Taliban start spring Afghan offensive with bombing

Afghan men offer funeral prayers near the body of deputy police chief Col. Mohammad Hussain, after the convoy he was traveling in was hit by a road side bomb in the district of Zana Khan, in Ghazni province west of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, April 28, 2013. A remote-controlled roadside bomb killed three police officers in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, an attack the Taliban claimed as the opening round of their spring offensive. U.S.-backed efforts to try to reconcile the Islamic militant movement with the Afghan government are gaining little traction. (AP Photo/Rahmatullah Nikzad)

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Taliban insurgents marked the start of their spring offensive on Sunday by claiming responsibility for a remote-controlled roadside bomb blast that killed three police officers.

In past years, spring has marked a significant upsurge in fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces along with their local allies. This fighting season is a key test, as the international coalition is scheduled to hand over security responsibilities to Afghan forcesnext year.

In Sunday's attack in Ghazni province insouthern Afghanistan, a bomb exploded under police vehicles traveling to the district of Zana Khan to take part in a military operation against insurgents,Mohammad Ali Ahmadi, the province's deputy governor, told The Associated Press.

He said the blast destroyed the vehicle carrying Col. Mohammad Hussain, the deputy provincial police chief, killing him and two other officers. Ahmadi said two officers also were wounded in the insurgent operation, which he said clearly targeted Hussain.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility in an email sent to news media. He called the bombing the first attack in the Taliban spring offensive.

April already has been the deadliest month this year for attacks across the country, whereAfghan security forces are increasingly taking the lead on the battlefield in the war that has lasted more than 11 years.

Insurgents have escalated attacks recently in a bid to gain power and influence ahead of next year's presidential election and the planned withdrawal of most U.S. and other foreign combat troops by the end of 2014. U.S.-backed efforts to try to reconcile the Islamic militant movement with the Afghan government are gaining little traction.

There are about 100,000 international troops in Afghanistan, including 66,000 Americans. A top priority of the U.S. force, which is slated to drop to about 32,000 by February 2014, is boosting the strength and confidence of Afghan forces.

Also Sunday, the U.S. Air Force said the coalition plane that crashed on Saturday in southern Afghanistan, killing four service members, was a MC-12 Liberty aircraft.

The twin-engine turboprop plane provides intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or direct support to ground forces. It crashed in Zabul province, about 180 kilometers (110 miles) northeast of Kandahar Air Field, the Air Force statement said.

The four Air Force service members were deployed to the 361st Expeditionary Reconnaissance Squadron with the 451st Air Expeditionary Wing at Kandahar Air Field, the statement said. Their bodies were recovered. The cause of the crash is under investigation, but NATO has said initial reports indicate there was no enemy activity in the area where the plane went down.

Taliban has named its spring offensive after Khalid ibn al-Walid, a companion of Islam's Prophet Muhammad who became a legendary Muslim military commander known as the "Drawn Sword of God." The insurgents said their forces planned to infiltrate enemy ranks to conduct "insider attacks" and target military and diplomatic sites with suicide bombers.

In the eastern province of Nangarhar, two local officials said insurgents attacked a U.S. convoy as it passed through two nearby villages on Sunday and that four Afghan civilians were killed in the crossfire when the soldiers fired back. The U.S.-led international military coalition said it was investigating reports of civilian casualties in the province on Sunday but could not immediately confirm them.

The coalition also said Afghan and foreign forces arrested six insurgents on Sunday — three in Helmand province, one in Baghlan province and two in Kandahar province. The report said the two taken into custody in Kandahar city included a local Taliban leader who allegedly coordinated assassinations, sniper ambushes and other attacks against coalition and Afghan forces.

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Follow Thomas Wagner on Twitter at: www.twitter.com/tjpwagner

Syrian rebels, troops clash at 3 air bases

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad fought intense battles with his troops on Sunday to try to seize control of three military air bases in the country's north and curtail the regime's use of its punishing air power, activists said.

Rebels, who have been trying to capture the air fields for months, broke into the sprawling Abu Zuhour air base in northwestern Idlib province and Kweiras base in the Aleppo province on Saturday. Fighting raged inside the two facilities Sunday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least seven fighters were killed in the fighting in Abu Zuhour, in addition to an unknown number of soldiers. The group, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, said the Syrian air force conducted an airstrike on Abu Zuhour village during the fighting to ease pressure on government troops inside the base.

Rebels control much of Idlib and Aleppo provinces, which border Turkey, although government troops still hold some areas including the provincial capital of Idlib province and parts of the city of Aleppo, Syria's largest urban center.

The Aleppo Media Center said rebels also seized 60 percent of the Mannagh helicopter base near the border with Turkey. Rebels from the Islamist al-Burraq Brigades announced that fighters from multiple factions in northern Aleppo have launched a large-scale offensive to seize full control of the facility.

Government troops regularly shell nearby areas from the Mannagh base, including a rocket attack overnight on the town of Tal Rifaat near the border with Turkey that killed at least four people, including two women and a child.

Syria's conflict started with largely peaceful anti-government protests in March 2011 but eventually turned into a civil war. More than 70,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.

The Obama administration said Thursday that intelligence indicates that government forces likely used chemical agents against rebels in two attacks.

Washington's declaration was its strongest on the topic so far, although the administration said it was still working to pin down definitive proof of the use of chemical weapons. It held back from saying Damascus had crossed what President Barack Obama has said would be a "red line" prompting tougher action in Syria.

Both sides of the civil war accuse each other of using the chemical weapons.

The deadliest such alleged attack was in the Khan al-Assal village in the Aleppo province in March. The Syrian government called for the United Nations to investigate alleged chemical weapons use by rebels in the attack that killed 31 people.

Syria, however, has not allowed a team of experts into the country because it wants the investigation limited to the single Khan al-Assal incident, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has urged "immediate and unfettered access" for an expanded investigation.

The state-run al-Thawra newspaper on Sunday accused the U.N. secretary general of being a "tool" for the United States and accused him of "bowing to American and European pressures."

In neighoring Lebanon, Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV reported that Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov met Saturday night with the pro-Syrian militant group's leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. No details emerged of the late night meeting.

The Shiite Muslim group has been drawn into the fighting in Syria and is known to be backing regime fighters in Shiite villages near the Lebanon border. The Syrian opposition accuses fighters from the group of taking part in the Syrian military crackdown inside the country.

At a Sunday morning at a news conference in Beirut, Bogdanov called for a diplomatic solution to Syria's civil war based on the Geneva Communique of June 2012. The communique is a broad but ambiguous proposal endorsed by Western powers and Russia to provide a basis for negotiations.

Exclusive: Boston bomb suspects' parents retreat to village, cancel U.S. trip

By Maria Golovnina

UNDISCLOSED LOCATION IN NORTH CAUCASUS, Russia (Reuters) - The parents of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects have retreated to a village in southern Russia to shelter from the spotlight and abandoned plans for now to travel to the United States, the father of the suspects told Reuters on Sunday.

Speaking in the garden of a large house, Anzor Tsarnaev said he believed he would not be allowed to see his surviving son DzhokharŸ, who was captured and has been charged in connection with the April 15 bomb blasts that killed three people and wounded 264.

"Unfortunately I can't help my child in any way. I am in touch with Dzhokhar's and my own lawyers. They told me they would let me know (what to do)," Tsarnaev said in an interview in the village where he relocated with the suspects' mother.

He agreed to the face-to-face meeting on condition that the village's location in the North Caucasus, a string of mainly Muslim provinces in southern Russia, not be disclosed.

"I am not going back to the United States. For now I am here. I am ill," said Tsarnaev, pacing nervously in the garden at sunset in the quiet village set in rolling hills and surrounded by cow pastures.

His face gaunt and tired, Tsarnaev said he suffered from high blood pressure and a heart condition.

Tsarnaev had said in the North Caucasus province of Dagestan on Thursday that he planned to travel to the United States to see Dzhokhar and bury his elder son, Tamerlan, who was killed during a manhunt four days after the bombings.

In Sunday's interview he said he had decided to move away from the family home in Dagestan to the new location because he wanted to keep a low profile.

Dressed in a black shirt and black trousers, he passionately defended his sons' innocence, saying they had nothing to do with Islamist extremists.

"I feel hopeless. We are simple people. We are trying to understand. We are attacked from all sides," he said, clutching his head in despair.

"I don't know whether I should talk or stay silent. I don't want to harm my child. ... We are used to all sorts of things here but we didn't expect this from the United States."

He and other members of the family believe a man shown on television being led naked into a police car the night of the shootout was Tamerlan, and that the blurry footage, still widely available on YouTube, proves Tamerlan was captured alive. Boston police say Tamerlan was killed in a shootout, and the man seen being led into the car was a bystander who was briefly detained.

Anzor Tsarnaev said he raised the issue with U.S. officials who visited him earlier in the week in his home in Dagestan.

"I asked them: 'I saw my child alive, he was being put into a police vehicle alive and healthy. How come media said he was killed?' They were shocked themselves," the father said.

CAUCASUS ROOTS

The Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens who lived in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan and in Dagestan before emigrating to the United States with their children. The parents returned to Dagestan two years ago, and Tamerlan spent the first half of 2012 there.

The suspects' mother, Zubeidat, was with Anzor Tsarnaev in the village but did not wish to speak.

"She is ill, she is shocked, she is depressed. She lost her children," Tsarnaev said. The couple are divorced but have stayed together.

Although the Tsarnaev brothers have roots in Dagestan and neighboring Chechnya, neither had spent much time there until Tamerlan returned to Dagestan last year for six months.

During his interview, Anzor Tsarnaev denied Tamerlan had any contact with militants during his stay, painting an idyllic picture of his son's visit to his ancestral homeland.

"When he came to stay here, he was a good boy. He read books, (Leo) Tolstoy, (Alexandre) Dumas and thick English language books. He would wake up late and read all day, late into the night," he said.

"Sometimes we went to the mosque. We went to see our relatives, in Dagestan, in Chechnya. We visited a lot of households, it was a nice atmosphere."

Tsarnaev said he had to force his son to return to the United States to complete his U.S. citizenship application after Tamerlan tried to convince his family to allow him to stay in Dagestan for good.

"I told him: 'No, you have to go back to obtain your U.S. citizenship'. I forced him to go back. I thought it was the right thing to do. I shouldn't have done that," he said with a pained expression on his face.

The father said he had no hope that Tamerlan's body would be released by the U.S. authorities to be buried in his homeland.

"They won't give us his body," he said, his voice breaking with emotion. "We wont be able to bury him in our land."

(Writing by Maria Golovnina)

Lawyer: Jailed pair shocked by Boston bomb claims

BOSTON (AP) — Two college friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who were jailed by immigration authorities the day after his capture had nothing to do with the deadly attack and had seen no hints that he harbored any violent thoughts or terrorist sympathies, a lawyer for one of them said Friday.

Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, who are from Kazakhstan, were classmates with Tsarnaev at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. They appeared alongside him in a recent photograph of a group of young men visiting New York City's Times Square. They were detained April 20 after being questioned in connection with the bombing, which had killed three people and injured more than 260 others a few days earlier.

"These kids are just as shocked and horrified about what happened as everyone else," Kadyrbayev's lawyer, Robert Stahl, said in a phone interview. "They can't even fathom something like this from a kid who seemed to be a typical young college student."

Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev have been interviewed at length, twice, by FBI agents and have cooperated fully, said Stahl, a former federal prosecutor. They are not suspects but are being held for violating their student visas by not regularly attending classes, Stahl said. They are being detained at a county jail in Boston.

The Kazakh Foreign Ministry said Monday night that U.S. authorities came across the two while searching for "possible links and contacts" to Tsarnaev, a sophomore at the university. U.S. immigration officials have declined to discuss the reasons why the men were detained.

John Hoey, an assistant chancellor at UMass Dartmouth, said Kadyrbayev is no longer enrolled; he was last a student in the fall. Tazhayakov is enrolled.

The pair had lived at an off-campus apartment in New Bedford, about 60 miles south of Boston, and got around in a car registered to Kadyrbayev with a souvenir plate that says "Terrorista (hash)1." The car was pictured on Tsarnaev's Twitter feed in March.

That plate was just a joke gift from some of Kadyrbayev's friends, meant to invoke his penchant for late-night partying rather than his political sentiments, Stahl said.

"It's such a silly thing. Bad timing," Stahl said. "His desire is to be released so he can return home. He would like to go home to the comfort of his family. You can imagine being 19 years old and having SWAT teams break down your door. It's a terrible situation."

Stahl said the young Kazakhs didn't see Tsarnaev in the days before or after the April 15 bombing.

Tazhayakov's lawyer, Thomas Kirsch, did not immediately return a phone call or an email message Friday evening.

Tsarnaev, who was captured hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a suburban Boston yard after a lengthy manhunt, is in federal custody. His older brother, the other identified suspect in the bombing, died after a shootout with police. Their mother has said the allegations against them are lies.

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FBI: Miss. man arrested in suspicious letters case

James Everett Dutschke works on his mini-van in his driveway in Tupelo Miss., Friday, April 26 2013. Dutschke, 41, was arrested after midnight Saturday at his home by FBI special agents in connection with the letters, FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said. The letters, which tests showed were tainted with ricin, were sent last week to Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and earlier to an 80-year-old Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland. Madden said FBI special agents arrested Dutschke without incident. (AP Photo/Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Thomas Wells) MANDATORY CREDIT

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi man whose home and business were searched as part of an investigation into poisoned letters sent to the president and others has been arrested in the case, according to the FBI.

Everett Dutschke, 41, was arrested about 12:50 a.m. Saturday at his Tupelo home in connection with the letters, FBI spokeswoman Deborah Madden said. The letters, which tests showed were tainted with ricin, were sent April 8 to President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi and earlier to an 80-year-old Mississippi judge, Sadie Holland.

Madden said FBI special agents arrested Dutschke (pronounced DUHS'-kee) without incident. She said additional questions should be directed to the U.S. attorney's office. The office in Oxford did not immediately respond to messages Saturday.

Dutschke's attorney, Lori Nail Basham, said Saturday in a text message that "the authorities have confirmed Mr. Dutschke's arrest. We have no comment at this time." Basham also said via text that she didn't know what the charges against Dutschke were.

Basham said earlier this week that Dutschke was "cooperating fully" with investigators. Dutschke has insisted he had nothing to do with the letters.

Ryan Taylor, a spokesman for Wicker, said Saturday that "because the investigation is still ongoing, we're not able to comment."

Charges in the case were initially filed against an Elvis impersonator but then dropped. Attention then turned to Dutschke, who has ties to the former suspect, the judge and the senator. Earlier in the week, as investigators searched his primary residence in Tupelo, Dutschke told The Associated Press, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

"I'm a patriotic American. I don't have any grudges against anybody. ... I did not send the letters," Dutschke said.

Charges initially were filed last week against Paul Kevin Curtis, 45, the Elvis impersonator, but then dropped after authorities said they had discovered new information. Curtis' lawyers say he was framed.

Curtis' attorney, Christi McCoy, said Saturday: "We are relieved but also saddened. This crime is nothing short of diabolical. I have seen a lot of meanness in the past two decades, but this stops me in my tracks. "

Dutschke and Curtis were acquainted. Curtis said they had talked about possibly publishing a book on an alleged conspiracy to sell body parts on a black market. But he said they later had a feud.

Judge Holland is a common link between the two men who have been investigated, and both know Wicker.

Holland was the presiding judge in a 2004 case in which Curtis was accused of assaulting a Tupelo attorney a year earlier. Holland sentenced him to six months in the county jail. He served only part of the sentence, according to his brother.

Holland's family has had political skirmishes with Dutschke. Her son, Steve Holland, a Democratic state representative, said he thinks his mother's only other encounter with Dutschke was at a rally in the town of Verona in 2007, when Dutschke ran as a Republican against Steve Holland

Holland said his mother confronted Dutschke after he made a derogatory speech about the Holland family. She demanded that he apologize, which Holland says he did.

On Saturday, Steve Holland said he can't say for certain that Dutschke is the person who sent the letter to his mother but added, "I feel confident the FBI knows what they are doing."

"We're ready for this long nightmare to be over," Holland told The Associated Press.

He said he's not sure why someone would target his mother. Holland said he believes Dutschke would have more reason to target him than his mother.

"Maybe he thinks the best way to get to me is to get to the love of my life, which is my mother," Holland said Saturday.

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Associated Press writer Jack Elliott Jr. in Jackson, Miss., contributed to this report.