Police in New York have made "multiple" arrests during marches and protests ushering in the first anniversary of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Around 300 people were estimated to have taken part in a rally Saturday, which saw activists head towards Zuccotti Park - the lower Manhattan site which served as base camp for months of demonstration.

It was part of three days of action celebrating the anti-capitalist movement, which burst into life a year ago but has long since seen its momentum wane.

The main anniversary event will take place on Monday, when activists are expected to attempt to surround the New York Stock Exchange and disrupt morning rush hour traffic in Manhattan's financial district.

Iran has confirmed for the first time that forces from its revolutionary guards corps (IRGC) are in Syria helping Bashar al-Assad's government crush rebels, and warned that it would get involved militarily if its Arab ally came under attack.

In a clear public signal of Tehran's continuing support for Assad, the commander of the Islamic republic's elite military formation said that a number of members of the IRGC's Qods force were in Syria, though General Mohammad Ali Jafari gave no further details and claimed this did not constitute "a military presence".

It was a surprisingly candid response to persistent claims by western countries, the Syrian opposition and Israel that Iran is actively helping the regime in the 18th month of a bloody war. Lakhdar Brahimi, the veteran Algerian diplomat who replaced Kofi Annan as UN envoy to Syria earlier this month, met Assad in Damascus on Saturday but warned afterwards that any progress would be slow and halting given the yawning gap between government and opposition. "The crisis is dangerous and getting worse, and it is a threat to the Syrian people, the region and the world," said Brahimi.

Defence secretary Leon Panetta said Sunday that the US was still on standby to deploy elite forces to protect American interests in cities caught up in a wave of Muslim protest, but that the level of violence appears to be levelling off.

The Pentagon had already sent troops to "a number of areas in the region to be prepared to respond to any requests that we receive to be able to protect our personnel and our American property", he said.

But Panetta declined to provide more details on reports that the military may be moving additional forces so they can respond to unrest in any of a number of cities of concern to the US.

"I think our approach right now is to not do anything until we've been requested to do it by the state department," Panetta told reporters travelling with him to Asia. But he noted that "I think that we have to continue to be very vigilant because I suspect that ... these demonstrations are likely to continue over the next few days, if not longer."

On Monday prosecutors in Liberty County, Georgia indicted five men for illegal gang activity including burglaries, thefts and car break-ins, alleging they were all part of a militia group calling itself FEAR, or, Forever Enduring, Always Ready. In August, prosecutors indicted three other men, including purported FEAR leader Isaac Aguigui, for the murder of a former member and his girlfriend last December, allegedly out of concern that the couple would reveal the group's existence and its plans.

One of the accused in the murders, Army private Michael Burnett, 26, pleaded guilty to two charges of manslaughter in order to avoid the death penalty. Burnett testified at a court hearing in August that Aguigui, a private at Fort Stewart, Sergeant Anthony Peden and Private Christopher Salmon led former soldier Michael Roark, 19, and his girlfriend, 17-year-old Tiffany York, into a secluded woodland area near the Fort and shot them execution style. Roark had recently left the Army. Aguigui and his cohorts were concerned that he and York would expose their terrorist plots and FEAR's existence at Fort Stewart, Burnett said.

He said that Aguigui introduced him to "the manuscript ... a book about true patriots," and said that FEAR wanted to "give the government back to the people." According to prosecutor Isabel Pauley, Aguigui sought to recruit soldiers who were disillusioned or in trouble, showing them an article about a video game where soldiers take over the government and gauging their reaction before encouraging them to join. Aguigui called this process "the awakening."

Warsaw, Poland - The American POWs sent secret coded messages to Washington with news of a Soviet atrocity: In 1943 they saw rows of corpses in an advanced state of decay in the Katyn forest, on the western edge of Russia, proof that the killers could not have been the Nazis who had only recently occupied the area.

The testimony about the infamous massacre of Polish officers might have lessened the tragic fate that befell Poland under the Soviets, some scholars believe. Instead, it mysteriously vanished into the heart of American power. The long-held suspicion is that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't want to anger Josef Stalin, an ally whom the Americans were counting on to defeat Germany and Japan during World War II.

Documents released Monday and seen in advance by The Associated Press lend weight to the belief that suppression within the highest levels of the U.S. government helped cover up Soviet guilt in the killing of some 22,000 Polish officers and other prisoners in the Katyn forest and other locations in 1940.

The evidence is among about 1,000 pages of newly declassified documents that the United States National Archives released and is putting online. Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who helped lead a recent push for the release of the documents, called the effort's success Monday a "momentous occasion" in an attempt to "make history whole."

Historians who saw the material days before the official release describe it as important and shared some highlights with the AP. The most dramatic revelation so far is the evidence of the secret codes sent by the two American POWs - something historians were unaware of and which adds to evidence that the Roosevelt administration knew of the Soviet atrocity relatively early on.

The declassified documents also show the United States maintaining that it couldn't conclusively determine guilt until a Russian admission in 1990 - a statement that looks improbable given the huge body of evidence of Soviet guilt that had already emerged decades earlier. Historians say the new material helps to flesh out the story of what the U.S. knew and when.

Was the "Innocence of Muslims" a combined MOSSAD/CIA/MI5/DVD PSYOPS film?
""The United States condemns in the strongest terms this outrageous and shocking attack. ... Make no mistake: We will work with the Libyan government to bring to justice the killers who attacked our people. ... We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others, but there is absolutely no justification for this type of senseless violence, none."

........my question would be what would happen if the offenders are intel operatives?
Cameron said:

"This senseless attack ended the lives of people who had worked selflessly alongside Libyans during their darkest days. ... We look to the new Libyan authorities to do all in their power, as they have pledged to do, to bring the killers to justice. Britain stands ready to assist Libya and the United States in that task. Above all, we will honor the memory of these dedicated people by continuing their work to help Libyans build a secure and free country.

Battleships, aircraft carriers, minesweepers and submarines from 25 nations are converging on the strategically important Strait of Hormuz in an unprecedented show of force as Israel and Iran move towards the brink of war.

Western leaders are convinced that Iran will retaliate to any attack by attempting to mine or blockade the shipping lane through which passes around 18 million barrels of oil every day, approximately 35 per cent of the world's petroleum traded by sea.

A blockade would have a catastrophic effect on the fragile economies of Britain, Europe the United States and Japan, all of which rely heavily on oil and gas supplies from the Gulf.

The Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most congested international waterways. It is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point and is bordered by the Iranian coast to the north and the United Arab Emirates to the south.

Undercover FBI agents arrested an 18-year-old American man who tried to detonate what he believed was a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar, federal prosecutors said Saturday.

Adel Daoud, a U.S. citizen from the Chicago suburb of Hillside, was arrested Friday night in an undercover operation in which an agent pretending to be a terrorist provided him with a phony car bomb and watched him press the trigger, prosecutors said.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, which announced the arrest Saturday, said the device was harmless and the public was never at risk.

Daoud is charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to damage and destroy a building with an explosive. He remains in custody pending a detention and preliminary hearing set for Monday in federal court.

Israel's prime minister says a policy of containment for Iran will not work because Tehran is guided by a "leadership of fanaticism."

Jerusalem- In an interview on NBC News' Meet the Press to be aired Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also says he disagrees with those who argue that going to war with Iran would be worse than a nuclear Iran.

"Iran is guided by a leadership with an unbelievable fanaticism," he said. "You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?"

Just after noon on Friday 14th September, Israeli forces invaded the village of Kufr Qaddoum, prior to a demonstration due to begin at 1.15pm. The Israeli army and Border Police blocked a road in the village center, stopping villagers from attending Friday prayers at the mosque - this is the first time that the tactic of pre-emptive invasion has been used to suppress the weekly demonstration in Kufr Qaddoum.

Prayers were held instead outside the mosque, after which chanting commenced as a start to the planned protest. Israeli forces responded immediately with tear gas rounds, advancing further into the village. Further tear gas rounds were fired at head height, directly towards houses in the street where protesters were gathered.

Israeli forces then regrouped in two positions - one group of 11 soldiers on the hill above the village, and a second group on the road leading to the planned site for the demonstration. Israeli forces also brought a bulldozer and a skunk truck to block the road leading the planned demonstration site.

Israeli forces on the hillside sought to isolate groups of protesters by attacking via side streets. The combined effect of the Israeli actions was to cause the demonstration to be pushed into the heart of the village, increasing the danger for civilians.