The Telegraph (UK) 25/01/2010

British troops will have to fight the Taliban in Helmand for another five years, according to a leaked draft of the communiqué that will conclude the London conference on Afghanistan this week.

Gordon Brown will host the Afghanistan summit, which begins on Thursday. It is expected to conclude that Afghan forces will only be able to take over fully from the British after several years.

The draft closing statement commits Afghan forces to “taking the lead and conducting the majority of operations in the insecure areas of Afghanistan within three years and taking responsibility for physical security within five years”.

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Associated Press 25/01/2010

An Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying 90 people crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in flames early Monday just minutes after takeoff from Beirut, authorities said. At least 18 bodies were recovered as rescuers searched the stormy waters.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Lebanon has been slammed by bad weather since Sunday night, with crackling thunder, lightning and pouring rain.

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said terrorism was not suspected.

"Sabotage is ruled out as of now," he said.

The Boeing 737-800 took off around 2:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. EST) for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, said Ghazi Aridi, the public works and transportation minister.

"The weather undoubtedly was very bad," Aridi told reporters at the airport. He added that the plane went down about 2 miles (3.5 kilometers) off the Lebanese coast.

The Lebanese army said in a statement the plane was "on fire shortly after takeoff."

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Associated Press 18/01/2010

Five Americans being held in Pakistan on suspicion of terrorism alleged they were being tortured in comments shouted to reporters Monday as they were driven from court.

Police and prison authorities denied any ill-treatment, and said the men did not bring up their complaints in court.

The allegations could add to political sensitivities surrounding the case, which comes amid growing anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. Washington is also calling for the Muslim country to do more to fight al-Qaida and the Taliban.

The five, all Muslims, were detained in December after being arrested at the house of one of their relatives in the Punjabi town of Saragodha.

Police have publicly accused them of plotting terror attacks in Pakistan, having links to al-Qaida and seeking to join militants fighting U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan. Lawyers for the men say they were focused only on Afghanistan.

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PTI (USA) 18/01/2010

Indicted for conspiracy in the Mumbai terror attacks, Pakistani Canadian citizen Tahawwaur Rana might get financial assistance from 'dangerous terrorist organisations' to flee the country if released on bond, federal prosecutors seeking his detention have argued.

With Rana being named as a conspirator, he also faces a harsher jail sentence of life imprisonment in the new charge-sheet filed against him, they said. In a 33-page government response to the motion filed by Rana, seeking revocation of his detention order, prosecutors have said his 'casual speculation' that it would be easy to extradite him if he fled United States and was ever caught again "should be more unsettling than reassuring to the court, considering his ties to terrorist organisations".

The response was filed by prosecutors Daniel Collins and Victoria Peters on January 15, a day after Rana and co-accused David Headley were indicted by a grand jury on 12 counts of being involved in conspiracy to target Mumbai and Denmark. It said in light of the superseding indictment returned against Rana, he now faces additional charges which are "actually much more serious than those he originally faced".

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