In all likelihood, you’ve never heard of Mullah Baradar. The only Taliban leader most people know is Mullah Mohammed Omar, the unworldly, one-eyed village preacher who held the grand title amir-ul-momineen - "leader of the faithful" - when he ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Omar remains a high-value target, with a $10 million US bounty on his head. But he hasn't been seen in at least three years, even by his most loyal followers, and rarely issues direct orders anymore. In his place, the adversary that American forces are squaring off against in Afghanistan - the man ultimately responsible for the spike in casualties that has made July the deadliest month for Coalition soldiers since the war began in 2001 - is Baradar. A cunning, little-known figure, he may be more dangerous than Omar ever was.

--Newsweek

AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN

America’s New Nightmare - Ron Moreau, Newsweek. Soon after 4,000 US Marines flooded into Afghanistan's Helmand River Valley on July 2, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar called top Taliban regional commanders together for an urgent briefing. The meeting took place in southwestern Pakistan - not far from the Afghan border but safely out of the Americans' reach. Baradar told the commanders he wanted just one thing: to keep the Taliban's losses to a minimum while maximizing the cost to the enemy. Don't try to hold territory against the Americans' superior firepower by fighting them head-on, he ordered. Rely on guerrilla tactics whenever possible. Plant "flowers" - improvised explosive devices - on trails and dirt roads. Concentrate on small-unit ambushes, with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. He gave his listeners a special warning: he would hold each of them responsible for the lives of their men. "Keep your weapons on your backs and be on your motorcycles," Baradar exhorted them. "America has greater military strength, but we have greater faith and commitment."

Britain and US Prepared to Open Talks with the Taliban - Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian. A concerted effort to start unprecedented talks between Taliban and British and American envoys was outlined today in a significant change in tactics designed to bring about a breakthrough in the attritional, eight-year conflict in Afghanistan. Senior ministers and commanders on the ground believe they have created the right conditions to open up a dialogue with "second-tier" local leaders now the Taliban have been forced back in a swath of Helmand province. They are hoping that Britain's continuing military presence in Helmand, strengthened by the arrival of thousands of US troops, will encourage Taliban commanders to end the insurgency. There is even talk in London and Washington of a military "exit strategy". Speaking at the end of the five-week Operation Panther's Claw in which hundreds of British troops were reported to have cleared insurgents from a vital region of Helmand province, Lieutenant-General Simon Mayall, deputy chief of defence staff, said: "It gives the Taliban 'second tier' room to reconnect with the government and this is absolutely at the heart of this operation."

David Miliband Says Taliban Could be Reintegrated into Afghanistan Government - James Kirkup and Caroline Gammell, Daily Telegraph. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, has said "moderate" members of the Taliban insurgency killing British forces in Afghanistan could be given seats in the Afghan government. He said that some members of the broad coalition of Islamic militants, tribal groups and hired fighters could be drawn into the Afghan political process. Speaking in a month that has seen 20 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan, he also warned that "recent sacrifices will not be the last" and admitted that military force alone will not be enough to solve Afghan problems. Afghans vote in presidential elections next month, and Mr Miliband told a Nato seminar in Brussels that some parts of the insurgency could be brought into the political process. "The problems that exist in Afghanistan are not susceptible to a military solution," Mr Miliband said. "In the end the choice will be made by those in the insurgency about whether they want to reconcile themselves. I think it is a common sense approach."

Afghanistan and Taliban Reach Election Truce in District - Carlotta Gall and Sangar Rahimi, New York Times. The Afghan government said Monday that it had arranged a truce with a group of Taliban in a district in northern Afghanistan in order to allow elections to go ahead on Aug. 20 and allow development projects to proceed in the area. Local elders negotiated the truce with the local Taliban commander in the Balamorghab district of Badghis Province, and the commander agreed to have election officials open a registration office in the area, said Ahmad Zia Siamak Herawi, a deputy spokesman for President Hamid Karzai. The deal is one of several local arrangements election officials have managed to secure through negotiations with local elders to persuade the Taliban and other opposition groups to allow the elections to go ahead, the chief of Afghanistan’s election commission, Azizullah Ludin, said in an interview. People wanted to participate in the elections - in particular, provincial council elections - in order to have their own representatives in power, he said, and local Taliban leaders in some places were bowing to the pressure of the communities to let them happen.

Britain 'Will Need More Troops' for Success in Afghanistan - Michael Evans and Francis Elliott, The Times. Britain may need to send more troops to Afghanistan despite the success of Operation Panther’s Claw, military chiefs admit. The scale of the challenge was revealed yesterday as it emerged that British soldiers have faced nearly 1,000 roadside bombs in the past three months. Although 3,000 troops managed to drive out about 500 Taleban during the five-week offensive, they will be fully deployed holding an area in Helmand province about the size of the Isle of Wight, their commanding officer admitted. Brigadier Tim Radford, commander of Task Force Helmand, said that the existing troops could not be expected to mount further significant operations without reinforcements. Gordon Brown hailed the offensive as an “heroic” military success, saying it had made Britain safer and “pushed back the Taleban”. David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, however, called for renewed efforts to engage the Taleban politically. Efforts to bolster faltering public support for British involvement in Afghanistan were undermined further when the Ministry of Defence announced that two more soldiers had been killed. Brigadier Radford said that although 23 soldiers have died since the operation began on June 19, only 10 directly related to the offensive in central Helmand.

Gordon Brown Labels Latest Afghanistan Offensive a Success - Tom Rivers, Voice of America. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has hailed the British offensive in Afghanistan's Helmand province a success. But that call is getting a mixed reception as the British public grows weary of the country's involvement there. For the past five weeks, British forces have been clearing the territory between Lashkar Gah and Girishk in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. Nine British soldiers have died in the operation dubbed Panther's Claw. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is pleased with the results. "Now that Operation Panther's Claw has shown that it can bring success and the first phase of that operation is over, it is time to commemorate all those soldiers who have given their lives and to thank all our British soldiers for the determination, the professionalism and the courage that they have been showing," said Mr. Brown. And facing a skeptical public, the British leader reiterated his contention that fighting in Afghanistan is necessary to keep Britain safe.

Britain Urges Afghan Political Effort - John F. Burns, New York Times. The British government sought to bolster fragile domestic support for the Afghan war on Monday, issuing a comprehensive policy statement emphasizing that military power alone would not be enough to guarantee the defeat of Taliban militants. The statement, which came near the end of a month in which heavy fighting has left 22 British soldiers dead and caused a political uproar here, was delivered in a speech by Foreign Secretary David Miliband at NATO’s Brussels headquarters. It was essentially a restatement of a counterinsurgency concept already emphasized by President Obama: the idea that success in Afghanistan depends on political strategies that weaken the Taliban, including luring insurgents to quit or switch sides. But while Mr. Miliband quoted Mr. Obama, as if to underline a united front on the war, it was also seen by some commentators as a muted signal that Britain may be reluctant to answer any new American request for an increased troop commitment in Afghanistan to match the rapid buildup of American forces there.

Tough Fight Will Continue in Afghanistan, Mullen Says - Samantha L. Quigley, American Forces Press Service. Though troop morale is high in Afghanistan, the Taliban is a tough organization and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said he doesn’t expect conditions to change soon. “As everyone knows, we’ve lost a large number of people here very recently,” Navy Adm. Mike Mullen said during a Pentagon Channel podcast interview today. “It’s going to be a tough fight in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future, and we’re doing everything we can to certainly eliminate any losses. “But the Taliban are a tough, tough organization, and it’s going to be that way for a while.” Despite seeing a long road ahead, Mullen, who recently visited Afghanistan, said he was pleased with what he saw. That includes the Marine Corps' integration with the British military, which he called “exceptionally good,” in southern Afghanistan. He noted the same with the provincial reconstruction team in the area. “I also was encouraged by what I saw there in terms of the civilian and military integration,” he said. “This is not about a military solution alone. It can’t be.” In fact, Mullen said the Afghan people must be at the heart of the solution. That’s where Army Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, commander of US Forces Afghanistan, is focusing. McChrystal has issued a tactical directive to reduce airstrikes in Afghanistan in an effort to decrease civilian casualties. The directive is being well received by forces on the ground, Mullen said.

Relocated Army Outpost Draws Fire From Angry Taliban Insurgency - Dianna Cahn, Stars and Stripes. The attackers waited until dusk, then came at the yet-to-be fortified American outpost from three sides, armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades. It was a surprise, the first attack on the newly established outpost near the Charkh District Center in nearly two months, said Lt. Col. Thomas Gukeisen, the squadron commander who monitored Friday’s brief, unsuccessful ambush from his base about 20 miles to the east. With the help of attack aircraft, up to 20 enemy fighters were repelled. As soldiers from Company B, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division out of Fort Drum, NY, struggle with the growing pains of setting up a post in the population hub in Charkh, they are contending with extremely primitive conditions while flushing out a rooted enemy. "The enemy’s pissed off," Gukeisen said, noting that the attack and a roadside bomb ambush earlier in the day occurred just hours after 150 feet of perimeter security barriers known as Hescos were delivered to the district center. “They hate the sight of Hescos. They know you are here to stay.” Charkh - as well as Baraki Barak district to the north and Kharwar district to the south - is the battle space of the 3rd Squadron’s 71st Cavalry Regiment, which conducts surveillance and reconnaissance for the 3rd BCT. The units deployed to this region in January. Troops set up outposts in each district, getting to know the populations, the enemy and the lay of the land.

In War and Isolation, a Fighter for Afghan Women - Denise Grady, New York Times. Everybody wants Pashtoon Azfar. Her government, American aid groups and her own colleagues, the midwives of Afghanistan, all want her to work for them, lead them, help them rebuild a health system from the rubble of war. Ms. Azfar, 51, is trying to oblige. By day she directs Afghanistan’s Institute of Health Sciences, by night she works for a nonprofit group from Johns Hopkins University that focuses on women and children’s health, and somehow she also manages to serve as president of the Afghan Midwives Association. Visiting from Kabul recently, she was the star at a Capitol Hill briefing titled “Maternal Health in Afghanistan: How Can We Save Women’s Lives?” Her audience included members of the Congressional caucus for women’s issues. Afghanistan has the world’s second-highest death rate in women during pregnancy and childbirth (only Sierra Leone’s is worse). For every 100,000 births, 1,600 mothers die; in wealthy countries the rates range from 1 to 12. In one remote northeastern province, Badakhshan, 6,507 mothers die for every 100,000 births, according to a 2005 report in the medical journal Lancet. In all, 26,000 Afghan women a year die while pregnant or giving birth.

With Stubborn Unrest in Swat, Landowners Remain in Exile - Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah, New York Times. Even as hundreds of thousands of people stream back to the Swat Valley after months of fighting, one important group is conspicuously absent: the wealthy landowners who fled the Taliban in fear and are the economic pillar of the rural society. The reluctance of the landowners to return is a significant blow to the Pakistani military’s campaign to restore Swat as a stable, prosperous part of Pakistan, and it presents a continuing opportunity for the Taliban to reshape the valley to their advantage. About four dozen landlords were singled out over the past two years by the militants in a strategy intended to foment a class struggle. In some areas, the Taliban rewarded the landless peasants with profits of the crops of the landlords. Some resentful peasants even signed up as the Taliban’s shock troops. How many of those peasants stayed with the militants during the army offensive of the last several months, and how many moved to the refugee camps, was difficult to assess, Pakistani analysts said.

As Violence Hurts Business, Pakistanis Debate US Help - Joshua Partlow and Haq Nawaz Khan, Washington Post. A concrete wall already encircles Mohsin Aziz's office, but workers are making it higher brick by brick. Kalashnikov-wielding guards shadow the industrialist everywhere he goes. A chase car tracks his black sedan through thick city traffic. Even with such precautions, Aziz said, his family considers him a "madman" for keeping his business in Peshawar, the violent capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. Military-imposed curfews keep laborers from his factories, and he sometimes has to beg his managers to come to work. Bombings and kidnappings by the Taliban and criminal gangs are strangling the economic life of this metropolis adjacent to the tribal territory along the Afghan border. Businessmen have fled south to safer provinces or left the country, slashed production, laid off employees, and closed down offices.

Warfare by Other Means - The Times editorial. Military victory cannot be won in Afghanistan without a political settlement. But any talks with the fractious Taleban must be conducted from a position of strength. It is not only David Miliband who says that force of arms alone will not defeat the Taleban: every military commander in Afghanistan, British and American, has also insisted that without a political settlement, victory over the Taleban is impossible. The Foreign Secretary’s warning to the Karzai Government that it must do more to defeat the insurgency merely repeated the assessment made long ago by Nato commanders. But this time he was also addressing a different target: the British public, which is growing increasingly restive at the level of casualties being sustained and increasingly sceptical about the aims and conduct of the war in Afghanistan.

Talking to the Taleban May be the Only Way to End War in Afghanistan - Catherine Philp, The Times opinion. David Miliband’s assertion that it is time to talk to the Taleban may sound new and shocking to some. It is neither. Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the former British Ambassador to Kabul, advocated the policy soon after arriving in Afghanistan in 2004. British diplomats and commanders were carrying it out, albeit on a small scale, until the furious intervention of Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President. The difference this time is that Washington - and to some degree, Kabul - have at long last come over to the view that the war cannot be won without talking to at least some of the enemy. “Secret” talks between the Afghan Government and Taleban leaders have taken place on and off in Mecca under Saudi mediation but little progress has been made. The difficulties lie in the details. Who does the talking? The Taleban negotiators come from the more moderate wing of the Government that was deposed in 2001. Most are barely involved in the insurgency. Today’s “Taleban” is a hydra-headed monster of competing and overlapping ambitions represented by no single person. The Quetta Shura, headed by Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taleban’s supreme leader, is as much a Pashtun nationalist army as a religious one. It is unclear if it even seeks to take over all of Afghanistan again if it could wrest its ancestral lands back.

IRAQ

US Defense Chief Visits Iraq - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived here this morning to meet with American military commanders and Iraqi political leaders in anticipation of a major drawdown of US troops set to start early next year. Mr. Gates, who is to see Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq as well as Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander here, is on his first trip to Iraq this year. Defense officials said that a main purpose of Mr. Gates’s visit was to begin preparations with the Iraqis for the withdrawal of some 80,000 US troops, who are set to leave Iraq between March and August 2010. There are currently about 130,000 US troops in Iraq. Defense officials anticipate leaving behind a “residual force” of some 50,000 US troops by the end of next summer. Under an agreement with the Iraqis, all US troops are to be out of Iraq by 2011. Mr. Gates’s talks with Iraqi leaders are expected to focus on what kind of assistance the United States will provide to the Iraqi security forces after 2011, including whether the US will sell Iraq any F-16 fighter jets.

Gates Makes Surprise Iraq Visit - Associated Press. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived Tuesday in southern Iraq to get a firsthand look at the future of the US military mission in Iraq. Mr. Gates flew from Amman, Jordan, to a command post in southern Iraq where US troops are serving mainly as advisers to Iraqi forces. The advisory unit in Talil is a prototype for US forces as they shift from front-line combat to support roles. While in Iraq, Mr. Gates will be meeting with political leaders, including Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Last week, Mr. Maliki met in Washington with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and senior lawmakers. The defense secretary is also expected to visit Iraq's restive Kurdish region, where challengers made a surprisingly strong showing in regional elections over the weekend. Kurds were united in their hard line in disputes with Iraq's Arabs, which threaten to erupt into new violence even as the US military prepares to withdraw its forces by the end of 2011.

British Troops Forced to Withdraw as Iraqi Parliament Delays Deal - Deborah Haynes, The Times. British troops are facing a final and ignominious retreat from Iraq after the delay of a deal that would have allowed them to stay to train the country’s navy. About 100 military personnel are withdrawing temporarily after the Iraqi parliament failed to pass an agreement for their continued presence - a bilateral accord that should have been ratified by Friday. The accord would have given them the legal basis to stay and help to protect the facilities off the southern coast, where most oil exports are shipped, and train Iraqi forces. Instead the parliament - apparently distracted by elections in the Kurdish region at the weekend and notoriously slow at voting - will not ratify the deal in a third and final reading until September at the earliest. If it does not do so by then, this week will be the end of independent British involvement in Iraq.

Artillery Unit Becomes Civil Affairs in New Iraq - John Landry, American Forces Press Service. Most field artillery troops don’t expect to work in civil affairs support, but that’s the way it is with the quickly changing role of US forces here. For many field artillery units, nonstandard missions have become a way of life, and the 2nd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery, Task Force Pathfinder, is no different. As part of the Army’s first Advise and Assist Brigade, the Pathfinders provide military support to developing civil capacity across three provinces in southern Iraq. Working closely with provincial reconstruction teams - which are US State Department teams composed of a range of experts in governance, agriculture and similar fields - the task force cooperates with Iraqi partners to develop local economies, reinforce stable and responsive local government and provide essential services. Army Lt. Col. Mike Eastman, Task Force Pathfinder commander, said he believes this is critical to the long-term success of Iraq. “We must focus our efforts on projects and programs that are sustainable, not only after this task force departs, but after all coalition forces depart from Iraq,” Eastman said. “The PRTs are in the lead. This task force supports their efforts at many levels, providing everything from security and movement to coordinating literally hundreds of projects designed to improve the quality of life for the Iraqi people. Our efforts are not oriented on the months that we will be here. They are focused on the years after we depart.” The Pathfinders created a unique organizational structure, including additional lawyers, engineers, health professionals and a variety of technical experts, all working to assist their State Department and Italian Foreign Affairs Ministry counterparts.

Iraqi Kurds Split by Regional Vote - Charles Levinson, Wall Street Journal. Kurdish opposition parties took nearly one-third of the vote in regional elections on the weekend, according to preliminary returns, weakening the political stranglehold exercised for years by the region's two largest parties. Two parties have dominated Kurdish politics since 1975: the Kurdish Democratic Party, headed by Masoud Barzani, president of the semiautonomous Kurdish region, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, led by Jalal Talabani, president of Iraq. After a six-year civil war in Iraq's Kurdish territories in the 1990s, the two settled on a power-sharing agreement. Mr. Barzani's KDP has taken top leadership posts in the Kurdish region, while Mr. Talabani's PUK has assumed senior posts allocated to the Kurds in Iraq's central government. Even as Iraq's other sectarian political alliances split, the Kurds stuck together - one reason they have gained clout in Iraqi politics since 2003. All the Kurdish political parties are largely on the same page when it comes to the hot-button issues dividing Arabs and Kurds. All strongly support Kurdish claims to Kirkuk. But the Change Party has been more conciliatory toward Baghdad than other Kurdish parties in advocating that Kurdistan remain a part of Iraq.

A New Benchmark in Iraq - Lincoln Davis and Joe Wilson, Washington Times opinion. Over the weekend, the people of Iraq's Kurdistan Region went to the polls to elect their new Parliament. This achievement marked yet another milestone in the region's development toward a democratic and transparent society. For that, we applaud the Kurds. Much has been said about Iraqi Kurdistan, but one thing is certain: Through starts and stops, the Kurdistan Region has moved forward in fulfilling its democratic aspirations. Saturday's election is just the latest example. The newly elected Parliament has, among other attributes, more than 30 percent female membership. That percentage is greater than in any country in the Middle East, North America and most of Europe. Moreover, the Parliament has representation from every religious and ethnic constituency within the region. Their journey has not been easy, and errors have been made along the way. However, the Kurds have risen from the ashes of tyranny and are building a thriving civil society in the heart of the Middle East.

IRAN

US, Israel Divide on Iran Nuclear Program - Yochi J. Dreazen, Wall Street Journal. A simmering dispute between the US and Israel over Iran's nuclear program burst into the open on Monday, as US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on a visit to Israel, called for continued diplomatic engagement with Tehran, while Israeli officials repeatedly warned of a possible military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. Iran's apparent pursuit of a nuclear weapon is emerging as a major source of tension between the US and Israel, which are already feuding over President Barack Obama's call for a complete freeze on Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. Several senior US officials are visiting Israel this week to push Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to halt Israeli settlement activity, a step the Israeli leader has so far refused to take. The Obama administration's Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, is already in the region, while National Security Adviser James Jones and White House Mideast adviser Dennis Ross are slated to arrive in coming days. Israeli officials plan to use the meetings to underscore the country's growing unease about the Obama administration's diplomatic outreach to Iran. Israeli officials believe Iran may be less than a year away from enriching enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon, a move Mr. Netanyahu's government sees as an existential threat to the future of the Jewish state.

Gates: US Wants Iran Answer on Nuclear Talks by September - Luis Ramirez, Voice of America. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has told visiting US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates no option is off the table as Israel prepares a possible strike against Iran's suspected nuclear facilities. Gates is among a list of several top Washington officials who are visiting Israel this week. Their aim is to work out disagreements that newspapers here say have put US-Israeli relations at their worst in years. Those disagreements center on US calls for Israel to freeze construction on Jewish settlements on lands claimed by the Palestinians. The subject of Iran and its nuclear ambitions dominated talks Monday between Mr. Gates and the Israeli Defense Minister, Ehud Barak. At a news conference, Mr. Barak indicated the Jewish State is prepared to launch a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. "No options should be removed from the table in spite of the fact that at this stage, a priority should be given still to diplomacy," he added. Gates said the US and Israel are in full agreement on the negative consequences of having Iran obtain nuclear weapons capabilities.

Gates Says US Overture to Iran Is ‘Not Open-Ended’ - Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times. Strains between the United States and Israel surfaced publicly in Jerusalem on Monday, as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates tried to reassure Israelis that American overtures to Iran were not open-ended, and as Defense Minister Ehud Barak of Israel expressed impatience with the Americans for wanting to engage Iran at all. “I don’t think that it makes any sense at this stage to talk a lot about it,” Mr. Barak said at a joint news conference with Mr. Gates at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, referring to the American offer to talk to Iran about giving up its nuclear program. Nonetheless, he said Israel was in no position to tell the United States what to do. But, alluding to a potential Israeli military strike against Iran if it gains nuclear weapons capability, he added: “We clearly believe that no options should be removed from the table. This is our policy, we mean it, we recommend to others to take the same position, but we cannot dictate to anyone.”

Nonmilitary Actions Can Deter Iran, Gates Says - Greg Jaffe, Washington Post. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday stressed engagement and economic sanctions to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, prompting his Israeli counterpart to insist that "no options" should be ruled out if diplomacy fails. Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in a short news conference with Gates, who was visiting here, twice raised the possibility that military action might be needed to stop Iran's nuclear program. "We clearly believe that no options should be removed from the table," Barak said. "This is our policy. We mean it. We recommend others to take the same position, but we do not dictate to anyone." Gates steered clear of any talk of military options. Although the Obama administration has not ruled out using military force against Tehran, it has focused most of its attention on drawing the Iranians into talks over their nuclear program and convincing them that developing a nuclear bomb is not in their best interest. Gates said the administration hopes to have by the fall an initial response from Iran regarding its entreaties. If the talks fail, he said, stiff international economic sanctions on Tehran would be in order.

Gates' Israel Visit Aims to Ease Tensions Over Iran - Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times. US Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates promised Israeli leaders Monday that American overtures to Iran are "not open-ended" and said the Obama administration is ready to press for tougher economic sanctions if diplomacy fails to halt what the two allies say is Iran's progress toward building a nuclear weapon. Gates' brief visit to Jerusalem was aimed at easing tension between the United States and Israel over how to confront Iran, and the differences were evident at his only public appearance here. Speaking to reporters alongside Gates, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak made it clear that he did not favor the US strategy of engagement with Iran and said three times that Israel would not rule out a preemptive military strike if it deemed that talks were not working. But later, in Amman, Jordan, Gates told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had assured him that as long as there was a time limit on the diplomatic approach, "the Israelis were prepared to let it go forward."

US-Israel Gap on Iran Narrows - Joshua Mitnick, Washington Times. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates told top Israeli officials Monday that the United States expects Iran to respond to an offer of nuclear dialogue by late September, narrowing differences between Washington and Tel Aviv amid a growing paralysis in Iran over a disputed presidential election. If the US policy of engagement fails to make progress, Mr. Gates said, the United States would press for tougher international sanctions. He added that Israeli officials had agreed to "let our strategy play out" as long as it is not open-ended. President Obama has said he expects progress with Iran by the fall. But Mr. Gates' comments made the timetable more explicit and appeared to mollify some Israeli concerns that the United States has accepted the notion that nothing can stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

In Israel, Gates Says Patience with Iran is Running Short - Kevin Baron, Stars and Stripes. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stood shoulder to shoulder with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak on Monday to assure Israel - and warn Iran - that Washington’s patience with Tehran’s nuclear endeavors would not last long beyond the end of the year. “The president has been quite clear that this is not an open-ended offer to engage,” Gates said. “We are very mindful of the possibility that the Iranians may simply try to run out the clock.” Barak, a former Israeli prime minister, again raised the possibility of missile strikes against Iranian targets, but said they would be quick and followed immediately followed by sanctions and inspections of Iranian nuclear capabilities. “No option should be removed from the table,” said Barak. “This is our policy. We mean it. “It wouldn’t take much time to clarify whether Iran is trying to keep defying the whole world, or is seriously ready to cooperate.” Gates met with Barak for roughly an hour before visiting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. Barak continued Israel’s stronger threatening overtones while Gates said the US would seek to convince Iranians that their security lies within a US-led regional security blanket.

Defining the Threat Away - Washington Times editorial. The traditional threshold for a country to join the nuclear-weapons club is straightforward. Any state that tests a nuclear weapon gets in. However, on Sunday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton proposed more exclusive membership requirements. Asked by NBC's David Gregory if the effort to keep North Korea from going nuclear had failed, Mrs. Clinton answered, "No, I don't think so, because their program is still at the beginning stages." In other words, two nuclear tests and a stockpile of seven or eight nuclear weapons are no longer enough to join the club. Tough luck Pyongyang, you've been blackballed. This would simply be an exercise in semantics if it weren't for the probability that Iran will soon test its own nuclear weapon. This administration, like its predecessor, has said that an Iranian nuclear-weapons capability would be unacceptable. But if Iran conducts a nuclear test sometime in the coming months, that apparently will not indicate the failure of diplomacy any more than the North Korean tests have. Faced with defeat, the State Department will define it away.

Iran Protests Subside, but Internal Squabbles Continue - Gary Thomas, Voice of America. The street protests in Iran have faded in the face of the government's security crackdown. But the political squabbles and bickering continue. Internal feuds that were once kept behind closed doors have erupted into the open, providing a rare glimpse of political tensions in the Islamic Republic. Suzanne Maloney of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy told a recent congressional hearing that the level of squabbling among Iran's political heavyweights is unprecedented. "The other profound consequence for the Iranian regime ... is the cleavage within the political elite. There is always been factional bickering within Iran, but we have never seen anything at this level, and we have never seen the direct assault on the authority of the office of the supreme leader," she said. When President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was ordered by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to drop his choice of Rahim Esfandiar Mashaei to be first vice-president, he initially refused. Mashaei is controversial in Iranian conservative political circles for favorable comments he once made about the Israeli people. Mr. Ahmadinejad subsequently gave in to the Supreme Leader's demand after conservatives called on him to do so.

Iran Opposition Leader Calls for More Street Protests - Borzou Daragahi, Los Angeles Times. Iran's leading opposition figure called on his supporters Monday to head into the streets daily during a religious festival next week, potentially escalating tensions at a time when his election rival, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to be sworn in for a second term. The call for new protests was the most provocative move in weeks by former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi. It was a sign that the aging bureaucrat, once a pillar of the Islamic Republic's political establishment, is growing into the role of leader of a youth-based movement that seeks greater democracy and better ties to the rest of the world. It also highlights the difficulty Iran's political powers are having trying to tame the unrest stemming from charges that Ahmadinejad stole the June 12 presidential election. Authorities have fallen back on the same tactics they used to quell protests in 1999 and 2003 - beating and imprisoning activists. But this time, those methods have not stopped the protest, and have even divided the ranks of political conservatives.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Faces Hardline Revolt in Iran - Damien McElroy, Daily Telegraph. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was facing a revolt by furious Iranian hardliners on Monday after he sacked a key conservative minister in an act of revenge. The Iranian leader found himself at the centre of bitter infighting within the Iranian establishment when he dismissed his intelligence minister after his choice for vice-president was overruled by the country's Supreme Leader. The backlash intensified when another minister offered his resignation in protest at Mr Ahmadinejad's move at the weekend. The tit-for-tat exchange between feuding elites threatened his already embattled grasp on power after his disputed election victory in the presidential election last month which provoked street protests and allegations of mass fraud at the ballot box. Under fire from both reformers and ultra-conservatives, Mr Ahmadinejad's position has become increasingly perilous in the run-up to his inauguration for a second term on Aug 6.

Ahmadinejad Struggles with Crisis of Authority - Barbara Slavin, Washington Times. Iran's government appears to be imploding even before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is sworn in for a second term, with three Cabinet ministers dismissed, resigning or on their way out and the opposition vowing to continue protests over disputed presidential elections. Iran specialists say Mr. Ahmadinejad - who has alienated some hard-liners as well as reformists in Iran through poor economic management and an adventurist foreign policy - is badly weakened as he heads into a second term and may not be able to complete another four years in office. The president is due to be inaugurated for his second term Aug. 5 and is supposed to have a 21-member Cabinet in place by the end of August. Mr. Ahmadinejad's insistence on a high position for Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, the father of his daughter-in-law, has brought him into direct conflict with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Iranian hard-liners, even as reformers insist that the president did not legitimately win the June 12 elections.

Iran's Judicial Chief Orders Decision on Detainees - Voice of America. Iranian media report the nation's judiciary chief has ordered officials to quickly decide the fate of protesters detained in the wake of last month's disputed presidential election. Judiciary spokesman Ali Reza Jamshidi said Judiciary Chief Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi said officials must decide within a week whether to keep detainees in jail or release them. The spokesman said 300 protesters remain in detention from the massive street protests that stemmed from the June 12 re-election victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The political opposition alleges fraud, but Iranian authorities say the vote was fair. Also, Human Rights Watch has accused Iranian authorities of continuing to arrest and harass human rights lawyers in an attempt to prevent them from representing political prisoners.

Iranian Leaders Urge Protections for Detained Protesters - Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post. Top Iranian leaders on Monday called for greater protection for opposition demonstrators arrested during this summer's protests after at least three were reported in recent days to have died in custody. The calls reflect concern, even among Iran's ruling elite, that some of those detained are being mistreated by officials and groups operating under the authority of the powerful Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has taken an ever larger role in Iranian affairs since protests over June's disputed presidential election triggered a massive crackdown. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking through his representative on the National Security Council, called Monday for criminal acts to be handled through proper legal channels. Khamenei ordered the closure of a substandard prison facility and reminded officials that "criminal acts should be confronted by government bodies only within the framework of the law and no one can deny the legal rights of any individual," the representative, Saeed Jalili, quoted Khamenei as saying, according to the semiofficial Iranian Students News Agency.

THE LONG WAR

Seven Face Terrorism Charges in NC - Carrie Johnson and Spencer S. Hsu, Washington Post. Federal prosecutors in North Carolina accused six US citizens and a permanent resident Monday of conspiring to provide material support to foreign terrorists and to commit murder overseas. The charges come as part of a long-running investigation into Raleigh area men who stockpiled a cache of assault weapons. At the center of the ring is Daniel P. Boyd, 39, who trained in terrorist camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980s before fighting the Soviet Union, authorities said. Boyd, a Muslim convert, returned home and three years ago allegedly began recruiting a group of men to wage jihad. Also known as "Saifullah," or sword of God, Boyd raised money to send his acolytes on a visit to the Middle East, according to an indictment handed up by a grand jury last week and unsealed Monday. Authorities picked up no sign of communications between Boyd and al-Qaeda or any plans by the Raleigh group to wreak havoc, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation continues. But the weapons that the group had allegedly amassed and brandished in training exercises in North Carolina this June and July gave pause to federal officials, the source added.

7 Arrested in North Carolina on Terrorism Charges - Josh Meyer, Los Angeles Times. Federal authorities in North Carolina on Monday arrested seven men who they said had trained with high-powered weapons as part of a terrorist conspiracy to wage an Islamic holy war overseas. The men - including a father who, authorities said, trained in jihad camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and his two sons - sought to provide material support to terrorists and to murder, kidnap, maim and injure people overseas, according to a seven-count federal indictment. The indictment did not allege that the group was plotting attacks on US soil. If convicted, the suspects, all but one of whom are US citizens, could face life in prison. At least some of the men were willing to die as martyrs, according to the indictment, which described a plot that began in 2006 and lasted until earlier this month. It said that the North Carolina residents had raised donations to support their training and had recruited and radicalized others - "mostly young Muslims or converts to Islam, to believe ... the idea that violent jihad was a personal obligation on the part of every good Muslim."

Parsing What the Enemy’s Up To - New York Times editorial. Almost eight years after the alarming lessons of 9/11, the Senate Intelligence Committee finds the nation’s spy agencies mumbling more than mastering the languages of the nation’s adversaries. The committee did not mince words in pronouncing the intelligence community’s foreign language capabilities to be “abysmal.” “The cadre of intelligence professionals capable of speaking, reading, or understanding critical regional languages such as Pashto, Dari or Urdu remains essentially nonexistent,” the committee warned in a lengthy critique of the CIA and other agencies that raised worries over the loss of information vital to national preparedness. The panel laid bare these problems in the course of approving an intelligence spending bill. It’s no secret that the intelligence community has been reeling from the disclosure of its shortcomings in the lead-up to the attacks of 9/11 and to the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq. The Senate panel performs a worthy service in pointing to the failure to improve on one of the basics: information gathering, let alone eavesdropping, means agencies must do a far better job at language education and hiring new people with needed skills to grasp what dangers may be out there.

WAR

In Battle, Hunches Prove to Be Valuable Assets - Benedict Carey, New York Times. The United States military has spent billions on hardware, like signal jamming technology, to detect and destroy what the military calls improvised explosive devices, or IED’s, the roadside bombs that have proved to be the greatest threat in Iraq and now in Afghanistan, where Sergeant Tierney is training soldiers to foil bomb attacks. Still, high-tech gear, while helping to reduce casualties, remains a mere supplement to the most sensitive detection system of all - the human brain. Troops on the ground, using only their senses and experience, are responsible for foiling many IED attacks, and, like Sergeant Tierney, they often cite a gut feeling or a hunch as their first clue. Everyone has hunches - about friends’ motives, about the stock market, about when to fold a hand of poker and when to hold it. But United States troops are now at the center of a large effort to understand how it is that in a life-or-death situation, some people’s brains can sense danger and act on it well before others’ do. Experience matters, of course: if you have seen something before, you are more likely to anticipate it the next time. And yet, recent research suggests that something else is at work, too.

US DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Crime Rate of Veterans in Colo. Unit Cited - R. Jeffrey Smith, Washington Post. Soldiers returning from Iraq after serving with a Fort Carson, Colo., combat brigade have exhibited an exceptionally high rate of criminal behavior in their home towns, carrying out a string of killings and other offenses that the ex-soldiers attribute to lax discipline and episodes of indiscriminate killing during their grueling deployment, according to a six-month investigation by the Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper. Members of the 3,500-soldier Fourth Infantry Division's Fourth Brigade told the publication that the brutal conditions in Iraq from 2004 to 2007 and the Army's failure to provide proper treatment for stress were in part to blame for the incidents of rape, domestic abuse, shootings, stabbings, kidnappings and suicides, the paper said. Ten of the brigade's members committed or attempted to commit homicides after their return from Iraq, a rate said to be 114 times the murder rate in Colorado Springs, adjacent to the unit's base.

AFRICA

In Nigeria, an Islamist Expansion - Will Conors, Wall Street Journal. An Islamic fundamentalist group in northern Nigeria expanded its attacks into three additional states on Monday, a day after at least 50 people died during fighting between the group and security forces in Bauchi State, aid workers and police said. On Monday, fundamentalist group Boko Haram, which means "education is prohibited" in Hausa, launched attacks in three northern states, where at least 100 bodies were counted by a reporter in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, the BBC reported. Casualty figures couldn't be confirmed. Fighting was also reported in Kano and Yobe states. Police spokesmen didn't respond Monday to requests for information. Boko Haram on Sunday attacked a police station in the northern city of Bauchi after several of the group's leaders were arrested last week. Police responded to Sunday's attacks by converging on several of the group's hideouts, killing at least 50 members and arresting more than 100, police spokesmen said. The arrest of nine Boko Haram members on Friday appeared to be the catalyst for the recent attacks, which were carried out by about 70 men armed with homemade grenades, sticks and knives.

Clashes with Islamists Who Claim to be Taleban Kill 150 in Nigeria - Jonathan Clayton, The Times. Radical Islamists, who claim to be linked to al-Qaeda, have killed more than 150 people in two days of violence in northern Nigeria, news agencies reported. Residents in the state of Borno said that Islamic militants, loyal to an anti-Western preacher, burnt a police station, a church and a customs office early yesterday. The attacks came after clashes in the neighbouring, mainly Muslim states of Bauchi and Yobe on Sunday. The heavily armed sect, which calls itself Taleban, emerged in Nigeria in 2004. Although, it has never been clear if it has proper links to the Taleban in Afghanistan its leaders profess allegiance to and admiration of Osama bin Laden.

Scores Die as Fighters Battle Nigerian Police - Adam Nossiter, New York Times. Scores have been killed in clashes between the police and members of a fundamentalist Islamic sect in towns across northern Nigeria, a predominantly Muslim region that for years has had regular and often bloody outbreaks of sectarian unrest. An obscure group opposed to Western education appears to be at the root of the current troubles. The Nigerian police accused it of attacks on police stations in at least two states on Sunday and Monday. In one state, Bauchi, at least 39 militants were killed on Sunday, a local police spokesman said; in another, Yobe, fighters used fuel-laden motorcycles to bomb a police station, and then, armed with bows and poison arrows, they attacked officers, another police spokesman said. At least 55 people have been killed in the two-day wave of violence, according to news reports. A spokesman for the national police, Emmanuel Ojukwu, refused to confirm the number of dead, saying only that “a few renegade elements attacked the police, and the police fought back.”

AMERICAS

New Strategy Urged in Mexico - William Booth and Steve Fainaru, Washington Post. President Felipe Calderón is under growing pressure to overhaul a US-backed anti-narcotics strategy that many political leaders and analysts said is failing amid spectacular drug cartel assaults against the government. There are now sustained calls in Mexico for a change in tactics, even from allies within Calderón's political party, who say the deployment of 45,000 soldiers to fight the cartels is a flawed plan that relies too heavily on the blunt force of the military to stem soaring violence and lawlessness. US officials said they now believe Mexico faces a longer and bloodier campaign than anticipated and is likely to require more American aid. US and Mexican officials increasingly draw comparisons to Colombia, where from 2000 to 2006 the United States spent $6 billion to help neutralize the cartels that once dominated the drug trade. While violence is sharply down in Colombia, cocaine production is up. Mexico, nearly twice Colombia's size, faces a more daunting challenge, many officials and analysts said , in part because it sits adjacent to the United States, the largest illegal drug market in the world. In addition, at least seven major cartels are able to recruit from Mexico's swelling ranks of impoverished youth and thousands of disenfranchised soldiers and police officers.

Mexican Cartels Boom - Juan Carlos Llorca, Associated Press. Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon was summoned by Mexican traffickers for what he was told was business. Instead, dozens of attackers ambushed his entourage with grenades and assault rifles, killing Mr. Leon and 10 others in a brazen demonstration of power. Mexican drug traffickers are branching out as never before - spreading their tentacles into 47 nations, including the United States, Guatemala and even Colombia, long the heart of the drug trade in Latin America. The expansion comes amid a military crackdown in Mexico and the arrests of major Colombian suppliers, and poses a new challenge for efforts to stop the flow of drugs into the United States. In dozens of interviews with officials and specialists in seven countries, the Associated Press found that the Mexican mobs increasingly buy directly from the cocaine-producing Andes and have begun using countries as distant as Argentina to obtain the raw material for methamphetamine. Mexican gangsters have been arrested as far away as Malaysia as they seek new markets for cocaine and "meth" supply sources.

Colombia-Venezuela Relations Erode Further with Rocket Revelation - Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times. Colombia's tenuous relations with Venezuela have worsened again with the revelation that Swedish-made rockets and launchers sold to the Venezuelan armed forces have been recovered in a Colombian rebel group's camp. Last week, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez canceled a summit with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and said he would "reassess" binational relations in light of Colombia's consent to host US anti-drug aircraft at as many as four air bases. Then, on Sunday, Uribe confirmed reports that his military had recovered powerful antitank rockets during a raid on a Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, weapons cache in the Macarena National Park last year. Without naming the suspected supplier, Uribe said the FARC had acquired them on the "international arms market" and that protests had been made with unnamed countries "through diplomatic channels." Colombian Defense Ministry officials said Monday that the rockets were AT4 shoulder-fired antitank weapons made by Saab Bofors Dynamics with serial numbers indicating they were sold to Venezuela. Saab official Thomas Samuelsson confirmed to reporters that his company made the rockets and had sold them to Venezuela, which he said had "signed a final-destination agreement" forbidding re-export without notification.

Rebels Obtained Arms Sold to Venezuela, Colombia Says - Associated Press. Sweden demanded an explanation on Monday of how Colombia’s largest rebel group managed to obtain Swedish-made antitank rocket launchers that had been sold to Venezuela years ago. Colombia said over the weekend that its military had found the weapons in a captured rebel arms cache and that Sweden had recently confirmed that they had originally been sold to Venezuela’s military. The confirmation strengthens Colombian accusations that the government of President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has aided the leftist group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. It also exacerbated tensions between the two nations over an imminent agreement to expand the United States military’s use of Colombian air and naval bases. The bazooka-like AT-4 single-use rocket launchers, manufactured by Saab Bofors Dynamics, lack the precision and range of surface-to-air weapons. There is also no evidence that FARC rebels have used the launchers in combat.

A President Kicked Out, but Not Alone in Defiance - Blake Schmidt, New York Times. In the weeks after Mr. Zelaya was awakened by soldiers on June 28 and put on a plane to Costa Rica, he tried to regain his presidency through international diplomacy. He jetted around Central America and the United States, addressed the United Nations, attended regional summit meetings and was received with the pomp of a president. But negotiations with the de facto government led by Roberto Micheletti have stalled, and the attention of the international community seems close to spent. Mr. Zelaya is here because he has little place else to go. Hard against the border, he can rally Hondurans here to try to keep some internal pressure on those who ousted him and stage political theater that, laced with an implicit threat of violence, helps keep the crisis from falling off Washington’s radar. When he arrived Friday, after weeks of promising to return to Honduras, he dramatically stepped across the border, but just a few feet, not far enough to allow the government to make good on its pledge to arrest him. On Saturday he returned to the border, taking his supporters with him in three old school buses, followed by a motorcade of reporters and television cameras.

US Turns Off News Billboard Atop Its Mission in Havana - Marc Lacey, New York Times. The Obama administration has pulled the plug on an electronic billboard outside the American diplomatic mission in Havana that was used to tweak the Cuban government with pro-democracy messages and became a symbol of the bad blood between the two countries. When the billboard went up in 2006, some saw it as an innovative diplomatic stick in the eye of the government of Fidel Castro. Others, though, considered the 25 electrical panels installed by the Bush administration in the fifth-floor windows of the American Interests Section to be fundamentally silly. Fidel Castro, who ceded the presidency to his brother Raúl last year, was clearly not amused by the bright red messages, many of which criticized his government for human rights abuses. In response, he blocked the message board with huge black flags hanging on 100-foot-high flag poles and erected billboards nearby that denounced President George W. Bush. Cuban security guards were also stationed in strategic spots to shoo away any Cubans who might gaze upward at the five-foot-high news ticker, which overlooked the Malecón, Havana’s coastal highway.

ASIA PACIFIC

Obama Opens High-Level US-China Talks - Paula Wolfson, Voice of America. US President Barack Obama is calling for a new era of cooperation between the United States and China. Mr. Obama says despite their differences, there are key areas where the two countries can and must work together. President Obama says Washington and Beijing must cooperate to tackle the big problems facing the world. "The relationship between the United States and China will shape the 21st century, which makes it as important as any bilateral relationship in the world," the president said. "That really must underpin our partnership. That is the responsibility that together we bear." The president spoke to high-level American and Chinese officials as they launched a two-day meeting in Washington. The US China Strategic and Economic Dialogue is to discuss a broad agenda from currency concerns to foreign policy.

US-China Meeting Renews the Dialogue - Glenn Kessler, Washington Post. For many years, US officials traveled to Beijing and lectured the Chinese about the value of their currency and the need for economic and political reforms. On Monday, about 200 senior Chinese officials traveled to Washington and heard soothing words of reassurance from US officials: The dollar is still sound, your investments are safe and we are working really hard to restructure our economy. Such is the nature of the US-China relationship today. Behind all the reassuring language is a nervous sense that the fate of the world economy is increasingly dependent on the United States and China working together. President Obama opened the first meeting of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue on Monday by declaring that the two countries share a responsibility for the 21st century, and should strive to cooperate not only on economic matters but also on key issues such as climate change, nuclear proliferation and transnational threats.

Obama Opens Policy Talks With China - Mark Landler, New York Times. The United States and China inaugurated two days of high-level talks on Monday, exchanging promises of great-power cooperation on weighty issues like climate change while steering clear of potential conflicts over exchange rates and human rights. President Obama, saying that ties between the countries are as “important as any bilateral relationship in the world,” welcomed senior Chinese leaders to the meetings here, which were jointly led by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner. “I have no illusions that the United States and China will agree on every issue, nor choose to see the world in the same way,” Mr. Obama said. “But that only makes dialogue more important.” Ticking off a long list of priorities, the president said the two countries would seek ways to work together on economic recovery, climate change, clean-energy technology, nuclear nonproliferation, counterterrorism and humanitarian disasters like the one in Darfur, Sudan.

US-China Talks Start with Focus on Mutual Economic Interests - Jim Puzzanghera, Los Angeles Times. Top Obama administration officials sought to reassure their Chinese counterparts that the United States was committed to reducing its ballooning deficit, and sought assurances from China that it would retool its economy to be less dependent on exports. Speaking at the start of the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue here, President Obama said Monday that the two countries had a "mutual interest in a lasting economic recovery" and that their partnership was "as important as any bilateral relationship in the world." "The current crisis has made it clear that the choices made within our borders reverberate across the global economy - and this is true not just of New York and Seattle, but Shanghai and Shenzhen as well," Obama said. "That is why we must remain committed to strong bilateral and multilateral coordination.

China and Taiwan Leaders Exchange Letters for First Time - Ide, William, Voice of America. China's President Hu Jintao has sent his Taiwan counterpart Ma Ying-jeou a telegram, applauding his election as ruling party chief. The letter was the first direct communication between the leaders of the two governments in 60 years. Ma Ying-jeou's Nationalist Party says that in addition to congratulating Mr. Ma on his election as party chairman, Mr. Hu on Monday expressed hope the Communist Party can work with the Nationalists and promote peaceful relations between the two sides. In his 73-word telegram, Mr. Hu also said he hoped the two parties could build more trust in political affairs. Mr. Ma responded by sending his own letter, urging Beijing and Taipei to continue efforts to build peace across the Taiwan Strait and rebuild regional stability. Ties between Taiwan and China have long been difficult. China claims sovereignty over Taiwan, which has been separately governed since the Communists won the Chinese civil war in 1949 and the Nationalists fled to the island.

North Korea Ready for 'Specific' US-Only Talks - Kurt Achin, Voice of America. North Korea says it may be ready to talk again, but not in the six-nation format it has taken part in over the last five years. This time, Pyongyang says it will only talk with the United States. The United States is rejecting North Korea's offer to hold one-on-one talks on its nuclear weapons program. A State Department spokesman said Monday that any bilateral meeting with the North can only be part of the six-party talks that include China, Japan, Russia, and South Korea. But North Korea has declared those talks dead. North Korea took what some view as a small step back from confrontation Monday, offering the possibility of dialogue to ease tensions. However, the statement from Pyongyang's Foreign Ministry reaffirmed the North's stance that six-nation talks on ending its nuclear programs are dead. A North Korean news announcer speaks of "another method" of settling recent tensions.

Burma's Trial of Democracy Leader in Final Arguments - Daniel Schearf, Voice of America. The trial of Burma's democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, is in final arguments. The internationally condemned trial resumed as rights group Amnesty International awarded the Nobel laureate its top recognition for a rights defender. A court in Rangoon heard from lawyers for Aung San Suu Kyi's two assistants, Khin Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, and the American man, John Yettaw, who sparked the trial. Aung San Suu Kyi's lawyers presented her final arguments on Friday and say a verdict is expected in two or three weeks. Numerous governments and rights groups have condemned the trial and demanded her release. Benjamin Zawacki is a Burma researcher for Amnesty International in Thailand. He says the trial has not been free or fair. But, he says even the fairest trial against her would be illegitimate. "It is besides the point in many ways. Because, of course, as a prisoner of conscience, she should not have been detained in the first place," he said. "She certainly should not be on trial."

Trial of Myanmar Rights Leader Nears End - Seth Mydans, New York Times. The prosecution in Myanmar concluded its final arguments on Monday in the trial of the jailed pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, her lawyer said. The lawyer, U Nyan Win, said the defense would respond to those arguments on Tuesday, concluding a case that has drawn international condemnation since it opened May 18. No date has been set for a verdict, Mr. Nyan Win said by telephone from Myanmar’s main city, Yangon. Further hearings are continuing in the case of John Yettaw, the American whose two-day intrusion in early May at the villa of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was the cause of her trial. She faces a possible five-year prison term on a charge of violating the terms of her house arrest, which has been in place for 14 of the last 19 years. Mr. Yettaw faces a similar term on immigration charges and on a charge of violating city ordinances for swimming across a lake to her house. Two women who live with Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi are also on trial on charges similar to those brought against her.

MIDDLE EAST

US Peace Envoy in Egypt in Effort to Revive Arab-Israeli Talks - Edward Yeranian, Voice of America. Special US peace envoy George Mitchell is in Egypt as part of a push to resume Arab-Israeli peace talks. George Mitchell looked tired but sounded upbeat, on the latest lap of his shuttle mission that has brought him from Syria and Israel to Egypt. The visit was his fifth to Cairo and the second in just more than a month and a half. One Egyptian analyst quipped Senator Mitchell is starting to become "a household name in Egypt and the Arab world." Egyptian TV showed the envoy meeting with President Hosni Mubarak and Foreign Minister Ahmed Abou Gheit, reporting that he briefed them about his weekend talks with Syrian President Bashar al Assad and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. After the meetings, Mitchell told journalists it is imperative to achieve a full and comprehensive peace in the region to improve the lives of everyone.

Report: Israeli Settlers in West Bank Top 300,000 - Voice of America. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz says the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank has topped 300,000. In a report Monday, Haaretz said as of June 30, there were 304,569 settlers living in the Palestinian territory, an increase of 2.3 percent since January. The paper said the figures came from an Israeli government report. The settlement issue is one of the main obstacles in the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The administration of US President Barack Obama has repeatedly called on Israel to halt all settlement activity as part of efforts to revive the peace process. Three top US officials, US special envoy to the Middle East George Mitchell, Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National Security Advisor James Jones, are holding talks in Israel this week and are pushing for a settlement freeze. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far refused the demand, creating tensions with Washington.

Why Won’t Obama Talk to Israel? - Aluf Benn, New York Times opinion. In his global tours and TV appearances, President Obama has spoken to Arabs, Muslims, Iranians, Western Europeans, Eastern Europeans, Russians and Africans. His words have stirred emotions and been well received everywhere. But he hasn’t bothered to speak directly to Israelis. And the effect? Six months into his presidency, Israelis find themselves increasingly suspicious of Mr. Obama. All they see is American pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze settlements, a request that’s been interpreted here as political arm-twisting meant to please the Arab street at Israel’s expense - or simply to express the president’s dislike for Mr. Netanyahu. This would seem counterproductive, given the importance the president has placed on resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

US Woos Damascus by Easing Export Ban - Jay Solomon, Wall Street Journal. The Obama administration has told Syria that it will work to ease US sanctions against Damascus, as Washington intensifies its pursuit of détente with a longtime Middle East rival. The US decision targets spare aircraft parts, information-technology products and telecommunications equipment, sales of which have been restricted by US sanctions on Syria enacted in 2004. The step was conveyed Sunday by Washington's special Mideast envoy, George Mitchell, to Syrian President Bashar Assad during an hour-long meeting in Damascus. The move represents the latest action in a rapidly accelerating rapprochement between Washington and Damascus initiated after President Barack Obama took office this year, said officials from both countries. Messrs. Mitchell and Assad also discussed Sunday the possibility of the Pentagon dispatching to Damascus its second delegation of officers from the US Central Command to discuss greater cooperation in preventing the flow of al Qaeda militants and other foreign fighters into Iraq through Syrian soil, said Syrian officials.

SOUTH ASIA

Indian Court Convicts 3 for Bomb Blasts in 2003 - Anjana Pasricha, Voice of America. A court in India has convicted three people for two deadly bomb blasts which killed 52 people in Mumbai, six years ago. It was one of several bomb attacks that have devastated India's financial hub. A special court in Mumbai has found three people guilty for murder and criminal conspiracy in bombings that ripped through two crowded areas of the city in August of 2003. They are Mohammed Haneef Sayeed, 46, his wife Fahmeeda, 43, and Ashrat Ansari, 32. The sentences will be pronounced on August 4. All three could face the death penalty. The court found them guilty of packing two taxis with powerful bombs, which exploded outside one of the city's most famous landmarks, the Gateway of India, and in a busy jewelry market. The bombs exploded within minutes of each other and left a trail of devastation in the city, killing 52 people and injuring more than 200 others. Special Public Prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam says the blasts were planned outside the country, at the behest of a banned Islamic terror group.

Islamabad Tells of Plot by Lashkar - Zahid Hussain, Wall Street Journal. Pakistani investigators told India they have found substantial, incriminating evidence that directly connects Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba to November's terrorist attacks in Mumbai. The latest report on Pakistan's investigation, handed to Indian authorities this month, said material recovered from Lashkar camps in Karachi and the southern coastal town of Thatta indicated the terrorists were given training, weapons and direction by the militant outfit. The evidence included handwritten diaries, training manuals, Indian maps and operational instructions, said the report, a copy of which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. "The investigation has established beyond any reasonable doubt that the defunct LeT activists conspired, abetted, planned, financed and established [the] communication network to carry out terror attacks in Mumbai," the report said. Lashkar-e-Taiba was outlawed by Pakistan in 2002, but it continued to operate under the banner of Jamaat ud Dawa, its purported charity arm.

BOOKS

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan - Doug Stanton.

Horse Soldiers tells the important story of the Special Forces soldiers who first put American boots on the ground in Afghanistan in 2001. Fighting alongside the Northern Alliance, the troops, often riding on horseback, achieved several important victories against the Taliban.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age - Thomas Rid and Marc Hecker.

War 2.0: Irregular Warfare in the Information Age argues that two intimately connected trends are putting modern armies under huge pressure to adapt: the rise of insurgencies and the rise of the Web. Both in cyberspace and in warfare, the grassroots public has assumed increasing importance in recent years. After the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Web 2.0 rose from the ashes. This newly interactive and participatory form of the Web promotes and enables offline action. Similarly, after Rumsfeld's attempt to transform the US military into a lean, lethal, computerized force crashed in Iraq in 2003, counterinsurgency rose from the ashes. Counterinsurgency is a social form of war - indeed, the US Army calls it armed social work - in which the local matrix population becomes the center of strategic gravity and public opinion at home the critical vulnerability.

The New Counterinsurgency Era: Transforming the U.S. Military for Modern Wars - David H. Ucko.

Confronting insurgent violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military has recognized the need to "re-learn" counterinsurgency. But how has the Department of Defense with its mixed efforts responded to this new strategic environment? Has it learned anything from past failures? In The New Counterinsurgency Era, David Ucko examines DoD's institutional obstacles and initially slow response to a changing strategic reality.

Journey into Darkness: Genocide in Rwanda - Thomas P. Odom.

In July 1994, Thomas P. Odom was part of the US Embassy team that responded to the Goma refugee crisis. He witnessed the deaths of 70,000 refugees in a single week. In the previous three months of escalating violence, the Rwandan genocide had claimed 800,000 dead. Now, in this vivid and unsettling new book, Odom offers the first insider look at these devastating events before, during, and after the genocide.

Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage - Donovan Campbell.

Donovan Campbell, first as a Marine and then as a writer, shows us that the dominant emotion in war isn’t hatred or anger or fear. It’s love. His story stands as a poignant tribute to his men–their courage, their dedication, their skill, and their love for one another, even unto death.

The Battle for Peace: A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose - Anthony Zinni and Tony Koltz

The intellectual complement to Zinni and Clancy's bestselling Battle Ready (2004), a narrative memoir salted with specific policy recommendations, this volume provides the former US Central Command chief's analysis of America's current global position. Zinni begins by asserting that America's status as "the most powerful nation in the history of the planet" has created a de facto empire. The US has no choice: if it fails to take the lead, nothing significant happens. At the same time, Americans must recognize that, in a global age, there can be no zero-sum games.

The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier's Education - Craig Mullaney

The Unforgiving Minute is the ultimate's soldier's book - universal in its raw emotion and its understanding of the larger issues of life and death. Mullaney, a master storyteller, plunges the depths of self-doubt, endurance, and courage. The result: a riveting, suspenseful human story, beautifully told. This is a book written under fire - a lyrical, spellbinding tale of war, love, and courage. The Unforgiving Minute is the Three Cups of Tea of soldiering.

Great Powers: America and the World after Bush - Thomas P.M. Barnett

In civilian and military circles alike, The Pentagon’s New Map became one of the most talked about books of 2004. “A combination of Tom Friedman on globalization and Carl von Clausewitz on war, [it is] the red-hot book among the nation’s admirals and generals,” wrote David Ignatius in The Washington Post. Barnett’s second book, Blueprint for Action, demonstrated how to put the first book’s principles to work. Now, in Great Powers, Barnett delivers his most sweeping - and important - book of all.

The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One - David Kilcullen

A remarkably fresh perspective on the War on Terror. Kilcullen takes us "on the ground" to uncover the face of modern warfare, illuminating both the big global war (the "War on Terrorism") and its relation to the associated "small wars" across the globe: Iraq, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Chechnya, Pakistan and North Africa.

The Gamble: General David Petraeus and the American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2006-2008 - Thomas Ricks

Thomas E. Ricks uses hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with top officers in Iraq and extraordinary on-the-ground reportage to document the inside story of the Iraq War since late 2005 as only he can, examining the events that took place as the military was forced to reckon with itself, the surge was launched, and a very different war began.

Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips

Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor

This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.

Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.

The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward

Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.

We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway

In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.

In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy

The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.

Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz

Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.