Security

An upcoming assessment of Afghanistan by the top U.S. commander there will not include a request for additional U.S. troops, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday. But Gates did not rule out the possibility that the commander, Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, might make such a troop request later. The report due after next week's Afghan national elections is intended to assess conditions in the country and the effect of a new Obama administration security strategy. Any request for more troops "will be considered separately and subsequent to his assessment," Gates said.

Bombs struck a cafe in the capital and remote communities in northern Iraq on Saturday, killing at least 18 people, as the visiting Iranian foreign minister warned that the country's instability affected the whole region. The blasts came 10 days after suicide truck bombers devastated the Foreign and Finance ministries in Baghdad, killing about 100 people and dealing a blow to confidence in the Iraqi government's ability to protect people as U.S. forces scale back their presence.

Mexicans begin celebrating their most cherished national holiday today, Independence Day, but indelible memories of unprecedented violence a year ago will make for a somber affair in some parts of the country. Children's parades and outdoor parties have been canceled in many cities. Security is tight, with metal detectors set up at public squares where celebrations will take place. Nowhere is the mood more subdued than in Morelia, capital of the western state of Michoacan and hometown of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

As FBI agents and Yale University police combed the basement of a laboratory building for missing bride-to-be Annie Le, the man accused of killing her moved among them in an apparent effort to cover his tracks, a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation said. That behavior aroused suspicions about Raymond Clark III, but the final piece that led to his arrest Thursday was the discovery that evidence in the ceiling and in the crawl space where Le's body was found contained the DNA from both Le and Clark, according to the law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing.

This is a parade that demands state-level security. Discipline. Extreme secrecy. Ordinary people will not be allowed anywhere near the parade route in Beijing on Thursday, when the People's Republic of China marks the 60th anniversary of its founding with a military parade. That applies even to people who live in the neighborhood: Entire apartment buildings along the route toward Tiananmen Square are being evacuated to prevent residents from watching. Cameras and binoculars are forbidden in many locales.

In one of the most lethal gun battles for American troops in the Afghan war, insurgents attacked a pair of relatively lightly manned bases near the Pakistan border over the weekend, triggering a daylong battle that left eight Americans and as many as half a dozen Afghan troops dead. The toll was the highest in a single incident for American forces in Afghanistan since nine U.S. soldiers died in a strikingly similar insurgent assault 15 months ago on an outpost in the same northeastern province, Nuristan.

The Sunni Muslim paramilitary leader's campaign slogan holds the promise of imminent rescue: "Hold on, we are coming." But the aspiring parliamentary candidate, Mustafa Kamal Shibeeb, may not be in a position to deliver on his slogan: He's a fugitive, with murder charges hanging over his head from events at the height of the U.S. troop buildup two years ago. Already, police commandos have tried to grab him twice, only to be blocked by...

Members of the 40-day-old tribal militia in this Swat Valley village come in all shapes, from all walks of life. Some struggle to fasten bandoleers around pot bellies; some haven't finished high school. They are doctors and teachers, wealthy landowners and dirt-poor wheat farmers. Some make their way with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders, others with only a wooden stick in hand. What unites them is the memory of the Taliban's brutality, a time when the militant organization took over Kanju and the rest of the Swat Valley.

The Iraqi government launched a massive security operation in Baghdad as Iraqis buried their dead Monday, a day after a pair of suicide attacks against government buildings killed dozens of people and exposed the fragility of Iraq's fledgling institutions. The death toll increased to 155, including about 30 children, some of whom were killed in a bus that was taking them to kindergarten, Interior Ministry officials said. Hundreds more people were injured in the blasts, officials said.

A storm of protest has erupted over the Schwarzenegger administration's push to require prospective home health aides for the elderly and disabled to begin undergoing criminal background and fingerprint checks next week. Social service chiefs in counties throughout the state have warned that they aren't ready to begin the time-consuming new application process -- and the delay could mean some elderly and frail patients would go without care. Advocates for the elderly and disabled say the administration's rush to begin the checks, part of an anti-fraud effort Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pushed during last summer's budget negotiations, seems to have an ulterior motive: dissuading new patients and providers from participating in the $5.5-billion government-funded home healthcare program.