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| US says Taliban agrees to Afghanistan peace talks - Los Angeles Times Posted: 18 Jun 2013 07:20 AM PDT
ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland -- Senior Obama administration officials said Tuesday that the Taliban has agreed to participate in peace talks based in Qatar, a key step forward in the effort to jump-start a political resolution of the war in Afghanistan ahead of U.S. plans to withdraw troops. Officials said direct talks between U.S. officials and Taliban representatives could begin this week in Doha and would be followed soon after by a meeting between the Taliban and the High Peace Council, which will represent the Afghan government in the talks. The opening of the Qatar office has long been a goal of U.S. officials seeking to move forward a diplomatic process ahead of the planned withdrawal of U.S. forces next year. Officials expressed cautious optimism about the prospects of the negotiations, and stressed that U.S. will act as a "facilitator" in the process. "The core of the process is not going to be U.S.-Taliban talks," said one senior official, who requested anonymity to discuss the matter ahead of a formal announcement. "The core of it is going to be negotiation among Afghans and the level of trust on both sides is, as one would expect, extremely low." U.S. officials have long pushed for the opening of the office in Qatar as part of the push toward a diplomatic resolution to the war. But even as they announced the news, a bombing targeting a prominent politician in Kabul demonstrated the challenges ahead. Tuesday's attack preempted a ceremony marking the formal handoff of security responsibility from NATO to Afghan National Security Forces. NATO combat forces are slated to leave by the end of 2014. Officials made the announcement as President Obama attended a meeting of the Group of 8 industrialized nations. ALSO: Tens of thousands protest conditions in Brazil Bombing mars final NATO transfer of Afghan security duties Presidents Obama and Putin share icy encounter over Syria | |
| NSA director defends sweeping surveillance program, says plot against Wall ... - Washington Post Posted: 18 Jun 2013 08:25 AM PDT WASHINGTON — The director of the National Security Agency said Tuesday the government's sweeping surveillance programs have foiled some 50 terrorist plots worldwide, including one directed at the New York Stock Exchange, in a forceful defense of spy operations that was echoed by the leaders of the House Intelligence Committee. Army Gen. Keith Alexander said the two recently disclosed programs — one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism — are critical in the terrorism fight. Intelligence officials have disclosed some details on two thwarted attacks, and Alexander offered some information on other attempts. He said the NSA was monitoring a known extremist in Yemen who was in contact with an individual in the United States. Identifying that person and other individuals, Alexander said, officials "were able to detect a nascent plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. ... The FBI disrupted and arrested these individuals." The programs "assist the intelligence community to connect the dots," Alexander told the committee in a rare, open Capitol Hill hearing. Alexander got no disagreement from the leaders of the panel, who have been outspoken in backing the programs since Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton, disclosed information to The Washington Post and the Guardian newspapers. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., chairman of the committee, and Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, the panel's top Democrat, said the programs were vital to the intelligence community and assailed Snowden's actions as criminal. "It is at times like these where our enemies within become almost as damaging as our enemies on the outside," Rogers said. Ruppersberger said the "brazen disclosures" put the United States and its allies at risk. The general counsel for the intelligence community said the NSA cannot target phone conversations between callers inside the U.S. — even if one of those callers was someone they were targeted for surveillance when outside the country. The director of national intelligence's legal chief, Robert S. Litt, said that if the NSA finds it has accidentally gathered a phone call by a target who had traveled into the U.S. without their knowledge, they have to "purge" that from their system. The same goes for an accidental collection of any conversation because of an error. Litt said those incidents are then reported to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which "pushes back" and asks how it happened, and what the NSA is doing to fix the problem so it doesn't happen again. The hearing came the morning after President Barack Obama, who is attending the G-8 summit in Ireland, vigorously defended the surveillance programs in a lengthy interview Monday, calling them transparent — even though they are authorized in secret. "It is transparent," Obama told PBS' Charlie Rose in an interview. "That's why we set up the FISA court," the president added, referring to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorizes two recently disclosed programs: one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism. |
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