy machine guns atop Russian-made armored personnel carriers, said the activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisals.

He said some people cowered in their bathrooms during the height of the assault. At least one person was killed and 20 wounded, the activist said.

Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also said forces pushed into parts of Homs.

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NATO air strike kills fighter linked to Afghan hotel attack (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – NATO aircraft killed an insurgent leader linked to a deadly hotel attack in the Afghan capital this week, the coalition said on Thursday, a raid that raised questions about whether Afghan forces are ready for the looming security transition.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Intercontinental, one of two major hotels used by foreigners and Afghan government officials, a rare night-time raid that began on Tuesday and ended five hours later with 12 killed.

However, the NATO-led Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani network had also been involved in the assault by nine suicide bombers and gunmen.

ISAF identified the Haqqani network leader killed in an air strike as Ismail Jan, who it described as a deputy to the senior Haqqani commander in Afghanistan, Haji Mali Khan.

It said he and "several Haqqani fighters" were killed in the air strike in the Gardez district of Paktia province south of Kabul on Wednesday.

"The Haqqani network, in conjunction with Taliban operatives, was responsible for the Tuesday night attack on the Kabul Intercontinental hotel which killed 12 people, including a provincial judge," ISAF said in a statement.

The brazen raid came only a week after President Barack Obama announced a phased withdrawal of combat troops, with 10,000 to leave by the end of this year and another 23,000 by the end September 2012.

Obama's announcement preceded the start of a gradual transition of responsibility to Afghan forces from next month that will end with all foreign combat troops leaving Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

With that transition process to begin in seven areas next month, the hotel raid raised serious questions about whether Afghan forces, particularly the police, were ready to take over.

"It shows one of the concerns is that the Afghan security forces are growing in quantity, not in quality," said Thomas Ruttig, co-director of the Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network.

SNIPERS

The attack ended when snipers on board a NATO helicopter killed the last three attackers fighting from the roof of the hotel. Earlier television footage showed Afghan forces firing wildly into the air.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that some police had refused to fight back.

ISAF has been training members of the 126,000-strong Afghan National Police since 2009.

Afghan police, who will be at the front line of the security transition in villages and towns across Afghanistan, have long been viewed as inept and lagging behind the training of the better-equipped army, which had been the focus of training efforts since the Taliban were toppled in late 2001.

Violence has risen to record levels across Afghanistan over the past 18 months as NATO troops, especially U.S. forces, hit back against a growing insurgency, especially in the Taliban heartland in the south.

A quarterly report by the United Nations secretary-general to the Security Council about Afghanistan found that the number of security incidents since March had risen 51 percent on the same period in 2010, with suicide attacks rising sharply.

Attacks in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar were especially worrying. "The city of Kandahar and its surroundings registered the majority of the incidents during the reporting period, with a quarter of the overall attacks and more than half of all assassinations recorded countrywide," the report said.

But Ruttig said the attack also highlighted other problems confronting Afghanistan before the transition process, which also includes handing the running of civil institutions and projects over to Afghans, begins.

Not the least of those is the political paralysis that has gripped the country for months.

"The fact that neither NATO nor the Afghans were able to prevent it says something -- that transition needs to be something more than just security," Ruttig said of the hotel attack.

"Security forces are only part of transition. There also needs to be a strengthening of political institutions and, at the moment, the parliamentary crisis has brought politics to a standstill," he told Reuters.

Last week, a special poll court set up by a decree by President Hamid Karzai overturned the results for a quarter of the seats in parliament from elections last year, effectively throwing out 62 MPs who had been declared winners.

The move, and the court itself, have been branded unconstitutional and illegal by Afghan and Western officials and observers. Critics have said the court was set up by Karzai to further his own political agenda and silence opposition.

(Additional reporting by Alistair Scrutton; Editing by Sugita Katyal)

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At least 20 dead in Afghan hospital bomb attack (AFP)

PULI ALAM, Afghanistan (AFP) – A bomb at an Afghan hospital on Saturday killed at least 20 people including women and children, days after President Barack Obama said 10,000 US forces would leave the country this year.

The suicide car bombing in Logar province, about 75 kilometres (45 miles) south of the capital Kabul, also wounded over 20 people and officials warned the death toll could rise.

An eyewitness described horrific scenes of victims on fire and body parts scattered in all directions after a sports utility vehicle (SUV) blew up in the remote district of Azra, close to the border with Pakistan.

The attack was condemned "in the strongest terms" by the United Nations, which said the hospital's maternity ward was badly damaged in the attack and many of the victims were women and children.

Underlining chaos and confusion at the site, the ministry of public health initially put the death toll at 60 but later corrected its own figures.

"At least 20 of our countrymen have been martyred and around 25 are wounded," the ministry said. The interior ministry also said 20 people were killed including hospital staff and patients, and 23 other civilians wounded.

But provincial health director Mohammad Zaref Nayebkhail told AFP the death toll could still be significantly higher as many people came to the scene quickly after the blast and removed the bodies of their relatives.

One man who lives near the devastated hospital, Abdul Rahman, told AFP that he lost seven relatives in the explosion.

"Seven members of my family including three women and two children went to that hospital this morning," he said, through tears.

"I was at home, then I heard a big explosion. When I rushed to the site, I saw many dead and injured people.

"Many of them were burning, on fire. There were body parts everywhere. My family is dead, I can't find them, they are under the rubble."

The Taliban denied it was behind the attack, with spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid saying: "We condemn this attack on a hospital... whoever has done this wants to defame the Taliban."

Staffan de Mistura, the special representative of the United Nations secretary-general for Afghanistan, called the blast "despicable".

"Much of the damage was in the maternity ward of the hospital, and many of those killed and injured were women and children," he said in a statement.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) also stressed that attacks on hospitals were prohibited under international humanitarian law.

The blast came at the end of a week when Obama announced that 33,000 US forces would leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer.

All foreign combat forces are due to pull out of the country by the end of 2014. There are currently up to 150,000 foreign forces in Afghanistan, including about 99,000 from the United States.

Some analysts fear that Afghan security forces may struggle to contain the Taliban-led insurgency, which has hit record levels of violence after nearly ten years, as withdrawals begin.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack as "savage and ignorant" in a statement released by his office.

Meanwhile, Karzai told a counter-terrorism summit in Tehran that militancy was on the rise in his country.

"Not only has Afghanistan not yet achieved peace and security but terrorism is expanding and threatening more than ever Afghanistan and the region," he said.

The two-day summit was attended by the heads of state of six regional countries, including Afghan neighbours Iran and Pakistan.

The blast in Logar is the second major attack in Afghanistan in two days.

On Friday, 10 people were killed by a bicycle bomb which exploded in a busy bazaar in the Khad Abad district of the northern province of Kunduz.

Militants in Afghanistan frequently target the Afghan police, army and other government employees as well as foreign forces in their near decade-long insurgency.

But civilians are the biggest casualties in the war, with 2,777 killed last year, according to the United Nations. That was the biggest total since the war started in 2001.

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