Iranian council to recount disputed votes
TEHRAN, June 16 (UPI) -- Iranian officials agreed to recount challenged votes in its presidential election hit by claims that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election was rigged.
Iran's Guardian Council said it would recount votes that opposition candidates questioned in Friday's election, Iran's Press TV reported Tuesday.
"We are ready to recount those boxes that presidential candidates claim to have been cheated," council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodayi said.
The council's announcement came as supporters of both hardliner Ahmadinejad and moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who finished second, planned marches, raising the possibility of more of the violence that has shaken the country since results were announced, CNN reported.
Speaking at Monday's huge opposition rally, Mousavi said he complained to the Guardian Council about the election but held little hope of action from the panel because many of its members supported Ahmadinejad, The New York Times reported.
"I believe annulling the election results would be the least harmful measures," he said. "Otherwise people will no longer have confidence in the system and the government," he said.
On Monday, at least seven people were killed in a mass rally staged for Mousavi in Tehran, Press TV reported. State-run media reports indicated the protesters were killed after they tried to attack a military post near the capital's Azadi Square.
Also Tuesday, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president who backed another pro-reform presidential candidate, Mehdi Karrubi, was arrested, Abtahi's Web site said.
"We are waiting for his freedom and will update the site," the message said.
Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, left for Russia Tuesday to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit. He had planned to depart Monday, but delayed his trip because of the post-election unrest, the Iranian embassy in Russia said.
Palestinians: Attack on Carter thwarted
JERUSALEM, June 16 (UPI) -- Palestinian security officials in Gaza Tuesday said they thwarted an attempt to target former U.S. President Jimmy Carter's convoy.
At noon, Palestinian security personnel said they discovered two bombs at the Erez border crossing, used by Carter's convoy to access the Gaza Strip, officials told the daily Maariv newspaper.
The security officials told Maariv the bombs were discovered after Carter entered Gaza, proving the perpetrators planned to detonate them when his convoy left the area.
The officials said a group affiliated with al-Qaida planned the attack, and said members of the Hamas security forces were dispatched to the site to defuse the bombs, Maariv said.
However, Islam Shahwan, a spokesman for the security forces in Gaza told the Palestinian Maan news agency that no explosives were found, and security arrangements for the trip went according to plan and without any breach.
While touring the region and surveying the damage caused by the Israeli military operation earlier this year, Carter, 84, told locals he felt responsible for the destruction caused by the F-16 fighter bombardments, because the planes were manufactured in the United States, Ynetnews.com reported
Khalid Mohammed said he lied to CIA
WASHINGTON, June 16 (UPI) -- Khalid Sheik Mohammed said during a hearing at Guantanamo, Cuba, that he lied to the CIA while being questioned under torture, documents indicate.
The heavily redacted documents were released Monday after the American Civil Liberties Union obtained them under the Freedom of Information Act, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Khalid, in a statement he gave in 2006, appeared to be describing questioning on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden.
"I make up stories," Mohammed said. "Where is he? I don't know. Then he torture me. Then I said, 'Yes, he is in this area.'"
Jameel Jaffer, head of the ACLU National Security Project, said the document shows torture produces unreliable information.
The Bush administration classified much of the Guantanamo hearings, including allegations by detainees they had been tortured by the CIA.
"The CIA plainly has a very different take on its past interrogation practices -- what they were and what they weren't -- and on the need to protect properly classified national security information," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said.
N. Korea threatens U.S.
PYONGYANG, North Korea, June 16 (UPI) -- North Korea threatened to launch a pre-emptive strike against the United States, alleging provocations from Washington.
The warning came Monday from Pak Jae Gyong, vice-minister of the North Korean People's Armed Forces, in his address at a mass rally in Pyongyang, China's state-run Xinhua news agency reported, quoting official North Korean reports.
The rally, which the report said was attended by 100,000 people, had been called to condemn the latest U.N. Security Council resolution calling for stricter sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear and missile tests last month.
"Under the present situation where the Korean People's Army (KPA) is technically at war with the U.S. imperialists, and as the Armistice Agreement has lost its legal binding force, the KPA will promptly exercise the right to a pre-emptive strike to beat back the enemies' slightest provocation," Pak was quoted as saying.
The Armistice refers to the document ending the 1950-1953 Korean War.
North Korea already has vowed to develop its nuclear program and build more nuclear bombs in response to the U.N. resolution.
Pak threatened to deliver blows to the "vital parts of the U.S." and "wipe out all its imperialist aggressor troops no matter where they are in the world," the Xinhua report said.
Separately, Kim Ki Nam, secretary of North Korea's Central Committee of the Workers' Party, called the U.N. resolution "another grave provocation."
"This is, in essence, a wicked pressure offensive launched by the U.S. imperialists to disarm (North Korea), strangle its economy and undermine its ideology and system," he said.
U.S. troop pullout on target, Odierno says
BAGHDAD, June 16 (UPI) -- U.S. troops will vacate all Iraqi cities by the scheduled June 20 deadline, the commander of American forces said.
Terms of the U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that took effect in January called for U.S. combat troops to pull back by the end of June, among other things.
U.S. commander Gen. Ray Odierno had said troops could remain in Baghdad and Mosul because of security concerns. However, during a joint news conference Monday with senior Iraqi officials, Odierno said violence has fallen because of several recent military operations, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
"We had reservations in Mosul a few months ago," Odierno said. "But I feel much more comfortable with the situation in Mosul now."
Odierno said he was "absolutely committed" to leaving all urban areas as schedule, but said a number of military personnel would remain in the cities as advisers and trainers for Iraqi security forces.
"We will not get into any specific numbers, but it is a very small number," he said.
Under the joint security pact, as many as 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq in an advisory capacity until the end of 2011. Combat troops will leave inner cities June 30 and Iraq by August 2010 under U.S. President Barack Obama's plan.
