KANDAHAR CITY (PAN): A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday's killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.

The probing delegation includes lawmakers Hamidzai Lali, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, Shakiba Hashimi, Syed Mohammad Akhund and Bismillah Afghanmal, all representing Kandahar province at the Wolesi Jirga and Abdul Latif Padram, a lawmaker from northern Badakhshan province, Mirbat Mangal, Khost province, Muhammad Sarwar Usmani, Farah province.

The team spent two days in the province, interviewing the bereaved families, tribal elders, survivors and collecting evidences at the site in Panjwai district.

Hamizai Lali told Pajhwok Afghan News their investigation showed there were 15 to 20 American soldiers, who executed the brutal killings.

"We closely examined the site of the incident, talked to the families who lost their beloved ones, the injured people and tribal elders," he said.

He added the attack lasted one hour involving two groups of American soldiers in the middle of the night on Sunday.

Two terrorist attacks targeted Damascus Saturday morning as Preliminary Indications Point to 2 booby-trapped Cars Attack.

The two terrorist attacks targeted two crowded places in the capital: Customs Square, and the zone linking Baghdad Street to al-Qasaa' Quarter.

Scores of civilians and security personnel were martyred in the two terrorist attacks targeted the Criminal Police Force Headquarters and the Air Security Directorate.

US, Washington - The hunt for Osama bin Laden took nearly a decade. It could take even longer to uncover U.S. government emails, planning reports, photographs and more that would shed light on how an elite team of U.S. Navy Seals killed the world's most wanted terrorist.

Ten months after that electrifying covert mission, an administration that has pledged to be the most transparent in American history is refusing to release documents under the Freedom of Information Act, the U.S. openness in government law, that would provide insights into how bin Laden died, how the U.S. verified his identity and how it decided to bury him at sea, as well as photographs taken during and after the May 2011 raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Government officials have discussed details of the mission openly in speeches, interviews and television appearances, but the administration will not disclose records that would confirm their narrative of that fateful night. The Obama administration has not even disclosed where all the documents might be stored.

Requests for bin Laden materials were among the most significant filed last year under the open records law, which compels the government to turn over copies of federal records for free or at little cost. Anyone who seeks information under the FOIA generally is supposed to get it unless disclosure would harm national security, violate personal privacy or expose business secrets or confidential decision-making. The law has been the focus of extra attention since Sunday, the start of Sunshine Week, when American news organizations promote open government and freedom of information.

Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David H. Petraeus.

"The reason for concentrating on them," the al-Qaeda leader explained to his top lieutenant, "is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency. . . . Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour . . . and killing him would alter the war's path" in Afghanistan.

Administration officials said Friday that the Obama-Petraeus plot was never a serious threat.

The scheme is described in one of the documents taken from bin Laden's compound by U.S. forces on May 2, the night he was killed. I was given an exclusive look at some of these remarkable documents by a senior administration official. They have been declassified and will be available soon to the public in their original Arabic texts and translations.

The man bin Laden hoped would carry out the attacks on Obama and Petraeus was the Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri. "Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work," bin Laden wrote to his top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. A month after bin Laden's death, Kashmiri was killed in a U.S. drone attack.

What is socialism?

Socialism is an economic system characterized by public ownership and centralized planning of all major industries (manufacturing, services, and energy), banks and insurance companies, agribusiness, transportation, the media, and medical facilities. Under capitalism, these giant enterprises dominate the economy but are privately owned and operated for the purpose of generating wealth for their owners by extracting it from working people who are paid only a small fraction of what their labor produces. Socialism turns this around so that the class that produces the wealth can collectively decide how it will be used for the benefit of all.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn's arrest paved the way for a goal that had long eluded the political career of 57-year-old French Socialist Francois Hollande: to square off against President Nicolas Sarkozy in next month's election.

PARIS - The break that had long eluded the political career of 57-year-old French Socialist François Hollande finally surfaced with a text message in the wee hours of May 15 last year.

His girlfriend, 47-year-old journalist Valérie Trierweiler, read it and nudged Mr. Hollande awake: Dominique Strauss-Kahn - then-chief of the International Monetary Fund - had been arrested by police in New York on suspicion of sexual assault. "François did not grill me for more details about the arrest," Ms. Trierweiler said. "He was already thinking of his next move."

International law permits justifiable self-defense. Targeted killings are prohibited, especially premeditated ones like America and Israel repeatedly commit for reasons other than claimed.

These incidents constitute cold-blooded murder. US drone killings and rampaging death squads, as well as Israel's deplorable history and latest ritual slaughter highlight the issue. International law prohibits anticipatory self-defense. It amounts to using force to deter it.

Under the UN Charter's Article 2(4):

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

Only two exceptions apply. Article 51 permits "individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security."

In addition, a nation may anticipate self-defense in situations where verifiable, compelling evidence shows imminent or already initiated armed attacks.

By his own account, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went to Washington this month with two goals. One was to continue his 15-year campaign to push Iran's nuclear program to the top of the world's agenda. That mission was accomplished, Netanyahu declared to the Knesset on Wednesday. The other aim was to hear Washington acknowledge that Israel has the right to launch a military operation on its own against Iran if it sees fit. "This position was positively received in the United States, I would even say in the most profound way," he said.

With that, the Israeli Premier launched an extended argument for defying American requests for restraint and going ahead with a strike on Iran. He cited as precedent the bold calls of three of his predecessors: David Ben-Gurion's decision to announce independence in 1948 despite the U.S. Secretary of State's advice to wait; Levi Eshkol's decision to launch the 1967 Six-Day War despite President Lyndon Johnson's warning; and Menachem Begin's 1981 decision to strike Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak (though Ronald Reagan appeared mostly amused when he heard about that strike, famously remarking, "Boys will be boys!").

"I presented the example I just gave you to my hosts in Washington," Netanyahu reported, "and I believe that the first goal I set -- to strengthen the recognition of Israel's right to defend itself -- I think that goal was achieved."

The Obama administration is threatening to impose sanctions on India over its continued economic ties with Iran amid disagreements between Washington and New Delhi over how much and how soon the latter is reducing oil imports from the (in US eyes) pariah nation.

India has "failed" to reduce its purchase of Iranian oil and if it doesn't do so, President Barack Obama may be "forced" to impose sanction, unnamed administration officials were cited as telling Bloomberg wire service. A decision in this regard could come as early as June 28, they added, implicitly offering New Delhi a ten- week window to show a decline in Iranian oil imports.

Indian officials have contested the US assessment by insisting New Delhi is scaling down Iranian oil imports with more reduction in the pipeline, but that concession has been offset by India's commerce ministry's well-publicized efforts to ramp up trade with Iran in other areas, a move that has not gone unnoticed by the powerful pro-Israeli lobby in US.

Buenos Aires, Argentina - Argentina is intensifying its campaign to block oil development in the Falkland Islands, announcing on Thursday it will pursue "administrative, civil and criminal" penalties against the dozens of companies involved.

"We are going to defend the resources of the South Atlantic, which are the property of all the Argentines," Foreign Minister Hector Timerman said at a news conference. He said that includes any oil found off the shores of the islands they call the Malvinas, which have been controlled by Britain since 1833.

Once the colonial subjects of Britain, the roughly 3,000 islanders now determine their own fate. Already, they have collected millions of dollars in licensing fees for oil exploration, and they've had their first major offshore oil discovery - last year's Sea Lion strike that promises to deliver as much as 450 million barrels of oil.

It was found by Rockhopper Exploration PLC, which has been seeking a $2 billion investor to fund production starting in 2016. The company has yet to announce such a deep-pocketed partner, but if and when it finds one, industry analysts estimate that a total of $10.5 billion in taxes and royalties would start flowing into the Falkland Islands treasury from the Sea Lion find alone.

Argentina, which lost a brief and bloody war against Britain for the islands in 1982, aims to keep that production from starting by any means possible short of violence or war, Timerman said, adding that his government will always follow international law.