Pakistan Taliban Leader Killed By US Drone

The head of the Pakistani Taliban has been killed in a US drone strike, according to US and Pakistani officials.

A senior US intelligence official confirmed the strike, adding that the US has received positive confirmation that Hakimullah Mehsud has been killed.

The death was also confirmed by a senior Taliban commander, who told Reuters: "We confirm with great sorrow that our esteemed leader was martyred in a drone attack".

The strike - carried out in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region - also killed four other suspected militants, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Mehsud, who was believed to be aged in his mid-30s, was one of Pakistan's most wanted men. He has been reported dead several times before.

Mehsud (c) seen with other Taliban militants in a video from October 2009

The US offered $5m (£3.1m) for Mehsud's capture after he appeared in a video with a Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a base in Afghanistan in 2009.

Mehsud is also believed to be behind a failed car bombing in New York's Times Square in 2010, as well as brazen attacks inside Pakistan.

The US National Counterterrorism Centre describes Mehsud as "the self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistani Taliban". 

The CIA and the White House have declined to comment on the death.

The killing is the latest in a series of setbacks for the Pakistani Taliban.

A drone strike killed Mehsud's number two in May and one of his most trusted lieutenants was captured in Afghanistan last month.

The death follows months of debate over potential peace talks between the Taliban and the new government of Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who swept to a landslide victory in May elections.

The strike comes at a politically sensitive time. Pakistan's government has been trying to cut a peace deal with the militants to end years of fighting that has killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and security forces.

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Bin Laden: US Businessman Seeks $25m Reward

A businessman who claims he tipped-off the FBI about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden's secret compound is seeking a reward of $25m (£15.6m).

Gem dealer Tom Lee, 63, claims that in 2003 a Pakistani intelligence agent from a family he had known for decades, told him bin Laden was in Peshawar, Pakistan, not Afghanistan.

The man allegedly described how he had been sent on a mission by Pakistani intelligence services to relocate bin Laden and his family to a small compound in Bilal, Abbottabad.

Tom Lee claims he knew where bin Laden was hiding (pic: Mlive)

A letter sent by Lee's lawyers to FBI director James Comey in August, claims Lee subsequently shared this information with FBI agents.

But despite "numerous attempts" to claim his reward after bin Laden's death in 2011 he received no response.

"Mr Lee precisely identified the whereabouts of the most notorious terrorist of our era," said the letter.

"A man responsible for the World Trade Center attacks, the most devastating act of terror committed on American soil, and numerous other assaults on Americans."

US Navy Seals during the raid on bin Laden's hideout in 2011

Mr Lee told The Grand Rapids Press in an email on Friday that he did not understand why the government waited to act for eight years.

"It disturbs me, and it should disturb every American, that I told them exactly where bin Laden was in 2003, and they let him live another eight years," he said in the email.

Lee, who became Lord of Stanbury Manor, England in 1997 after purchasing the title, claims to have provided the FBI with intelligence before and said the lack of action surprised him.

Mr Lee allegedly told the FBI about the compound in 2003

"For 20 years I was used to the government acting immediately on my intelligence," he said.

During their hunt for bin Laden, US authorities offered the reward to anyone who supplied information that led to bin Laden's capture or conviction.

The FBI have so far refused to comment.

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John Kerry Admits NSA Spying Went 'Too Far'

By Vincent McAviney and Philip Whiteside

The US Secretary of State has publicly admitted for the first time that the National Security Agency went "too far" in some of its intelligence gathering.

John Kerry told an audience at an international summit that the NSA had been operating on "automatic pilot", rather than under full control of the government.

He had, he said, learned things about what the agency had been doing only recently, even though some of its spying programmes had been happening for some time.

Speaking via video link he said: "In some cases, I acknowledge to you, as has the President, that some of these actions have reached too far and we are going to make sure that that doesn't happen in the future.

"There is no question that the President and I, and others in government, have actually learned of some things that have been happening in many ways on automatic pilot because the technology has been there and the ability has been there over the course of a long period of time."

He made his comments to delegates at the Open Government Partnership 2013 summit, which was also attended by British Foreign Secretary William Hague.

The meeting aims to bring together politicians and others interested in making governments more open and accountable.

Although Barack Obama has promised a review into the intelligence gathering carried out by his administration, he has not actually admitted it went too far.

Mr Kerry's comments will be interpreted as an attempt to show some contrition amid a heated atmosphere in Europe.

Many politicians in France, Spain and Germany have expressed fury that communications in their countries have been intercepted.

Among the most concerned has been German Chancellor Angela Merkel who has sent a number of senior officials to Washington DC to ask for an explanation.

His comments also come the day after it emerged that the NSA hacked into cloud data storage systems operated by Yahoo and Google.

The diplomatic flak that has resulted from the scandal has threatened to drive a wedge between the US and normally friendly European governments.

Mr Kerry made his comments as part of a spirited defence of the NSA's spying programme which was first revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

He added: "Going back to World War Two and to the very difficult years of the Soviet Union Cold War and then, of course, to 9/11, the attack on the United States and the rise of radical extremism in the world that is hell-bent determined to try to kill people and blow people up and attack governments.

"Not just us, Tokyo subway, London train station, Madrid, many many parts of the world have been subject to these terrorist attacks and in response to them the United States and others came together.

"(The US and its allies) realise that we are dealing in a new world where people blow themselves up. Look at Nairobi the other day.

"So what if you were able to intercept that before it happens? We have actually prevented aeroplanes from going down, buildings from being blown up, people from being assassinated because we've been able to learn ahead of time of the plans.

"I assure you innocent people are not being abused in this process but there's an effort to try to gather information and yes, in some cases, reach too far, inappropriately, and the President, our President is determined to try to clarify and make clear for people we are now doing a thorough review in order that nobody will have a sense of abuse."

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Tijuana Drug Smuggling Super Tunnel Found

A drug smuggling "super tunnel" has been discovered by US officials linking Tijuana in Mexico to San Diego.

The tunnel had an electric rail system

It is one of the most sophisticated secret passages ever found along the US-Mexico border and "would have cost millions of dollars to complete".

Authorities seized 8.5 tonnes of marijuana and 327lbs of cocaine during the raid. Three men were also arrested.

The tunnel, linking warehouses in Tijuana and San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial area, was equipped with lighting, ventilation and an electric rail system.

It was discovered after weeks of surveillance

"They've worked very hard over a year, maybe two years to build a tunnel of this sophistication. It's taken hundreds of thousands of man hours and millions of dollars to complete," said Bill Sherman of the Drugs Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Federal agents had the San Diego warehouse under surveillance after being tipped off by an informant who told them operators bought drills and other construction equipment in August and September.

"This complex underground passageway zig-zags for about a third of a mile under the border at a depth of approximately 35ft on average," said Derek Benner of US Immigration and Customs .

Authorities seized 8.5 tonnes of marijuana and 327lbs

"The passageway is four feet in height, it's approximately three feet wide."                 

US Attorney Laura Duffy described the tunnel as sophisticated and said they were probably built by engineers and architects.

"They are hi-tech, they include railways, push carts, ventilation systems, and hydraulically-controlled steel doors," she said.

Federal agents were tipped off by an informant

The tunnel is the eighth major passage discovered in San Diego since 2006, a period during which Mexico's Sinaloa cartel has solidified its hold on the prized smuggling corridor.

Some of the largest tunnels have been discovered after central Mexico's marijuana harvest in October, which presents drug cartels with a challenge of how to quickly get their product to consumers.

In November 2011, authorities found a 1,800ft tunnel that resulted in seizures of 32 tonnes of marijuana on both sides of the border, with 26 tonnes found on the US side - one of the largest seizures in US history.

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Tunisia: Suicide Bomber Strikes At Beach Resort

A man has blown himself up at a Mediterranean resort town in Tunisia which is popular with British holidaymakers.

The man, who was wearing a belt of explosives, detonated his charge near the Riadh Palm Hotel in Sousse - moments before security forces foiled a second similar attack elsewhere.

Witnesses told Tunisian media that the man appeared to be about to enter the hotel when the bomb detonated.

It is believed to be the first suicide bombing ever to take place in the country.

A would-be suicide bomber who tried to blow himself up at the tomb of former President Habib Bourguiba in the southern city of Monastir was captured by police.

The suicide bombing was in Sousse, and a second attack foiled in Monastir

"An attempted attack targeting the compound of the Bourguiba mausoleum was foiled ... and a young man carrying explosives was arrested," said ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Laroui.

Both men appeared to belong to an extremist group, he added.

The suicide bomber in Sousse, which is situated 90 miles south of the capital Tunis, was the only person killed in the attack, the interior ministry said.

There were no immediate reports of any other casualties.

Sousse has long been a major destination for European tourism, a sector that is now recovering from a catastrophic drop following the country's 2011 revolution which kick-started the Arab Spring.

The country has been battling unrest since the overthrow of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's secular dictatorship, and has seen the rise of a hardline Islamist movement that has armed itself and carried out attacks.

Earlier this year, Tunisia's moderate Islamist government began a crackdown on Ansar al Sharia, one of the most radical groups to emerge since the uprising.

The group's leader is a former al Qaeda veteran who once fought in Afghanistan.

Nine police officers were killed in clashes with militants earlier this month.

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Tiananmen Square 'Terror Attack' Arrests

Five people have been arrested over a fatal car crash in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, as Chinese police described it as a terrorist attack for the first time.

The incident took place directly underneath the iconic portrait of Chairman Mao, which hangs on the Tiananmen Gate at the north end of the square, and represents one of the country's most symbolic locations.

The 4x4 vehicle left the main highway that crosses the square and veered into a crowd of tourists queuing to visit the Forbidden City, before bursting into flames.

The three occupants of the car were killed, while two tourists - one Chinese and one Filipino - also died, and at least 38 people were injured.

Initially, Chinese authorities said the incident was a car crash, but they have now said it was "a violent terrorist attack which was carefully planned, organised and premeditated".

Five people were killed in what authorities are now calling a terror attack

Police said knives, iron rods, fuel and a flag imprinted with religious slogans were found in the vehicle.

The authorities said that the three people in the car were from the same family - a man, named as Usmen Hasan, his wife and mother.

It is claimed they set light to the petrol inside the car causing it to catch fire.

The names released for the dead and the five suspects suggest they are members of the Muslim Uighur people of the western Xinjiang province.

The car also had a licence plate identifying it as being from that region.

The Uighurs have accused the Chinese government of violently eroding their religion and their culture.

They consider themselves to be culturally and ethnically much closer to the central Asian nations than to China and claim their ethnic identity is being diluted by the co-ordinated mass migrations of Han Chinese, the country's majority ethnic group, into the province.

Screens were put up to hide the area while a clean-up was carried out

The Chinese central government in Beijing, more than 2,000 miles to the east, has long claimed the Uighurs are waging a campaign of violence in an effort to secure themselves an independent state.

Incidents of violent clashes between Chinese state security forces and Uighurs in Xinjiang are common.

However, facts are extremely hard to verify independently because foreign journalists are restricted from reporting in the region.

At the time, no mention of Monday's crash was made on state television.

Chinese language newspapers reported simply that there was an accident in Tiananmen Square, although the English language state-run newspapers included the suggestion that there may be links to the Uighur people of Xinjiang Province.

As authorities stepped up security in Xinjiang, Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman for the main exiled Uighur group, the World Uyghur Congress, warned against believing China's side of the story.

"Beijing has always made these kind of accusations, but they refuse to make public the reasoning behind them," he said.

"They will not make the story behind the accusations transparent."

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Drone Kills Al Shabaab Bombmaker Ali Abdi

By Tim Marshall, Foreign Affairs Editor

The man said to be the master bombmaker for the al Shabaab terrorist group has been killed by a drone strike in southern Somalia.

A car carrying Ibrahim Ali Abdi, also known as Anta Anta, was hit by three missiles as it travelled along a road near the town of Jilib on Monday.

Somali intelligence sources, quoted by news agencies, said Ali Abdi was the group's explosives expert and specialised in making suicide vests and car bombs.

A witness to the attack, Hassan Nur, told Reuters he saw a drone above the Suzuki vehicle in which at least two men were travelling.

"I saw a big crash and then saw a drone disappearing far into the sky ... many al Shabaab men came to the scene," he said.

Al Shabaab was behind the September massacre on a Kenyan shopping centre

"Many cars were driving ahead of me, but the drone targeted this Suzuki."

An unnamed American official told the LA Times the strike was carried out by the US Army, but this has not been officially confirmed.

The US is known to operate drones from bases in Djibouti and southern Ethiopia.

The air strike follows a pattern of pressure bearing down on al Shabaab, which has been driven from Somalia's main towns by a combination of African Union forces and clandestine American operations. 

Al Shabaab hit back with the recent attack on a Nairobi shopping mall, but appears unable to regain any ground inside Somalia. 

The loss of its chief bombmaker is a blow to the group as it will take time to train other men up to the deadly standard of Ali Abdi.

It comes less than a fortnight since the group claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack near a military base in the city of Beledweyne, around 210 miles north of Somalian capital Mogadishu, which killed at least 13 people.

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Israel Releases More Prisoners In Peace Deal

Israel has freed 26 Palestinian prisoners as part of a deal that helped launch the current US-brokered peace talks.

Palestinian president greeted the freed prisoners in Ramallah

The group are the second batch of 104 convicts set to be released - an element of the agreement that has angered many Israelis who view them as terrorists responsible for Israeli deaths.

In an apparent attempt to offset negative domestic reaction, Israeli army radio reported plans for an expansion of controversial settlements in east Jerusalem shortly after the releases took place.

Large crowds gathered near the Ofer prison ahead of the release

A group of 21 prisoners from the West Bank left Ofer prison, near Jerusalem, shortly after 1am (11pm GMT) and the other five crossed moments later into the Gaza strip.

The West Bankers left Ofer in two minibuses with blacked-out windows and drove the short distance to the Beitunia crossing, where they were greeted with cheers and fireworks.

Right-wing Israelis protested near the jail, burning Palestinian scarves

They then drove to nearby Ramallah where they were welcomed at an official ceremony headed by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, who said that talks would not bear fruit unless some 5,000 Palestinians held by Israel go free.

"There will be no agreement if so much as one Palestinian prisoner remains behind bars," Abbas told thousands of cheering Palestinians gathered outside his headquarters in the West Bank city.

One of the first men to be released could barely contain his joy

Speaking before the army radio's report Abbas reiterated the Palestinians' denial that the prisoner release was part of an agreement to allow Israel more settlement building.

He said: "There are some living among us who say that we have a deal (to release prisoners) in exchange for settlement building, and I say to them, be silent."

Another freed prisoner greets his father after many years behind bars

The five freed Gazans were met by hundreds of relatives and well-wishers as they entered the strip through the Erez crossing from Israel.

Last week, an Israeli official claimed an expansion of large settlements, including in east Jerusalem "in the coming months", was part of "understandings" reached with both the Palestinians and Washington.

Some Israelis are disgusted at the release of men they consider terrorists

The latest army radio report said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Interior Minister Gideon Saar had agreed to build 1,500 new homes in the east Jerusalem settlement of Ramat Shlomo.

All 26 newly-released prisoners were convicted for killing Israelis, with most of the attacks occurring before the 1993 Oslo Accords, which granted the Palestinians limited self-rule but failed to usher in an independent state.

Palestinians started celebrating hours before the 26 men were released

Netanyahu agreed to release 104 prisoners in stages as part of the resumption of talks after three years in late July. A first tranche of 26 was freed on August 13.

Israel announced plans for more than 2,000 new settler homes in tandem with the August prisoner release, enraging the Palestinians.

The talks are held under a US-imposed media blackout but a senior Palestinian official said that Israel had adopted a hardline stance and negotiations had so far produced "no tangible progress".

A boy plays with a duck at the home of one of the prisoners who was freed

"The current Israeli negotiating position is the worst in more than 20 years," Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top official with the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said in a statement.

"They want security first, and that the borders of the state of Palestine should be set out according to Israeli security needs that never end, and that will undermine the possibility of establishing a sovereign Palestinian state."

A boy kisses a photo of his grandfather ahead of his release after 30 years

Although Israel is engaged in direct peace talks with the Palestinians the prisoners' release has sparked tensions within Netanyahu's coalition.

"The decision to release the prisoners is one of the most difficult I've had to make," Netanyahu told his right-wing Likud party on Monday.

"It is unjust because these terrorists are being released before completing their sentence. My heart is with the families of the victims."

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US Admits Intelligence 'Needs Constraints'

The White House has admitted it needs to consider "constraints" on how it gathers intelligence after reports the US spied on more than 60 million phone calls in Spain and 46 million in Italy in one month alone.

Spain's El Mundo, citing documents provided by the former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, said the agency monitored the phone calls from December 10, 2012, until January 8, 2013.

The monitoring did not appear to track the content of calls but their duration and where they took place, according to Spanish and Italian media reports.

The new claims come a week after Le Monde reported similar allegations of US spying in France, and German magazine Der Spiegel said Washington tapped Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone.

White House spokesman Jay Carney did not address the allegations directly but appeared to make an attempt to appease the European countries.

"With new capabilities, we recognise that there needs to be additional constraints on how we gather and use intelligence," he said.

The NSA allegedly listened in on Angela Merkel's phone calls

While stressing that US spies must focus "above all" on threats to the American people, his words seemed to offer some recognition to the view that US espionage activities overstepped the mark.

"We need to ensure that we are collecting information not just because we can, but because we should, because we need it for our security," Mr Carney said.

Spain's government has so far said it was not aware its citizens had been spied on by the NSA, and Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has said he is looking for more information.

Spain's European secretary of state and the US ambassador in Spain are scheduled to meet later.

A report in Bild am Sonntag said that Barack Obama knew three years ago that his intelligence service was eavesdropping on Ms Merkel's phone.

However, the NSA denied Mr Obama had been informed about the operation by the NSA chief in 2010, according to the Bild am Sonntag.

The US President spoke last week with the leaders of France and Germany in an effort to defuse the row.

John Kerry (L) met with Italy PM Enrico Letta (R) last week in Rome

But Ms Merkel is sending intelligence officials to Washington to seek clarification.

The row exploded months ago when revelations by Snowden exposed the scope of the US government's spying operations.

It has deepened in recent weeks when details have emerged on the alleged snooping in foreign countries and US allies.

Washington officials have defended the surveillance programmes, part of US anti-terrorism efforts.

The chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, Mike Rogers, said much of the public information on them was misguided.

"They are seeing three or four pieces of a thousand-piece puzzle and trying to come to a conclusion," he said.

Another official, Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House subcommittee on counter-terrorism and intelligence, said: "The President should stop apologising, stop being defensive."

"The reality is the NSA has saved thousands of lives, not just in the United States but also in France and Germany and throughout Europe," he said.

"We're not doing this for the fun of it.

"This is to gather valuable intelligence which helps not just us but also helps the Europeans."

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Storm Sweeps Europe After Battering Britain

Some 10 people have died in Germany, France, the Netherlands and Scandinavia after a fatal storm that struck Britain swept eastwards to northern Europe.

A Danish man was killed near Copenhagen by a collapsing wall, a woman was killed by falling trees in Amsterdam and a 47-year-old woman was found dead after being swept out to sea during a cliff walk on Belle Ile in France.

At least seven people died in Germany with falling trees killing several drivers. One man also drowned and a 66-year-old woman died when a wall collapsed on her, German media reported.

Thirteen floor high scaffolding comes down in Merksem, Antwerpen

Hurricane-strength winds cut power supplies and forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights and train journeys across the continent.

Southern Sweden was hit by torrential rain, and winds up to 84mph (136kph) blew down trees, blocking roads and bringing down power lines, leaving around than 50,000 homes without electricity.

As evening fell there were no reports of injuries in Sweden but widespread reports of property damage.

An uprooted tree falls on a houseboat in Amsterdam

All passenger trains remained halted in southern Sweden until the storm passed.

Heavy winds also swept across the low-lying Netherlands, shutting down all train traffic to Amsterdam and ripping several houseboats off their moorings.

Winds of more than 93mph (150kph) were recorded on one of the islands off the northern Dutch coast.

A ferry carrying 1,000 people from Newcastle was unable to dock in the port of Ijmuiden in northern Netherlands and returned to sea, RTL television said.

Fifty flights at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport were cancelled and Rotterdam Port, Europe's busiest, said incoming and outgoing vessels were delayed.

In Belle Ile, an island off France's northwestern Brittany coast, high winds generated waves of five to six metres, local authorities said.

Winds topping 100kph struck the north and northwest of the country felling trees, whipping up seas and cutting power supplies to around 75,000 homes, according to the ERDF electricity distribution company.

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Lou Reed: Legendary Singer Dies Aged 71

Legendary singer and songwriter Lou Reed has died in New York, aged 71.

The punk-poet died of a liver-related ailment on Sunday morning, his literary agent Andrew Wylie said. The star had a liver transplant in May this year.

Reed shared a home in Southampton, New York, with his wife Laurie Anderson, who he married in 2008.

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed was born in Brooklyn in 1942 and rose to fame as the frontman of the Velvet Underground in the late 1960s.

He moved to England to be a solo artist in the 1970s and worked with David Bowie among others.

It was during this time he produced his biggest hits, including Walk On The Wild Side and Satellite Of Love.

Another song - Perfect Day - was covered by a host of stars for a charity single.

Reed rose to fame in the Velvet Underground

In a tribute to the singer, Rolling Stone magazine said he "fused street-level urgency with elements of European avant-garde music, marrying beauty and noise, while bringing a whole new lyrical honesty to rock & roll poetry".

During his career as a solo artist, from the 1970s into the 2010s, he was "chameleonic, thorny and unpredictable", it said.

"Glam, punk and alternative rock are all unthinkable without his revelatory example. 'One chord is fine,' he once said, alluding to his bare-bones guitar style. 'Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.'"

Reed met Welsh musician John Cale in the 1960s and they formed a band called the Primitives, then changed their name to the Warlocks.

After meeting guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker, they became the Velvet Underground.

The band caught artist Andy Warhol's attention who incorporated them into his Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

"Andy would show his movies on us," Reed once said. "We wore black so you could see the movie. But we were all wearing black anyway."

Reed's trademarks were a monotone of surprising emotional range and power - slashing, grinding guitar, and lyrics that were complex, yet conversational.

Known for his cold stare and gaunt features, he was a cynic who seemed to embody downtown Manhattan culture and was as essential a New York artist as Martin Scorsese or Woody Allen.

Reed's New York was a jaded city of drag queens, drug addicts and violence, but it was also as wondrous as any Allen comedy, with so many of his songs explorations of right and wrong and quests for transcendence.

Reed pictured a few months before his death

He had one top 20 hit, Walk On the Wild Side, and many other songs that became standards among his admirers, from Heroin and Sweet Jane to Pale Blue Eyes and All Tomorrow's Parties.

An outlaw in his early years, Reed would eventually perform at the White House, have his writing published in The New Yorker, and win a Grammy in 1999 for Best Long Form Music Video.

He was one of rock's archetypal tough guys, but he grew up middle class - an accountant's son raised on Long Island.

He hated school, loved rock 'n' roll, fought with his parents and attacked them in song for forcing him to undergo electroshock therapy as a supposed "cure" for being bisexual.

"Families that live out in the suburbs often make each other cry," he later wrote.

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Obama 'Aware Of Merkel Tapping Since 2010'

A German newspaper has claimed Barack Obama knew three years ago that his intelligence service was eavesdropping on Angela Merkel - contradicting reports that he had told his counterpart he did not know.

Bild am Sonntag claimed the US President allowed US intelligence to continue listening to Mrs Merkel's calls, after being briefed on the operation by the National Security Agency in 2010.

It also alleged that Mr Obama personally authorised the monitoring of Mrs Merkel's mobile phone.

Germany received information last week that the US National Security Agency (NSA) had bugged Mrs Merkel's phone, prompting Berlin to summon the US ambassador - a move unprecedented in post-war relations between the close allies.

The NSA denied that Mr Obama had been informed about the operation by the NSA chief in 2010, as reported by the newspaper, but the agency did not comment on whether Mr Obama knew about the bugging of Mrs Merkel's phone.

Both the White House and the German government declined comment.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that the NSA ended the programme that involved Mrs Merkel after the operation was uncovered in an Obama administration review that began this summer.

The programme also involved as many as 35 other world leaders, some of whom were still being monitored, according to the WSJ report, which was attributed to US officials.

Activists in Washington DC staged a weekend protest over the NSA's tactics

Citing a source in Mrs Merkel's office, some German media have reported that Mr Obama apologised to the Chancellor when she called him on Wednesday, and told her that he would have stopped the bugging happening had he known about it.

But Bild am Sonntag, citing a "US intelligence worker involved in the NSA operation against Merkel", said NSA chief General Keith Alexander informed Mr Obama in person about it in 2010.

"Obama didn't stop the operation back then but let it continue," the newspaper quoted the source as saying.

The NSA said, however, that Gen Alexander had never discussed any intelligence operations involving Mrs Merkel with Mr Obama.

"(General) Alexander did not discuss with President Obama in 2010 an alleged foreign intelligence operation involving German Chancellor Merkel, nor has he ever discussed alleged operations involving Chancellor Merkel", NSA spokeswoman Vanee Vines said in a statement.

"News reports claiming otherwise are not true."

On Sunday, another German media publication, Der Spiegel magazine, claimed the US may have bugged Mrs Merkel's phone for more than 10 years.

It said the Chancellor's mobile had been listed by the NSA's Special Collection Service since 2002 and was still on the list weeks before Mr Obama visited Berlin in June.

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Al Qaeda-Linked Syrian Rebel Leader 'Killed'

The leader of the powerful Syrian rebel group the al Nusra Front has been killed, according to Syrian state-run TV.

According to the one-line report, Abu Mohammad al Golani was killed in the coastal province of Latakia.

It did not say when or give further details.

However the rebel group said in a statement on Saturday that its leader was in good health.

"What was claimed by one channel alone, regarding what it claimed was the killing of the emir of al Nusra Front, was a lie," said the group.

The extremist front has become one of the most effective among the rebel groups fighting President Bashar Assad's forces.

The al Nusra Front played a key part in the Battle of Aleppo

However, it has links to al Qaeda and is classed by the US, the UK and the UN as a terrorist organisation.

If al Golani's death is confirmed it will be a significant blow to rebels, who consider the group to be the "special forces" of the battle against the regime.

The group, whose goal is to overthrow Mr Assad and establish an Islamist state under Sharia law, announced its creation in January 2012 and were key players in the Battle of Aleppo.

But they have an uneasy alliance with the National Coalition for Opposition Forces and many rebel groups consider them to be too extreme.

Al Nusra is opposed to western intervention in the nearly three-year-long Syrian civil war and many members consider the US to be an enemy of Islam.

The news of al Golani's death came as a car bomb outside a mosque in Damascus killed at least 40, including seven children.

Dozens of people were wounded in the car bombing in the rebel-controlled town of Suq Wadi Barada, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Anti-regime activists blamed the attack on government forces, while state news agency SANA said "the car exploded while the terrorists were packing it with explosives".

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Merkel's Phone 'Bugged For Decade By US'

The United States may have bugged Angela Merkel's phone for more than 10 years, it has been claimed.

Der Spiegel magazine said the German chancellor's mobile telephone had been listed by the NSA's Special Collection Service (SCS) since 2002 and was still on the list weeks before Barack Obama visited Berlin in June.

Germany's outrage over reports of bugging of Ms Merkel's phone by the NSA prompted it to summon the US ambassador for the first time in living memory.

In an SCS document cited by Der Spiegel, the agency said it had a "not legally registered spying branch" in the US embassy in Berlin, the exposure of which would lead to "grave damage for the relations of the United States to another government".

Mr Obama met with Ms Merkel in Berlin earlier this year

From there, NSA and CIA staff were tapping communication in the Berlin's government district with high-tech surveillance.

Quoting a secret document from 2010, Der Spiegel said such branches existed in about 80 locations around the world, including Paris, Madrid, Rome, Prague, Geneva and Frankfurt.

The magazine said it was not clear whether the SCS had recorded conversations or just connection data.

Mr Obama apologised to Merkel when she called him on Wednesday to seek clarification on the issue, Der Spiegel wrote, citing a source in Ms Merkel's office.

Ms Merkel's spokesman and the White House declined comment.

The rift over US surveillance activities first emerged earlier this year after reports that Washington had bugged European Union offices and had tapped half a billion phone calls, emails and text messages in Germany in a typical month.

But it appeared close to resolution after Ms Merkel's government said in August - just weeks before a parliamentary election - the United States had given sufficient assurances they were upholding German law.

Mr Obama ordered a review of US surveillance programmes after former NSA contractor Edward Snowden leaked documents that raised alarm in the United States and abroad.

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