• Minaret of famed mosque in Syria destroyed

    AP

    This combination of two citizen journalist images provided by Aleppo Media Center shows damage to famed 12th century Umayyad mosque before and after the minaret was toppled in fighting there Wednesday.

    By Ryan Lucas, The Associated Press

    BEIRUT — The 11th-century minaret of a famed mosque that towered over the narrow stone alleyways of Aleppo's old quarter collapsed Wednesday as rebels and government troops clashed in the streets around it, depriving the ancient Syrian city of one of its most important landmarks.

    President Bashar Assad's government and the rebels trying to overthrow him traded blame over the destruction to the Umayyad Mosque, a UNESCO world heritage site and centerpiece of Aleppo's walled Old City.

    "This is like blowing up the Taj Mahal or destroying the Acropolis in Athens. This mosque is a living sanctuary," said Helga Seeden, a professor of archaeology at the American University of Beirut. "This is a disaster. In terms of heritage, this is the worst I've seen in Syria. I'm horrified."

    Aleppo, Syria's largest city and a commercial hub, emerged as a key battleground in the nation's civil war after rebels launched an offensive there last summer. Since then, the fighting has carved the city into rebel- and regime-held zones, killed thousands of people, forced thousands more to flee their homes and laid waste to entire neighborhoods.

    The Umayyad Mosque complex, which dates mostly from the 12th century, suffered extensive damage in October as both sides fought to control the walled compound in the heart of the old city. The fighting left the mosque burned, scarred by bullets and trashed. Two weeks earlier, the nearby medieval covered market, or souk, was gutted by a fire sparked by fighting.

    With thousands of years of written history, Syria is home to archaeological treasures that date back to biblical times, including the desert oasis of Palmyra, a cultural center of the ancient world. The nation's capital, Damascus, is one of the oldest continually inhabited cities in the world.

    At least five of Syria's six World Heritage sites have been damaged in the fighting, according to UNESCO, the U.N.'s cultural agency. Looters have broken into one of the world's best-preserved Crusader castles, Crac des Chevaliers, and ruins in the ancient city of Palmyra were damaged. Both rebel and regime forces have set up bases in some of Syria's significant historic sites, including citadels and Turkish bath houses, while thieves have stolen artifacts from museums.

    The destruction of the minaret — which dated to 1090 and was the oldest surviving part of the Umayyad Mosque — brought outrage and grief.

    "What is happening is a big shame," said Imad a-Khal, a 59-year-old Christian businessman in Aleppo. "Thousands of tourists used to visit this site. Every day is a black day for Syrians."

    The main Western-backed opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition, accused the government of intentionally committing "a crime against civilization and humanity" by destroying the minaret.

    "The regime has done all it can to tear apart the Syrian social fabric," the Coalition said in a statement. "By its killings and destruction of heritage, it is planting bitterness in the hearts of the people that will be difficult to erase for a long time to come."

    There were conflicting accounts about what leveled the minaret, leaving the once-soaring stone tower a pile of rubble and twisted metal scattered in the mosque's tiled courtyard.

    Syria's state news agency said rebels from the al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra group blew it up, while Aleppo-based activist Mohammed al-Khatib said a Syrian army tank fired a shell that "totally destroyed" the minaret.

    Associated Press writers Barbara Surk and Bassem Mroue in Beirut, and Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, contributed to this report.

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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    Maybe they can do the same with the one in Boston!

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  • 13 boys killed in Myanmar Islamic school fire amid anti-Muslim violence

    Damir Sagolj / Reuters

    Muslims prepare to pray around the coffins of the victims of a fire during funerals at Yaeway cemetery in Yangon, Myanmar, Tuesday.

    By Aung Hla Tun and Min Zayar Oo, Reuters

    YANGON - A fire caused by faulty electrical equipment killed 13 boys at an Islamic school in Yangon on Tuesday, the fire service said, although some Muslims voiced concern since it came after a wave of anti-Muslim violence in Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

    The boys suffocated after the fire broke out in a dormitory of the school in the central, multi-ethnic Botataung district of the former capital at about 2:40 a.m. (4:10 p.m. ET on Monday), neighbors and officials said.

    Yangon Region Fire Service said it was setting up a team to investigate the fire with the police, the electricity company and representatives from Muslim groups.

    "The fire, caused by the overheating of the transformer placed under the staircase, spread, trapping the boys sleeping in the attic. As a result, 13 twelve-year-old boys died of suffocation after inhaling smoke," a duty fire officer said, reading from a statement.

    Armed riot police cordoned off the area but the crowd that had assembled in the area remained peaceful.

    According to official records, electrical faults and overheating are major causes of fires in Yangon.

    But, against the background of the recent sectarian violence, many Muslims were "very suspicious" about the Yangon fire, said Mya Aye, a Muslim member of the 88 Generation Students' pro-democracy group.

    "We are worried and sad because innocent children died," he said.

    A funeral for the 13 boys was due to be held on Tuesday afternoon.

    Yangon, by far the biggest city in Myanmar, escaped the anti-Muslim violence in March although authorities posted police outside mosques and ordered restaurants in some areas to close early on some evenings as a precaution. 

    Related:

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    Read more Asia-Pacific stories on NBCNews.com

     

     

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • Toy model of Jabba The Hutt's palace resembles a mosque, group says

    Lego

    Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, says the Lego play set modeled on the Jabba The Hutt alien's fictional home was culturally insensitive.

    By Carlo Angerer, Producer, NBC News

    MUNICH – Danish toy maker Lego plans to stop selling a model of the “palace” of slug-like Star Wars character Jabba The Hutt after complaints that it resembles a revered mosque, according to a group that raised the grievance.

    Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, said Monday the play set modeled on the obese alien’s fictional home was culturally insensitive.

    Photo by Julian Finney / Getty Images

    Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, said the Lego version of Jabba The Hutt's palace resembles Istanbul's Hagia Sophia, a historic mosque that became a model for other centers of Islam and is now a museum.

    “This does not belong in children’s bedrooms,” he said. “And the minaret-like tower features machine guns. Children will become insensitive to violence and other cultures.”

    After a meeting between his organization and the company last week in Munich, Germany, Lego promised to stop selling the play set, Kilic said.

    Lego posted on Twitter Monday that it has always intended to stop selling the item at the end of the year. “We only keep a product in the assortment for a few years and it was scheduled to exit in 2013 from launch,” the tweet said.

    However, there was no mention of those original plans in a January press release which said: “The LEGO Group regrets that the product has caused the members of the Turkish cultural community to interpret it wrongly.”

    Roar Trangbæk, a Lego spokesman, on Monday denied that the group had anything to do with their decision.

    “The decision to terminate this particular product is not based on any dialogue with the mentioned community," Trangbæk said. "We regret the misinterpretation but we fully stand behind the product.”

    Trangbæk also said that it is the company's policy not to design models that depict religious structures. 

    The Danish toy giant has in recent years made building sets modeled on hit movies including Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, and Star Wars.

    In the 1983 science-fiction blockbuster “Return of the Jedi”, Jabba uses Princess Leia as his slave at the palace.

    Lego

    Birol Kilic, chairman of the Turkish Cultural Association of Austria, says the Lego play set modeled on the Jabba the Hutt alien's fictional home was culturally insensitive.

    Kilic believed that the Lego version, aimed at 9- to 14-year-olds, resembles Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia, a historic mosque that became a model for other centers of Islam and is now a museum in the Turkish city.

    Kilic said his organization was notified of the issue by an outraged Austrian father, whose sister had given the Lego set to his son last Christmas. The father returned the toy to the store, Kilic said, and the Turkish Cultural Association petitioned Lego to drop the play set from its line-up.

    Kilic said the issue was not merely cultural, but also a reminder that parents should be more thoughtful about what toys their kids play with.

    “We’re not the Taliban of Vienna,” he said of his independent, Vienna-based organization with about 700 members, “but we do give thought to our country and our continent.”

     

    This story was originally published on Mon Apr 1, 2013 10:44 AM EDT

  • Syria's Assad pledges to 'wipe out' extremists after suicide attack kills top preacher

    SANA via AP

    The desk of Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti is seen after a suicide bomber blew himself up at a mosque in Damascus, Syria, on Thursday.

    By Albert Aji and Bassem Mroue, The Associated Press

    DAMASCUS, Syria — Bashar Assad vowed on Friday to rid the country of Muslim extremists whom he blamed for a suicide blast that killed dozens of people, including a top Sunni preacher who was a staunch supporter of the Syrian president.

    And, in a warning to rebels battling to topple his regime, the Syrian leader pledged that his troops will "wipe out" and clear the country of the "forces of darkness."

    Assad's statement came as the Syrian health ministry raised the death toll from Thursday night's bombing in Damascus to 49, after seven of the wounded died overnight in hospital.


    In the attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a mosque in the heart of the Syrian capital, killing Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti as he was giving a sermon. The blast also wounded 84 people.

    The government declared Saturday as a day of mourning and state-run Syrian TV halted its regular programs on Friday to air readings from the Muslim holy book, the Quran, as well as speeches by the late cleric.

    His killing was one of the most stunning assassinations of the two-year civil war and marked a new low in the conflict.

    While suicide bombings blamed on Islamic extremists fighting with the rebels have become common, the latest attack was the first time a suicide bomber detonated his explosives inside a mosque.

    Youssef Badawi / EPA, file

    Sheik Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti, was killed while delivering a sermon on Thursday.

    The grandson of the 84-year-old al-Buti was among those killed in the attack.

    In the statement carried by Syria's state SUNA news agency, Assad said al-Buti represented true Islam in facing "the forces of darkness and extremist" ideology.

    "Your blood and your grandson's, as well as that of all the nation's martyrs will not go in vain because we will continue to follow your thinking to wipe out their darkness and clear our country of them," Assad said.

    Syria's crisis started in March 2011 as peaceful protests against Assad's authoritarian rule. The revolt turned into a civil war as some opposition supporters took up arms the fight a harsh government crackdown on dissent. The United Nations says more than 70,000 people have been killed since.

    Al-Buti was the most senior religious figure to be killed in Syria's civil war and his slaying was a major blow to Assad.

    The preacher had been a vocal supporter of the regime since the early days of Assad's father and predecessor, the late President Hafez Assad, providing a Sunni cover and legitimacy to their rule.

    Sunnis are the majority sect in Syria while Assad is from the minority Alawite sect — an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

    President Obama says the US would hold Syria accountable if it used chemical weapons at a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

    In a speech earlier this month, al-Buti had said it was "a religious duty to protect the values, the land and the nation" of Syria.

    "There is no difference between the army and the rest of the nation," he said at the time — a clear endorsement of Assad's forces in their effort to crush the rebels.

    The mosque bombing was also among the most serious security breaches in Damascus. In July, an attack that targeted a high-level government crisis meeting killed four top regime officials, including Assad's brother-in-law and the defense minister.

    Last month, a car bomb that struck in the same area, which houses the headquarters of Syria's ruling Baath party, killed at least 53 people and wounded more than 200.

    Related:

    'Suffocating in the streets': Chemical weapons attack reported in Syria

    On the Brink: Syria chaos looms large over Obama's Israel trip

    Full Syria coverage from NBC News

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Blast in Damascus mosque reportedly kills dozens, including senior imam

    SANA via AP

    The Iman Mosque in central Damascus after an explosion that reportedly killed 42 people, including a well-known pro-government cleric on Thursday, Mar. 21, 2013, in an image provided by the Syrian government. State TV said a suicide bomber blew himself up during evening prayers.

    By Reuters

    BEIRUT — An explosion at a mosque in the Syrian capital on Thursday killed at least 42 people, including a senior pro-government Muslim cleric, and wounded 84, the Syrian health ministry said.

    State television and anti-government activists had earlier reported 15 dead. The television said a "terrorist suicide blast" hit the Iman Mosque in central Damascus, and Mohammed al-Buti, imam of the ancient Ummayyad Mosque, was among the dead.


    Buti, a government-appointed cleric reviled by the Syrian opposition movement, delivered the official weekly Friday mosque sermons on state television.

    In one of his televised speeches, Buti described those fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad as 'scum'. He also used his position to call on Syrians to join the armed forces and help Assad defeat his rivals in the country's two-year-long rebellion.

    Syria TV said the explosion was a "terrorist suicide blast."

    Rebel spokesman Loay Maqdad said units associated with the opposition's Free Syrian Army were not behind the attack.

    "We in the Free Syrian Army do not take any responsibility for this operation. We do not do these types of suicide bombings and we do not target mosques,'' he told Al Arabiya television.

    Youssef Badawi / EPA

    Mohammed al-Buti, Syria's main Islamic scholar, who reportedly was killed in a blast at the Iman Mosque in Damascus on Thursday.
    Al-Bouti was killed while delivering a sermon media reports said.

    Video released by Syria's al-Ikhbariya channel showed dozens of limp bodies lying on the bloodied carpet of the mosque, as emergency workers rushed in to give survivors first aid. Mangled limbs lay among the wreckage.

    The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of activists across Syria, earlier reported that 15 had died in the blast. The group said it was unclear if the explosion was caused by a car bomb or a mortar shell.

    The Iman mosque is also next to the offices of Assad's ruling Baath party as well as other government compounds.

    Locals were panicked after the blast late on Thursday and described seeing ambulances rushing to the area while traffic came to a standstill. Residents near the mosque said the strong, acrid smell of gun powder still hung in the air.

    Buti, 84, led the funeral prayers for Bashar al-Assad's father, the late President Hafez al-Assad.

    Pro-Assad imam
    The imam's critics saw him as a religious mouthpiece in support of Assad. When the revolt started in March 2011, he quickly threw his support behind the Assad family, which has ruled Syria for more than four decades.

    Buti was a Sunni Muslim, the sect which makes up the majority of Syria's population.

    Sunnis have led the revolt against Assad, a movement that began as peaceful protests but devolved into bloody civil war that has sparked sectarian bloodshed between Sunnis and Assad's minority Alawite population.

    It was unclear who was behind the Damascus blast, although Syria TV immediately accused "terrorists," a term frequently used to described rebels. If opposition fighters were responsible, it would signal the ease with which they are able to strike in the heart of the capital compared to a year ago.

    Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

  • 4 arrested in Egypt after shoe thrown at Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

    Amr Abdallah Dalsh / Reuters

    Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad meets people as he visits the Al-Hussein mosque, named after Prophet Mohammed's grandson Hussein ibn Ali, in old Cairo on Feb. 5, 2013. Ahmadinejad was both kissed and scolded on Tuesday when he began the first visit to Egypt by an Iranian president since Tehran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

    By Ayman Mohyeldin, Correspondent, NBC News

    CAIRO -- Egypt's security arrested four men who were protesting outside a Cairo mosque, where the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was praying.

    The men, including a Syrian, belong to the ultra-conservative Sunni Salafist movement.

    One man threw a shoe at Ahmadinejad, a Shiite, who was never in any danger.

    The Al-Hussein Mosque is revered by Shiite Muslims, who are widely disliked by conservative Sunni Muslims, including members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi was previously a member of the Brotherhood.

    Many Sunni Muslim groups have denounced the Iranian president’s visit to Cairo and have called on Egypt’s government to prevent Ahmadinejad from visiting any religious sites that are significant to Shiite Muslims.

    Ahmadinejad met with Sunni Islam's most senior scholar at Al Azhar shortly before he went to pray at the Al-Hussein Mosque.

  • Bulldozer wrecks Sufi mosque and graves in Libya sectarian attack

    Mahmud Turkia / AFP - Getty Images

    Libyan Islamist hardliners use a bulldozer to raze the mausoleum of Al-Shaab Al-Dahman near the centre of Tripoli on Saturday.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Attackers bulldozed a mosque containing Sufi Muslim graves in the center of Tripoli in broad daylight on Saturday, in what appeared to be Libya's most blatant sectarian attack since the overthrow of Moammar Gadhafi.

    Government officials condemned the demolition of the large Sha'ab mosque and blamed an armed group who, they said, considered its graves and shrines to Sufi figures un-Islamic.

    It was the second razing of a Sufi site in two days. Ultra-conservative Islamists wrecked Sufi shrines with bombs and another bulldozer and set fire to a mosque library in the city of Zlitan in the early hours of Friday, an official said.

    Libya's rulers have struggled to control armed groups who are competing for power in the north African country a year after Gadhafi’s fall.

    Ismail Zitouny / Reuters

    A grave sits empty after Libyan Salafis Muslims destroyed a Sufi mosque in central Tripoli Saturday.

    The president of Libya's newly elected National Congress, Mohamed al-Magariaf, called the prime minister to an emergency meeting on Sunday.

    "What is truly regrettable and suspicious is that some of those who took part in these destruction activities are supposed to be of the security forces and from the revolutionaries," Magariaf told reporters on Saturday night.

    He did not elaborate on how security forces took part.

    The English-language Libyan Herald news site reported that three journalists from the Al-Assema television station were detained by security forces as they tried to cover the destruction.

    It said their detention was “a clear violation of press freedom in Libya”.

    Security forces “sought to cordon off the site throughout the demolition and were hostile to any attempts by journalists to cover the situation,” it reported.

    Slideshow: Conflict in Libya

    Goran Tomasevic / REUTERS

    An uprising in Libya ousts dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

    Launch slideshow

    A Reuters reporter saw the bulldozer level the Sha'ab mosque as police surrounded the site and prevented people from approaching and did not stop the demolition.

    Inside the mosque, empty graves lay gaping in the rubble.

    "A large number of armed militias carrying medium and heavy weapons arrived at the al-Sha'ab mosque with the intention to destroy the mosque because of their belief graves are anti-Islamic," said a government official who declined to be named.

    He told Reuters that authorities tried to stop them but, after a small clash, decided to seal off the area while the demolition took place to prevent any violence spreading.

    "The SSC (Libya's Supreme Security Council) joins the ... condemnation," said council spokesman Abdel Moneim al-Hurr.

    Pictures and video of the attack were posted on Twitter by user Thanku4theanger.

    A man who appeared to be overseeing the demolition told Reuters the interior ministry had authorized the operation after discovering people had been worshipping the graves and practicing "black magic". The ministry was not available for comment.

    One of Libya's highest-profile cultural clashes since the toppling of Gadhafi has been between followers of the mystical Sufi tradition and ultra-conservative Salafis, who say Islam should return to the simple ways followed by its prophet.

    Salafis have formed a number of armed brigades in Libya. They reject as idolatrous many Sufi devotions - which include dancing and the building of shrines to venerated figures.

    Conservative Muslims across the region - emboldened by the Arab Spring revolts - have targeted Sufi sites in Egypt, Mali and other parts of Libya over the past year.

    The assaults recalled the 2001 dynamiting by the Taliban of two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.

    Could sun-soaked Libya be the Mediterranean's next tourism hot spot?

    The Sha'ab mosque housed close to 50 Sufi graves inside and, outside, the tombs of Libyan Sufi scholar Abdullah al-Sha'ab and a martyr who fought Spanish colonialists.

    Mahmud Turkia / AFP - Getty Images

    A picture shows the destroyed section of the mausoleum of Al-Shaab Al-Dahman near the centre of Tripoli on Saturday after Islamist hardliners bulldozed part of the revered mausoleum in the second such attack in Libya in two days.

    On Friday attackers razed the revered resting place of Abdel Salam al-Asmar in Zlitan, about 160 km (90 miles) west of the capital, and also set fire to a historic library in a nearby mosque, ruining thousands of books.

    The destruction followed two days of clashes between tribal groups in Zlitan, said a local official.

    "The extremist Salafis took advantage (of the fact) that security officials were busy calming down the clashes and they desecrated the shrine," Zlitan military council official Omar Ali told Reuters.

    Sufi scholar and caretaker of the Asmar shrine in Zlitan Mohammed Salem said the government was coming under increasing political pressure from ultra-conservatives.

    A Facebook page titled "Together for the Removal of the Abdel Salam al-Asmar Shrine" congratulated supporters on the "successful removal of the Asmar shrine, the largest sign of idolatry in Libya."

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Suicide bomber kills 26 outside Shiite mosque in northwest Pakistan

    By msnbc.com news services

    A suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest outside a mosque in a Shiite neighborhood Friday in Pakistan's northwestern Kurram tribal region, killing at least 26 people, government officials said.

    Three more people were killed when police shot at protesters from the Shiite community after the bombing in Parachinar, the main town in Kurram, an official said. A curfew was imposed in the town.

    The bomber struck outside the mosque in a busy market after Friday prayers, in the latest attack by Sunni militants against minority Shi'ites.

    Kurram, the only part of Pakistan's border region that has a significant Shiite population, has been racked by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi'ite tribes. The Taliban and al Qaeda's virulent anti-Shiite ideology has meant years of bloody fighting.

    Fazal Saeed, leader of a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the latest attack in Kurram, near the Afghan border.

    "We have targeted the Shiite community of Parachinar because they were involved in activities against us," he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

    "We also warn the political administration of Parachinar to stop siding with the Shi'ite community in all our disputes."

    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.

    Saeed was part of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) but broke away last year after disputes with the umbrella militant group's leadership.

    He is said to have close ties with the Haqqani militant group, one of the most feared factions of the Afghan Taliban.

    The TTP, al Qaeda, and the Afghan Taliban movement fighting Western forces in Afghanistan are entrenched in Pakistan's northwestern tribal areas. All have been involved in anti-Shiite activities for years.

    They continue to have strongholds in the region despite a series of military operations in the last few years.

    Pakistan's army and air force have been conducting operations against militant groups in Kurram since the beginning of the year. Dozens have been killed in fierce fighting this month.

    The blast came as Pakistan's foreign minister said it would be "preposterous" for Afghanistan to expect Islamabad to deliver the Taliban's leader to the negotiating table, as talks between the two countries on the peace process ended with little sign of progress.

    The apparent gridlock shows the difficulties inherent in the peace process, which the United States is strongly pushing as a way to end the 10-year-old Afghan war and allow it to withdraw most of its combat troops by 2014 without the country further descending into chaos.

    Pakistan is seen as key to the process because Taliban chief Mullah Omar and other senior commanders are believed to be based in the country. Islamabad has close historical ties to the group but has always denied that the Taliban leadership is based within its borders. Analysts say Pakistan can either help the talks or act as a spoiler.

    It's unclear whether Afghan President Hamid Karzai asked for access to Omar during his current visit to Islamabad, and he made no public mention of the cleric. But he has called on Pakistan in the past to facilitate contact with the insurgent group's leaders.

    Leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran held a three-way summit in Islamabad over the past two days that focused on Taliban peace talks, including steps Pakistan could take to help the process, and other regional issues. The summit ended Friday.

    However, Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar indicated her government was still uncertain on exactly what Afghanistan wanted, saying "they have not conveyed that clarity to us."

    Karzai also seemed to indicate the process going forward was uncertain.

    "What we need now is to formulate a policy that is actionable and implementable, and actually act upon it," Karzai said at a press conference featuring Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Khar's comments came as she spoke to reporters after the press conference.

    The foreign minister cautioned against Kabul expecting too much in terms of Pakistan providing access to the Taliban's leaders.

    "If you have unrealistic, almost ridiculous expectations, then you don't have common ground to begin with," said Khar.

    Khar said that any expectation that Pakistan can deliver the Taliban's chief for talks is "not only unrealistic, but preposterous."

    Pakistan and Afghanistan have long had a troubled relationship, one that grew more difficult last year when a suicide bomber assassinated former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul. He had been serving as Afghanistan's envoy to Taliban peace talks, and Afghan officials accused Pakistan of playing a role in the killing — allegations it denied.

    There have been some signs that momentum for Taliban peace talks has been growing.

    The Taliban are setting up an office in the tiny Gulf state of Qatar in the first step toward formal negotiations. Also, the Obama administration is considering releasing five top Taliban leaders from the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay as a starting point for talks.

    But the process has also been riddled with rumor and uncertainty.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

    More from msnbc.com and NBC News:

  • Jewish settlers eyed after another mosque burns

    Atef Safadi / EPA

    Palestinian women examine damage at a mosque in the West Bank village of Burqa on Thursday.

    By msnbc.com news services

    RAMALLAH, West Bank -- Vandals set fire to another mosque in the West Bank on Thursday and defaced it with Hebrew graffiti after Israeli forces tore down structures in a settler-outpost built without government approval.

    Suspicion fell on Jewish extremists widely assumed to be behind stepped-up violence against Palestinians and the Israeli military.

    The governor of Ramallah, Laila Ghanam, said arsonists doused the mosque in the village of Burqa with gasoline, then set it afire.

    "Thankfully, the torching occurred shortly before dawn prayers, and the villagers who arrived at the mosque put out the fire," said Mahmoud al-Habash, the Palestinian minister of religious affairs.

    'War'
    The Hebrew words for "war" and "Mitzpe Yitzhar" were painted in red on a wall, and the Israeli military said carpets and chairs were burned.

    Mitzpe Yitzhar is an unauthorized Jewish settlement outpost in the West Bank where Israeli security forces demolished two structures early Thursday.

    The vandalism appeared to be the latest act of defiance by militant settlers whom Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to rein in after similar attacks on mosques and vandalism at an Israeli military base.

    On Wednesday, radical Jews burnt the exterior of an unused Jerusalem mosque and scrawled "Death to the Arabs" on its walls.

    A day earlier, young Jewish settlers rampaged through a military base in the occupied West Bank. The attack against the armed forces, an institution revered by many Israelis, sent shock waves through Israel.

    In a statement on Thursday, Israeli President Shimon Peres condemned the settler attacks and said they were "pouring oil on the flames" of hostility towards Israel in a tense Middle East already in political turmoil.

    The Palestinian Authority described the mosque burnings as "hate crimes" and in a statement called on the international community to hold the Israeli government responsible for settler violence.

    In recent years, settlers have attacked Palestinian and Israeli military targets in retaliation for Israeli government operations they see as overly sympathetic to Palestinians.

    Night-time sabotage
    The increasing frequency of the attacks, the sparse number of arrests and paucity of indictments have generated allegations that the Israeli government isn't acting forcefully enough against extremists after two years of violence.

    On Wednesday, following an assault on an Israeli military base, Netanyahu approved measures to clamp down on extremists, including giving soldiers the authority to make arrests and to ban extremists from contentious areas.

    Attempts to demolish unauthorized outposts have been resisted by radicals who scuffle with troops or carry out night-time sabotage to inflict what they call the "price tag" for "selling out" the settlements.

    Most countries regard as illegal all of the settlements that Israel has built in territory it captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians seek for a future state. Israel cites historical and biblical links to the land it refers to as Judea and Samaria.

    Although Israel continues to expand larger official settlements, it has been evacuating smaller, unauthorized outposts, in line with court orders to move against them.

    Read more content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

  • Israeli missile kills 2 near crowded Gaza park

    Adel Hana / AP

    Palestinians gather around the wreckage of a car destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City on Thursday.

    By msnbc.com news services

    An Israeli airstrike on a car near a crowded park in downtown Gaza City killed two suspected militants on Thursday, the second such attack this week after a period of relative calm along the Israeli-Gaza border.

    Similar flare-ups have in the past escalated into a wider confrontations between Israel and Hamas-ruled Gaza. After Thursday's strike, Israel's military alleged the two men in the car had planned to infiltrate Israel to attack soldiers and civilians, but provided no details.

    It said one of the militants had been involved in a suicide bombing in Israel five years ago that killed three Israeli civilians. It identified the other as his nephew, a member of Hamas' military wing. Reuters reported that the men were identified as Essam Al-Batsh and Sobhi Al-Batsh.

    Hundreds of Palestinans crowded around the charred remains of the car, which was hit in the bright afternoon sunshine on a main urban thoroughfare.

    Ball of fire
    The missile set off an explosion that turned the car into a ball of fire. Onlookers arriving moments later saw the body of a man sprawled near the vehicle with much of his head missing. A dismembered leg and hand of a second person lay on the ground nearby.

    Five bystanders were also wounded in the blast, said Adham Abu Salima, an official in the Gaza Health Ministry.

    Ihab Ghussein, spokesman for the Gaza Interior Ministry, said the airstrike was "an unjustified crime committed in a populated area and is part of a recent escalation against the Gaza Strip."

    Israel repeatedly has targeted vehicles carrying suspected militants in missile strikes, including an attack early Wednesday that killed one militant and wounded two.

    Hamas and Israel carried out an Egyptian- and German-brokered prisoner swap in mid-October that stirred expectations of a possible broader accommodation, although the governing Islamist movement spurns permanent peace with the Jewish state.

    Walkway controversy
    In another source of friction, Jerusalem municipal officials announced they would shut down a walkway to a contested shrine at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a move liable to touch off a new round of violence between Muslims and Jews in the volatile holy city.

    Any work in the area around the Old City compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary draws fierce condemnation and sometimes violence from Palestinians, many of whom suspect Israel wants to harm Muslim shrines. An official with the Muslim clerical body that runs the complex warned that protests were liable to break out this time, too.

    The municipality says the wooden walkway leading to one of the hilltop site's gates — built as a temporary structure after a centuries-old ramp was damaged in a 2004 snowstorm — is a fire hazard and structurally unsound and must be replaced.

    In a letter released Thursday, Jerusalem city engineer Shlomo Eshkol informed authorities of his plan to block access to the walkway to all but security forces. The shutdown could take place immediately after a one-week public comment period.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu halted a plan to demolish the walkway last month, fearing a Muslim backlash at a time when pre-election violence was roiling neighboring Egypt. A spokesman for Netanyahu was not available Thursday for comment on the Jerusalem municipality's latest move.

    The walkway is not the only access to the contested complex, which Israel captured from Jordan along with the rest of east Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. But the compound's centrality to both Islam and Judaism makes it one of the most combustible sites in the world. Clashes there in the past have ignited broader violence.

    Biblical temples
    Muslims believe their Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from the site, which is home to the golden-capped Dome of the Rock shrine and the Al-Aqsa mosque. It is Islam's third-holiest shrine.

    The compound is venerated by Jews as the site of their biblical temples. The Western Wall, Judaism's holiest prayer site, stands at the foot of the complex, and a women's prayer area is situated right near the walkway.

    A Muslim clerical trust known as the Waqf runs the compound under Israel's overall security control.

    Yusuf Natsheh, director of the Waqf administration, said the Waqf was not consulted about the plan to shut down the walkway, which he called a "disastrous" policy liable to touch off protests.

    "This is a very sensitive issue," he said. "It is so close to the mosque, and Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims ... all over the world will be unhappy."

    They think Israelis are "eradicating their historic road, they are eradicating their heritage" under the guise of security concerns, he said.

    Nearly five years ago, hundreds of Israeli police fired stun grenades and tear gas to disperse thousands of Muslim worshippers who hurled stones, bottles and trash in outrage over earlier Israeli repair work in the area.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.