A look at the Patriot missiles en route to Turkey

BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO's expected decision Tuesday to provide Turkey with Patriot missiles returns the spotlight to an American-manufactured, anti-missile system that has undergone a series of renovations since entering service more than three decades ago.

The weapon was first used to defend Saudi Arabia and Israel in the 1991 Gulf War. It was deployed again during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. It has since become a defensive system of choice for a dozen countries worldwide, including the U.S. and five fellow NATO nations.

Here is a look at the Patriot's capabilities and record:

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MANUFACTURER: Raytheon.

RANGE: About 100 miles (160 kilometers). Can reach altitudes of about 80,000 feet.

CAPABILITIES: Patriots are designed to target aircraft, tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones.

HOW THEY WORK: Patriots come in batteries of several missiles that can be fired individually. They are guided to their targets by a tracking radar which is connected to computer systems, where military personnel can monitor them and decide which targets to engage. These monitoring stations don't need to be near the firing positions.

The Patriots are likely to be spread out to defend urban centers in southern Turkey. They are usually positioned so that they can cover a wider geographical zone, and wouldn't be deployed exactly on Turkey's border with Syria. This way, they have a longer response time for mid-air adjustments and can avoid violating Syria's airspace, which NATO has promised to respect for now.

Patriots are best against individual missiles. A deliberate attack involving multiple incoming strikes could overwhelm their capacity.

DEPLOYMENT HISTORY: The U.S. military initially claimed a success rate of 70 percent against Iraqi Scuds aimed at Saudi Arabia and 40 percent of those aimed at Israel during the first Gulf War. However, a congressional report later found that of 47 Patriot missiles fired at incoming Scuds, only four missiles were downed. On 25 Feb. 25, 1991, a Scud evaded a Patriot strike and scored a direct hit on a U.S. base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 American soldiers. The military blamed a software error.

Twelve years later, the U.S. Army said Patriots intercepted all nine short-range battlefield missiles fired by the Iraqis. No Scuds were fired during that war. But the Patriots were also reported to have downed two allied jets — one American and one British — in friendly fire incidents during the conflict.

In the past, Patriots have struggled to counter poorly made missiles such as Iraqi Scuds and those Syria may include in its arsenal. These can wobble wildly in flight, making them harder to hit. Their inaccuracy also increases the target radius.

Newer designs are supposed to address previous Patriot shortcomings. They are also supposed to be more powerful, so that interceptions result in more missiles being destroyed immediately.

Typhoon kills at least 283, hundreds missing, in Philippines

100,000 protest at Egypt's presidential palace

Protesters chant slogans and wave national flags in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, Tuesday, Dec. 4, 2012. Hundreds of black-clad riot police deployed around the Itihadiya palace in Cairo's district of Heliopolis. Barbed wire was also placed outside the complex, and side roads leading to it were blocked to traffic. Protesters gathered at Cairo's Tahrir square and several other points not far from the palace to march to the presidential complex. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo)

CAIRO (AP) — More than 100,000 Egyptians protested outside thepresidential palace in Cairo on Tuesday, fueling tensions over Islamist leader Mohammed Morsi's seizure of nearly unrestricted powers and the adoption by his allies of a controversial draft constitution.

The outpouring of anger across the Egyptian capital, the Mediterranean port of Alexandria and a string of other cities pointed to a prolonged standoff between the president and a newly united opposition.

Morsi's opponents, long fractured by bickering and competing egos, have been re-energized since he announced decrees last month that place him above oversight of any kind, including by the courts, and provide immunity to two key bodies dominated by his allies: The 100-member panel drafting the constitution and parliament's upper chamber.

The decrees have led to charges that Morsi's powers turned him into a "new pharaoh."

The large turnout in Tuesday's protests — dubbed "The Last Warning" by organizers — signaled sustained momentum for the opposition, which brought out at least 200,000 protesters to Cairo's Tahrir Square a week ago and a comparable number on Friday to demand that Morsi rescind the decrees.

The huge scale of the protests have dealt a blow to the legitimacy of the new constitution, which Morsi's opponents contend allows religious authorities too much influence over legislation, threatens to restrict freedom of expression and opens the door to Islamist control over day-to-day life.

What the revived opposition has yet to make clear is what it will do next: campaign for a "no" vote on the draft constitution in a nationwide referendum set for Dec. 15, or call on Egyptians to boycott the vote.

Already, the country's powerful judges have said they will not take on their customary role of overseeing the vote, thus robbing it of much of its legitimacy.

Morsi was in the presidential palace conducting business as usual as the protesters gathered outside. He left for home through a back door as the crowds continued to swell, according to a presidential official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The official said Morsi left on the advice of security officials to head off "possible dangers" and to calm the protesters. Morsi's spokesman, however, said the president left the palace at the end of his normal work day, through the door he routinely uses.

The protest was peaceful except for a brief outburst when police used tear gas to prevent demonstrators from removing a barricade topped with barbed wire and converging on the palace.

Soon after, with the president gone, the police abandoned their lines and the protesters surged ahead to reach the palace walls. But there were no attempts to storm the palace, guarded inside by the army's Republican Guard.

Protesters also commandeered two police vans, climbing atop the armored vehicles to jubilantly wave Egypt's red, white and black flag and chant against Morsi. The protesters later mingled freely with the black-clad riot police, as more and more people flocked to the area to join the demonstration.

The protesters covered most of the palace walls with anti-Morsi graffiti and waved giant banners carrying images of revolutionaries killed in earlier protests. "Down with the regime" and "No to Morsi," they wrote on the walls.

"He isn't the president of all Egyptians, only of the Muslim Brotherhood," said protester Mariam Metwally, a postgraduate student of international law. "We don't feel like he is our president."

A giant poster emblazoned with an image of Morsi wearing a Pharaonic crown was hoisted between two street light posts outside the presidential palace. "Down with the president. No to the constitution," it declared.

"The scene at Itihadiya palace is a stab at the president's legitimacy and his constitutional declaration," opposition leader Hamdeen Sabahi told a private TV network. "The scene sends a message to the president that he is running out of time."

The massive gathering was reminiscent of the one outside the palace on Feb. 11, 2011 — the day authoritarian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down in the face of an 18-day uprising that ended his 29-year regime.

Shouts of "Erhal! Erhal!" — Arabic for "Leave! Leave!" — and "The people want to topple the regime!" rose up from the crowd, the same chants used against Mubarak. This time, though, they were directed at his successor, Egypt's first democratically elected president.

"The same way we brought down Mubarak in 18 days, we can bring down Morsi in less," Ziad Oleimi, a prominent rights activist, told the crowds using a loudspeaker.

In Alexandria, some 10,000 opponents of Morsi gathered in the center of the country's second-largest metropolis, chanting slogans against the leader and his Islamic fundamentalist group, the Muslim Brotherhood.

The protests fueled Egypt's worst political crisis since Mubarak's ouster, with the country clearly divided into two camps: Morsi, his Muslim Brotherhood and their ultraconservative Islamist allies, versus an opposition made up of youth groups, liberal parties and large sectors of the public.

Tens of thousands also gathered in Cairo's downtown Tahrir Square, miles away from the palace, to join several hundred who have been camping out there for nearly two weeks. There were other large protests around the city.

Smaller protests by Morsi opponents were staged in the Islamist stronghold of Assiut, as well as in Suez, Luxor, Aswan, Damanhour and the industrial city of Mahallah, north of Cairo.

"Freedom or we die," chanted a crowd of several hundred outside a mosque in Cairo's Abbasiyah district. "Mohammed Morsi, illegitimate! Brotherhood, illegitimate!" they yelled.

Earlier Tuesday, several hundred protesters also gathered outside Morsi's residence in an upscale suburb. "Down with the sons of dogs. We are the power and we are the people," they chanted.

Morsi, who narrowly won the presidency in a June election, appeared to be in no mood for compromise.

A statement by his office said he met Tuesday with his deputy, his prime minister and several top Cabinet members to discuss preparations for the referendum. The statement suggested business as usual at the palace, despite the mass rally outside its doors.

Asked why Morsi did not address the crowds, Muslim Brotherhood spokesman Mahmoud Ghozlan said the protesters were "rude" and included "thugs and drug addicts."

The Islamists responded to the mass opposition protests last week by sending hundreds of thousands of supporters into Cairo's twin city of Giza on Saturday and across much of the country. Thousands also besieged Egypt's highest court, the Supreme Constitutional Court.

The court had been widely expected to declare the constitutional assembly that passed the draft charter illegitimate and to disband parliament's upper house, the Shura Council. Instead, the judges went on strike after they found their building under siege by protesters.

Morsi's Nov. 22 decrees were followed last week by the constitutional panel rushing through the draft constitution in a marathon, all-night session without the participation of liberal and Christian members. Only four women, all Islamists, attended the session.

The charter has been criticized for not protecting the rights of women and minority groups, and many journalists see it as restricting freedom of expression. Critics also say it empowers Islamic religious clerics by giving them a say over legislation, while some articles were seen as tailored to get rid of the Islamists' enemies.

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Associated Press writer Maggie Michael contributed to this report.

Fighting, death tolls surge as rebels push fight against regime to Syrian capital of Damascus

BEIRUT - Syria's civil war is closing in on President Bashar Assad's seat of power in Damascus with clashes between government forces and rebels flaring around the city Tuesday, raising fears the capital will become the next major battlefield in the 20-month-old conflict.

Numerous reports emerged of at least a dozen people killed near the ancient city and elsewhere, and the regime said nine students and a teacher died from rebel mortar fire on a school. The state news agency originally said 30 people had been killed in the attack.

While many of the mostly poor, Sunni Muslim suburbs ringing Damascus have long been opposition hotbeds, fighting has intensified in the area in recent weeks as rebels press a battle they hope will finish Assad's regime.

"The push to take Damascus is a real one, and intense pressure to take control of the city is part of a major strategic shift by rebel commanders," said Mustafa Alani of the Geneva-based Gulf Research Center. "They have realized that without bringing the fight to Damascus, the regime will not collapse."

The increased pressure has raised worries that he or his forces will resort to desperate measures, perhaps striking neighbours Turkey or Israel, or using chemical weapons.

NATO foreign ministers approved Turkey's request for Patriot anti-missile systems to be deployed along its southern border to defend against possible strikes from Syria.

"We stand with Turkey in the spirit of strong solidarity," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters after the meeting in Brussels. "To anyone who would want to attack Turkey, we say, 'Don't even think about it!'"

Before the meeting, Fogh Rasmussen said he expected any use of chemical weapons to get an "immediate reaction from the international community."

On Monday, President Barack Obama said there would be consequences if Assad made the "tragic mistake" of deploying chemical weapons, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he agreed with the U.S. position.

"We are of the same opinion, that these weapons should not be used and must not reach terror groups," Netanyahu said.

U.S. intelligence has seen signs that Syria is moving materials inside chemical weapons facilities recently, though it is unsure what the movement means. Still, U.S. officials said the White House and its allies are weighing military options should they decide to secure Syria's chemical and biological weapons.

In July, Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi told a news conference that Syria would only use chemical or biological weapons in case of foreign attack, not against its own people. The ministry then tried to blur the issue, saying it had never acknowledged having such weapons.

On Monday, Lebanese security officials said Makdissi had flown from Beirut to London. He has not spoken publicly in weeks and it was unclear whether he had left the government.

NATO foreign ministers also met with their Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. The Kremlin has stymied more than a year of international efforts to apply global pressure on the Assad regime, its strongest ally in the Arab world, but officials say it has expressed equal concern about the threat of any chemical weapons.

Speaking to reporters, Lavrov said Russia wouldn't object to the Patriots.

"We are not trying to interfere with Turkey's right" to defend itself, he said. "We are just saying the threat should not be overstated."

Lavrov stressed that Syrian artillery strikes into Turkey were accidental. And he warned that the conflict "is being increasingly militarized."

Rebel groups around Syria have scored victories in recent weeks, overrunning military bases and airports and halting air traffic at the capital's international airport for days.

The government's response has been harsh, and suburbs to the east and south of Damascus have seen some of the heaviest fighting since July, when rebels seized neighbourhoods in the capital itself before being routed by government troops.

Death tolls in the area have soared. On Tuesday, reports emerged of at least four killings of at least a dozen people, all of them near Damascus or in Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a battleground since the summer.

Syria's state news agency SANA said nine students and one teacher were killed when a mortar fired by "terrorists" — the regime's shorthand for rebels — hit a ninth grade classroom in the Al-Wafideen area. The housing project, about 25 kilometres (15 miles) northeast of central Damascus, houses 25,000 people displaced from the Golan Heights since the 1967 war between Syria and Israel.

SANA said earlier that 29 students and one teacher had been killed before reporting the lower number.

The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 were killed and did not specify who fired the mortar.

The Britain-based group, which relies on contacts inside Syria, also said 17 unidentified bodies were found in the southern Damascus suburb of Thiyabiyeh. An activist video posted online showed the dead lined up on a floor, many of their heads bloody. An off-camera voice said they were shot after being detained at government checkpoints.

The Observatory also said 12 others were killed in a shelling attack on the Aleppo neighbourhood of Bustan al-Qasr the day before. Online videos showed bloody and dismembered bodies on a sidewalk as people struggled to lift the wounded

Nearby, dozens of men stood in what the unidentified cameraman said was a bread line.

"We still see people standing in a long line despite a massacre to get bread," the cameraman says.

The Observatory also reported 13 dead in a separate attack Monday in Aleppo's Halak neighbourhood.

The videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other reports on the incidents. Syria's government severely restricts media access, making independent confirmation nearly impossible.

Syria's uprising began with peaceful protests in March 2011 and later escalated into a civil war that the opposition says has killed more than 40,000 people. So far, both sides have refused international calls for a negotiated solution.

Most analysts agree that the tide is turning, however slowly, against the regime.

But Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of the foreign policy magazine Russia in Global Affairs, said Assad won't leave without a fight.

"Assad realizes that there is no way back for him," said Lukyanov, a leading Russian foreign policy expert with high-level Foreign Ministry connections. "If he tries to jump the boat, his own supporters will not forgive him for doing that. And if he loses, no one will give him any guarantees."

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Palestinians: settlement expansion means 1 state

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — The Palestinians will ask the U.N. Security Council to call for an Israeli settlement freeze, President Mahmoud Abbas and his advisers decided Tuesday, as part of an escalating showdown over Israel's new plans to build thousands more homes on war-won land in and around Jerusalem.

Such construction will destroy any lingering hopes of setting up aPalestinian state, Abbas aides warned, as international anger over the settlement construction snowballed.

Israel announced the new plans after the U.N. last week recognized a state of Palestine in the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem — lands Israel occupied in 1967 — as a non-member observer.

The plans include 3,000 more homes for Jews in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as preparations for construction of an especially sensitive project near Jerusalem, known as E-1.

Separately, Israel is moving forward with two major settlement projects in east Jerusalem. Israel would build more than 4,200 apartments in the two areas, Ramat Shlomo and Givat Hamatos.

Israeli settlement construction lies at the heart of a four-year breakdown in peace talks, and was a major factor behind the Palestinians' U.N. statehood bid. Since 1967, half a million Israelis have settled in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.

The Israeli plans for Jerusalem and nearby West Bank areas "are the most dangerous in the history of settlement expansion and apartheid," Abbas and senior members of the PLO and his Fatah movement said in a statement after a meeting Tuesday evening.

The Palestinians decided to ask the Security Council for a resolution censuring Israeli settlement building, even though a previous attempt in early 2011 was derailed by a U.S. veto.

The Palestinians say E-1 and Givat Hamatos are particularly problematic because they would cut off east Jerusalem, the intended Palestinian capital, from the rest of the West Bank.

Israel's plans for E-1 and Givat Hamatos "will leave us with no peace process," Saeb Erekat, a senior Abbas aide, told The Associated Press.

He later told Israel TV that "it's over" if these two settlements are built.

"Don't talk about peace, don't talk about a two-state solution ... talk about a one-state reality between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean," Erekat said, referring to the land that the international community hopes will one day accommodate both Israel and a Palestinian state.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague sounded a similar warning Tuesday, telling Britain's parliament that Israel's building plans would make a Palestinian state alongside Israel "almost inconceivable."

Eight countries, Britain among them, summoned local Israeli ambassadors in protest since Monday, and Hague said there could be further diplomatic steps if building continues.

Some Palestinian officials have raised the possibility of asking the European Union to reconsider its trade agreements with Israel, but Hague said he did not think Europe is ready for economic sanctions against Israel.

Israel has rebuffed the international criticism, which put it at odds with some of its strongest foreign allies, including Australia.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday that construction plans would move forward, particularly in east Jerusalem and nearby West Bank settlements. "Israel makes decisions according to its national interests, and not in order to punish, fight or confront," he said.

U.N. recognition could enable the Palestinians to gain access to the International Criminal Court and seek war crimes charges against Israel for construction of settlements on occupied lands.

Last week, before Israel's announcement of the new settlement plans, Abbas said that he's not turning to the ICC "unless we were attacked," and Palestinian officials portrayed an appeal to the court as a step of last resort.

However, Abbas said Tuesday that "no one can keep quiet about the issue of settlement in E-1," adding that if Israel keeps building, "it definitely does not want to reach a peace agreement."

Actual construction in E-1 would be years away even if the planning process is pushed ahead now.

The Palestinian representative to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, wrote to the U.N. chief and the heads of the Security Council and the General Assembly late Monday that Israel's construction constitutes a war crime.

The letter made no mention of possible ICC action, which in any case would first require a series of steps by the Palestinians and the court.

A Palestinian case at the ICC could also expose Abbas' main Palestinian rival, the Islamic militant Hamas, to possible war crimes charges for its indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza on Israel.

Hanan Ashrawi, a senior PLO official, said the Palestinians were encouraged by the recent diplomatic sanctions against Israel, but that the international community must go further.