A UN probe last year found that peacekeepers in DR Congo had sexually abused girls as young as 13.

Afterwards it banned its troops from having sex with locals.

The investigation revealed that UN peacekeepers had used food and money to pay girls to have sex with them.

There are some 17,000 peacekeepers serving with the UN mission in DR Congo (Monuc).

It is the world's largest peacekeeping contingent charged with overseeing last month's elections, the results of which are due by this weekend.

In the latest allegations from South Kivu province, the girls involved are reported to have said that most of their clients were government troops and civilians, but that they also included peacekeepers.

"Monuc takes these allegations very seriously and has expressed extreme shock at the testimonies of the victims of this illegal activity," it said in a statement.

The activity includes the unloading of large reels of cable outside P'unggye-yok, an underground facility in northeast North Korea. Cables can be used in nuclear testing to connect an underground test site to outside observation equipment. The intelligence was brought to the attention of the White House last week.

Even before this most recent intelligence, there has been growing concern within the U.S. government that North Korea has been moving toward a nuclear test. North Korea is believed to have enough nuclear material to build as many as a dozen nuclear bombs, but it has never tested one. A successful test would remove any doubt that North Korea is a nuclear power.

"What does he have to lose?" asked one senior military official, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Il.

On July 4, North Korea conducted seven ballistic missile tests, which provoked international condemnation, including a unanimous United States Security Council resolution condemning its actions. A nuclear test, however, would be seen as a much greater provocation than the missile tests. Only seven other nations in the world have ever conducted nuclear tests.

U.S. officials fear a nuclear test could provoke a nuclear arms race in East Asia, forcing Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons.

"A nuclear test is going to be alarming and troubling for everyone and would cause a very strong reaction I think from all of North Korea's neighbors," said former National Security Council official Michael Green, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

U.S. officials caution that the intelligence is not conclusive. Last year U.S. spy satellites picked up suspicious activity at suspected test sites in North Korea, leading some to predict an imminent nuclear test, but nothing happened.

Underground nuclear tests are notoriously difficult to detect ahead of time. U.S. intelligence agencies, for example, failed to predict nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998.

Officials say it is possible that North Korea may either be putting on a show for American spy satellites to get attention, or may conduct a nuclear test in an entirely different location.

Some analysts believe Kim Jong Il may feel the only way to be taken seriously is to prove that North Korea is a nuclear power. Officials acknowledge that nobody really knows Kim Jong Il's intentions, but there is a belief among analysts that he is upset about the recent U.N. resolution condemning his missile tests and upset with the Chinese for supporting that resolution.

"It is the view of most in the community that there is a 50-50 chance North Korea will conduct a nuclear test by the end of the year," said one analyst.

Asked what the United States would do in response to a nuclear test, a senior U.S. official told ABC News, "We would try to hermetically seal the hermit kingdom."

The official said the United States would immediately push for sanctions to cut North Korea's ties to the outside world. Another possible option would be a naval blockade of North Korea.

But it is unclear how effective such efforts would be. North Korea is already the most isolated country in the world.

Police were skeptical about the letter, but had begun investigations, Kumar said Friday.

"Police are verifying the source of the letter," he said. "The letter could be false but we cannot afford to be complacent. We are not taking any chances and have enhanced security at the Taj."

"The letter, signed by someone calling himself Mohammed Mirza and claiming to be associated with the al-Qaida, was received at the office of the superintendent of police in Agra on Thursday," Kumar said.

"The letter said the al-Qaida had plans to carry out blasts at the Taj Mahal and around busy markets of Agra," he said.

Meanwhile, as part of the new security drill, tourists have been warned not to carry any liquids, including bottles of mineral water, to the fabled white marble structure, located in the city of Agra, 130 milesfrom the Indian capital, New Delhi.

At least 100 additional paramilitary soldiers armed with automatic weapons have been posted at strategic points on the outer periphery of the Taj Mahal complex, said a top police officer.

Police have also begun work on a dossier of residents living within 500 meters (yards) radius of the monument, said Dipesh Juneja, superintendent of police in Agra. "This will help the police spot any new entrants or visitors to the area," Juneja said over telephone.

As part of special security arrangements for the monument, the state government has asked the federal civil aviation authorities and India's air force to declare a no-fly zone over a four 2.5-mile radius around the Taj Mahal, said N. C. Bajpei, Uttar Pradesh's topmost official.

The majestic domed monument was built by the Mogul Emperor Shah Jehan between 1632 and 1654 for his favorite wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It houses their graves and a mosque, as well as several other graves of lesser Mogul royalty.

Nearly 2.5 million tourists visited the Taj Mahal last year, according to official estimates.

Talks with the government were in "evident crisis," ETA said, laying the blame on the lack of "bold decisions toward establishing a democratic framework in Euskal Herria."

The government "has used repression to weaken the Abertzale Left," ETA said, using the Basque term for the pro-independence movement.

A government official said ETA was applying pressure for Batasuna to be allowed into planned discussions between political parties on the future of the Basque Country.

There was little danger the group would break its truce, said the official, who did not want to be named. "They're just playing politics," he said.

ETA, which analysts say has been weakened by hundreds of arrests in recent years, killed more than 800 people in its fight for independence for the Basque Country which began in the last years of Franco's dictatorship.

Madrid wants peace talks to concentrate on disarmament and moving ETA prisoners closer to their homes. It also wants the talks to run separately to deliberations between political parties on the future of the Basque Country, which straddles northern Spain and southwestern France.

There is consensus that any deal must include Batasuna but the Socialists say the ban on the party, imposed for its links to ETA, will not be lifted until it condemns violence.

Batasuna's leader Arnaldo Otegi accused the Socialists on Thursday of breaking promises made in private about the ban.

In a response to the ETA communique on Friday, the Socialist Party called ETA "terrorists."

"There are clear rules to democratic politics, and anyone who wants to participate has to abide by them," said the communique signed by senior Socialist official Alfonso Perales.

Batasuna wants a referendum on independence for the Basque Country, even though the region already enjoys considerable autonomy over areas including education and health. Polls show only a minority of Basques want to leave Spain.

The peace talks have been fiercely criticized by Spain's conservative opposition which accuses Zapatero of giving in to "terrorists." The French government has refused to talk to ETA, which concentrated its violent campaign in Spain.

He said one guard riding alongside in an SUV was killed and another was injured.

Iraqi police found five bodies with gunshot wounds in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and a roadside bomb killed one person in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad.

A statement by the General Command of the Armed Forces said Iraqi soldiers raided the Al-Sediq Sunni mosque in Baghdad's Ghazaliyah neighborhood after a tip and confiscated mortar shells, a belt of explosives likely to be used by a suicide bomber, 27 wire communications sets, rocket propelled grenade launchers and magazines of bullets.

Ghazaliyah, a predominantly Sunni area, is one of the most volatile neighborhoods of Baghdad and has been targeted by Iraqi and U.S. forces in a new security crackdown in an effort to stem the sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shiites.

Some 12,000 additional U.S. and Iraqi forces have been sent to Baghdad to enforce peace in the capital.

The tit-for-tat attacks between the two communities since the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite mosque has raised fears of an all-out civil war, and diverted resources needed to fight the 3-year-old Sunni insurgency by loyalists of
Saddam Hussein.

Friday's statement did not say if any arrests were made at the mosque, but listed the results of the nationwide crackdown: 77 detained in the last 24 hours including 31 people with strong evidence of terrorist activities against them.

It said the 31 included four Iraqis who were caught planting a roadside bomb south of Baghdad, five Egyptians and a man who had obtained a security clearance pass for the highly protected Green Zone, an enclosed area in Baghdad containing government headquarters and the U.S. facilities.

The security operation follows a sharp spike in violence in the country - about 3,500 Iraqis were killed in July in sectarian or political violence nationwide, the highest monthly toll for civilians since the war started in March 2003.

On Thursday, U.S. officials confirmed that 2,625 roadside bombs - directed mostly against American or Iraqi forces - exploded or were discovered before detonation in July, a sharp rise compared to 1,454 bombs in January.

The figures suggest that the Sunni Arab insurgency is gaining strength despite setbacks, including the June 7 death of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a U.S. airstrike northeast of Baghdad.