Mortars kill soccer player in Syrian capital

Car bomb kills at least 53 in Syrian capital

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A car bomb exploded Thursday near Syria's ruling party headquarters in Damascus, killing at least 53 people and scattering mangled bodies among the blazing wreckage in one of the bloodiest days in the capital since the uprising began almost two years ago.

Elsewhere in the city, two other bombs struck intelligence offices, killing 13, and mortar rounds hit the army's central command, activists said.

Recent rebel advances in the Damascus suburbs, combined with the bombings and three straight days of mortar attacks, mark the most sustained challenge of the civil war for control of the seat of President Bashar Assad's power.

Syrian state media said the car bombing near the Baath Party headquarters and the Russian Embassy was a suicide attack that killed 53 civilians and wounded more than 200, with children among the casualties. Anti-regime activists put the death toll at 59, which would make it the deadliest Damascus bombing of the revolt.

The violence has shattered the sense of normalcy that the Syrian regime has desperately tried to maintain in Damascus, a city that has largely been insulated from the bloodshed and destruction that has left other urban centers in ruins.

The rebels launched an offensive on Damascus in July following a stunning bombing on a high-level government crisis meeting that killed four top regime officials, including Assad's brother-in-law and the defense minister. Following that attack, rebel groups that had established footholds in the suburbs pushed in, battling government forces for more than a week before being routed and swept out.

Since then, government warplanes have pounded opposition strongholds on the outskirts, and rebels have managed only small incursions on the city's southern and eastern sides.

But the recent bombings and mortar attacks suggest that instead of trying a major assault, rebel fighters are resorting to guerrilla tactics to loosen Assad's grip on the heavily fortified capital.

The fighting in Damascus also follows a string of tactical victories in recent weeks for the rebels — capturing the nation's largest hydroelectric dam and overtaking airbases in the northeast — that have contributed to the sense that the opposition may be gaining some momentum.

But Damascus is the ultimate prize in the civil war, and many view the battle for the ancient city as the most probable endgame of a conflict that according to U.N. estimates has killed nearly 70,000 people.

To defend the capital, Assad is using his most reliable and loyal troops, activists say, including the Republican Guard and the feared 4th Division, commanded by his brother, Maher. Armed checkpoints have sprung up across the city as part of the regime's efforts to keep the rebels at bay.

Thursday's car bomb hit a checkpoint on a bustling thoroughfare in the central Mazraa neighborhood between the Baath Party headquarters and the Russian Embassy. The force of the explosion shattered the balconies of apartment blocks along the tree-lined street and blew out the windows and doors of the party building.

Video of the blast site on Syrian state TV showed firefighters dousing a flaming car with hoses, while lifeless and dismembered bodies were tossed onto the grass of a nearby park. The state news agency, SANA, published photos showing a large crater in the middle of the rubble-strewn street and charred cars with blackened bodies inside.

"It was huge. Everything in the shop turned upside down," one local resident said. He said three of his employees were injured by flying glass that killed a young girl who was walking by when the blast hit.

"I pulled her inside the shop, but she was almost gone. We couldn't save her. She was hit in the stomach and head," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution for talking to foreign media.

Ambulances rushed to the scene of the blast, which sent a huge cloud of black smoke billowing into the sky.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but suspicion will likely fall upon one of the most extreme of Syria's myriad rebel factions, Jabhat al-Nusra.

The group, which the U.S. has designated to be a terrorist organization, has claimed past bombings on regime targets, including the double suicide blast outside an intelligence building in May that killed 55.

Such tactics have galvanized Assad's supporters and made many other Syrians distrustful of the rebel movement as a whole, most of whose fighters do not use such tactics.

The main opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, condemned Thursday's bombing without accusing a specific group of carrying it out. It did, however, suggest that the regime allowed foreign terrorist groups to operate in Syria.

"The terrorist Assad regime bears the most responsibility for all the crimes that happen in the homeland because it has opened the doors to those with different agendas to enter Syria and harm its stability so it can hide behind this and use it as an excuse to justify its crimes," the group said in a statement on its Facebook page.

U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned the "indiscriminate violence against civilians."

Russia's state-owned RIA Novosti news agency quoted a Russian Embassy official as saying its building had been damaged in the blast but no one was hurt.

Among those injured by flying glass was Nayef Hawatmeh, the leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a radical Damascus-based Palestinian group. He suffered cuts to his hands and face, according to an official at his office, which is about 500 yards from the bomb. Hawatmeh was treated at a hospital and released.

In a separate attack, Syrian state TV said mortar shells hit near the Syrian Army General Command but caused no casualties. The report said the building was empty because it was being repaired from a bombing last year.

The Observatory said two mortar rounds struck near the building but it did not report casualties. It also said two more shells landed in the upscale Malki neighborhood, causing no damage or casualties.

Another blast in the northeastern Barzeh neighborhood killed seven people, a security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria, said two separate car bombs exploded near different security facilities in Barzeh, followed by intense clashes between rebels and regime forces. It said 13 people died in one of the Barzeh blasts, 10 of them security officers.

State media also reported that security forces in Damascus had arrested a second, would-be suicide bomber driving a car full of explosives near the site of the Mazraa bombing.

On Wednesday, two mortar shells exploded next to a soccer stadium in Damascus, killing one player. A day earlier, two shells hit near one of Assad's three palaces in the city, with some damage reported.

In the southern town of Daraa, where Syria's uprising began nearly two years ago, the Observatory said 18 people were killed in an airstrike on a field hospital, included eight rebel fighters, three medics, one woman and a young girl.

A video posted online showed the dead and wounded being loaded into the backs of trucks. Some were bloody and had bandaged heads, while others were carried on stretchers.

The videos appeared to be authentic and corresponded with Associated Press reports of the events depicted.

The conflict began in March 2011 with political protests against the government, and has since evolved into a civil war between Assad's regime and hundreds of rebel groups seeking to topple it.

International diplomacy has failed to slow the fighting.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said Thursday that his message to Assad is "it is time to go," and that the senseless killing must be brought to an end through a political process.

He also urged Assad to respond to a dialogue offer made recently by Syrian opposition chief Mouaz al-Khatib.

"A political agreement on a transition is the way forward in Syria to bring to an end this terrible and unacceptable loss of life," he said.

Al-Khatib has said he is open to talks with the regime as a way of removing it from power. The government has refused, insisting the talks should be without preconditions and inside the country.

The Syrian National Coalition met in Cairo on Thursday to try to firm up its position on whether to engage with the regime in talks. A final decision was expected Friday.

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Lucas reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Ben Hubbard and Zeina Karam in Beirut and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

Freed Afghan Taliban fighters return to insurgency

ISLAMABAD (AP) — At least half the Afghan Taliban recently freed from Pakistani prisons have rejoined the insurgency, aPakistani intelligence official says, throwing into question the value of such goodwill gestures that the Afghan government requested to restart a flagging peace process.

A senior Western official who spoke on condition of anonymity so he could talk freely confirmed that "some" newly freed Taliban have returned to the battlefield.

The development underscores the difficulties in reaching a political deal with the Taliban before the end of 2014, when NATO and U.S. troops are scheduled to have completed their withdrawal from Afghanistan. Many Taliban released from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay have also gone underground.

Despite some recent signs from the Taliban that they are willing to share power and want to avoid a civil war, the militants may well be playing for time until 2014. That's also when the Afghans are scheduled to elect a new president to succeed Hamid Karzai, whom the insurgents consider an American puppet.

The Taliban have long refused to speak directly with Karzai or his government. They have said they will negotiate only with the United States, which has held secret talks with them in the Gulf state of Qatar. But at Karzai's insistence, the U.S. has since sought to have the insurgents speak directly with the Afghan government. Western officials privately say that the talks have so far gone no further.

At the request of the Afghan High Peace Council late last year, Pakistan freed 24 prisoners to coax a reluctant Taliban leadership to talk peace directly with Karzai's government, according to Ismail Qasemyar, a senior peace council official.

The freed prisoners are all Afghan Taliban, who are battling NATO and U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Many of these fighters use neighboring Pakistan as a home base, particularly in winter months.

The release of the prisoners appears to have backfired, however, with the intelligence official saying about half of them have returned to the Taliban. The outcome is further testing an already troubled relationship between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and drawing U.S. complaints that Pakistan has not done enough to keep track of the freed Taliban.

Frustrated by the criticism, Islamabad said it doesn't have the resources to track the prisoners and that no request was made to follow the freed Taliban or to hand them over to the Afghan government. Afghan authorities have also released Taliban prisoners from their own jails, occasionally over the objections of the U.S. military, and have since lost track of many of them.

When Pakistan has arrested Afghan Taliban fighters in recent years, it has often come in response to pressure from the United States or with American assistance. The Pakistani military is far more interested in carrying out offensives against Pakistani Taliban, who have declared war on the state of Pakistan and are responsible for tens of thousands of Pakistani deaths as well as the deaths of about 4,000 Pakistani soldiers.

But among the Afghan Taliban prisoners that Pakistan recently released at the request of the Afghan government were several it would have preferred to keep in jail, the Pakistani intelligence official said Monday.

Pakistan, for example, wanted to keep Anwar-ul-Haq Mujahed in prison, said Pakistan and Afghan officials. Mujahed was an insurgent commander responsible for most of the more spectacular attacks against U.S. and Afghan forces in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province. But the High Peace Council insisted he be freed.

One peace council member said Mujahed's release was demanded by Hajji Din Mohammed, former provincial governor and a peace council member. Mohammed's links to Mujahed date back to the 1980s Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, when he served as a senior lieutenant in the U.S.-financed Hezb-e-Islami Khalis group run by Mujahed's father, Younus Khalis.

Mohammed delayed the Afghan Peace Council's Nov. 14 departure from Pakistan until Mujahed was released. At the time the U.S. also objected to his release, said a senior American official who spoke on condition of anonymity so he could speak freely. On Dec. 1, two weeks after he was freed, a coordinated Taliban assault took place on a U.S. base in Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar province. There was no claim of responsibility from Mujahed.

In a series of interviews in the Afghan capital, members of the High Peace Council as well as Karzai's government confirmed Pakistan's reluctance to release some prisoners including Mujahed. They also said the releases were unconditional.

"It was a risk we felt was worth taking," said Amin Arsala, a senior adviser to Karzai.

Senior Peace Council member Qasemyar said the council made no demands of Pakistan or the freed prisoners prior to their release.

Other Afghan council members and the Pakistani intelligence official spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Anatol Lieven, a professor in the War Studies Department at King's College in Britain, questioned the value of Karzai's goodwill gestures because his second and final term as president ends in 2014, which coincides with the end of the troop drawdown. That, he said, leaves little incentive for the Taliban to open talks with the Afghan president.

"I was never very optimistic about these Afghan government moves given the categorical statement of every Taliban-linked person with whom I have spoken that the Taliban leadership would never negotiate a settlement with Karzai, but would always try first to do a deal with the U.S.," he told the AP.

Lieven added that "unless the Taliban high command actually ordered a released Taliban figure to negotiate with Karzai," which has not happened, then "the first thing I would expect them to do would be to rejoin the insurgency precisely in order to show that they are not traitors and haven't been turned."

The Pakistani intelligence official said more Taliban will be freed eventually and that the Afghan authorities will be given prior notice, in keeping with an agreement reached at a meeting earlier this month between Karzai, Pakistan President Asif Zardari and British Prime Minister David Cameron. Qasemyar said the council wanted time to notify the families of prisoners.

"We want to let them know that we worked for the release of their family members so that we can create some goodwill and in the hope that they will convince their relatives to work for peace," said Qasemyar.

Another contentious issue is the Afghan demand for the release of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban's former deputy chief. Karzai and the High Peace Council have made several requests for his release, but the United States has asked Pakistan not to release Baradar, said U.S. and Afghan officials.

"He won't be released anytime soon," the Pakistani intelligence official said. According to U.S. and Afghan officials, Washington wants to keep track of Baradar if he is ever released.

A further indication that some of the freed prisoners have returned to the Taliban was the fact that the insurgents issued a statement last month on behalf of the former Taliban Justice Minister Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, who was released from a Pakistani jail in December.

"We, the prisoners freed by Pakistan," the statement said, "have decided amongst ourselves that we will only decide on our future course of action when the rest of the prisoners are freed and after consultation with them."

More than 100 Afghan Taliban fighters remain in Pakistani custody.

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French, Malian forces fight suspected Islamists in Gao

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - French and Malian troops fought Islamists on the streets of Gao and a car bomb exploded in Kidal on Thursday, as fighting showed little sign of abating weeks before France plans to start withdrawing some forces.

Reuters reporters in Gao in the country's desert north said French and Malian forces fired at the mayor's office with heavy machineguns after Islamists were reported to have infiltrated the Niger River town during a night of explosions and gunfire.

In Kidal, a remote far north town where the French are hunting Islamists, residents said a car bomb killed two. A French defense ministry source reported no French casualties.

French troops dispatched to root out rebels with links to al Qaeda swiftly retook northern towns last month. But they now risk being bogged down in a guerrilla conflict as they try to help Mali's weak army counter bombings and raids.

"There was an infiltration by Islamists overnight and there is shooting all over the place," Sadou Harouna Diallo, Gao's mayor, told Reuters by telephone, saying he was not in his office at the time.

Gao is a French hub for operations in the Kidal region, about 300 km (190 miles) northeast, where many Islamist leaders are thought to have retreated and foreign hostages may be held.

A Malian soldier in Gao who gave his name only as Sergeant Assak told Reuters he had seen at least seven Islamist gunmen.

"They are black and two were disguised as women," he said during a pause in heavy gunfire around Independence Square.

Six Malian military pickups were deployed in the square and opened fire on the mayor's office with the heavy machineguns. Two injured soldiers were taken away in an ambulance.

French troops in armored vehicles later joined the battle as it spilled out into the warren of sandy streets, where, two weeks ago, they also fought for hours against Islamists who had infiltrated the town via the nearby river.

Helicopters clattered over the mayor's office, while a nearby local government office and petrol station was on fire.

A Gao resident said he heard an explosion and then saw a Malian military vehicle on fire in a nearby street.

Paris has said it plans to start withdrawing some of its 4,000 troops from Mali next month but the rebel fightback comes as Mali's army remains weak and divided and African forces due to take over the French role are not yet in place.

Islamists abandoned the main towns they held but French and Malian forces have said there are pockets of Islamist resistance across the north, which is about the size of France.

CAR BOMB

Residents reported a bomb in the east of Kidal on Thursday.

"It was a car bomb that exploded in a garage," said one resident who went to the scene but asked not to be named.

"The driver and another man were killed. Two other people were injured," he added.

A French defense ministry official confirmed there had been a car bomb but said it did not appear that French troops, based at the town's airport, had been targeted.

Earlier this week, a French soldier was killed in heavy fighting north of Kidal, where French and Chadian troops are hunting Islamists in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, which border Algeria.

Operations there are further complicated by the presence of separatist Tuareg rebels, whose rebellion last year kick-started fighting in northern Mali but were sidelined by the better-armed Islamists.

Having dispatched its forces to prevent an Islamist advance south in January, Paris is eager not to become bogged down in a long-term conflict in Mali. But their Malian and African allies have urged French troops not to pull out too soon.

(Additional reporting by Emanuel Braun in Gao, Adama Diarra in Bamako, David Lewis and John Irish in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Jason Webb)

Article: French troops fire on suspected Islamists in Mali town of Gao

Article: Car bomb explodes in northern Malian town of Kidal: sources

Anger Over US Cardinal Voting for Pope

Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony has made it clear he plans to attend the upcoming conclave to elect a new pope. A lot of people don't like that one bit.

"It sends the wrong message," said Ken Smolka, one of hundreds of people who were sexually abused by priests in America's largest archdiocese. "If Mahony helps choose the new pope, what it says is, 'Nothing has changed.'"

Mahony is the latest Roman Catholic prelate to have his moral authority compromised because of his poor handling of the sexual abuse scandal during the 1980s and '90s. But he is not the first.

The scandal in L.A. is similar to the scandal in Boston that eventually led Cardinal Bernard Law to resign as archbishop of Boston. One key difference is that, for years, Cardinal Mahony successfully fought the release of key personnel documents relating to his administration's handling of abuse cases. Ultimately, a judge ordered their release.

READ: Cardinal Mahony Says He's 'Scapegoat' in Scandal

The documents were so damning the current Archbishop of Los Angeles, Jose Gomez, issued a public rebuke of his predecessor. Gomez said Cardinal Mahony would no longer perform any public duties on behalf of the archdiocese.

For an archbishop to publicly upbraid a cardinal - who outranks him in the church hierarchy - was without precedent in recent history.

Just as Cardinal Law's participation in the 2005 conclave became a focal point for anger over the abuse scandal, Cardinal Mahony is taking the heat this time around.

This week, a fellow prince of the church even chimed in, suggesting, in the most diplomatic way possible, that Mahony think twice before coming to Rome.

Speaking to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Cardinal Velasio de Paolis called it "disturbing" that Cardinal Mahony should participate in the election the new pope.

"But," he noted, "the rules have to be respected."

Those rules make it clear that it is the right and duty of every cardinal under age 80 to attend the conclave.

De Paolis said: "He [Mahony] could be advised not to attend only by a private intervention by someone of great authority."

"You can use persuasion; you can't do any more," he said.

Plenty of people are trying.

Italy's leading Catholic newsweekly, Famiglia Cristiana - distributed free in churches here every Sunday - is conducting an online poll: Should the disgraced cardinal be allowed to vote or not? So far, 5,600 people have said no.

Caramella Buona - a leading anti-pedophilia group in Italy - issued a statement this week, saying, "Mahony and other cardinals involved in covering up abuse scandals should stay away from the conclave."

Among the others set to participate is the primate of Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, who has faced numerous calls to resign over his handling of the Irish clerical abuse scandal.

In response to questions, the Vatican has said, "It is a duty of all cardinals to come and participate in the conclave."

The archbishop of Los Angeles has no objections either. In a letter sent to Los Angeles priests, Archbishop Gomez expressed confidence that "Cardinal Mahony's accomplishments and experience in the areas of immigration, social justice, sacred liturgy and the role of the laity in the church will serve the College of Cardinals well as it works to discern the will of the Holy Spirit."

Gomez added, "Having been promoted to the dignity of cardinal, Cardinal Mahony has all of the prerogatives and privileges of his standing as a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church."

Mahony's supporters give him credit for revamping the way the archdiocese now handles allegations of sexual abuse and helping to make LA a model for other diocese moving forward.

After 2002, he adopted a "zero tolerance" approach on issues of abuse, immediately suspending any priest accused and dismissing them if the allegations proved correct. He also brought in strict background checks for new clergy and required all volunteers in parochial schools to undergo training on the issue.

Under a judge's order, Cardinal Mahony will be allowed to come only after he is deposed in one of the lawsuits brought by victims of priestly abuse. The victims say they're worried Mahony will choose to stay in Rome and thwart their quest for justice.

"Mahony shouldn't be allowed to leave the country," Smolka said. "He belongs behind bars."

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