HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam and China traded accusations Tuesday over who was the aggressor in a clash that led to the sinking of a Vietnamese fishing boat in the South China Sea, sharpening tensions already dangerously high after China moved an oil rig into the disputed waters.

Hanoi accused a Chinese vessel of ramming the wooden Vietnamese boat Monday then fleeing the scene. Beijing said the Vietnamese boat was trying to get close to the oil rig, rammed into one of its vessels, and then sank. The crew was rescued.

The clash occurred around 30 kilometers (18 miles) south-southwest of the large oil rig that China deployed on May 1 in waters both nations claim.

The rig deployment infuriated Hanoi and set off violent anti-China protests that further soured ties between the neighboring communist countries with close economic relations. Vietnam sent patrol ships to confront the rig, and China has deployed scores of vessels to protect it. The two sides have been involved in a tense standoff, occasionally colliding with each other.

China and Vietnam have long sparred over who owns what in the oil- and gas-rich waters. Incidents between fishing crews are quite common, but Monday's incident was the first time a Vietnamese boat had been sunk, said Tran Van Linh, president of the Fisheries Association in the central port city of Danang.

"I call this an act of attempted murder because the Chinese sank a Vietnamese fishing boat and then ran away," Linh said. "We vehemently protest this perverse, brutal and inhumane action by Chinese side."

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Head of Vietnam's Foreign Ministry legal department Nguyen Thi Thanh Ha (R) speaks next to Vietn …

Linh said about 40 Chinese steel vessels surrounded a group of smaller, wooden Vietnamese fishing ships on Monday afternoon. He said one then rammed into the Vietnamese ship, tossing 10 fishermen into the water and sinking the boat. The fishermen were picked by the other Vietnamese boats and there were no injuries.

In Beijing, the government said that a Vietnamese fishing boat had forced its way into the area around the oil rig and rammed into a Chinese fishing boat. "I think the fact that this incident happened at all shows that Vietnam's illegitimate and illegal harassment and sabotage against China's regular operations are futile and will only hurt their own interests," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang.

Since May 1, Vietnam has accused China of ramming into or firing water cannons at Vietnamese vessels trying to get close to the rig, damaging several boats and injuring fisheries surveillance officers. They have shown video footage of some of the incidents. China accuses Vietnam of doing the same.

China claims nearly all of the South China Sea as its own, bringing it into conflict with far smaller neighbors like Vietnam and the Philippines. In recent years it has been more assertive in pressing its claims in the waters and resisting attempts to negotiate.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino III said Tuesday his country was watching developments in the Vietnam-China standoff. "We're trying to learn the right lessons and our armed forces and coast guard and other concerned agencies are looking at the possible scenarios and what should be our appropriate response," he said.

He spoke from a western Philippine naval base he said had been equipped with surveillance and better communications to better guard against territorial intrusions.

The United States, which shares the concerns of the smaller claimant states about China's rising military might, called China's deployment of the rig "provocative." Vietnam is trying to rally regional and international support against Beijing, but its options are limited because China is the country's largest trading partner.

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Associated Press writers Louise Watt in Beijing and Jim Gomez in Manila contributed to this report.

That a Vietnamese fishing boat sank is undisputed. But Hanoi and Beijing differ as to why it happened.
'Act of attempted murder'

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A convoy of chemical weapons inspectors came under attack Tuesday while traveling to the site of a suspected chlorine gas attack in Syria, but all staff members were safe, the international watchdog agency said.

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has been working with the United Nations to oversee the destruction of the Syrian government's stockpiles since September 2013, when President Bashar Assad's administration acknowledged it has chemical weapons and agreed to give them up to avoid the threat of U.S. military strikes.

Syria has since destroyed or handed over more than 90 percent of the weapons and toxic chemicals it has formally declared. Its sole remaining declared stockpile has been packaged for shipment out of the country to meet a June 30 deadline for destruction.

However, last month allegations surfaced that chlorine gas has been used as a weapon in fighting between the government and rebels. Chlorine is not banned under chemical weapons conventions, and it was not part of Syria's disclosures. However, using any toxic material in warfare violates chemical weapons treaties and international law.

The circumstances of Tuesday's attack were unclear. Syria's Foreign Ministry initially reported that 11 people, including six members of a U.N. fact-finding mission and their Syrian drivers, had been abducted by rebels fighting to topple Assad's government. But the OPCW issued a statement shortly afterward saying a convoy had come under attack but "all team members are safe and well and are travelling back to the operating base."

Opposition activists could not immediately be reached for comment.

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In this August 26, 2013, file Photo, a U.N. team, that is scheduled to investigate an alleged chemic …

The Syrian Foreign Ministry said the convoy, which consisted of four vehicles, was heading toward the rebel-held town of Kfar Zeita where activists and Human Rights Watch reported gas attacks on April 11 and April 18 that killed two people.

It said the government had agreed to a daylong cease-fire in the town in the central province of Hama "to facilitate the work of this mission." As the team reached the nearby government-controlled village of Taibet al-Imam, the government said it was unable to provide protection beyond that point but the team decided to continue without Syrian security forces, according to the statement.

A roadside bomb then hit one of the team's vehicles, forcing the passengers to move to another car and turn back toward Taibet al-Imam, the ministry said. The ministry said only one vehicle arrived in the village, which is under government control, a fact that might have caused Damascus to issue the statement saying the rest had been abducted.

Syria's state-run news agency SANA later said the members of the fact-finding mission were released. It was not immediately clear why the government said members of the team had been abducted when the OPCW said all were safe.

A doctor in Kfar Zeita who identified himself as Abdullah Darwish said the team had been expected to arrive in the village on Tuesday and medical officials had prepared for them documents as well as a number of people who suffered during the alleged chlorine attack. But the main rebel group the Free Syrian Army later said the inspection team wouldn't be coming, Darwish told The Associated Press via Skype.

The OPCW Director-General Ambassador Ahmet Uzumcu expressed concern about the attack, repeating his call to all parties for cooperation with the mission.

"Our inspectors are in Syria to establish the facts in relation to persistent allegations of chlorine gas attacks," Uzumcu said. "Their safety is our primary concern, and it is imperative that all parties to the conflict grant them safe and secure access."

The Netherlands-based OPCW, which monitors the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and oversees the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons, had sent a 12-member team to Damascus this month to investigate claims that chlorine has been used in a number of locations in Syria. The U.N. Security Council authorized the OPCW to oversee a fact-finding investigation into the alleged gas attacks.

The Syrian government has agreed to cooperate with the inspectors and their U.N. security detachment in the parts of the country it controls. The Syrian opposition also has said that rebels will protect U.N. teams visiting their areas.

In August, a U.N. team that was trying to reach a Damascus suburb following a chemical weapons attack came under fire. Both the government and the opposition blamed each other for that attack. No one was hurt in the attack and the inspectors eventually arrived in Moadamiyeh, a western suburb of Damascus.

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Sterling reported from Amsterdam. Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed to this report from Beirut.

Related video

All staff members are safe after an international chemical watchdog's convoy draws fire.
Odd statement from Damascus

MOSCOW, May 27 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Tuesday for an immediate halt to Ukraine's military operation against pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country.

In his first reported comments on Ukraine since its presidential election on Sunday, Putin also stepped up pressure on Kiev to start a dialogue with the rebel leaders as fighting raged in east Ukraine.

The Kremlin said Putin had spoken to Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi by telephone and "underscored the need for an immediate halt to the punitive military operation in the southeastern regions and the establishment of peaceful dialogue between Kiev and representatives of the regions."

Moscow has amassed troops on the frontier with Ukraine during the crisis, in which Ukraine's Moscow-basked president was ousted and Russia annexed the Crimea region from Ukraine, but said last week they had started to withdraw.

NATO has noted, however, that many still remain.

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said separately that halting bloodshed was "the No. 1 task for the Kiev authorities and a test of their durability" after billionaire businessman Petro Poroshenko's election success.

"The election has taken place, and we respect the results of the expression of the people's will, but we believe it is absolutely imperative to ... stop all violence," Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as telling a news conference.

Lavrov said Poroshenko would find Russia a reliable partner if he established dialogue with eastern Ukraine, but said that no visit by Poroshenko to Russia was being considered.

He also warned the government that efforts to put down the separatists could backfire.

"If they are counting on ... suppressing resistance in the southeast before Poroshenko's expected inauguration and enabling him to go there as a victor, I don't think this will create good conditions for a warm welcome in the Donetsk region (in eastern Ukraine)," Itar-Tass quoted Lavrov as saying.

(Writing by Steve Gutterman, Editing by Timothy Heritage)

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up inside a Shi'ite mosque in central Baghdad on Tuesday, killing at least 19 people, security and medical sources said.

A Reuters photographer at the site of the blast in the busy district of Shorja said the mosque's walls were blackened with smoke, blood streaked the ceiling, and prayer mats were strewn around.

Most of the victims were merchants and shopkeepers from the area who had gone to pray. Policeman Abbas Inad told Reuters: “The bomb was so big and stuffed with tiny metal balls to kill as many people as possible."

It was not immediately clear who was behind the bombing, but Sunni Islamist insurgents have been regaining momentum in Iraq and have previously claimed responsibility for attacking Shi'ite places of worship.

Security and medical sources earlier said the bomb had exploded at an open-air bus station within range of the mosque.

The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals but the rescue effort was hampered by blast walls surrounding the market designed to limit the damage of an explosion.

Hospital sources said the death toll was likely to rise due to the severity of the injuries.

(Reporting by Baghdad bureau; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alister Doyle)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama will seek to keep 9,800 U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the war formally ends later this year and then will withdraw most of those forces by 2016, senior administration officials said Tuesday.

Obama's decision is largely in line with what military commanders have been seeking and will allow the president to fully end the American-led military effort by the time he leaves office.

The two-year plan is contingent on the Afghan government signing a bilateral security agreement with the U.S. While current Afghan President Hamid Karzai has declined to sign the agreement, U.S. officials are confident that either of the candidates seeking to replace him would give his approval.

The plan calls for the U.S. military to draw down from its current force of 32,000 to 9,800 by the start of next year. Those troops would be dispatched throughout Afghanistan and focus on counterterrorism missions and training Afghan security forces. They would not be engaged in combat missions.

Over the course of next year, the number of troops would be cut in half and consolidated in the capital of Kabul and at Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. base in Afghanistan. Those remaining forces would largely be withdrawn by the end of 2016, with fewer than 1,000 remaining behind to staff a security office in Kabul.

The American forces would likely be bolstered by a few thousand NATO troops. The total NATO presence, including U.S. troops, is expected to be around 12,000 at the start of next year.

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This May 25, 2014 file photo shows President Barack Obama speaking during a troop rally after arrivi …

Obama was to announce the plan at the White House Tuesday afternoon. He is just back from a surprise weekend trip to Afghanistan where he met with U.S. commanders and American forces serving in the closing months of America's longest war.

The officials providing details of the announcement insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plan by name ahead of the president.

Ahead of his remarks, Obama was expected to speak with Karzai, who has had a tumultuous relationship with the White House. The two leaders did not see each other while Obama was in Afghanistan, but they did speak by phone as Air Force One was returning to Washington.

Obama has also discussed his plans with several European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi.

After Karzai refused to sign the bilateral security agreement, Obama asked the Pentagon to plan for the possibility that all American forces would withdraw by a year-end 2014 deadline. But given the supportive comments of the candidates in Afghanistan's presidential election, Obama signaled during his holiday weekend trip to Bagram that he was likely to keep some American troops in the country.

"After all the sacrifices we've made, we want to preserve the gains that you have helped to win, and we're going to make sure that Afghanistan can never again, ever, be used again to launch an attack against our country," Obama declared.

At least 2,181 members of the U.S. military have died during the nearly 13-year Afghan war and thousands more have been wounded.

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Commanders have asked for more time, and the president wants to leave 9,800 troops until 2016.
2-year plan