PAKISTAN

More than two million Muslims gather this week for the annual haj pilgrimage to Islam's holy city of Mecca, where Saudi authorities hope to minimize spread of the H1N1 virus and prevent any political demonstration.

Support within the administration has grown for continuing a counterinsurgency strategy with a greater focus on protecting major Afghan population centers along with agricultural areas and transportation routes.

Pakistani security forces backed by tanks and artillery attacked Taliban positions in the northwest of the country, killing 22 militants, a senior police official on Monday.

A suicide bomber blew himself up outside a court building in Peshawar on Thursday, killing 18 people, officials said, in the latest of a series of attacks on the northwestern Pakistan city.

Veteran Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was sworn in as president on Thursday, pledging to fight graft and take control of his country's security before his five-year term ends, after a fraud-marred election left his image in ruins.

India's prime minister and U.S. President Barack Obama meet next week to strengthen ties, with the emerging Asian power increasingly playing a bigger role on global issues such as climate change and trade.

U.S. President Barack Obama aims to bring the Afghan war to an end before he leaves office, he said on Wednesday, the eve of a swearing-in ceremony Western officials hope can help salvage Hamid Karzai's tattered reputation.

Pakistani forces have captured most main Taliban bases in their offensive in South Waziristan and will soon fan out into the rugged countryside to hunt for militants there, commanders said on Tuesday.

The United States has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to expand its fight against Taliban and al Qaeda militants, the New York Times reported on Monday, as a suicide bomber killed four people in the latest militant attack.

President Barack Obama said on Monday that al Qaeda remained the biggest threat to U.S. security, as his aides stepped up pressure on Afghanistan and Pakistan to cooperate with Washington's strategy in the troubled region.

A suicide attacker set off a car bomb at a police checkpoint in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Saturday, killing 10 people, officials said.

A suicide car bomber attacked an office of Pakistan's main intelligence agency in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Friday, killing 10 people and wounding 60, officials said.

Pakistani police have arrested seven suspected militants planning to attack security agency offices and officials in the commercial hub of Karachi, police said on Thursday.

Pakistani Taliban militants vowed to fight a tough, protracted guerrilla war against the army on Tuesday as a suicide car-bomber killed up to 20 people in a northwestern town, police said.

Barack Obama this week makes his first trip to Asia as president, leaving behind a host of domestic problems with a visit that recognizes the region's economic and diplomatic importance to the United States.

A suicide bomber in an auto-rickshaw blew himself up in Pakistan on Monday, killing three people while four soldiers were killed in South Waziristan when militants struck back in their captured headquarters.

Although U.S. President Barack Obama has never set foot there, China cast a long shadow in the Pacific region where he grew up.

Pakistani soldiers secured a fort captured from militants in the northwest of the country on Thursday and consolidated their positions on peaks around another insurgent base, the military said.

A suspected Taliban suicide bomb killed at least 35 people in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi on Monday, officials said, as the government announced a reward for the capture, dead or alive, of the group's leaders.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday, launching a rapid series of meetings with Palestinian and Israeli officials to keep up pressure for a new Mideast peace deal.

U.S. military chiefs plan to present recommendations on troop strength and strategy in Afghanistan to President Barack Obama on Friday as White House deliberations reach an end stage, Pentagon officials said.