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The Taliban said Tuesday that its suicide bombers would attack restaurants where Westerners eat in Kabul, an ominous new threat that forced American and European workers to restrict outings in the Afghan capital. The country's intelligence chief linked Monday's deadly attack on the Serena Hotel—a well-guarded, high-profile property in Kabul frequented by Westerners—to a Pakistani militant. Afghan officials arrested four people, and said they included one of the three attackers, who was disguised in a police uniform for the assault. The death toll in the bombing and shooting attack on the hotel rose to eight. An American, a Norwegian journalist and a Filipina who died of her wounds Tuesday were among those killed. "We will target all these restaurants in Kabul where foreigners are eating," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press by telephone. "We have jihadists in Kabul right now and soon we will carry out more attacks against military personnel and foreigners."

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President Bush used his visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday to push for increased oil production to help the U.S. economy by forcing fuel costs down. Oil prices have peaked at $100 a barrel and are hovering just below triple digits, adding to fears that historically high fuel prices could help push the U.S. economy into recession. "Oil prices are very high, which is tough on our economy," Bush said on the second day of his visit to the Islamic kingdom -- one of the key members of the OPEC oil cartel. "I would hope, as OPEC considers different production levels, that they understand that if ... one of their biggest consumers' economy suffers, it will mean less purchases, less gas and oil sold," Bush said.

Source: New York Times -- Read Full Story

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice flew to Baghdad on Tuesday, peeling off during a trip to the region by President Bush to give momentum to legislative and political reconciliation in Iraq, the White House said. Ms. Rice’s trip, which was not previously announced, came after Iraq’s parliament gave approval on Saturday to a key piece of legislation allowing some former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to work in public service again and receive pensions. The Bush administration and Congress had made the legislation a benchmark for measuring political progress in Iraq as Democrats and others critics of the war debate the war. At a press conference with the Iraqi foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, Ms. Rice praised the law, and said Iraq was making progress on both security and political reconciliation.

Source: ABC News -- Read Full Story

According to an internal report prepared by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and described to ABC News, the militant assault on a luxury hotel in Afghanistan appears to have been a coordinated attack. The report warns that a secondary attack could be "imminent," though it does not explain the reason for those fears or what the target might be. According to the report, the attack on the Serena Hotel, a popular spot among foreign nationals in Kabul, began when a rocket-propelled grenade round was fired into the entrance of the hotel. Four Afghan insurgents then entered the hotel compound wearing suicide vests. At least two of them were able to detonate themselves, the report said. At least six people were killed in the attack.

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President Bush gently nudged authoritarian Arab allies Sunday to satisfy frustrated desires for democracy in the Mideast and saved his harshest criticism for Iran, branding it "the world's leading state-sponsor of terror." Speaking in this Persian Gulf country, about 150 miles from the shores of Iran, Bush said Tehran threatens nations everywhere and that the United States was "rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late." The warning about Iran was much tougher than Bush's admonition about spreading democracy in the Middle East, which had been billed as the central theme of his speech. In a region of autocratic rulers, Bush did not single out any country for criticism. He spoke about democracy in a deeply undemocratic country, the United Arab Emirates, where an elite of royal rulers makes virtually all the decisions. Large numbers of foreign resident workers have few legal or human rights, including no right to protest working conditions.

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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas agreed Sunday to authorize peace talks, which could begin Monday, according to the offices of both leaders. Olmert and Abbas said they would tell negotiating teams to "conduct direct and ongoing negotiations on all final status" and core issues, the prime minister's office said. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is slated to meet with former Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei on Monday, said Aryeh Mekel, a spokesman for Livni. However, he said the meeting may only be to discuss procedural issues regarding the negotiations, rather than the core issues themselves. The "core issues" include Israeli settlements in the West Bank; the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel; the future status of Jerusalem; borders; security and water supply.

Source: Washington Post -- Read Full Story

President Bush launched a new round of personal diplomacy with Persian Gulf nations Friday aimed at persuading Arab countries to support U.S. efforts to achieve Palestinian-Israeli peace, contain Iran and stabilize Iraq. Bush arrived here for meetings Friday night with Emir Sabah Ahmed al-Sabah, ruler of this tiny nation rescued by the United States and its allies after the 1990 invasion by Iraq. Bush will also visit Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates; officials say a major subject for conversation on the tour is how to cope with the rising regional influence of Iran and its nuclear ambitions.

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Shiite and Sunni members of Iraq's parliament buried their differences on Saturday to pass a controversial bill allowing former officials of Saddam Hussein's Baath party to return to public life. The bill, regarded by Washington as vital to boosting reconciliation efforts in Iraq, had been stalled before parliament by hardline Shiites who demanded that it also include measures to compensate victims of Saddam's regime. It was passed unanimously by the 143 lawmakers present in the 275-member house. The Justice and Accountability Law makes a distinction between two categories of Baath party officials who have been barred from state employment since the aftermath of the US-led invasion of March 2003. Only senior party leaders who implemented the oppressive policies of the regime would remain subject to the ban. Middle-ranking officials not implicated in any crimes would be able to resume government jobs.

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President Bush had tears in his eyes during an hour-long tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial Friday and told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the U.S. should have bombed Auschwitz to halt the killing, the memorial's chairman said. Bush emerged from a tour of the Yad Vashem memorial calling it a "sobering reminder" that evil must be resisted, and praising victims for not losing their faith. Wearing a yarmulke, Bush placed a red-white-and-blue wreath on a stone slab that covers ashes of Holocaust victims taken from six extermination camps. He also lit a torch memorializing the victims. Bush was visibly moved as he toured the site, said Yad Vashem's chairman, Avner Shalev. "Twice, I saw tears well up in his eyes," Shalev said. At one point, Bush viewed aerial photos of the Auschwitz camp taken during the war by U.S. forces and called Rice over to discuss why the American government had decided against bombing the site, Shalev said.

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Sir Edmund Hillary, the lanky New Zealand mountaineer and explorer who with Tenzing Norgay, his Sherpa guide, won worldwide acclaim in 1953 by becoming the first to scale the 29,035-foot summit of Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak, died Friday in Auckland, New Zealand. He was 88. His death was announced by Prime Minister Helen Clark of New Zealand. In the annals of great heroic exploits, the conquest of Mount Everest by Sir Edmund and Mr. Norgay ranks with the first trek to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen in 1911 and the first nonstop trans-Atlantic flight by Charles A. Lindbergh in 1927.