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Hostages taken in Pakistan Army HQ attack

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Armed Taliban militants who attacked Pakistani Army headquarters in Rawalpindi Saturday are holding hostages inside the base, officials say.

CNN reported Pakistani army officials confirming that "several" hostages were being held at the headquarters after a fierce attack that killed 10 people, while The Times of London, without naming sources, said up to 15 hostages were being held.

The brazen attack by Taliban gunmen left four attackers and six army guards dead in a raging gun battle, Army Gen. Athar Abbas told Pakistan's Geo TV network. He said the army was searching for two other militants involved in the attack, while another military official said the Taliban has claimed responsibility for the incident.

It was the third major assault by the group in Pakistan this week. The assault came a day after 48 people died in a bombing of the public market in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

An eyewitness told Geo that a Suzuki van filled with armed fighters tried to force its way through the Army's outer security cordon, followed by a heavy gun battle.

Army commandos fought back against the intruders, whom local reports indicated were young men who lobbed hand grenades and carried heavy weapons, The New York Times reported.

The audacious attack on the Army's power center may signal that the Taliban is planning to launch a major offensive in the tribal region of South Waziristan, analysts said.

The Times of London reported that the Pakistan government is readying an offensive to flush out militants from mountain strongholds along the Afghanistan border.

Lee urges incentives for North Korea talks

BEIJING, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- The international community should quickly develop incentives for North Korea to abandon its nuclear program, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak says.

Lee, speaking Saturday in a joint press conference in Beijing with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao after a three-way summit there with Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, said Pyongyang is showing genuine signs of a willingness to resume stalled denuclearization talks, the South Korean news agency Yonhap reported.

"Now is a good time for North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions, and there will be good results if we can offer a proposal for a one-step solution of the nuclear issue and conditions for such a deal," Lee told the press conference, adding that the time may be right for his "grand bargain" proposal, in which the North dismantle its key nuclear capabilities in a single step rather than in stages.

"The opportunity may disappear if we fail to seize it," Yonhap reported Wen as saying.

The summit came after Wen met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in which Kim reported said Pyongyang was willing to rejoin the stalled six-party nuclear talks depending on how proposed bilateral talks with the United States pan out.

Israelis soften West Bank military policy

BET EL MILITARY BASE, West Bank, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Israel has changed its military tactics in the occupied West Bank, pulling back its soldiers from cities, and lifting checkpoints and roadblocks, analysts say.

But the three Israeli army generals who engineered the changes are on their way out, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

Brig. Gen. Noam Tivon, one of the leaders of the shift, told the Journal, "Part of our philosophy is to fight the terrorists with M-16 (rifles), not F-16 (jets)."

Under the policies, daytime raids with large battalions have largely been eliminated, with commanders instead using more surgical strikes by commandos, which are seen as less disruptive to the civilian population.

"Now they only arrest Palestinians during the night," Sattar Kassem, a Palestinian political science professor in Nablus, told the newspaper. "The occupation continues and this is what matters most, but there is less friction for now."

The Journal said Tivon and Maj. Gen. Gadi Shamni, head of Israel's Central Command, are changing jobs in the coming weeks, with the Department of Defense's Civil Administration commander, Brig. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, also due to finish up within the next year. One of their replacements has little experience in the West Bank, some critics warn.

Vaccinations for common flu run short

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10 (UPI) -- Some Americans seeking vaccinations against the common flu have been turned away as supplies have run short, officials said.

People have had to make extra efforts to get shots to protect them against non-swine flu viruses as vaccine supplies have dwindled in some areas, The New York Times reported Saturday.

"We had patients scheduled; we had to cancel the patients," Dr. Ralph Messo Jr., who practices in Staten Island, N.Y., and Colts Neck, N.J., told the newspaper, saying he received only 150 of the 1,000 shots he ordered.

"It's frustrating," added Karyn O'Malley of New Canaan, Conn., who said her town's flu clinic was canceled this year and its Walgreens drug store also ran short of adult vaccine.

The Times said public health officials and vaccine manufacturers are blaming the shortfall on the need to shift resources to the H1N1 flu pandemic, and on increased demand because the so-called swine flu has raised public consciousness about flu in general.