Up to 30 reportedly killed in the cities of Homs and Hama, as protesters around the country take to the streets.

Activists claim that up to 30 people have been killed in Syria where thousands have taken to the streets for another day of anti-government rallies, dubbed a "day of defiance".

Human rights group Insan said that at least 16 people had been killed in the central city of Homs, six in Hama and two in Jableh. It said the total death toll was 26 but didn't specify where the other two deaths occurred.

A human rights activist told the Associated Press news agency that 30 people had died, while Syrian state television said an army officer and four police were killed in Homs by a "criminal gang".

Security forces killed four protesters in the city of Deir al-Zor, a local tribal leader told Reuters.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the reports because of restrictions on reporting in the country.

News personalities, politicians, self-appointed experts on the Muslim world, and law enforcement and intelligence officials, as well as the Christian right, have successfully demonized Muslims in the United States since the attacks of 2001. It is acceptable to say things openly about Muslims that could never be said about any other ethnic group. And as the economy continues to unravel, as we face the possibility of revenge attacks by Islamic extremists, perhaps on American soil, the plight of Muslims is beginning to mirror that of targeted ethnic minority groups on the eve of the war in the former Yugoslavia, or Jews in the dying days of the Weimar Republic.

The major candidates for the Republican nomination for the presidency, including Rick Santorum, Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee, along with television personalities such as Bill Maher, routinely employ hate talk against Muslims as a way to attract votes or viewers. Right-wing radio and cable news, including Christian radio and television, along with websites such as Jihad Watch and FrontPage, spew toxic filth about Muslims over the airwaves and the Internet. But perhaps most ominously - as pointed out in "Manufacturing the Muslim Menace," a report by Political Research Associates - a cadre of right-wing institutions that peddle themselves as counterterrorism specialists and experts on the Muslim world has been indoctrinating thousands of police, intelligence and military personnel in nationwide seminars. These seminars, run by organizations such as Security Solutions International, The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies, and International Counter-Terrorism Officers Association, embrace gross and distorted stereotypes and propagate wild conspiracy theories. And much of this indoctrination within the law enforcement community is funded under two grant programs for training - the State Homeland Security Program and Urban Areas Security Initiative - which made $1.67 billion available to states in 2010. The seminars preach that Islam is a terrorist religion, that an Islamic "fifth column" or "stealth jihad" is subverting the United States from within, that mainstream American Muslims have ties to terrorist groups, that Muslims use litigation, free speech and other legal means (something the trainers have nicknamed "Lawfare") to advance the subversive Muslim agenda and that the goal of Muslims in the United States is to replace the Constitution with Islamic or Shariah law.

Washington - Democratic Sen. John Kerry said it is time to stop questioning the exact occurrences in Osama bin Laden's house before his death in Abbottabad, Pakistan, at the hand of U.S. Navy SEALs.

"I thinks those SEALs did exactly what they should have done," the senator from Massachusetts and 2004 presidential nominee said Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "And we need to shut up and move on about, you know, the realities of what happened in that building."

NBC News' Stephanie Gosk has been reporting all week from Abbottabad, Pakistan, the city where Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in a secret raid. In a phone interview Friday, she responded to questions about the town and the local reaction to bin Laden's death and the revelation that he lived there for years.


What is the reaction to bin Laden's death in Abbottabad?

We've been here all week and have been able to get quite close to bin Laden's former compound - right outside the walls. And it's not just the media who are interested, but also the people who live in this town.

What is most interesting is how few people actually believe bin Laden was killed in that house or that he even lived there at all.

It will be interesting over the next few days to see what their reaction is to the news that al-Qaida has put a statement online confirming that bin Laden was killed and calling on Muslims around the world to rise up and avenge his death.

Former US Vice-President Dick Cheney has said it is an "outrage" that the Obama administration continues to investigate CIA agents who interrogated terror suspects, claiming they did nothing.

Several Republicans and ex-officials have asked the Justice Department to drop the investigation, launched nearly two years ago by Attorney General Eric Holder.

"It's unfortunate. These men deserve to be decorated. They don't deserve to be prosecuted," Fox News quoted Cheney, as saying.

He said Holder's decision to reopen the case against CIA agents sets a "terrible precedent."

"These are government employees. They did nothing wrong, as best as any of us knows. It is an outrage that we would go after the people who deserve the credit for keeping us safe for seven and a half years," Cheney said.

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also said the Obama administration should set the CIA probe "aside" and move on, calling it a "most unfortunate thing."

Harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding played a role in tracking down Osama bin Laden and should be reinstated, former US vice-president Dick Cheney said Sunday.

Another top member of the Bush administration, former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, credited the use of so-called 'enhanced interrogation techniques' with yielding 'a major fraction' of US intelligence on Al-Qaeda and called ending them a 'mistake.'

In one of the first acts after entering the White House in 2009, President Barack Obama suspended such methods, equating them with torture and saying they represented all that was wrong with the Bush-era 'war on terror.'

But the killing of Osama, or more exactly the way the intelligence was gathered that led the CIA to track him down, has reopened a raging controversy in the United States over their use.

Mr Cheney, speaking on the Fox News Sunday program, said top intelligence officials had stated that 'some of the early leads' that helped agents find bin Laden had come thanks to the harsh interrogation techniques used on terror suspects.

A parade of former Bush administration officials went on the Sunday political shows to talk up waterboarding and claim a measure of credit for bagging Osama Bin Laden.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said waterboarding - which the Obama administration nixed as torture - "probably" played a role in tracking down Bin Laden and should be brought back.

"It was a good program. It was legal program. It was not torture," Cheney told Fox News Sunday. "I would strongly recommend we continue it."

Former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld called it "a mistake" to rule out waterboarding. "It's clear that those techniques that the CIA used worked," he said on CBS.

Officials have said the key to finding Bin Laden was locating his courier. Captured terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave the courier's nickname in 2003 after being waterboarded 183 times.

The Canada Press reported:

A loud explosion has been heard in the town where Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan.

There has been speculation that authorities may demolish the house in Abbottabad to try and stop the intense media attention in the town.

Iranian power struggle between president and supreme leader sees arrests and claims of undue influence of chief of staff

Close allies of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have been accused of using supernatural powers to further his policies amid an increasingly bitter power struggle between him and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Several people said to be close to the president and his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been arrested in recent days and charged with being "magicians" and invoking djinns (spirits).

Ayandeh, an Iranian news website, described one of the arrested men, Abbas Ghaffari, as "a man with special skills in metaphysics and connections with the unknown worlds".

The arrests come amid a growing rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei which has prompted several MPs to call for the president to be impeached.

On Sunday, Ahmadinejad returned to his office after an 11-day walkout in an apparent protest over Khamenei's reinstatement of the intelligence minister, who the president had initiallyasked to resign.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has final say on all state affairs, issues ultimatum after vetoing President Ahmadinejad's decision last month to dismiss Heydar Moslehi; according to website Ayandeh the president is yet to respond.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has given President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an ultimatum over the reinstatement of the country's intelligence chief, a local website reported Friday.

Khamenei, who, according to the constitution, has the final say on all state affairs, vetoed Ahmadinejad's decision last month to dismiss Heydar Moslehi.