The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Baghdad

Insurgents killed two US soldiers and wounded eight others in separate attacks in northern Iraq, the military said early on Thursday.

The soldiers were killed on Wednesday. One soldier died and five others were wounded during combat operations near the oil refining city of Baiji, while another soldier was killed and three wounded in a land mine explosion in the northern province of Salaheddin. The overall toll of American military losses since the March 2003 invasion touched 3,833, according to Pentagon figures as on Wednesday.

In the northern city of Kirkuk and the nearby Sunni enclave of Howaija, three civilians - a university professor, an engineer and an energy official - were kidnapped, police reported.

According to the Aswat al-Iraq news agency, police have discovered countrywide bodies of 17 murder victims. Most were killed in Baghdad and the province of Diyala province north of the capital, the report said.

Washington report adds: The total cost, including debt servicing, of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach 2.4 trillion dollars by 2017, a non-partisan estimate found Wednesday, sparking fresh political rancor.

The report by the Congressional Budget Office flared tempers two days after President George W. Bush angered anti-war Democrats by requesting nearly 200 billion dollars more in emergency war funding.

The White House brushed off the estimate as speculation, but admitted that it did not know how much the war would cost.

For the first time, the CBO estimates included the huge costs of financing government borrowing used to pay for the wars. CBO Director Peter Orszag, said the "bottom line" figure of war spending would be 2.4 trillion dollars under most intense scenarios of military activity, if future costs were not offset by higher taxes or lower spending. "That is the highest number that is contained in our testimony, I don't know whether it is a worst case scenario," he told the House of Representatives Budget Committee. But White House press secretary Dana Perino dismissed the CBO figures as "a ton of speculation."

"It's a hypothetical that was created based on questions that Democrats in Congress that don't want us to be in the war asked the Congressional Budget Office to provide," she said.

AFP, Washington

Three veteran US senators have urged Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to ensure the safety of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto after the deadly attack on her homecoming parade.

In an unusual letter to the key US anti-terror ally, Senators Joseph Biden, Joseph Lieberman and Patrick Leahy warned that the suicide bombings, which killed 139 people, reflected risks faced by all candidates in January's elections.

"We extend our condolences to you, to the victims' families, and to all of the people of Pakistan," the senators wrote in the letter Wednesday.

"We believe this devastating attack serves as a stark reminder of the need for effective security mechanisms for the protection of all candidates and their supporters (particularly, although not exclusively, Ms. Bhutto and members of her party)t" The senators called on Musharraf to provide the level of security to Bhutto offered to any former Pakistani prime minister.

Reuters, Diyarbakir

Turkish forces said they repelled a Kurdish rebel attack near the Iraqi border and President Abdullah Gul warned the PKK on Thursday that Turkey's patience was running out.

Ankara has massed as many as 100,000 troops along the mountainous border ahead of a possible cross-border operation to crush around 3,000 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who use northern Iraq as a launchpad for attacks on Turkey. Iraqi, Turkish and U.S. diplomats have stepped up efforts to avert a large-scale Turkish incursion but Gul said Turkey would not tolerate more PKK attacks from Iraq.

"We are totally determined to take all necessary steps to end this threatt Iraq should not be a source of threat for its neighbors," Gul told an economic conference in Ankara.

"Although we respect the territorial integrity and unity of Iraq, Turkey is running out of patience and will not tolerate the use of Iraqi soil for the purpose of terrorist activities."

Public pressure on the Turkish authorities to act has grown since rebels killed 12 soldiers in clashes last weekend.

Turkish security sources have confirmed a series of sorties by warplanes and ground troops since Sunday into Iraqi territory, though Ankara has said it still hopes diplomacy can stave off the need for a full-blown ground invasion.

AP, Kabul

A suicide car bomb went off near the convoy of cars carrying a provincial governor in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, wounding two of his bodyguards and two civilians, the governor said.

Arsallah Jamal, the governor of Khost province, survived the blast in Khost city unhurt.

"I am fine but two of my bodyguards and two civilians were wounded," Jamal told The Associated Press by telephone shortly after the blast.

U.S. troops surrounded the area and took the wounded to a hospital at their base near the city, said Gen. Mohammad Ayub, the provincial police chief.

It was at least the third attempt to kill Jamal, who was returning from a visit to districts near the border with Pakistan when he was targeted on Wednesday.

The U.S.-led coalition, meanwhile, said its forces clashed with suspected militants in central Afghanistan, killing several insurgents and detaining two.

The troops moved into compounds in Nirkh district, Wardak province, late Tuesday on intelligence that militants were hiding there, a coalition statement said.

Coalition troops found weapons, ammunition and explosive materials, it said.

The clash happened in the same province where NATO and Afghan troops on Monday called in airstrikes during a battle that left up to 20 militants but also as many as 12 civilians dead, Afghan officials said.

AFP, Washington

The US terrorist watch list includes more than 755,000 names and continues to grow, the US Government Accountability Office said Wednesday.

The list exploded from fewer than 20 entries before the September 11, 2001 attacks to more than 150,000 just a few months later, after the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was created in December 2003 to keep tabs on terrorist suspects, according to the GAO, the non-partisan investigative arm of Congress.

Including known pseudonyms of suspects, the list's 755,000 names as of May 2007 represents, in fact, around 300,000 people, according to TSC estimates.

Tasked with gathering data on individuals "known or appropriately suspected to be or have been engaged in conduct constituting, in preparation for, in aid of or related to terrorism," the TSC gets its information from Federal Bureau of Investigation intelligence and passes it on chiefly to immigration authorities.

Since 2003, the list has been used around 53,000 times to single out individuals for possible arrest or to prevent them from entering the country, the GAO said.

More often, however, people whose names are included on the list for reasons of caution are merely questioned and released, and left to face the same annoyance each time they enter the country, GAO said.

AFP, Washington

The United States is to announce unilateral sanctions Thursday against Tehran, aimed at isolating a critical section of the Iranian military, the Washington Post reported.

The unilateral sanctions will designate the elite Quds force a supporter of terrorism and the Revolutionary Guard Corps a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction, the Post said.

The measures, to be announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, will allow US officials to press hundreds of foreign companies doing business with Iran's military to back out or risk US sanctions, the Post said.

"This is a very powerful set of measures designed to send a message to Iran that there will be a cost to what they do. We decided on them because we have seen no change in Iranian behavior," an unnamed senior administration official told the Post.

It marks the first time that Washington has sought to directly sanction another country's military, and is the broadest set of punitive measures imposed on Tehran since 1979, according to the Post.

The Revolutionary Guard Corps, the most powerful wing of Iran's military, controls construction companies, pharmaceutical plants, and segments of the oil industry, according the Post.

AFP, Washington

A woman with her hands painted blood-red confronted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at the US Congress Wednesday, shouting "war criminal" before being hauled away by Capitol security. Desiree Farooz accosted Rice ahead of her appearance at a House of Representatives hearing on US foreign policy, waving her hands just centimeters (inches) from the diplomat's face inside the committee meeting room as television cameras captured the confrontation. "The blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands," Farooz shouted, before police wrestled her away. Several other people, members of the anti-war activist group Code Pink, were subsequently ejected from the room..

AFP, London

Myanmar democracy campaigners staged small protests outside Chinese embassies around the world Wednesday to mark 12 years of detention for opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. A coalition of charities including Amnesty International called for demonstrations outside diplomatic missions in Bangkok, Sydney, London, Paris, Berlin, Dublin, Vienna, Washington, Toronto, New York, Brasilia and Cape Town. Up to 80 protestors gathered outside the London embassy, seeking to put pressure on Chinese authorities to do more to persuade Myanmar to give ground to democracy activists. Elsewhere the turnout was lower, with 10 reported in Sydney and 20 in Bangkok. In Europe about 30 people gathered in Paris, in Berlin monks staged a three-hour march, while in Vienna a planned demonstration was called off. Organizers played down the small crowds. "We weren't going for turnout," Mark Farmaner, acting director of Burma Campaign UK told AFP, noting that they had "big numbers" at an international day of action on October 6.

AP, Beirut

Lebanese troops opened fire Thursday on Israeli warplanes flying low over southern Lebanon but no hits were reported, Lebanese officials said. Israeli warplanes frequently fly over Lebanese airspace in what Israel says are reconnaissance missions, but this was the first time the army has on the aircraft since an Aug. 14, 2006 cease-fire ended a monthlong war between Israeli and Hezbollah guerrillas. Lebanese soldiers opened up with machine guns and light anti-aircraft weapons mounted on armored vehicles at two planes that flew by just east of Marjayoun town near the border at midmorning, a Lebanese security official said. A total of 150 rounds were fired, he added. A senior military officer also said the army "confronted" the Israeli planes, but gave no details. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity in the absence of a formal announcement from the military command.

AFP, Jerusalem

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will meet on Friday in an effort to bridge gaps over a joint statement being crafted for a US meeting, an official said. The two leaders will meet one-on-one at Olmert's residence in Jerusalem for the second time this month, the Israeli government official told AFP. The Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams appointed by Olmert and Abbas met again on Wednesday to continue hammering out an agreement over the joint statement outlining a solution to the Middle East conflict. Both sides want to present the statement at an international gathering planned in Annapolis, Maryland later this year and seen as a stepping stone to direct negotiations on a permanent peace deal. The two sides have agreed that the document will refer to the thorniest problems of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- including borders, refugees and the status of Jerusalem. But while the Palestinians want a detailed agreement and timeframe for implementing solutions to the core issues, Israel seeks a looser document. Olmert has recently hardened his position towards the Palestinians by stating that Israel would not move to implement any deal before Abbas cracks down on militants.

AP, Mexico City

At least 18 oil workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in stormy weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the state-owned oil company said Wednesday. Seven workers were still missing. Rescuers have pulled 61 oil workers to safety from storm-tossed waters but have yet to control the oil leak, Mexico's oil monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, said in a news release. One survivor, Eder Ortega Flores, 25, told the Televisa television network that workers abandoned the rig amid 25-foot waves only after leaking gas rose to unbearable levels and the supply of air from emergency breathing devices ran out. Once in the water, the waves battered the workers' orange-colored, covered life rafts.