Japan's prime minister ordered workers to remain at the tsunami-crippled Fukushima nuclear plant last March as fears mounted of a "devil's chain reaction" that would force tens of millions of people to flee Tokyo, a new investigative report shows.

Then-Premier Naoto Kan and his staff began referring to a worst-case scenario that could threaten Japan's existence as a nation around three days after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, according to the report by a panel set up by a private think-tank. 

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That was when fears mounted that thousands of spent fuel rods stored at a damaged reactor would melt and spew radiation after a hydrogen explosion at an adjacent reactor building, according to the panel report.

Yukio Edano, then Japan's top government spokesman, told the panel that at the height of tension he feared a "devil's chain reaction" in which the Fukushima Daiichi plant and the nearby Fukushima Daini facility, as well as the Tokai nuclear plant, spiraled out of control, putting the capital at risk.

Kan, who stepped down last September, came under fire for his handling of the crisis, including flying over the plant by helicopter the morning after the disasters hit -- a move some critics said contributed to a delay in the operator's response.

Kan, 65, has spoken of how he was haunted by the specter of a crisis spiraling out of control and forcing the evacuation of the Tokyo greater metropolitan area, 150 miles away and home to some 35 million people.

The private Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation report also said Japan's government withheld information about the full danger of last year's nuclear disaster from its own people and from the United States, putting U.S.-Japan relations at risk in the first days after the accident.

The report, compiled from interviews with more than 300 people, delivers a scathing view of how leaders played down the risks of the meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant that followed a massive March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

It paints a picture of confusion during the days immediately after the accident and says the U.S. government was frustrated by the scattered information provided by Japan and was skeptical whether it was true.

The U.S. advised Americans to leave an area within 50 miles of the plant, far bigger than the 12-mile Japanese evacuation area, because of concerns that the accident was worse than Japan was reporting.

The misunderstandings were gradually cleared up after a bilateral committee was set up on March 22 and began regular meetings, according to the 400-page report.

The report, compiled by scholars, lawyers and other experts, credits then-Prime Minister Naoto Kan for ordering Tokyo Electric Power Co., the utility running the plant, not to withdraw its staff and to keep fighting to bring it under control.

TEPCO's president at the time, Masataka Shimizu, called Kan on March 15 and said he wanted to abandon the plant and have all 600 TEPCO staff flee, the report said. That would have allowed the situation to spiral out of control, resulting in a much larger release of radiation.

A group of about 50 workers was eventually able to bring the plant under control.

TEPCO, which declined to take part in the investigation, has denied it planned to abandon Fukushima Dai-ichi. The report notes the denial, but says Kan and other officials had the clear understanding that TEPCO had asked to leave.

But the report criticizes Kan for attempting to micromanage the disaster and for not releasing critical information on radiation leaks, thereby creating widespread distrust of the authorities among Japanese.

Kan's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the report.

Kan acknowledged in a recent interview with The Associated Press that the release of information was sometimes slow and at times wrong. He blamed a lack of reliable data at the time and denied the government hid such information from the public.

It will take decades to fully decommission Fukushima Dai-ichi. Although one of the damaged reactor buildings has been repaired, others remain in shambles. A group of journalists, including a reporter from The Associated Press, were given a tour of the plant on Tuesday.

Workers have used tape to mend cracks caused by freezing weather in plastic hoses on temporary equipment installed to cool the hobbled reactors.

"I have to acknowledge that they are still rather fragile," plant chief Takeshi Takahashi said of the safety measures.

The area is still contaminated with radiation, complicating the work. It already has involved hundreds of thousands of workers, who have to quit when they reach the maximum allowed radiation exposure of 100 millisieverts a year.

The report includes a document describing a worst-case scenario that Kan and the chief of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission secretly discussed two weeks after the disaster.

That scenario involved the possibility of more nuclear fuel rods burning, causing the release of more radiation and requiring the evacuation of a much wider region, including Tokyo.

The report also concludes that government oversight of nuclear plant safety had been inadequate, ignoring the risk of tsunami and the need for plant design renovations, and instead clinging to a "myth of safety."

"The idea of upgrading a plant was taboo," said Koichi Kitazawa, a scholar who heads the commission that prepared the report. "We were just lucky that Japan was able to avoid the worst-case scenario. But there is no guarantee this kind of luck will prevail next time."

After the quake and tsunami struck, three reactors melted down and radiation spewed widely through eastern Japan, forcing tens of thousands of residents to evacuate from the area around the plant.

TEPCO managed to avert the worst scenario by pumping water, much of it from the sea, into Dai-ichi's damaged reactors and spent fuel pools. The reactors were stabilized by December.

A year after the disaster, however, Fukushima Dai-ichi still resembles a vast wasteland. High radiation levels hamper a cleanup that is expected to take decades.

The damaged 125-foot-tall No. 2 reactor building stands like a bird's nest of twisted steel beams. A TEPCO official who accompanied foreign media to the plant on Tuesday said metal debris was being painstakingly removed by giant cranes and other equipment as radiation doses were too high for workers.

Another challenge is keeping a new cooling system, built from a myriad of technologies and prone to breaking down, running without major glitches.

"An earthquake or tsunami like the ones seen a year ago could be a source of trouble for these (cooling) systems. But we are currently reinforcing the spent fuel pool and making the sea walls higher against tsunamis," Takeshi Takahashi, the Dai-ichi plant's manager, told reporters. "A series of backup systems is also being put in place in case one fails."

Edano on Tuesday acknowledged he had feared the worst around March 14-15. "I was working with a strong sense of crisis that under various circumstances, such a thing may be possible," he told a news conference in Tokyo.

But he defended his silence as government spokesman.

"I shared all information. Back then, I was not in a position where I, as someone who is not an expert, could irresponsibly speak about my own personal impressions and my sense of crisis," he told a news conference.

"I conveyed assessments and decisions of the government, government agencies and experts," he added.

The panel report said some of Kan's seemingly inexplicable behavior stemmed from his belief that TEPCO was going to abandon the plant and the accident would spiral out of control.

An irate Kan blasted TEPCO on March 15, yelling: "What the hell is going on" in an outburst overheard by a Kyodo News reporter and quickly reported around the globe. "I want you all to be determined," he was quoted as telling utility executives.

The utility ultimately left a corps of workers who were dubbed the "Fukushima Fifty" by media and won admiration at home and abroad as they risked their lives to contain the crisis, although their names were never formally made public.

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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At least 12 people were killed in riots Tuesday near the Chinese city of Kashgar in the restive northwestern region of Xinjiang, state media reported.

No details were given about what might have set off the violence, although Xinjiang sees periodic outbreaks of anti-government violence by restless members of the region's native Turkish Muslim Uighur ethnic group.

The Xinhua News Agency said rioters armed with knives attacked victims in Yecheng county outside the city starting at about 6 p.m. They killed 10 people and police shot two assailants to death, the report said.

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Xinhua said police were chasing others involved in the attacks but did not say how many suspects there were.

The report could not be independently confirmed. Chinese authorities maintain tight control over information and the circumstances surrounding such incidents are often murky.

The periodic attacks in the region occur despite a smothering security presence imposed following 2009 riots in the regional capital of Urumqi that pitted Uighurs against migrants from China's majority Han in which almost 200 people died.

Xinjiang saw more deadly violence last summer, when a group of Uighurs stormed a police station in the city of Hotan on July 18 and took hostages, killing four. Then, just days later on July 30 and 31, Uighurs in Kashgar hijacked a truck, set a restaurant on fire and stabbed people in the street.

Chinese protester: World Bank will 'ruin China'

 Authorities said 14 of the attackers were shot by police in Hotan, and five assailants were killed in the violence in Kashgar.

China says those events were organized terror attacks, but an overseas Uighur rights group says they were anti-government riots carried out by angry citizens. Uighur activists and security analysts blame the violence on economic marginalization and restrictions on Uighur culture and the Muslim religion that are breeding frustration and anger among young Uighurs.

Chinese authorities have offered little evidence to back up their claims of outside involvement and rarely provide details on arrests or punishment of the suspects. Tight information controls and the remoteness of the area, more than 2,175 miles west of Beijing, ensure that the circumstances surrounding such incidents often remain murky.

Almost half of Xinjiang's residents are Uighurs, Turkic-speaking Muslims with ethnic ties to Central Asia. According to the BBC, many complain that the migration of Han Chinese workers from the east has cost them jobs and is eroding their culture.

The region's rich oil and gas resources are essential to China's economy.

Calls to government and police offices in Kashgar and at Xinjiang regional headquarters in Kashgar rang unanswered Tuesday night.

Tuesday's attacks come at an especially sensitive time as security is tightened across China before the national legislature's annual session opens next week.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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BEIJING – These days it seems everyone has an opinion about what China’s economy needs to do to continue to prosper.

Yesterday was the World Bank’s turn to give its two cents as it released a new joint-report with the Chinese Development Research Center entitled, “China 2030: Building a Modern, Harmonious, and Creative High-Income Society.”

The ambitious report attempts to lay out a new development strategy for China that emphasizes a gradual transition to a market economy, serious economic and labor reform and an eventual shift from an economy powered by state-owned businesses to private enterprise.

It was that latter condition that appeared to be a step too far for Du Jianguo who created a stir during a press conference by World Bank President Robert Zoellick at the bank’s Beijing headquarters Tuesday.

Du, a self-described “independent scholar of politics and economics,” stood up as Zoellick was talking and began to shout slogans like, “state-owned industry should not be privatized!” and “this report from the World Bank is poison!” 

He also handed out an essay he had written, aptly titled, “WB [World Bank] Go home with your poison!”

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Privatization debate
Du was pulled from the room by staff, but continued his protest outside where he claimed that the World Bank was corrupting China’s banking sector so much that it was beginning to resemble what he deemed a terrible role model: Wall Street.

“The World Bank wants Chinese banks to become like Wall Street,” said Du. “Do they want Chinese banks to turn into liars and parasites?”

Back inside the conference room, Zoellick acknowledged the intense debate that his bank’s report had generated in China between nationalists and economic liberalizers on the mainland, but defended it by saying that was “the point of any good research report.”

The debate comes at a sensitive time in China as it gears up for a leadership change later this year and a possible change in economic strategy under presumed future-President Xi Jinping.

The drive for greater economic liberalization and an increased focus on private enterprise by supporters of the study would come at the expense of expansive governmental support for state-owned enterprises that have become economic titans in China due to access to low-cost credit from state banks and protection from foreign competitors.

Proponents of the state-driven model argue that state-owned enterprises are a source of national strength and pride and should be protected.

Not so say others, who argue that private enterprise actually creates more jobs in China and should be nurtured to spur renewed growth.

Such proponents of economic liberalization will face a tough slog against men like Du, who are unabashed skeptics of the World Bank and made it a point to say so.

"We have no reason to accept their poison,” said Du later of the World Bank. “After they ruin China, they will ruin the whole world."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Tuesday that an argument could be made that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad is a war criminal.

"There would be an argument to be made that he would fit into that category," Clinton told a Senate committee hearing, responding to a question from Senator Lindsey Graham as to whether Assad could be called a war criminal.

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But she added that using such labels "limits options to persuade leaders to step down from power."

Clinton was also asked whether she thought Assad was on his way out eventually. "I do," she said. "I just don't know how to define eventually."

Last week Clinton attended a "Friends of Syria" conference of Western and Arab powers in Tunis that urged Assad to stop the killing of civilians in his crackdown on a nearly year-old uprising against his rule.

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But the outside world has proved powerless to halt the killing in Syria, where repression of initially peaceful protests has spawned an armed insurrection.

A U.N. panel has drawn up a list of Syrian officials who could be investigated for crimes against humanity as part of Assad's brutal crackdown on peaceful protests.

The U.S. also criticized Syria's envoy for storming out of an emergency U.N. meeting on the crisis in his country Tuesday, saying the walkout and a fiery speech that preceded it demonstrated the "delusional" nature of President Bashar Assad's regime.

Syria's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Fayssal al-Hamwi, accused members of the U.N. Human Rights Council of promoting terrorism and prolonging the crisis in his country by holding an urgent meeting on Syria.

"Anybody who heard the Syrian ambassador should be aware that his comments were borderline out of touch with reality," Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, the U.S. representative to the 47-nation council, told reporters.

"I think it's a reflection to some extent of what's going on with the Assad regime itself, holding a referendum that is farcical and a mockery of democratic processes when they're in the midst of a humanitarian crisis of their own creation," she said. "I think the Syrian ambassador's comments were equally delusional."

Al-Hamwi took the floor shortly after the U.N.'s top human rights official called for an immediate cease-fire in Syria and unhindered access for aid agencies to deliver emergency supplies and evacuate the sick and wounded.

"We are convinced that the real aim behind holding this session today is to cover up for the violence and murder perpetrated by the armed groups against innocent civilians," Syria's ambassador told diplomats.

Calling it part of "a pre-established plan," al-Hamwi said the meeting was "aimed at attacking the Syrian state and its institutions under the pretext of humanitarian needs."

"We are not pretending that the human rights situation in Syria is perfect," he added. "We are aware that there is a regression in the quality of services usually provided by the government to the population by the regions facing violence. This is due to the armed groups that are using residential areas as bases."

As diplomats and government officials from 70 countries lined up to express their concern about the deteriorating situation in Syria, al-Hamwi announced that his delegation would withdraw from what he called "this sterile discussion."

Before storming out of the room, he denounced a planned resolution on Syria as "malicious and prejudiced."

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe says France is working on a new U.N. Security Council resolution that would call for an immediate ceasefire in Syria and humanitarian aid.

He says that shelling in the city of Homs, where two journalists were killed and at least two wounded last week, had reached "unbearable and criminal proportions."

Russia and China have consistently blocked Security Council efforts to back Arab League plans aimed at ending the Syrian conflict.

Juppe said the resolution "could stipulate an immediate ceasefire and access for humanitarian aid as well as renewing our support to the Arab League."

The U.N. political chief B. Lynn Pascoe said Tuesday that "well over" 7,500 people have died in Syria violence and that there are "credible" reports that more than 100 civilians are dying in the country daily. Activists groups said Monday that the death toll for 11 months of unrest has now surpassed 8,000 people.

"Unfortunately, the international community has also failed in its duty to stop the carnage, and actions and inactions to date have seemed to encourage the regime in its believe that it has impunity to carry out the wanton destruction of its own civilians," Pascoe said.

Members of the Geneva-based council are expected to pass a resolution this week condemning "widespread and systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities."

A draft text supported by many Arab and Western nations says the Syrian regime's use of heavy artillery and tanks to attack civilian areas has contributed to the deaths of thousands.

Libya's Prime Minister Abdurrahim el-Keib said he supported passing a firm resolution on Syria in the council.

"We hope that the Syrian people will have the same freedom and victory soon as the Libyan people are enjoying right now," he said.
Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, cited the report of a U.N. expert panel that concluded Syrian government officials were responsible for "crimes against humanity" committed by security forces against opposition members. The crimes included shelling civilians, executing deserters and torturing detainees. Some opposition groups, too, had committed gross abuses, the report said.

The panel has compiled a confidential list of top-level Syrian officials who could face prosecution over the atrocities.

Pillay reiterated her call for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court "in the face of the unspeakable violations that take place every moment."

"More than at any other time, those committing atrocities in Syria have to understand that the international community will not stand by and watch this carnage and that their decisions and the actions they take today ultimately will not go unpunished," she said.

Several countries backed her call for Syria to be referred to the ICC, a proposition made difficult by the fact that Syria's longtime ally Russia holds a veto in the U.N. Security Council, where such a move would have to be approved.

Esther Brimmer, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, told reporters that while it was up to the Syrian people to decide how to try those responsible for atrocities in Syria, the international community could assist by collecting evidence for future prosecutions.

Meanwhile, Tunisia offered on Tuesday to give Syrian President Bashar al-Assad political asylum if that helps to end a crackdown on the near-year-old uprising against his rule.

"Tunisia is ready in principle to grant political asylum to Bashar al-Assad and his family if this proposal will contribute to stopping the bloodshed," Adnen Monssar, an aide to President Moncef al-Marzouki, told Reuters.

Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki suggested during the "Friends of Syria" conference of Western and Arab powers in Tunis last week that Russia, which has vetoed U.N. Security Council action against the Syrian regime, give Assad refuge. On Tuesday, his aide said Tunisia was willing to take him itself.

The Associated Press, Reuters and msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Gunmen opened fire on a passenger bus in the northern Pakistani district of Kohistan in an apparent sectarian attack on Tuesday, killing 18 people, police officials said.

"All the people on board were Shiites, and at the moment it looks like they were targeted by armed men from the local Sunni community,'' a senior police official told Reuters.

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The bus was traveling from central Pakistan city of Rawalpindi, near the capital Islamabad, to the northern town of Gilgit.

Police officials said the bus came under attack in an area inhabited by two Sunni tribes about 102 miles north of Islamabad.

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Sunni extremists allied to or inspired by al-Qaida and the Taliban routinely attack government and security force targets, as well as religious minorities and other Muslim sects they consider infidels. Most of the violence has been in the northwest, close to Afghanistan.

The majority of Pakistanis are Sunni Muslims, with Shiites accounting for around 15 percent of a population of around 180 million.

Both communities largely live in peace with each other but militants from the two sides have killed thousands of people in tit-for-tat attacks since the beginning of Islamist militancy in the country in the 1980s.

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Many thousands have been killed in the last five years, and attacks on Shiites — targeted purely because of their sect — have been some of the bloodiest.Shiite Muslims are a minority sect of Islam, arising from a dispute over the successor to the Prophet Mohammad 1,400 years ago. Many extreme Sunni Muslims consider them apostates.

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Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

LONDON -- Police and bailiffs worked through the night and into the early hours of Tuesday morning to evict protesters from the Occupy London encampment beside the city's landmark St Paul's Cathedral.

There were around 20 arrests, according to breakingnews.com editor David Wyllie, who was on the scene and posting updates on Twitter.

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But there was no violent resistance as the eviction went on, with officials quickly clearing debris on the ground to prevent them from being used as weapons. Public access was restricted prior to the operation and a number of local roads were closed, Wyllie reported.

Tents were unceremoniously thrown into large trash cans and crushed as the owners looked on, he said. Protesters said vanloads of police arrived at the site to carry out the eviction.

The local authority, the City of London Corporation, confirmed the eviction was under way by bailiffs, backed by police.

The urban camp had been set up as part of an international movement inspired by the U.S. Occupy Wall Street against what the activists say is corporate greed and economic inequality. Protesters had been camped outside the 300-year-old church since October.

The eviction comes months after authorities dismantled Occupy encampments in many U.S. cities

Movement not over
BBC correspondent Jeremy Cooke reported from the scene that the mood was largely peaceful early on. 

"This has always been a peaceful process, and it has never looked like (it was) turning into anything other than that," said poet and protester Catherine Brogan, according to The Guardian.

Demonstrators said the end of the camp would not mean the end of the Occupy movement.

"It's only tents and materials the injunction applies to so I think some protesters will be back here tomorrow," Gary Sherborne told The Associated Press.

Later, the mood turned tense as police closed in on a group of remaining protesters who had chained themselves to some wooden pallets to make a "last stand," witnesses on The Guardian live stream and Wyllie reported.

Protesters were dragged from the platforms and several key protesters leading the chants were restrained by officers holding onto each limb.

Police removed one activist from a tree overlooking the site.

Roads opened to traffic shortly before 5 a.m. (12 a.m. ET) as local authority workers hosed down the site removing the last traces of the protesters from the area.

Last week a court rejected an Occupy London challenge to an eviction order, ruling that the right to protest did not justify a semi-permanent camp on a public pathway.

"We regret that it has come to this but the High Court Judgment speaks for itself and the Court of Appeal has confirmed that Judgment," said a press release from the City of London Corporation.

"The City of London Corporation is ensuring vulnerable people are being helped and supported to find appropriate accommodation in partnership with Broadway, a charity for the homeless," it said.

Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

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Breakingnews.com's David Wyllie and The Associated Press contributed to this report. (Breakingnews.com is a sister site to msnbc.com.)

Iran has arrested filmmakers, bloggers, minorities and lawyers and imposed limits on the public's use of the Web to try to squelch dissent and contact with the outside world ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on Thursday, the human rights group Amnesty International reported Monday.

Iranian authorities have detained more than 10 journalists, writers and bloggers, as well as members of religious and ethnic minorities since campaigning began, apparently to dissuade people from criticizing the government or participating in protests to mark the anniversary of "Arab Spring" uprisings around the Mideast, Amnesty said in a 71-page report.

The authorities also issued new rules in January requiring Internet cafe owners to install closed-circuit cameras and collect customers’ names and contact information, both of which must be kept for six months, it said.

"The noose just seems to be tightening," said Elise Auerbach, an Iran specialist for Amnesty. "The hand of the government seems to be everywhere and I think people have reason to fear that … there’s nowhere to hide."

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Security forces -– including a new cyber police unit –- can monitor activists as they use personal computers in their homes. A new cyber army -- reportedly connected to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard -- has conducted attacks on websites at home and abroad, the report said.

Human Rights Watch also recently noted the government's focus on the Internet in the run-up to the elections for the 290-seat parliament, noting a judiciary threat that those who called for a boycott of the ballot -- as reformists and opposition activists have done -- would be prosecuted.

"Unfortunately it seems the only lesson authorities learned from the popular protests that followed the disputed (presidential) election (in) 2009 is that the free flow of information is an existential threat to their ability to rule absolutely," Joe Stork, Human Rights Watch's deputy Middle East director, said in January.

The Tor Network, which provides free software for anonymous use of the Internet, reported that on Feb. 9, Tehran began filtering keywords and throttling or shutting down access to sites that use a form of security called Secure Socket Layers, or SSL. The action is blocking email and some Web access for as many as 30 million Iranians who use SSL-protected sites, reported CBR Systems & Network Security, a European technology organization.

Related Story: Iran blocking 30 million from email, Web ahead of election

In early January, Iran’s intelligence minister said secret services had arrested several people on charges of spying for the United States and seeking to undermine the elections. State TV quoted Heidar Moslehias saying that the suspects were in touch with their contacts outside the country via the Internet, The Associated Press reported.  Separately, a top Iranian law enforcement official described Google as an "espionage tool" in mid-January, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Five documentary directors and a producer-distributor with links to outside broadcasters were arrested in September. All were held in prison, with limited contact with their families, until they were all released on bail by mid-December.

Amnesty said that harassment and imprisonment of human rights activists also had increased as part of a "worsening overall human rights situation in Iran," includung the shuttering of several nonprofit groups. It also reported that public executions quadrupled from 2010 to 2011 as authorities sought to "strike fear into society."

Some observers see the large 2009 protests in Iran as the precursor to those of the 2011 Arab Spring. Iranian opposition leaders who called for the solidarity demonstrations in February 2011 -- Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi -- have been under de facto house arrest since then, Amnesty said, though Mehdi Karroubi’s wife was released last July.

"They (the Islamic Republic) are going to use everything they have to ensure that these elections are conducted in a peaceful way and that the turnout is high," Mohsen Milani, professor of politics and chair of the department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla., told msnbc.com.

They've "arrested people who in their mind are troublemakers" and are trying to stifle social media networks, Mohsen said. They've also noted they will step up security and have alerted people to the potential for violence -- a strategy they can use to tell the public, 'We told you so,' in case there are problems or declare victory, in the case there are not, he added.

"I’ve never seen the Islamic Republic … being as careful about elections as they are this time in terms of security measures. They are ready," he said.

Mohsen said he believed that Iran's "oppressive measures" would continue after the vote, warning, "I believe they will intensify in the coming month and year."

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A retired British businessman is to appear in a federal court on Tuesday in El Paso after being extradited last week on charges that he tried to sell missile batteries to Iran in 2006.

Christopher Tappin turned himself in Friday after fighting extradition from the United Kingdom for two years. Two other men were sentenced in 2007 to 20 and 24 months in federal prison for their roles in the scheme.

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Tappin, 65, faces charges over allegations that he offered in 2006 to sell specialized batteries for Hawk missiles for $25,000 to undercover American agents posing as Iranians.

 

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The 65-year-old Tappin was denied a final appeal of his extradition last month and delivered to El Paso by federal marshals. His deportation sparked a debate in the U.K. over whether British and American citizens are treated equally under the two countries' extradition treaty.

Tappin faces up to 35 years in jail if convicted in the United States. He denies wrongdoing, saying he was the victim of a sting operation.

Dan Cogdell, Tappin's attorney in Texas, said he plans to aggressively push to have Tappin granted bail.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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VIENNA -- Iran is still relying on decades-old technology to expand its nuclear program, a fact that suggests it might be having difficulties developing more modern machines that could speed up production of potential bomb material, experts say.

A report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog last week said Iran was significantly stepping up its uranium enrichment, a finding that sent oil prices higher on fears tensions between Tehran and the West could escalate into military conflict.

Israel has threatened to launch pre-emptive strikes to prevent Iran getting the bomb and Defense Minister Ehud Barak has said Tehran's continued technological progress mean it could soon pass into a "zone of immunity," suggesting time was running out for an effective military intervention.

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But, contrary to some Western media reports in the run-up to Friday's International Atomic Energy Agency report, Iran does not yet seem ready to deploy advanced enrichment equipment for large-scale production, despite years of development work, experts said.

Instead, the IAEA document showed Iran was preparing to install thousands more centrifuges based on an erratic and outdated design, both in its main enrichment plant at Natanz and in a smaller facility at Fordow buried deep underground.

"It appears that they are still struggling with the advanced centrifuges," said Olli Heinonen, a former chief nuclear inspector for the Vienna-based U.N. agency.

"We do not know whether the reasons for delays are lack of raw materials or design problems."

Nuclear expert Mark Fitzpatrick said Iran had been working on "second-generation models for over ten years now and still can't put them into large-scale operation."

Iran says it is refining uranium to fuel a planned network of nuclear power plants so that it can export more of its oil and gas. The United States and its allies accuse it of a covert bid to develop nuclear bombs.

Tehran often trumpets technical advances in its nuclear program, including the development of new centrifuges — machines that spin at supersonic speed to increase the concentration of the fissile material in uranium.

Remains recovered of GI slain by Iran-backed group

The million dollar question
In mid-February, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran had a "fourth generation" centrifuge that could refine uranium three times faster than previously.

"Iran unveiled a third-generation model two years ago and then never said more about it," said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank.

"Now it says it has a fourth-generation model, which is probably a variation of the problematic second-generation machines."

The IAEA, which regularly inspects Iran's declared nuclear sites, has little access to facilities where centrifuges are assembled and the agency's knowledge of possible centrifuge progress is mainly limited to what it can observe at Natanz.

Asked whether Iran may keep more modern centrifuges at a location which U.N. inspectors are not aware of, an official familiar with the issue said: "That is, of course, the million dollar question."

If Iran eventually succeeded in introducing the newer models for production, it could significantly shorten the time needed to stockpile enriched uranium, which can generate electricity or, if processed much further, nuclear explosions.

But it is unclear whether Tehran, subject to increasingly strict international sanctions, has the means and components to make the more sophisticated machines in bigger numbers.

Peter Crail of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based research and advocacy group, said Iran had been testing its second-generation centrifuge models for several years but its ability to mass produce them remained uncertain.

Syrian tells NBC: 'You hear the sounds of torture all the time'

The U.N. Security Council has long called on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and Tehran's failure to comply has earned it four rounds of sanctions, as well much tougher U.S. and European Union measures that take direct aim at its biggest export, oil.

Western experts say Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium could be enough for about four atomic bombs if refined much more, should the Iranian leadership decide to do so.

Cracking the code
Iran has for years been trying to develop centrifuges with several times the capacity of the 1970s-vintage, IR-1 version it now uses for the most sensitive part of its atomic activities.

Marking a potential step forward, Iran last year started installing larger numbers of more modern IR-4 and IR-2m models for testing at a research and development site at the enrichment facility near the central town of Natanz.

But last week's IAEA report suggested Iran was encountering problems testing them in interlinked networks known as cascades, said David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) think tank.

"The testing of advanced-centrifuge production-scale cascades ... is going far more slowly than expected," he said in an analysis. Iran's "advanced centrifuge program appears troubled," the ISIS report added.

The IAEA said Iran had informed it in early February of plans to install three new types of centrifuge —  IR-5, IR-6 and IR-6s - as single machines at the Natanz R&D site.

When so many models are tested simultaneously, "it indicates that Iran has not yet reached a point where it can decide which would be the next generation centrifuge to be deployed," Heinonen, now at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, said.

Fitzpatrick said: "Sooner or later Iran will probably crack the code on advanced centrifuges and introduce them in larger numbers, but so far that hasn't been possible."

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LAGOS, Nigeria -- A series of weekend attacks have left at least eight people dead as Nigeria's security situation continues to deteriorate amid a rising Islamist insurgency, authorities said Monday.

Motorcycle-mounted gunmen killed three police officers at a checkpoint in Nigeria's troubled northeast, Adamawa police spokeswoman Altine Daneil said Monday. She said two officers died on the spot and another died in a hospital after Sunday's attack in a town close to Adamawa's border with Borno State, the spiritual home of a radical sect known as Boko Haram.

Daneil said a fourth officer is in the hospital.

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She said cans that appeared to be homemade explosives had been found in the area.

Daneil said it was too early to say the police suspected any specific group, but Boko Haram has carried out similar drive-by shootings in the past.

At least five other people died in weekend attacks across Nigeria.

Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for one of those attacks, which hit a major church in central Nigeria Sunday morning and killed three people.

The suicide car bomb attack in Jos killed a woman and a father with his child as the vehicle raced toward the church compound. The blast shattered glass all over the church, injuring at least 38 people who were rushed to hospitals for treatment.

In a statement, President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the attack.

"Those who seek to divide us by fear and terror will not succeed," it read. "The indiscriminate bombing of Christians and Muslims is a threat to all peace-loving Nigerians."

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, has launched increasingly bloody attacks across Nigeria, including ones targeting churches and police.

The group is carrying out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to impose a strict interpretation of Shariah law on the population and avenge Muslim killings in Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

Authorities said Saturday that suspected sect gunmen killed two police officers in separate attacks in Kaduna and Maiduguri, areas previously targeted by the sect.

In Gombe state, an unexploded bomb from a Friday Boko Haram attack that had killed 12 people detonated Saturday morning outside a police building, though it was not immediately clear if anyone was injured.

Also Sunday, police in Bauchi state said they stopped an attack on a church, though they said the seven people arrested were Christians who were embroiled in an internal dispute with the church.

Meanwhile, gunmen attacked two villages in rural Kaduna state late Sunday night, leaving two young people dead and another badly injured, said southern Kaduna community leader Florence Aya.

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LONDON -- Journalists at Britain's Sun newspaper paid large sums of cash to corrupt public officials, aware the practice was criminal, an inquiry into press ethics heard on Monday, revelations that could prove damaging to Rupert Murdoch's media empire.

The Metropolitan Police's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers told Britain's media ethics inquiry that the newspaper openly referred to paying its sources and that such payments were authorized at a senior level.

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"The current assessment is that it reveals a network of corrupted officials," Akers said.

The disclosures could damage Murdoch's News Corp if it gives ammunition to the FBI and other American government agencies that have stepped up their hunt for signs of illegality at the U.S.-based company.

"There appears to have been a culture at the Sun of illegal payments, and systems have been created to facilitate those payments whilst hiding the identity of officials receiving the money," said Akers, who is in charge of the investigation into phone hacking and police bribery.

She said one of the journalists who had been arrested has "over several years received over 150,000 pounds ($238,000) in cash to pay his sources, a number of whom were public officials." She said payments to public officials went far beyond acceptable practices like buying contacts a meal or a drink.

Akers, who made her accusations a day after Murdoch launched The Sun's Sunday edition, said journalists paid not only police officers but also police, military, health and government officials. One official received a total of 80,000 pounds ($126,912) over several years, she said, adding that police also are investigating if public officials were placed on retainers by newspapers.

Police and News Corp. lawyers are combing through millions of emails for evidence of wrongdoing at The Sun as well as the News of the World. Dozens have been arrested or pushed to resign because of the scandal, including two of Britain's top police officers who were accused of not doing enough to get to grips with the tabloid's wrongdoing.

More arrests are possible.

'Sickened and disgusted'
On Monday, Charlotte Church, a former teen singing sensation, received 600,000 pounds ($951,000) from News International, a News Corp. division, in a settlement resolving her claim that 33 News of the World articles were the product of journalists illegally hacking into her family's voice mails.

Despite her legal victory, Church sharply criticized Murdoch's empire, saying years of tabloid intrusions followed by legal battles had horrified her.

"What I have discovered as the litigation has gone on has sickened and disgusted me. Nothing was deemed off limits by those who pursued me and my family, just to make money for a multinational news corporation," she said outside London's High Court, where the settlement was agreed.

Murdoch, meanwhile, has said practices at The Sun have changed.

In an emailed statement he said: "As I've made very clear, we have vowed to do everything we can to get to the bottom of prior wrongdoings in order to set us on the right path for the future. That process is well under way. The practices Sue Akers described at the Leveson inquiry are ones of the past, and no longer exist at The Sun. We have already emerged a stronger company."

Akers was giving evidence at the Leveson inquiry set up by Prime Minister David Cameron in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.

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Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A referendum in Syria that overwhelmingly approved a new constitution was "unlikely to be credible," the United Nations said on Monday as it urged the country to focus on bringing an end to its bloodiest turmoil in decades.

The Syrian Interior Ministry said on Monday that a reformed constitution, which could keep President Bashar Assad in power until 2028, had received 89.4 percent approval from more than eight million voters who cast their ballots on Sunday.

"While a new constitution and the end of the Baath party monopoly on power could be part of a political solution, a referendum must take place in conditions free of violence and intimidation," U.N. spokesman Eduardo del Buey told reporters.

"It is unlikely to be credible in the context of pervasive violence and mass human rights violations," he said.

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Syrian dissidents and Western leaders dismissed as a farce Sunday's vote, conducted amid ongoing violence, although Assad says the new constitution will lead to multi-party elections within three months.

Earlier on Monday, Syrian artillery pummeled rebel-held areas of Homs before the announcement that a vote had approved a new constitution proposed by President Assad.

A Syrian activist group said Monday that 135 people have been killed across the country, including 64 who died while fleeing an embattled area in Homs. The Local Coordination Committees, one of the main Syrian activist groups, said the dead included three women, three children and four soldiers.

No clear successor to Assad's 'coup-proof' rule in Syria

Shells and rockets crashed into Sunni Muslim districts of Homs that have already endured weeks of bombardment as Assad's forces try to stamp out an almost year-long revolt against his 11-year rule.

"Intense shelling started on Khalidiya, Ashira, Bayada, Baba Amr and the old city at dawn," opposition activist Mohammed al-Homsi told Reuters from the city on the Damascus-Aleppo highway.

"The army is firing from the main thoroughfares deep into alleyways and side streets," he said, adding that at least two people had been killed.

Syria referendum goes ahead amid violence

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said later at least seven people had been killed by shelling in Baba Amr. The accounts of opposition activists were echoed by those from other observers, including the Red Cross.

At least 59 civilians and soldiers were killed on Sunday in a violent backdrop to a referendum on a constitution that offers some reforms, but could enable Assad to keep power until 2028.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has said conditions in parts of Homs are worsening by the hour, has failed to secure a pause in the fighting to allow the wounded to be evacuated and desperately needed aid to be delivered.

"We are still in negotiations. Since the beginning, the objective has been to go in and evacuate people and bring in assistance. Every hour, every day makes a difference," ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said in Geneva.

New sanctions
European Union foreign ministers, meanwhile, agreed new sanctions against Assad's government on Monday, targeting its central bank and several cabinet ministers to try to curb funding for the government.

The measures, expected to be enforced this week, include prohibiting trade in gold and other precious metals with Syrian state institutions and a ban on cargo flights from Syria, officials said.

Syrian activist: 'You hear the sounds of torture all the time'

British Foreign Secretary William Hague said the sanctions were crucial to putting pressure on Assad to end violence that has killed thousands of civilians over the last 11 months.

"I hope we will agree further sanctions today which will further restrict the access to finance in particular of the regime," Hague told reporters before the meeting.

Echoing comments by other ministers, Hague said any military involvement in Syria to lend support to anti-Assad rebels was off the table for now, even in the form of a peacekeeping force that some Arab states appear to favour.

"Of course for that to work properly there would have to be a peace to keep. At the moment we don't have that," he said.

Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi said sanctions were the most the EU could do for now, saying it was the best that could be done without military intervention.

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Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Updated at 9:25 a.m. ET: MOSCOW -- Security forces have uncovered a plot to assassinate Russia's Vladimir Putin and have arrested suspects linked to a Chechen rebel leader known for other terror attacks, Russian state television reported Monday.

Pro-government Channel One said that the suspects were plotting to kill Putin in Moscow immediately after the March 4 presidential election, in which he is all but certain to reclaim the presidency.

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The report, which included televised confessions by two suspects, is likely to boost support for Putin as he seeks his third term as president in an election Sunday.

Channel One said the suspects were acting on instructions from Chechen warlord Doku Umarov and had been arrested in Ukraine's Black Sea port city of Odessa after an accidental explosion Jan. 4 while they were trying to manufacture explosives at a rented apartment.

Amanda Walker, Moscow correspondent for Britain's Sky News, pointed out that Channel One was a "staunch Putin supporter."

 

The Ukrainian Security Service said earlier this month it had detained a man sought by Russian authorities on charges of terrorism and two of his accomplices in Odessa on Feb. 4, but said nothing at the time about them being linked to an anti-Putin plot.

Its spokeswoman, Marina Ostapenko, said Monday the announcement in Moscow came only now because the Russian special service was conducting its own investigation. She confirmed the main suspect was involved in a plot to kill Putin, but didn't elaborate.

There was no immediate explanation for the different number of suspects cited by Russia and Ukraine.

Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the report to the ITAR-Tass news agency, but refused to make any further comment.

A laidback Yankee in trouble in Putin's court

Channel One said two of the alleged members of the group arrived in Ukraine from the United Arab Emirates via Turkey with instructions from Umarov, the top military leader for the Chechen rebels. One of them, a Chechen, was killed during the accidental explosion in Odessa and another one, Kazakhstan citizen Ilya Pyanzin, was wounded in the blast and arrested.

Pyanzin led the investigators to their contact in Odessa, Adam Osmayev, a Chechen who previously had lived in London and had been sought by Russia since 2007, the report said. The TV station showed footage of Osmayev's arrest in Odessa with black-clad special troops bursting in and a half-naked, bloodied Osmayev on his knees, his head bowed down.

Speaking to Channel One from custody in Ukraine, Osmayev described the group's mission: "Our goal was to go to Moscow and try to kill Prime Minister Putin ... Our deadline was after the Russian presidential election."

Both of Osmayev's hands were bandaged, and his face was covered in green dots from an antiseptic used to treat his cuts.

Russians rally for Putin -- and 2 days off work

Russian and Ukrainian special services wouldn't comment on the report.

The report is likely to boost support for Putin as he seeks his third term as president in an election Sunday.

But some Russians reacted to the news with skepticism, making clear on social network sites that they did not believe the report or suggesting the timing of the announcement was intended to attract sympathy for Putin before the election.

Opinion polls show Putin, a former KGB officer who crushed separatists during a war he launched in the Chechnya region in the North Caucasus before he became president, will easily win the election and reclaim the post he held from 2000 until 2008.

But he faces a growing opposition protest movement and wants to secure outright victory on Sunday, averting a runoff that might dent his authority.

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Updated at 8:11 a.m. ET: A suicide car bomber struck early Monday at the gates of Jalalabad airport in eastern Afghanistan, killing nine people in a large blast, officials said.

Among the dead were six civilians, two airport guards and one soldier, Mohammad said. Another six people were wounded, he said.

An AP photographer saw at least four destroyed cars at the gates of the airport.

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The Afghan Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, that they also say killed a number of U.S. soldiers and members of the Afghan interior ministry, a spokesman told NBC News.

"Our suicide bomber carried out suicide attack at a time when the U.S. troops opened the main entrance for change of the night time shift at the airport. Besides American soldiers, a number of Afghanistan interior ministry personnel working (with) the U.S. troops were also killed in the attack," the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told NBC News.

He said it was revenge of the desecration of holy Quran allegedly by U.S. forces at the Bagram airbase.

But NATO forces spokesman Capt. Justin Brockhoff said that no international forces were killed in the early morning attack and that the installation was not breached by the blast.

Escalating violence
The blast comes a day after demonstrators hurled grenades at a U.S. base in northern Afghanistan, and a gun battle left two Afghans dead and seven NATO troops injured Sunday in the escalating crisis over the burning of Muslim holy books at an American airfield.

More than 30 people have been killed, including four U.S. troops, in six days of unrest. Still, the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan said the violence would not change Washington's course.

"Tensions are running very high here, and I think we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business," Ambassador Ryan Crocker told CNN's "State of the Union."

"This is not the time to decide that we're done here," he said. "We have got to redouble our efforts. We've got to create a situation in which al-Qaida is not coming back."

Story: Eight US soldiers wounded in Afghan NATO base attack

The attack on the base came a day after two U.S. military advisers — a lieutenant colonel and a major — were found dead after being shot in the head in their office at the Interior Ministry in the heart of the capital. The building is one of the city's most heavily guarded buildings, and the slayings raised doubts about safety as coalition troops continue their withdrawal.

The incident prompted NATO, Britain and France to recall hundreds of international advisers from all Afghan ministries in the capital. The advisers are key to helping improve governance and preparing the country's security forces to take on more responsibility.

A manhunt was under way for the main suspect in the shooting — an Afghan man who worked as a driver for an office on the same floor as the advisers who were killed, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. He did not provide further details about the suspect or his possible motive.

Story: Afghan officer sought in connection with US slayings

The Taliban claimed that the shooter was one of their sympathizers and that an accomplice had helped him get into the compound to kill the Americans in retaliation for the Quran burnings.

Afghanistan's defense and interior ministers were to visit Washington this week, but they called off the trip to consult with other Afghan officials and religious leaders on how to stop the violence, Pentagon press secretary George Little said. The Afghan officials had planned to meet with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey.

The protesters in Kunduz province in the north threw hand grenades to express their anger at the way some Qurans and other Islamic texts were disposed of in a burn pit last week at Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The U.S. military has identified the remains of the last American service member unaccounted for in Iraq, the Associated Press has reported.

Staff. Sgt. Ahmed Kousay al-Taie was an Army interpreter from Ann Arbor, Mich. He was born in Iraq and moved to the U.S. as a teenager. He joined the Army Reserve in December 2004.

The military’s mortuary in Dover, Del. positively identified part of his remains. Army officials provided no details about how his remains were discovered.

In 2006, al-Taie left Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone by motorcycle to visit his wife, an Iraqi he had married the year before. At his relative’s house, three cars pulled up. Hostage-takers handcuffed al-Taie, then 41, and forced him into one of the cars, Mag. Gen William Caldwell said in a statement in 2006. One of the kidnappers took his cell phone.

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Officials in Iraq offered up to $50,000 for information that would lead to al-Taie, according to an Army press release.

Caldwell said troops had conducted 51 search operations based on 328 tips. Those raids resulted in 35 suspects, many of whom were detained and offered valuable information, Caldwell said.

"We have fairly good information that tells us where we think he could still be held and who perhaps may have him," Caldwell said in 2008. Three soldiers were killed and six wounded during those search operations.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Pakistani security personnel on Sunday completed the demolition of the compound where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces last May.

"The process launched for demolishing the compound on Saturday evening has been completed on Sunday night. The whole structure of the building has been razed to the ground. It actually took some time as the process of removing demolition and removing the wreckage was going on same to same," a senior security official said in Abbottabad.

The official, who requested anonymity, said precautionary measures, including a curfew and heavy security around the compound, were taken to avoid any problems during the demolition. When asked why the demolition took place now, the official told NBC News that the razing of the structure had been planned soon after bin Laden's death.

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"A number of meetings had taken place since the May 2 operation for demolishing the building, but the compound could not be demolished earlier due to difference in opinions among the officials concerned. It was finally decided to demolish the building and the timing for the process was chosen Saturday night," the official said.

Pakistan demolishes bin Laden compound

A senior police officer said that an unannounced curfew in the town remained in place until late Sunday night.

To secure the area, Pakistan army soldiers and police personnel were deployed in large numbers to the area.

"The recent rockets' attack by unknown people on military installations in Abbottabad city had created serious concerns among the military authorities and local administration there," the police officer said.

The police officer, who requested anonymity, said the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Barrister Masood Kausar was scheduled to visit Abbottabad during the day to see the demolition, but later canceled his trip for unknown reasons.

Local residents in Bilal Town said security measures were later relaxed when the last portion of the compound was razed to the ground using heavy machinery.

Future plans for the lot include the construction of "a nice park" -- with green areas and benches -- that will be built "within a month," a senior government official told NBC News.

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BOYNUYOGUN, Turkey -- An anti-Syrian government activist described weeks he spent in the regime's torture chambers, saying he sometimes wished death would come and relieve him of the overwhelming pain.

"You hear the voices," Yousef Dandash, a 25-year-old merchant from Jisr al-Shughour in Syria's northern Idlib, told NBC News' Richard Engel on Saturday. "You hear the sounds of men crying, real men shouting from the depth of their hearts.  You ... pray that God takes you before you go back to the torture."

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Speaking at a refugee camp on the Turkish border with Syria, Dandash said he was detained for six weeks in March after tearing up a picture of President Bashar Assad in public.

"They took me to solitary confinement … with no access to a toilet," he said.  "Every day there was beating and torture (and) electricity."

Syria referendum goes ahead amid military onslaught

He showed NBC News scars that he said were caused by prolonged bouts of torture.

His captors then took him to the capital Damascus, where he was put in a virtual underground city, Dandash said.

"There the torture and the beating started. I was blindfolded all the time and my hands tied behind my back," he said.

Dandash managed to flee to Turkey after security forces took him back to a detention center in his town, where a judge decided to release him until his trial. His brother Ammar, who was a soldier, deserted and came with him across the border.

The growing numbers of Syrians fleeing to the country's neighbors attest to the growing violence in Syria where Assad is trying to suppress a months-long rebellion. Some 10,000 refugees are now registered in tented refugee camps and the number is rising steadily.

On Sunday, voting was under way in the referendum on a new constitution in some parts of the country. Assad has said the poll will lead to a multi-party parliamentary election in three months, but his opponents see the vote as a joke given Syria's turmoil.

Syria's vote: Chance for democracy or Assad trick?

The Syrian government, backed by Russia, China and Iran, and undeterred by Western and Arab pressure to halt the carnage, maintains it is fighting foreign-backed "armed terrorist groups."

Unwilling to intervene militarily and unable to get the U.N. Security Council to act amid Russian and Chinese opposition, Western powers have imposed their own sanctions on Syria and backed an Arab League call for Assad to step down.

Dandash called the international stance on his country "weak" and "impotent” and called for the world to arm anti-Assad forces, not send humanitarian aid.

"We do not want food and water," he said.  "We need rifles and ammunition."

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NBC News' Richard Engel, Reuters and The Associated Press.

At least 31 Syrian civilians and soldiers were killed on Sunday in bloodshed that coincided with a vote on a new constitution that could keep President Bashar al-Assad in power until 2028.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a military bombardment of opposition districts in Homs, now in its fourth week, had killed nine civilians, while rebel fighters had killed four soldiers in clashes in the city.

The British-based Observatory said eight civilians and 10 members of the security forces were killed in violence elsewhere in Syria, scene of what has become an increasingly militarised revolt against four decades of Assad family rule.

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Voting was under way in the referendum on a constitution which Assad says will lead to a multi-party parliamentary election in three months, but which his opponents see as a sick joke given the unrest convulsing the country.

 

"What should we be voting for, whether to die by bombardment or by bullets? This is the only choice we have," said Waleed Fares, an activist in the Khalidiyah district of Homs.

At least 89 were reported killed on Saturday, one day before the referendum. Activists estimate close to 7,500 people have been killed in the 11 months since the Assad regime's brutal crackdown on dissent began.

Read: Is Syria's vote a chance for democracy or trick by Assad?

"The referendum in Syria is nothing more than a farce," German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said. "Sham votes cannot be a contribution to a resolution of the crisis. Assad must finally end the violence and clear the way for a political transition."

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on Syrians in business and the military who still support Assad to turn against him.

"The longer you support the regime's campaign of violence against your brothers and sisters, the more it will stain your honor," she told reporters in Morocco. "If you refuse, however, to prop up the regime or take part in attacks ... your countrymen and women will hail you as heroes."

U.S., European and Arab officials met Friday at a major international conference on the Syrian crisis in Tunisia, trying to forge a unified strategy to push Assad from power. They began planning a civilian peacekeeping mission to deploy after the regime falls.

"It is time for that regime to move on," President Barack Obama said Friday of Assad's rule. On Saturday, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Assad's crackdown belied promised reforms.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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U.S. military officials say eight American soldiers were wounded Sunday during a violent protest outside a U.S. forward operating base in Afghanistan's Kunduz province. The Americans were wounded when one of the protesters apparently hurled a grenade into the compound. The extent of the injuries was unclear.

The attack occurred as 400 demonstrators stormed the American outpost to protest the inadvertent burning of Qurans at the U.S. Bagram airbase north of Kabul. More than two dozen people, including four U.S. troops, have been killed since Tuesday, after the Qurans and religious materials had been thrown into a fire pit used to burn garbage.  President Barack Obama and U.S. officials have apologized and said it was a mistake, but the incident has sent thousands of protesters into the streets.

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One senior U.S. military official said the results of the U.S.-Afghan investigation into the incident are still "days away."

Meanwhile an intensive manhunt continues for the lone gunman who shot and kiled two American officers as they sat at their desks in the Afghan Interior Ministry in Kabul Sunday. U.S. military officials describe the primary suspect as a "low-level" Afghan servicemember or government employee who fled the scene. But Afghan sources tell the NBC Kabul bureau the suspect may be a high-ranking Afghan intelligence official who has been reported missing ever since the shooting.

Read: Afghan intelligence officer sought in connection with US slayings

The order by General John Allen, the top U.S. militiary commander in Afghanistan, to withdraw all American and NATO forces from Afghan ministries remains in effect. A senior U.S. military official tells NBC News, "we're still working with the Afghan goverment" by telephone and emails, but until the circumstances surrounding Sunday's shooting are more clear U.S. and NATO personnel will continue to work from the ISAF base in Kabul.

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