Correction: An earlier version of this post had an incorrect date for the cable sent to the State Department by U.S. Embassy personnel in Libya.

House Republicans stepped up criticism of President Barack Obama on Friday over the deadly Sept. 11 attack on the U.S mission in Benghazi, Libya, releasing 166 pages of unclassified documents and photos that they said show administration officials repeatedly rejected “requests for increased security despite escalating violence … (and) systematically decreased existing security to dangerous and ineffective levels.”

The release of the documents, which came just days before Obama and Republican Mitt Romney discuss U.S. foreign policy in their last debate before the Nov. 6 presidential election, added to the political furor over the administration’s actions preceding the late-night attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, which claimed the life of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Many of the documents released by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa and National Security Subcommittee Chairman Jason Chaffetz had previously been made public, but others provided new evidence of growing concern about the security situation in Benghazi, and Libya in general.

One, a June 25 memo from Stevens, referred to incidents in Benghazi in which local elements attacked foreigners and specifically mentioned signs of growing al-Qaida sympathies in the city.

 “(A) national security official shared his private opinion that the attacks were the work of extremists who are opposed to western influence in Libya,” Stevens wrote. “A number of local contacts agreed, noting that Islamic extremism appears to be on the rise in eastern Libya and the al-Qaida flag has been spotted several times flying over government buildings and training facilities in Derna (a city east of Benghazi). Other contacts disagree however suggesting that the attacks could be the work of pro-Gadhafi loyalists or individuals who have been politically and financially marginalized by the (Transitional National Council)."

Another document, a cable dated Aug. 2 and sent to the State Department by U.S. Embassy personnel in Tripoli, indicated that staff had growing concerns over security provided by Libyan militias.

“Host nation security support is lacking and cannot be depended on to provide a safe and secure environment for the diplomatic mission,” it said in part.

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In a letter to Obama, Issa, R-Calif., and Chaffetz, R-Utah, demanded the president fully answer questions about the administration’s response to the concerns.

"The American people deserve nothing less than a full explanation from this administration about these events, including why the repeated warnings about a worsening security situation appear to have been ignored by this administration,” it said. “Americans also deserve a complete explanation about your administration's decision to accelerate a normalized presence in Libya at what now appears to be at the cost of endangering American lives.”

The senior Democrat on the committee, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., issued a statement in which he accused Issa and Chaffetz of attempting to use the tragedy to score political points.

Issa's letter "completely ignores sworn testimony provided to the committee, recklessly omits contradictory information from the very same documents it quotes, irresponsibly promotes inaccurate information, and makes numerous allegations with no evidence to substantiate them," he wrote.

Ben Curtis / AP file

U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died in the attack on the U.S. consulate Benghazi, LIbya.

Separately, a senior U.S. intelligence official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said Friday that investigators still have not uncovered any evidence that the attack was preplanned.

"No one is ruling out the idea that some of the attackers may have aspired to attack the U.S. in Benghazi," the official said. "However, right now, there isn't any intelligence that the attackers preplanned their assault days or weeks in advance.  The bulk of available information supports the early assessment that the attackers launched their assault  opportunistically after they learned about the violence at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. Of course, other factors may also have motivated participation in the attack." 

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State Department spokesman Mark Toner also cautioned that investigators are still piecing together events that led to the attack.

"An independent board is conducting a thorough review of the assault on our post in Benghazi,” he said. “Once we have the board's comprehensive account of what happened, findings and recommendations, we can fully address these matters."

The release of the documents came after the top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said they would continue to press the administration to explain why U.S. spy agencies and government spokesmen initially played down suspected al-Qaida links to the consulate attack.

More to Benghazi attacks than surface at debate

Immediately after the Benghazi attack, U.S. spy agencies produced conflicting reports on who was behind them, U.S. officials said. Most said extremists with possible al-Qaida ties were involved. But a few reports, which the Obama administration emphasized in public statements, said the attacks could have been spontaneous protests against a U.S.-made anti-Muslim video.

Ultimately, the office of the Director of National Intelligence, the top U.S. intelligence authority, declared that the events were a "deliberate and organized terrorist attack" carried out by "extremists" affiliated with or sympathetic to al-Qaida.

On Thursday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said both intelligence and security problems may have played a role in the attack.

"There's no question but that it was a terrorist attack, there is no question but that the security was inadequate and I think that there is no question that we need to work on our intelligence," Feinstein told KCBS-TV.

Clinton refuses to assign blame for Benghazi attacks 

When asked why the U.S. government initially played down the role of Islamic militants, she said: "I think what happened was the director of intelligence, who is a very good individual, put out some speaking points on the initial intelligence assessment. I think that was possibly a mistake."

But the committee's Republican vice chairman, Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, questioned whether administration officials deliberately omitted possible references to al-Qaida involvement in talking points about the Benghazi attacks.

"Talking points distributed by the administration are nearly identical to intelligence assessments within hours of the attack, except in one important way: the intelligence judgment that the attackers had ties to al-Qaida was excluded from the public points," Chambliss said in a statement on Friday.

"The administration omitted the known links to al-Qaida at almost every opportunity ... Whether this was an intentional effort by the administration to downplay the role of terrorist groups, especially al-Qaida, is one of the many issues the Senate Intelligence Committee must examine," he said.

NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell and NBC News producers Catherine Chomiak, Rich Gardella and Libby Leist and Reuters news service contributed to this report. 

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ISMAILIA, Egypt —  Islamist militants attacked Egypt's security headquarters in northern Sinai with machineguns and mortar bombs on Sunday and fought troops elsewhere in the desert region, killing one soldier and wounding seven, security officials said.

Troops and police had swept into a village south of Sheikh Zuwaid town, near the border with Israel, at dawn and arrested ten suspected militant leaders. They took them to the security HQ in the region's main town of al-Arish, an army spokesman said.

"In return and out of vengeance, a group of Takfiri (Islamists) began firing indiscriminately at the North Sinai HQ at 8 a.m.," the spokesman said in a televised statement.

The militants climbed on to the roofs of buildings across from the HQ and fired rocket-propelled grenades, a security source said. Machinegun battles were fought in the streets around the building, according to witnesses.

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In Sheikh Zuwaid, east of al-Arish, troops with about 30 armored personnel carriers backed by helicopters fought with militants.

One soldier was killed and seven soldiers suffered gun wounds in the fighting around Sheikh Zuwaid, the army spokesman said, and a woman and child were wounded in crossfire.

Egyptian forces last month began their biggest security crackdown in decades in Sinai after militants killed 16 border guards on August 5 in the deadliest attack there since Egypt's 1973 war with Israel.

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The government sent in hundreds of troops backed by tanks, armored vehicles and helicopters in a joint operation with police to raid militant hideouts, arrest suspects and seize weapons.

Disorder has spread in Sinai since former President Hosni Mubarak was ousted in a popular uprising last year, with Islamist militants stepping up attacks on security forces and the Israeli border. Egypt's new president, Mohamed Mursi, has vowed to restore order.

But efforts to impose central authority in the lawless desert region are complicated by the indigenous Bedouin population's ingrained hostility to the government in Cairo.

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Updated 1:36 a.m. ET: A 55-year-old Egypt-born Coptic Christian man living in the Los Angeles area was a key figure behind the anti-Islam film "Innocence of Muslims," blamed for sparking riots and protests in the Middle East, a federal law enforcement official told NBC News Thursday.

Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, who is on probation after being convicted of financial crimes, also was twice sentenced to jail on drug charges in the late 1990s, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office said.

Court records show that Nakoula was convicted on federal fraud charges in Los Angeles in 2010. Among the conditions of his probation, Nakoula was barred from using "any online service at any location" without the prior approval of his probation officer, according to a copy of court records in the case.

Federal law enforcement officials are investigating whether Nakoula violated his probation on those fraud charges in his efforts to promote the movie, an official has confirmed to NBC News. 

The official emphasized that the current probe of Nakoula relates only to whether he violated his probation order — not into the content of the inflammatory movie.

"This is not an investigation of the film," the official said, or in any way intended to infringe on his "First Amendment rights." 

It was not immediately clear whether Nakoula was the target of a criminal investigation or part of the broader U.S. investigation into the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya during an attack on the U.S. diplomatic outpost in Benghazi.

The crude and provocative anti-Islam video, blamed in part for sparking protests against U.S. diplomatic missions, was promoted by another Egyptian-born Coptic Christian named Morris Sadek on his website.

Copts make up a minority in Egypt where they have been victims of discrimination and sometimes attacks by Islamic extremists.

A trailer for the amateurish film, posted on YouTube in July and later reposted after being translated into Arabic, portrays Muhammad, the most important prophet in Islam, variously as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser.

The translated clip, shown repeatedly on Egyptian television stations in recent weeks, was blamed for sparking protests across the Middle East and North Africa and was blamed for inciting an attacks on American diplomatic missions in several Middle Eastern cities.

U.S. officials are also investigating the possibility that the deadly Libya attack was planned in advance to coincide with the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States by Islamist terrorists.

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The attack on the Libyan consulate, as it happened

The mysterious origins of the film were the subject of intense reporting.

The Associated Press was first to report that it had reached the filmmaker who said he was an Israeli-American real estate developer from California who had made the movie by raising $5 million from wealthy Jewish donors. It gradually emerged that the man, who went by "Sam Bacile," was using an alias. The film, tied to U.S.-based Christians with extreme anti-Islam views, was produced on a low budget in southern California using actors who were apparently unaware of the film’s ultimate purpose.

Some of the information leading to Nakoula came from Morris Sadek, who is also an Egyptian-born American who had promoted the film on his website. Reporting in The Atlantic also connected the film to Steve Klein, a self-described militant Christian activist in Riverside, Calif., Klein indicated that the film maker contacted him as a consultant because Klein leads anti-Islam protests outside mosques and schools.

The 13-minute English-language trailer for the film was posted on YouTube in July by an account registered to a Sam Bacile. It shows the cast performing a wooden dialogue, with insults cast as revelations about Muhammad dubbed over the top.

The Quran forbids any depiction of Muhammad, and most Muslims regard any attempt to insult him as highly offensive. A Danish newspaper's 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

Why films and cartoons of Muhammad spark violence

Actors: 'We were grossly misled'
Cindy Lee Garcia, of Bakersfield, California, who appears briefly in clips of the film posted online, said she answered a casting call last year to appear in a movie titled "Desert Warrior."

"It looks so unreal to me, it's like nothing that we even filmed was there. There was all this weird stuff there," Garcia told Reuters in a phone interview. 

Garcia said the film was shot in the summer of 2011 inside a church near Los Angeles, with actors standing in front of a "green screen," which allows background images to be added in post-production. About 50 actors were involved, she said. 

Libya pledges to help US catch American officials' killers

An expired casting notice at Backstage.com listed a film named "Desert Warrior" that it described as a low-budget "historical Arabian Desert adventure film." None of the characters were identified in the casting call as Muhammad. 

"They told me it was based on what it was like 2,000 years ago at the time of the Lord," Garcia said. "Like the time Christ was here."

A source close to the cast and crew of the film told NBC News that "Bacile" misled the actors and production crew.

"The entire crew and cast are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer," the source said. "We are 100 percent not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred."

Slideshow: Anger over film spreads around Middle East

Zoubeir Souissi / Reuters

The U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed after protesters angry over a film that ridiculed Islam's Prophet Muhammad stormed the U.S. consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, as protests spread across the region.

Launch slideshow

Nakoula's criminal background is the subject of mounting scrutiny in the wake of reports linking him to the anti-Islam movie.

In the late 1990s he was convicted on intent to manufacture methamphetamine, the Los Angeles County District Attorney's office confirmed.

After his conviction, Nakoula was sentenced to one year in jail — and then resentenced for another one year term in April 2002 after violating his probation. That was seven years before Nakoula was arrested again on federal bank fraud charges involving alleged identity theft. After pleading no contest, he was convicted in federal court in June 2010,  sentenced to 21 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $794,700 in restitution.

Court records show that in the federal identify theft case against him, Nakoula used multiple aliases, including "Youseff M. Basseley" and "Niolca Bacily," to commit bank fraud.

Nakoula told the AP he was a Coptic Christian. Although denying he was "Bacile," Nakoula was quoted as saying the film's director supporting the concerns of Christian Coptics.

Meanwhile, a film industry spokesman confirmed that a Duarte, California-based evangelical Christian group called "Media for Christ" received a one day permit last year to make the film, a Los Angeles film official confirms to NBC News.

Media for Christ runs an Arabic language satellite TV station called "Way TV," according to the group's tax returns.

"The Way TV provides its audience with prayers, sermons, and hymns 24/7 to prepare them for Christ's happy and long awaited second coming," the tax returns state.

Media for Christ applied for and received the permit to make the film in Aug. 2011, listing the title then as "Desert Warriors," said a spokesman for Film LA, a non-profit that coordinates the awarding for film permits under contracts with the city and county of Los Angeles.

The listed producer on the film was "Sam Bossil," but LA Film has no other information about him, the spokesman said. A woman who answered the phone at Media for Christ Thursday hung up the phone Thursday.

Police patrolled the cul-de-sac in suburban Cerritos, Calif., where Nakoula is believed to live, NBCLosAngeles.com reported. Officers said the resident of the home asked for security after media descended on the two-story home.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Questions swirled Wednesday around the makers of a provocative anti-Islam movie blamed by some for triggering protests at U.S. diplomatic outposts in Egypt and Libya and sparking an attack on the latter that claimed the life of the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans.

At least one clip from what is described as a feature film titled “Innocence of Muslims” was posted on YouTube and later reposted after being translated into Arabic. The clip, an amateurish production featuring dozens of actors, portrays Muhammad, believed by Muslims to be God’s prophet, as a womanizer, a homosexual and a child abuser.

Reports published by The Associated Press and the Wall Street Journalidentified the filmmaker as Sam Bacile. The AP described Bacile as a 56-year-old Israeli American real estate developer from California; the Journal said he was a 52-year-old real estate developer, but did not say where he lived. Both news organizations said that they interviewed Bacile, who was said to be in hiding, by phone, and both quoted him as saying the film was intended to show that "Islam is a cancer."

"This is a political movie," the AP quoted him as saying. "The U.S. lost a lot of money and a lot of people in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're fighting with ideas."

But by midday Wednesday, Bacile's credibility -- indeed his very existence -- were being questioned:

• The Atlantic quoted a man reported by the AP to be a consultant on the film, Steve Klein, as saying that “Bacile” is a pseudonym and that the filmmaker “is not Israeli and most likely not Jewish.”

Klein, a self-described militant Christian activist in Riverside, Calif., told the Atlantic  he doesn’t know the man’s real name and indicated that the filmmaker contacted him because he leads anti-Islam protests outside mosques and schools.

• A source close to the cast and crew of the film told NBC News that the man known as Bacile misled the actors and production crew. 

"The entire crew and cast are extremely upset and feel taken advantage of by the producer," the source said. "We are 100 percent not behind this film and were grossly misled about its intent and purpose. We are shocked by the drastic rewrites of the script and lies that were told to all involved. We are deeply saddened by the tragedies that have occurred."

• Israeli officials also told the AP that there is no record of an Israeli citizen named Sam Bacile.
• California corporate records show no one by that name as holding a real estate license there.

The 13-minute, English-language trailer was posted on YouTube in July by an account registered to Sam Bacile. The account, which was created in April, lists Bacile's age as 75 and has been used only twice apart from posting the trailer -- once to "like" another video and to make one comment, in Arabic. That comment, which referenced a debate on Egyptian TV over the "Innocence of Muslims" clip, was translated as, "Oh, Animal, it’s 100% an American movie."

The trailer shows an amateur cast performing a wooden dialogue of insults cast as revelations about Muhammad. 

Many Muslims find it offensive to depict Muhammad in any manner, let alone insult the prophet. A Danish newspaper's 2005 publication of 12 caricatures of the prophet triggered riots in many Muslim countries.

The Journal reported the film had been promoted by Terry Jones, the Florida pastor whose burning of Qurans previously sparked deadly riots in Pakistan and other Muslim nations.

Jones, the pastor of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., told NBC News on Wednesday that he aired the trailer once in his makeshift church. But he said efforts to screen it on Tuesday, the 11^th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were thwarted by technical difficulties.

"We tried to stream it … and every time we did that, it was cut off, disappeared,” he said.

A statement on the pastor’s political website, posted late Tuesday, said that the screening was to have been part of a day-long ‘International Judge Muhammad Day’ in which the Muslim prophet would be subjected to a mock trial for “promoting murder, rape, and destruction of people and property through his writings called the Koran.”

Jones also told NBC’s Kerry Sanders that he had been in contact with the movie’s producer, but did not provide financial support for its production or distribution.

The AP also reported that Morris Sadek, an Egyptian-born Coptic Christian in the United States known for his anti-Islam views, said he was promoting the video on his website and on certain TV stations, which he did not identify.

Although it was posted to YouTube in July, the film only attracted attention in the Middle East after an unknown person recently dubbed it into Egyptian Arabic. That translation, which the man who identified himself as Bacile told the AP was accurate, has been broadcast repeatedly on Egyptian media in recent weeks after being seized upon by extreme Islamists who dislike the presence of the country’s Coptic Christians.

Film news site The Wrap said the Arabic-dubbed version had garnered more than 40,000 views by Tuesday afternoon. However, that clip appeared to have been taken down on Wednesday.

The AP quoted the man who identified himself as Bacile as saying that the film was made in the summer of 2011, with 59 actors and about 45 people behind the camera. The Journal quoted him as saying that the film cost $5 million, which was raised from about 100 Jewish donors, whom he declined to identify.

The man also told the AP that the full film, which he said is three hours in length, was shown only once, to a mostly empty theater in Hollywood earlier this year.  

No record of such a screening could be found.

NBC News' Alfred Arian, Kerry Sanders and Bob Sullivan and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Two U.S. service members were killed in an insurgent attack in Afghanistan on Saturday, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said.

The attack occurred in the country's eastern Ghazni province, ISAF said, not giving any further details.

ISAF said identification of victims is deferred to the Department of Defense.

In a separate incident early Saturday, two suicide attackers -- one driving a fuel tanker -- blew themselves up near a U.S. base in the eastern Wardak province, killing at least 12 people, officials said.

The violence served as a reminder that even after a decade of fighting, tens of thousands of U.S. and foreign troops are still engaged in a war that shows no signs of slowing down despite the start of a withdrawal of coalition forces.

Seventeen villagers beheaded in southern Afghanistan after 'music party'

The U.S.-led NATO coalition said that no American or coalition troops were killed in the suicide blasts in the town of Sayed Abad, about 40 miles from Kabul. It confirmed that a number of troops were wounded, but did not say how many, in accordance with coalition policy. 

Shahidullah Shadid, a spokesman for the Wardak provincial governor, said one suicide bomber detonated a vest rigged with explosives outside a compound housing the district governor's office as well as local police and Afghan army headquarters. A second bomber driving a fuel tanker detonated his bomb on a road separating the compound from the base.

Shadid said the dead included eight civilians and four Afghan police.

'No one really cares': US deaths in Afghanistan hit 2,000 in 'forgotten' war

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack, which he said was targeting the U.S. base.

Government officials said the first attacker blew himself up to try to eliminate the Afghan security force guarding the compound and clear the way for the truck to hit the base down the road from the governor's complex. The second bomber then blew up the fuel tanker as he was approaching the base. One of the town's main bazaars is also located near the bomb site.

"A small explosion happened followed by a big one caused by a truck," said eyewitness Hamidullah, who like many Afghans goes by one name. "In these explosions a lot of people were wounded and also a large number of shops were destroyed. I fell down on the ground and everything around me was destroyed."

Officials said the second blast was far larger than the first.

"It was a very powerful explosion. It broke windows all over the area," said provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Qayum Bakizai. "Most of the injuries are from broken glass from the windows of homes and shops. It was so powerful we couldn't find much of the truck."

The governor's office said in a statement that 59 people were wounded: two NATO troops, 47 civilians and ten Afghan police officers. 

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Hoshang Hashimi / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Last year, the same base in Wardak was the target of another suicide bombing. That blast, which occurred on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the United States, wounded 77 American soldiers and killed five Afghans. No U.S. troops were killed when the massive truck bomb exploded outside the base.

The United States and other countries have already begun drawing down their forces in Afghanistan as part of a strategy that aims to hand over security responsibility to the Afghans by the end of 2014, when nearly all foreign troops are set to leave the country. President Barack Obama has pledged to remove 23,000 U.S. troops by the end of September, bringing the number of American forces down to 68,000.

What's leading Afghan troops to turn on coalition forces?

There are currently 129,000 troops serving with the coalition, according to US Maj. Gen. Joseph Reynes Jr., director of operations at the Allied Joint Forces Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands. He said earlier this week that the number will drop to 108,000 by the end of October and dip under 100,000 by the end of the year.

The troops are to be replaced by Afghan army and police units, but many have questioned the effectiveness of an Afghan force that has high desertion rates and is often poorly disciplined. The Afghan security forces are supposed to reach a high of about 350,000 at the end of the year. 

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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Ohad Zwigenberg / AFP - Getty Images

Two suspects involved in an attack on Palestinian youths on August 17, are escorted by Israeli policemen into the Magistrate's Court, in Jerusalem, on Monday.

TEL AVIV – On Thursday nights in the summer, Jerusalem’s Zion Square is full of people strolling in the pedestrian precinct, listening to music, eating ice cream, and drinking. 

But alcohol does not explain what happened there in the early hours of last Friday morning.

The near-fatal beating of a 17-year-old Palestinian Arab by a mob of dozens of Israeli Jews was explained in purely racial terms by a 15-year-old suspect in the attack.

“For my part he can die, he’s an Arab,” the suspect told reporters as he left court Monday. “If it was up to me I’d have murdered him. He cursed my mother.”

Eyewitnesses say about 40 young Israelis, egged on by a 15-year-old girl, chased four Arab youths, shouting racial insults and “Death to Arabs” at them.

The Arabs fled, but one, Jamal Julani, tripped and fell to the ground. At least 10 Israelis caught him and beat and kicked him until he was unconscious. He ended up in a coma for the next two days, only waking up on Sunday. 

No one intervened?
The attack is shocking enough for many Israelis; but just as shocking, according to the many newspaper reports and Internet comments, is that although there were hundreds of bystanders, reportedly nobody intervened to try to stop the beating. 

“There appears to be a worryingly high level of tolerance – whether explicit or implicit – for such despicable acts of violence,” the Jerusalem Post wrote in an editorial about the attack.

Seven Israeli teenagers are in custody for the beating, including four between the ages of 13 to 15, one of them a girl.

The news of the attack, described here as a “lynching,” and the detentions, have provoked chest-beating among Israelis and a debate about what influenced the attackers most: their parents or the environment outside the home.

It’s an old debate, but doubly relevant here as a perceived radicalization, believed common among Arabs, appears to be spreading among Jews, too.

Violence against Arabs has been increasing. Just the day before the Jerusalem attack, a firebomb was thrown at a Palestinian taxi driving near Bethlehem, injuring the six passengers and the driver. The police called it a “Jewish nationalist attack.”

There has been such an increase that a U.S. State Department report labels such Jewish violence against Arabs “terrorism,” a catchphrase in Israel that is rarely applied to Jews.  

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attack on Tuesday, five days after the brutal assault. 

"This is not our way, it goes against our values and we strongly condemn it," said Netanyahu, adding the state is working to bring those responsible "for this heinous crime" to justice.

Not all black and white
But there is a twist to the story. Although police said nobody tried to intervene to stop the attack, the first person to help the beaten Arab boy, according to the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, was a 23-year-old Israeli medical student called Amit.  As soon as he saw the boy, Amit began resuscitation and saved the boy’s life.  

“From the moment that Jamal was on the ground I was right there beside him, giving him CPR,” Amit told the newspaper. “He lost his pulse twice and I restored it.”

Amit, who said he pays for his studies by working as a barman and a teacher, added, “I didn’t do anything special. That’s my duty as a human being, helping someone who is sprawled on the ground.”

And although there is an obvious racial element to the attack, Amit’s response tells another part of the complex and troubled relationship between Arabs and Jews here.

 “The day after the incident, Amit went to visit Jamal in the hospital,” the newspaper reported.  “‘I saw that he was smiling and, for me, that gave me closure,’” said Amit. 

“Amit is a precious person,” said Julani’s father.  “Amit gave him CPR, he gave him first aid and he called for help. He saved his life.”

Jews nearly killed young Julani, and a Jew saved him. Now Israel is grappling with what lessons it can learn, and in particular, how to stop further racial violence.

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At least 16 Egyptian border guards were killed and seven wounded in an armed attack on a police station in Rafah, in North Sinai on the border between Egypt and Israel, on Sunday, medical and security sources said.

Egyptian state television reported that an Islamist militant group was behind the attack that came at sunset.

The Israeli military said the attack was part of a plot to abduct an Israeli soldier. Two vehicles commandeered by the attackers crashed into Israel, where one blew up and the other was struck by the Israeli air force.

In a statement, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Israel's military and the internal security agency "thwarted an attack that could have injured many. The militants' attack methods again raise the need for determined Egyptian action to enforce security and prevent terror in the Sinai."

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Egyptian state TV said the attack on the checkpoint was carried out by Islamist militants who coordinated with Palestinians who entered Egypt from Gaza and Egyptians in Sinai.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi called for an urgent meeting with the country's military council. He said the attackers "will pay dearly."

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Israeli government spokesman Ofir Gendelman said seven militants were killed, four on the Israeli side and three in Egypt.

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A picture released by the Israeli army shows a vehicle burning near the Kerem Shalom border crossing after unidentified gunmen crossed into Israel from Egypt late Sunday.

Israeli soldiers were combing the area for other militants who might still be on the Israeli side of the border. The military instructed Israeli civilians to stay inside their homes.

An Egyptian military official said Egyptian troops were pursuing the militants who returned to Egypt.

Egyptian officials have been warning of a deteriorating security situation in Sinai, where militants have taken advantage of a security vacuum in the area following the uprising that toppled longtime President Hosni Mubarak last year.

Since Mubarak stepped down, Israel has allowed Egypt to send in more troops to Sinai, which has been mostly demilitarized according to the 1979 peace deal between the two countries.

This article includes reporting by Reuters and The Associated Press.

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An Australian surfer is presumed to have been killed by a shark off the coast of Western Australia, local media reported Saturday.

The man, who has not been identified because authorities have not notified his family, was waiting to catch a wave with a friend off Wedge Island, around 100 miles north of Perth, at 9 a.m. Saturday (7 p.m. ET Friday) when he was mauled by the shark, police said. 

"It's reported to be a fatal attack," a police spokesman said according to The Australian newspaper. The AFP news agency, meanwhile, said beach patrol officials had confirmed that the man, believed to be in his twenties, had died.

However authorities were still searching for his remains — and for the shark responsible for the attack. 

It would be the fifth fatal shark attack off the coast of Western Australia since September.

According to witnesses, the surfers were around 45-55 yards offshore when the incident occurred.

"I was towing my mate on the back of the jet-ski and just in front of us saw a guy get attacked by a shark," witness Matt Holmes told Australian TV channel ABC.

"And I just took my mate to the shore and went straight out and there was just blood everywhere and a massive, massive white shark circling the body ... And I reached to grab the body and the shark came at me on the jet-ski and tried to knock me off," Holmes said.

He added that he circled back again to try to recover the body but saw the shark swim away with the remains. Holmes described the shark as being 4-5 meters (13-16 feet) long.

Tony Cappelluti, from Australia's department of fisheries, told WA Today that the attack, believed to have been by a great white shark, took place off a remote part of the beach.

All beaches near Wedge Island have been closed until further notice, authorities said.

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MAZAR-E-SHARIF, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber blew himself up at a wedding reception in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing an influential politician and at least 21 other people, police said. At least 40 people were injured.

Prominent Afghan lawmaker Ahmad Khan Samangani was hosting the wedding reception for his daughter, provincial governor Khairullah Anosh said.

The death toll makes Saturday's attack one of the most lethal in the country for months.

"It was Ahmad Khan Samangani's daughter's wedding. A suicide bomber blew himself up, killing and wounding dozens," Anosh told Reuters.

The Taliban denied responsibility for the attack.

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"We don't have a hand in this issue," spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. "Ahmad Khan (Samangani) was a former commander of the mujahideen, he was notorious and many people could have had problems with him."

A witness told BBC News that the hall where the reception was taking place was packed with around 100 people.

The suicide bomber reportedly pretended to be a guest at the wedding and greeted Samangani before detonating his explosives.

According to the BBC, a senior regional police commander related to Samangani was among those killed.

Supporter of President Karzai
Samangani, a powerful political figure from Samangan province and member of parliament, was also a former mujahideen chief who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s, and against the Taliban during their 1996-2001 rule.

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The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul reported that Samangani was a supporter of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Afghans in some parts of northern Afghanistan, which is relatively peaceful compared with volatile southern and eastern parts of the country, hold ceremonies early in the morning.

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Civilians bear the brunt of the violence in Afghanistan, which is at its worst since the Islamist Taliban government was toppled by U.S.-led Afghan forces more than a decade ago.

Taliban insurgents fighting against President Hamid Karzai's Western-backed government have carried out dozens of suicide attacks this year.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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