WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The effort President Bush authorized to fight al-Qaida shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, reportedly is the largest CIA covert action since the Cold War.

It has expanded in size and ambition despite a growing outcry at home and abroad over its clandestine tactics, The Washington Post said, quoting former and current intelligence officials and congressional and administration sources.

The broad-based effort, known within the agency as GST, is broken down into dozens of highly classified individual programs.

The newspaper said GST programs allow the CIA to capture al-Qaida suspects with help from foreign intelligence services, to maintain secret prisons abroad, to use interrogation techniques that some lawyers say violate international treaties and to maintain a fleet of aircraft to move detainees around the globe.

Over the past two years, as aspects of this umbrella effort have burst into public view and prompted protests and official investigations, virtually all the programs continue to operate largely as they were set up, sources told the Post.

Monitors offer to review Iraqi elections

BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A team of international monitors has offered to visit Iraq to review complaints that this month's parliamentary elections were unfair.

The offer has been welcomed by Sunnis and Shiites who alleged the vote was marred by fraud and intimidation, the BBC said. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the United Nations also voiced approval.

Early results suggest governing Shiite parties won the biggest share of the vote, followed by Kurdish groups. The final result for the Dec. 15 vote is not expected until early January.

The United Iraqi Alliance, the religious Shiite bloc that heads the current government, met Thursday with Kurdish leaders about forming a possible coalition.

Iraq's main Sunni Arab party and relatively secular Shiite politicians are demanding a rerun of this month's vote amid indications that they have not fared well at the ballot box.

At least 24 die in Pakistan avalanche

KOHISTAN, Pakistan, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- An avalanche in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 24 people who were trapped while digging for gemstones, officials said Friday.

Reports say rescue teams were able to save one person, the BBC said.

"We have found some bodies but most are still to be recovered," a regional police chief, Ataullah Wazir, said.

The deaths occurred in a remote area of Kohistan, about 210 miles northeast of Peshawar, near a region that was hit by a devastating earthquake in October. One official said it was possible a tremor had triggered the avalanche.

More than 73,000 people were killed in the October earthquake that left at least 3 million people homeless, according to officials in Pakistan.

Christmas killer linked to drive by shoot

FAIRFAX, Va., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The Virginia man accused of killing four people and himself Christmas morning was in an earlier drive-by shooting with one of his victims, police say.

Investigators said the link between Nathan Cheatham and Adam Price provided a possible motive for the slayings.

The 27-year-old Cheatham had a history of drug abuse and emotional problems and had recently stopped taking medication prescribed by a psychiatrist, authorities told the Richmond (Va.) Times-Dispatch.

Cheatham was said to have grown highly agitated, concerned that Price was talking to police about their involvement in the drive-by shooting at a Great Falls, Va., home. No one was hurt.

On Christmas morning, according to police, Cheatham shot his 53-year-old mother several times outside their McLean, Va., home, then drove to Price's home where he shot him, Price's mother and a visiting family friend. Cheatham then shot himself in the head.

U.S.planned Canada invasion -- in 1930

WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Jokes aside, the United States does indeed have a bold war plan for attacking Canada -- only thing is, it's almost 76 years old.

The Washington Post says the plan is a 94-page document that was approved by the War Department in 1930, a blueprint for battle that includes a step-by-step plan to invade, seize and annex The United States' neighbor to the north.

First, according to the plan, the U.S. military sends a joint Army-Navy overseas force to capture Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies. Then forces would seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so the Canadians would "freeze in the dark," as the Post's version said.

Then the Army invades on three fronts -- from Vermont, North Dakota and the Midwest -- while the Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.

The invasion plan was declassified in 1974, the word "SECRET" crossed out with a heavy pencil and now sits in a little gray box in the National Archives the Post said.