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Purported bin Laden call for jihad posted

GAZA, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden apparently released a new audio message calling for a holy war against Israel for its military operation in Gaza, CNN reported.

The message is "an invitation" from bin Laden, who is in hiding, to listeners to participate in a "jihad to stop the aggression against Gaza," the cable news broadcaster reported Wednesday.

The message was on an Islamist Web site known for posting bin Laden's statements, CNN said, adding it couldn't independently confirm the authenticity of the message. The voice, however, was similar to other recordings bin Laden made.

Bin Laden's last audio message was in mid-May, coinciding with Israel's 60th anniversary, in which he urged followers to liberate Palestine.

Israel began a military operation in Hamas-controlled Gaza on Dec. 27, saying it wanted to halt the firing of rockets from the Gaza Strip onto targets in Israel.

Bush: President's priority is U.S. safety

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. president's highest priority is preventing another terrorist attack on American soil, President George Bush said.

"The most important job I have had -- and the most important job the next president is going to have -- is to protect the American people from another attack," Bush said during an appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live."

He said his administration "learned a lot of information about al-Qaida that we didn't know before," but declined to be more specific during the interview Tuesday.

Bush, appearing on the show with his wife, Laura, dismissed his low approval ratings, calling opinion polls "nothing but a shot of yesterday's news."

Bush said decisions his administration made regarding Iraq weren't in error.

"What I was worried about, (was) Iraq going to fail -- not Iraq was wrong," he said. "And the surge has worked and a young democracy in the heart of the Middle East has taken hold. There's more work to be done."

Bush also cautioned his successor, Barack Obama, against becoming an economic forecaster.

"I think he can say it's going to be a tough period, but to predict what the economy is going to do ... it is going to be bad. How bad? How long?" Bush said. "What he ought to be saying -- and I know he feels this way -- is he's going to take the steps he thinks are necessary to get us back on the road to recovery and we will recover."

61 freed detainees said back in terror

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- U.S. military officials say dozens of detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, military prison camp have likely returned to terrorism activities.

U.S. Defense Department spokesman Geoff Morrell told reporters Tuesday that since 2002, 61 former detainees have committed or are suspected to have committed attacks after being released from Guantanamo, CNN reported.

That number is a significant jump over the Pentagon's last report in March 2008, which indicated that only 37 former detainees had been suspected of returning to terrorism activities since 2002. More than 100 Guantanamo detainees have been released since 2007, many more than in previous years, Pentagon officials say.

Of the 61 former Guantanamo detainees on the newest list, 18 have been officially confirmed to have committed further acts of terrorism while 43 are suspected of doing so, the broadcaster said. The 18 were confirmed through intelligence, photographs, fingerprints and other information, Morrell told reporters.

Bush official portrait caption changed

WASHINGTON, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- The U.S. National Portrait Gallery says it has amended the caption accompanying the portrait of President George W. Bush at the request of a U.S. senator.

The revised biographical caption, requested by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., eliminated the wording, "the (terrorist) attacks on September 11, 2001, that led to wars in Afghanistan and Iraq …" The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The newspaper said Sanders objected to the phrasing in a letter to the National Portrait Gallery, writing, "When President Bush and Vice President Cheney misled our nation into the war in Iraq, they certainly cited the attacks on September 11, along with the equally specious claim that Iraq possessed vast arsenals of weapons of mass destruction.

"The notion, however, that 9/11 and Iraq were linked, or that one 'led to' the other, has been widely and authoritatively debunked," he wrote.

Gallery director Martin Sullivan ordered that the caption be amended, with new text to be installed Wednesday. The Post said it reads: "… Bush found his two terms in office instead marked by a series of cataclysmic events: the attacks on September 11, 2001; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq … "

Pakistan: India provides no evidence

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani says India has provided no evidence against the suspected organizers of November's Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Indian officials have given Pakistan "information" on those Pakistani nationals it believes responsible for the slayings, which Gilani told lawmakers Tuesday would be carefully examined, the newspaper Dawn reported in Islamabad.

"All that has been received from India is some information. I say information because these are not evidence," Gilani said in a policy statement in the National Assembly. He said the information received Jan. 5 from Indian officials had been sent to the ministry of the interior for investigation.

Gilani added that Pakistan would share with India results of its own investigation in due course of time, Dawn reported.

Indian, U.S. and British investigators believe the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which killed 173 and injured 300 Nov. 26-29, were carried out by Pakistani militants of the Lashkar-e-Toiba organization, based in the disputed region of Kashmir. Pakistan officials in December launched a "quiet crackdown" on the group, making several arrests, Dawn reported.

Dozens arrested in Latvia rioting

RIGA, Latvia, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- Dozens of protesters denouncing Latvian government austerity measures have been arrested after smashing windows and hurling rocks at police, local reports say.

The Baltic Times said a rally attended by 10,000 in Riga to protest the government's response to the global economic crisis Tuesday descended into violence. A group of mostly young demonstrators broke away and smashed windows of the parliament building, the EU Observer said.

Officials said 126 protesters were arrested, while 30 people were injured, including three police officers.

The Observer quoted Latvian media saying that police failed to corral the demonstrators into a side street, and the youths responded by overturning a police van and setting it on fire, breaking windows at the Latvian finance ministry and looting a liquor store.

The demonstration was the largest Latvia has seen since independence in 1991, and was called by opposition parties and trade unions to demand the resignation of center-right Prime Minister Ivars Godmanis over his handling of the economic crisis, the newspaper said.