Syrian rebels fight for strategic town in Hama province

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Rebels began to push into a strategic town in Syria's central Hama province on Thursday and laid siege to at least one town dominated by President Bashar al-Assad's minority sect, activists said.

The operation risks inflaming already raw sectarian tensions as the 21-month-old revolt against four decades of Assad family rule - during which the president's Alawite sect has dominated leadership of the Sunni Muslim majority - rumbles on.

Opposition sources said rebels had won some territory in the strategic southern town of Morek and were surrounding the Alawite town of al-Tleisia.

They were also planning to take the town of Maan, arguing that the army was present there and in al-Tleisia and was hindering their advance on nearby Morek, a town on the highway that runs from Damascus north to Aleppo, Syria's largest city and another battleground in the conflict.

"The rockets are being fired from there, they are being fired from Maan and al-Tleisia, we have taken two checkpoints in the southern town of Morek. If we want to control it then we need to take Maan," said a rebel captain in Hama rural area, who asked not to be named.

Activists said heavy army shelling had targeted the town of Halfaya, captured by rebels two days earlier. Seven people were killed, 30 were wounded, and dozens of homes were destroyed, said activist Safi al-Hamawi.

Hama is home to dozens of Alawite and Christian villages among Sunni towns, and activists said it may be necessary to lay siege to many minority areas to seize Morek. Rebels want to capture Morek to cut off army supply lines into northern Idlib, a province on the northern border with Turkey where rebels hold swathes of territory.

From an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, Alawites have largely stood behind Assad, many out of fear of revenge attacks. Christians and some other minorities have claimed neutrality, with a few joining the rebels and a more sizeable portion of them supporting the government out of fear of hardline Islamism that has taken root in some rebel groups.

Activists in Hama said rebels were also surrounding the Christian town of al-Suqeilabiya and might enter the city to take out army positions as well as those of "shabbiha" - pro-Assad militias, the bulk of whom are usually Alawite but can also include Christians and even Sunnis.

"We have been in touch with Christian opposition activists in al-Suqeilabiya and we have told them to stay downstairs or on the lowest floor of their building as possible, and not to go outside. The rebels have promised not to hurt anyone who stays at home," said activist Mousab al-Hamdee, speaking by Skype.

He said he was optimistic that potential sectarian tensions with Christians could be resolved but that Sunni-Alawite strife may be harder to suppress.

SECTARIAN FEARS

U.N. human rights investigators said on Thursday that Syria's conflict was becoming more "overtly sectarian", with more civilians seeking to arm themselves and foreign fighters - mostly Sunnis - flocking in from 29 countries.

"They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighboring countries," said Karen Abuzayd, one of the U.N. investigators, told a news conference in Brussels.

Deeper sectarian divisions may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if Assad is ousted, and the influx of foreigners raises the risk of fighting spilling into neighboring countries riven by similar communal fault lines.

Some activists privately voiced concerns of sectarian violence, but the rebel commander in Hama said fighters had been told "violations" would not be tolerated and argued that the move to attack the towns was purely strategic.

"If we are fired at from a Sunni village that is loyal to the regime we go in and we liberate it and clean it," he said. "So should we not do the same when it comes to an Alawite village just because there is a fear of an all-out sectarian war? We respond to the source of fire."

President Vladimir Putin of Russia, Assad's main ally and arms supplier, warned that any solution to the conflict must ensure government and rebel forces do not merely swap roles and fight on forever. It appeared to be his first direct comment on the possibility of a post-Assad Syria.

The West and some Arab states accuse Russia of shielding Assad after Moscow blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions intended to increase pressure on Damascus to end the violence, which has killed more than 40,000 people. Putin said the Syrian people would ultimately decide their own fate.

Assad's forces have been hitting back at rebel advances with heavy shelling, particularly along the eastern ring of suburbs outside Damascus, where rebels are dominant.

A Syrian security source said the army was planning heavy offensives in northern and central Syria to stem rebel advances, but there was no clear sign of such operations yet.

Rebels seized the Palestinian refugee district of Yarmouk earlier this week, which put them within 3 km (2 miles) of downtown Damascus. Heavy shelling and fighting forced thousands of Palestinian and Syrian residents to flee the Yarmouk area.

Rebels said on Thursday they had negotiated to put the camp - actually a densely packed urban district - back into the hands of pro-opposition Palestinian fighters. There are some 500,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants living in Syria, and they have been divided by the uprising.

Palestinian factions, some backed by the government and others by the rebels, had begun fighting last week, a development that allowed Syrian insurgents to take the camp.

A resident in Damascus said dozens of families were returning to the camp but that the army had erected checkpoints. Many families were still hesitant to return.

LEBANON BORDER POST TAKEN

Elsewhere, Syrian insurgents took over an isolated border post on the western frontier with Lebanon earlier this week, local residents told Reuters on Thursday.

The rebels already hold much of the terrain along Syria's northern and eastern borders with Turkey and Iraq respectively.

They said around 20 rebels from the Qadissiyah Brigade overran the post at Rankus, which is linked by road to the remote Lebanese village of Tufail.

Video footage downloaded on the Internet on Thursday, dated December 16, showed a handful of fighters dressed in khaki fatigues and wielding rifles as they kicked down a stone barricade around a small, single-storey army checkpoint.

Syrian Interior Minister Ibrahim al-Shaar arrived in Lebanon on Wednesday for treatment of wounds sustained in a bomb attack on his ministry in Damascus a week ago.

Lebanese medical sources said Shaar had shrapnel wounds in his shoulder, stomach and legs but they were not critical.

The Syrian opposition has tried to peel off defectors from the government as well as from the army, though only a handful of high-ranking officials have abandoned Assad.

The conflict has divided many Syrian families. Security forces on Thursday arrested an opposition activist who is also the relative of Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa, the Syrian Observatory said. The man was arrested along with five other activists who are considered pacifists, it said.

Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim who has few powers in Assad's Alawite-dominated power structure, said earlier this week that neither side could win the war in Syria. He called for the formation of a national unity government.

(Reporting by Erika Solomon; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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Baseball: Ichiro Suzuki inks new 2-year deal with NY Yankees

NEW YORK: Ichiro Suzuki signed a two-year contract with the New York Yankees, giving the Japanese outfielder a chance to crack 3,000 career Major League Baseball hits while wearing Yankee pinstripes.

The deal, worth a reported $13 million, allows the Yankees to keep a 39-year-old standout who has been a 10-time All-Star in 12 seasons since coming from Japan. He was obtained by the Yankees from the Seattle Mariners last July.

"The Yankees are the kind of team that I always envisioned being a part of," Suzuki said on Wednesday. "Everyone in the world of competition has a strong desire to win, but the Yankees also have an atmosphere where losing is not an option.

"These two observations may sound similar, but I believe it is a rarity to find both co-existing in the same organization."

"I believe the Yankees organization appreciates that there is a difference between a 39-year-old who has played relying only on talent, and a 39-year-old who has prepared, practiced, and thought thoroughly through many experiences for their craft.

"I am very thankful and I will do my best to deliver on their expectations."

Suzuki hit .322 with five home runs and 27 runs batted in over 67 games for New York last season and overall batted .283 with 77 runs scored, 28 doubles, six triples, nine homers, 55 runs batted in and 29 stolen bases in 162 games.

By recording base hits in his first 12 games with the Yankees, Suzuki matched a team record for the longest hit streak to begin a Yankees career with Don Slaught's 1988 effort.

Suzuki, who is expected to replace free agent Nick Swisher as the Yankees' starting right-fielder, has 2,606 hits in his North American career, giving him a chance to reach the 3,000 milestone with the Yankees.

Since leaving Japan after a nine-year career in the Pacific League with three Most Valuable Player awards, Suzuki has batted .322 in Major League Baseball with two batting titles.

He was the 2001 American League Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year with the Mariners.

- AFP/al

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Nuclear capable Prithvi-II test successful

BALASORE, (Odisha): India today successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Prithvi-II missile with a strike range of 350 km from a test range at Chandipur near.

The surface-to-surface missile was test fired from a mobile launcher in salvo mode from launch complex-3 of Integrated Test Range at about 9:21 AM, defence sources said.

The launch of the sophisticated missile, conducted as part of operational exercise by the strategic force command (SFC) of the defence services, was successful, they said.

"The missile was randomly chosen from the production stock and the total launch activities were carried out by the specially formed SFC and monitored by the scientists of DRDO as part of practice drill," sources said.

The Prithvi-II missile, developed by the DRDO, is already inducted into the Indian Armed forces.

Prithvi, the first missile developed under India's prestigious Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP), is capable of carrying 500kg to 1000kg of warheads and thrusted by liquid propulsion twine engines, uses advanced inertial guidance system with manoeuvring trajectory.

The last trial of Prithvi-II was successfully carried out from the same base on October 4, 2012.

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Experts: Kids are resilient in coping with trauma

WASHINGTON (AP) — They might not want to talk about the gunshots or the screams. But their toys might start getting into imaginary shootouts.

Last week's school shooting in Connecticut raises the question: What will be the psychological fallout for the children who survived?

For people of any age, regaining a sense of security after surviving violence can take a long time. They're at risk for lingering anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

But after the grief and fear fades, psychiatrists say most of Newtown's young survivors probably will cope without long-term emotional problems.

"Kids do tend to be highly resilient," said Dr. Matthew Biel, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital.

And one way that younger children try to make sense of trauma is through play. Youngsters may pull out action figures or stuffed animals and re-enact what they witnessed, perhaps multiple times.

"That's the way they gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming," Biel explained, saying it becomes a concern only if the child is clearly distressed while playing.

Nor is it unusual for children to chase each other playing cops-and-robbers, but now parents might see some also pretending they're dead, added Dr. Melissa Brymer of the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.

Among the challenges will be spotting which children are struggling enough that they may need professional help.

Newtown's tragedy is particularly heart-wrenching because of what such young children grappled with — like the six first-graders who apparently had to run past their teacher's body to escape to safety.

There's little scientific research specifically on PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, in children exposed to a burst of violence, and even less to tell if a younger child will have a harder time healing than an older one.

Overall, scientists say studies of natural disasters and wars suggest most children eventually recover from traumatic experiences while a smaller proportion develop long-term disorders such as PTSD. Brymer says in her studies of school shootings, that fraction can range from 10 percent to a quarter of survivors, depending on what they actually experienced. A broader 2007 study found 13 percent of U.S. children exposed to different types of trauma reported some symptoms of PTSD, although less than 1 percent had enough for an official diagnosis.

Violence isn't all that rare in childhood. In many parts of the world — and in inner-city neighborhoods in the U.S., too — children witness it repeatedly. They don't become inured to it, Biel said, and more exposure means a greater chance of lasting psychological harm.

In Newtown, most at risk for longer-term problems are those who saw someone killed, said Dr. Carol North of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who has researched survivors of mass shootings.

Friday's shootings were mostly in two classrooms of Sandy Hook Elementary School, which has about 450 students through fourth-grade.

But those who weren't as close to the danger may be at extra risk, too, if this wasn't their first trauma or they already had problems such as anxiety disorders that increase their vulnerability, she said.

Right after a traumatic event, it's normal to have nightmares or trouble sleeping, to stick close to loved ones, and to be nervous or moody, Biel said.

To help, parents will have to follow their child's lead. Grilling a child about a traumatic experience isn't good, he stressed. Some children will ask a lot of questions, seeking reassurance, he said. Others will be quiet, thinking about the experience and maybe drawing or writing about it, or acting it out at playtime. Younger children may regress, becoming clingy or having tantrums.

Before second grade, their brains also are at a developmental stage some refer to as magical thinking, when it's difficult to distinguish reality and fantasy. Parents may have to help them understand that a friend who died isn't in pain or lonely but also isn't coming back, Brymer said.

When problem behaviors or signs of distress continue for several weeks, Brymer says it's time for an evaluation by a counselor or pediatrician.

Besides a supportive family, what helps? North advises getting children back into routines, together with their friends, and easing them back into a school setting. Studies of survivors of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks found "the power of the support of the people who went through it with you is huge," she said.

Children as young as first-graders can benefit from cognitive-behavioral therapy, Georgetown's Biel said. They can calm themselves with breathing techniques. They also can learn to identify and label their feelings — anger, frustration, worry — and how to balance, say, a worried thought with a brave one.

Finally, avoid watching TV coverage of the shooting, as children may think it's happening all over again, Biel added. He found that children who watched the 9/11 clips of planes hitting the World Trade Center thought they were seeing dozens of separate attacks.

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EDITOR'S NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.

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State Department security chief leaves post over Benghazi

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department said on Wednesday its security chief had resigned from his post and three other officials had been relieved of their duties following a scathing official inquiry into the September 11 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

Eric Boswell has resigned effective immediately as assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a terse statement. A second official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Boswell had not left the department entirely and remained a career official.

Nuland said that Boswell, and the three other officials, had all been put on administrative leave "pending further action."

An official panel that investigated the incident concluded that the Benghazi mission was completely unprepared to deal with the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The unclassified version of the report, which was released on Tuesday, cited "leadership and management" deficiencies, poor coordination among officials and "real confusion" in Washington and in the field over who had the authority to make decisions on policy and security concerns.

"The ARB identified the performance of four officials, three in the Bureau of the Diplomatic Security and one in the Bureau of (Near Eastern) Affairs," Nuland said in her statement, referring to the panel known as an Accountability Review Board.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accepted Boswell's decision to resign effective immediately, the spokeswoman said.

Earlier, a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Boswell, one of his deputies, Charlene Lamb, and a third unnamed official has been asked to resign. The Associated Press first reported that three officials had resigned.

PANEL STOPS SHORT OF BLAMING CLINTON

The Benghazi incident appeared likely to tarnish Clinton's four-year tenure as secretary of state but the report did not fault her specifically and the officials who led the review stopped short of blaming her.

"We did conclude that certain State Department bureau-level senior officials in critical positions of authority and responsibility in Washington demonstrated a lack of leadership and management ability appropriate for senior ranks," retired Admiral Michael Mullen, one of the leaders of the inquiry, told reporters on Wednesday.

The panel's chair, retired Ambassador Thomas Pickering, said it had determined that responsibility for security shortcomings in Benghazi belonged at levels lower than Clinton's office.

"We fixed (responsibility) at the assistant secretary level, which is, in our view, the appropriate place to look for where the decision-making in fact takes place, where - if you like - the rubber hits the road," Pickering said after closed-door meetings with congressional committees.

The panel's report and the comments by its two lead authors suggested that Clinton, who accepted responsibility for the incident in a television interview about a month after the Benghazi attack, would not be held personally culpable.

Pickering and Mullen spoke to the media after briefing members of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee behind closed doors on classified elements of their report.

Clinton had been expected to appear at an open hearing on Benghazi on Thursday, but is recuperating after suffering a concussion, dehydration and a stomach bug last week. She will instead be represented by her two top deputies.

Clinton, who intends to step down in January, said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations, which include stepping up security staffing and requesting more money to fortify U.S. facilities.

The National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which is expected to go to Congress for final approval this week, includes a measure directing the Pentagon to increase the Marine Corps presence at diplomatic facilities by up to 1,000 Marines.

Some Capitol Hill Republicans who had criticized the Obama administration's handling of the Benghazi attacks said they were impressed by the report.

"It was very thorough," said Senator Johnny Isakson. Senator John Barrasso said: "It was very, very critical of major failures at the State Department at very high levels." Both spoke after the closed-door briefing.

Others, however, took a harsher line and called for Clinton to testify as soon as she is able.

"The report makes clear the massive failure of the State Department at all levels, including senior leadership, to take action to protect our government employees abroad," Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement.

Senator Bob Corker, who will be the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the new Congress is seated early next year, said Clinton should testify about Benghazi before her replacement is confirmed by the Senate.

Republicans have focused much of their firepower on U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, who appeared on TV talk shows after the attack and suggested it was the result of a spontaneous protest rather than a premeditated attack.

The report concluded that there was no such protest.

Rice, widely seen as President Barack Obama's top pick to succeed Clinton, withdrew her name from consideration last week.

(Additional reporting by Tabassum Zakaria and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Temasek raises stake in Olam

SINGAPORE: Temasek Holdings has raised its stake in commodity trader Olam International to 17 percent from 16.3 percent.

In a filing with the Singapore Exchange, Olam said Temasek had bought 200,000 shares for S$293,000 from the open market on Tuesday through its investment vehicle Aranda Investments.

In an emailed comment to Channel NewsAsia, a Temasek spokesperson said: "We have invested in Olam over several years. In our judgement, the company represents a reasonably attractive investment over the long term and we are pleased to have the opportunity to add to our stake."

Earlier this month, Olam said Temasek is backing its rights issue of bonds and warrants to raise as much as US$1.2 billion.

This could potentially translate to the investment firm owning as much as 29 percent of Olam if it exercises all the warrants in 2016 at the earliest.

Kewalram Chanrai Group, Olam's largest investor with nearly a 20 percent stake, has also said it will back the issue.

Olam has been the target of short-seller Carson Block and his research firm Muddy Waters, which questioned the company's allegedly flawed accounting standards that they claimed masked its debts.

- CNA/al

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Funds crunch hits war on malaria

NEW DELHI: The amount of funds available for malaria prevention and control globally is less than half what is needed, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said in a report. While it is estimated that $5.1 billion is needed every year between 2011 and 2020 to achieve universal access to malaria interventions, only $2.3 billion was available in 2011. The WHO has blamed this on a slowing down in the efforts to reverse the epidemic.

This was stated in the World Malaria Report released on Monday, which summarised information from 104 malaria-endemic countries, including India. International funding for malaria control has been steadily rising, going up from less than $100 million in 2000 to $1.71 billion in 2010. National government funding for malaria programmes has also been increasing in recent years, touching an estimated $625 million in 2011. Yet the funds are far from adequate as malaria hits the poorest countries with higher proportions of their population living in poverty (less than $1.25 per person per day) have higher mortality rates from malaria.

Projections of both domestic and international resources available between 2013 and 2015 indicate that total funding for malaria control will remain at less than US$ 2.7 billion, substantially below the amount required.

The African continent accounts for the highest incidence of malaria with 219 million cases and 90% of all malarial deaths in the world. In the Southeast Asia region, India has the highest incidence of malaria (24 million cases) followed by Indonesia and Myanmar. According to the latest WHO estimates, worldwide there were about 219 million cases of malaria in 2010 and an estimated 660,000 deaths.

Together, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria are estimated to account for over 40% of all malaria deaths globally. Similarly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, India and Nigeria account for 40% of malaria cases.

The world report claims that 50 countries are on track to reduce their malaria case incidence rates by 75%, in line with World Health Assembly and Roll Back Malaria targets for 2015. However, these 50 countries account for just 3% (7 million) of the total estimated malaria cases. Moreover, malaria surveillance systems detect only around 10% of the estimated global number of cases, with case detection being lowest in the countries with the highest burden of malaria. In the African and Western Pacific Regions, the main constraint is the small proportion of patients attending public facilities who receive a diagnostic test for malaria.

In the Southeast Asia Region, the most important issue is the high proportion of patients who seek treatment in the private sector, as is happening in India where the private sector is not part of the health reporting system. With such constraints, most of the WHO figures are based on estimates and modelling.

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Newtown Shooting: Bushmaster Under Fire

When the private investment firm Cerberus Capital Management announced Tuesday it would unload its interest in Bushmaster – the company that built the weapon used in last week's mass murder of 20 Connecticut first graders -- it marked the beginning of what experts say is likely to be a challenging period for the North Carolina-based weapons manufacturer.

"They are looking at a taint on their brand and looking at a marketplace that could change dramatically with respect to their weapon," said Chris Lehane, a crisis public relations expert who worked in the Clinton White House. "To me the fact that Cerberus is pulling out is a pretty significant defining moment."

For years, Bushmaster has been marketing itself to testosterone-fueled male customers, issuing "man cards" to customers who want to be "card carrying men." Now, Lehane and others said the company is facing the prospect of being branded the weapon of choice for mass killers. The Newtown, Connecticut shooting marked the fourth time a Bushmaster has been implicated in a mass shooting since 1999, including the Beltway sniper case that left 10 dead and three more wounded.

Cerberus announced Tuesday it wanted distance from Bushmaster, calling the murder of 20 first grade children at Sandy Hook Elementary School a "watershed event." The investment firm, which is chaired by former Vice President Dan Quayle, noted in its statement that Bushmaster may not be an investment consistent with the interests of its clients. Its investors include the pension plans of firemen, teachers, and policemen.

Rich Pedroncelli/AP Photo

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Lehane said the announcement could signal a shift in the way investors view companies that make military style weapons for a civilian market.

"It reminds me of the time when tobacco began to be associated with a negative light, or the divestiture movement surrounding companies in South Africa," he said. "Where financial markets believe they are going to pay a price."

In addition, a spokesman for Cerberus Group confirmed that the father of Stephen Feinberg, the founder of Cerberus Group, lives in Newtown.

Gun control groups have also lined up to criticize the weapons manufacturer, arguing that the company was selling civilian customers a weapon clearly designed for war.

"This thing is just a killing machine," said Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. "[I]t's a weapon that can easily shoot hundreds of … In fact it's very similar to the weapon that James Holmes used to shoot up the movie theater in Aurora."

The company has not responded to phone calls seeking comment, but gun enthusiasts say the weapon's menacing appearance can appeal to civilians looking for a means to secure their homes, and its ease of use can appeal to those looking for a weapon for target shooting.

"The [assault rifle] platform is the most popular in the country," said Frank Cornwall, a firearms instructor in Connecticut. "Civilians have always bought similar type arms to the military. And this is a very versatile platform. Quite a popular hunting and target shooting gun."

Phillip Stutts, a crisis management consultant who worked for President George W. Bush, said he has been surprised by the silence of the gun manufacturer.

"Bushmaster doesn't have to take responsibility for this tragedy, but they have a responsibility to respond to this tragedy," he said. "And they haven't. They have to get out in front of this. It needs to be corrected ASAP."

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Inquiry harshly criticizes US State Dept. over Benghazi attack

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Security at the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya was grossly inadequate to deal with a September 11 attack that killed a U.S. ambassador and three others because of failures within the State Department, an official inquiry found on Tuesday.

In a scathing assessment, the review cited "leadership and management" deficiencies at two department offices, poor coordination among officials and "real confusion" in Washington and in the field over who had the responsibility, and the power, to make decisions that involved policy and security concerns.

The attack killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans and set off a political furor as Republicans used the issue to attack President Barack Obama before the November 6 election in which he won a second term in office.

The report's harsh assessment seemed likely to tarnish the four-year tenure of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who said in a letter accompanying the review that she would adopt all of its recommendations.

"Systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies at senior levels within two bureaus of the State Department ... resulted in a special mission security posture that was inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place," said the unclassified version of the report by the official "Accountability Review Board."

The board specifically faulted the department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, the regional office which is responsible for the Middle East and North Africa, and the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, its law enforcement and security arm.

The five-member board said U.S. intelligence provided no "specific tactical warning" of the attack and that there was "little understanding of militias in Benghazi and the threat they posed to U.S. interests" in the eastern Libyan city, where the central government has little influence.

The incident has raised questions about the adequacy of security at U.S. embassies around the globe and where to draw the line between protecting American diplomats in dangerous places while giving them enough freedom to do their jobs.

Jon Alterman, head of the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the assessment reflected poorly on Clinton and its recommendations would probably make life harder for diplomats in the field

"This is a mark against Secretary Clinton. While she was not singled out, the report highlighted the lack of leadership and organization on security issues, and those fall into her bailiwick," Alterman said.

"The report, however, relies a little too much on bureaucratic fixes," he added. "Sprinkling people throughout the system who are not only empowered to say 'no,' but have an institutional interest in doing so, will make it harder for diplomats to get out of tightly guarded facilities."

DID LOCAL GUARDS LEAVE GATE OPEN?

The report faulted as "misplaced" the mission's dependence for security support on the "armed but poorly skilled" Libyan February 17 Martyrs' Brigade militia members and unarmed guards hired by State Department contractor Blue Mountain Libya.

No Blue Mountain guards were outside the compound immediately before the attack to provide early warning, which was their responsibility. The report raised the possibility that Blue Mountain guards left the "pedestrian gate open after initially seeing the attackers and fleeing the vicinity. They had left the gate unlatched before."

The board found little evidence that the February 17 guards alerted Americans to the attack or swiftly summoned more militia members to help once it was under way. There had been questions of reliability in the weeks preceding the attack.

"At the time of Ambassador Stevens' visit, February 17 militia members had stopped accompanying special mission vehicle movements in protest over salary and working hours," the report said.

The board recommended that the State Department create a new, senior position to oversee security at "high threat" posts, to strengthen security at such posts beyond what is usually provided by host governments, and to consult outside experts on "best practices" for operating in dangerous environments.

The department should also hire more security personnel at dangerous posts, ensure key policy and security staff serve there for at least a year and consider making it easier to punish those who perform poorly in future security incidents.

The political uproar in the United States over the Benghazi attack has already claimed one victim.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, widely tipped as a front-runner to replace Clinton when she steps down as secretary of state early next year, last week withdrew her name from consideration, saying she wished to avoid a potentially disruptive Senate confirmation process.

Republican lawmakers had blasted Rice for comments she made on several television talk shows in the aftermath of the attack in which she said preliminary information suggested the assault was the result of protests against an anti-Muslim video made in California rather than a premeditated strike.

The review, however, concluded that no protest took place before the attack. Rice has said she was relying on talking points drawn up by U.S. intelligence officials.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert and Andrew Quinn.; Editing by Christopher Wilson)

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Remains of man in armour found at "Pompeii of Japan"

TOKYO: The remains of a high-caste man wearing armour who was buried by hot ash -- possibly as he tried to calm the wrath of an erupting volcano -- have been found in an area known as the "Pompeii of Japan".

Archaeologists say they have unearthed the well-preserved body of a sixth-century man who had apparently turned to face a flow of molten rock as it gushed through his settlement.

"Under normal circumstances, you would flee if pyroclastic flows are rushing toward you and bringing waves of heat. But this person died facing it," said Shinichiro Ohki, of Gunma Archaeological Research Foundation.

"Maybe, if he were someone of a high position, he might have been praying, or doing something in the direction of the volcano and attempting to appease its anger," Ohki told AFP on Monday.

The remains, along with a part of an infant's skull, were found in the Kanai Higashiura dig in Gunma prefecture, roughly 110 kilometres (70 miles) northwest of Tokyo, at the site of the volcanic Mount Haruna.

The find comes from an area known to enthusiasts as the "Pompeii of Japan" a reference to the Roman city near modern-day Naples buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The body is clad in a relatively sophisticated kind of armour made by craftsmen who bound small iron plates with thin leather strips, which would have represented the latest technological import from the Korean Peninsula.

It may have been brought to Japan after the practice of horse riding was introduced in the late fifth century, Ohki said, adding that the armour was much more sophisticated than the single-plate type common in the period.

"It indicates the person wearing it was someone of a high position, like a regional leader," Ohki told AFP, adding studies would be carried out to see if the man was related to occupants of ancient tombs dotting the region.

Archaeologists will also examine the bones to determine whether the man and the child were related.

"If possible, we would like to study their DNA. Were they related? Why and how did they die there?" Ohki said.

- AFP/al

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