Afghan withdrawal may start next year

BAGRAM, Afghanistan - The departing commander of U.S.-led military forces in Afghanistan says those troops' success fighting terrorist holdouts, combined with improved recruiting by the new Afghan army, means that Americans stationed here could start going home as early as summer 2004.

During an interview in which he reviewed his year in command, Lt. Gen. Dan K. McNeill gave no timeline for a U.S. withdrawal. And Afghan ground troops may need U.S. air support indefinitely, since there is no plan at present for the American military to train Afghan helicopter or jet aircraft pilots, he said.

But he credited a shift in coalition military tactics last summer to battalion-size conventional operations for cleaning out large numbers of terrorist holdouts, uncovering several huge caches of weapons and crippling enemy forces' ability to mount a meaningful offensive.

JERUSALEM - Lashing out at rivals within his own faction, Amram Mitzna quit on Sunday as the leader of Israel's left-of-center Labor Party - a sign of the disarray hobbling Israel's left as the Bush administration presses a new Middle East peace plan.

The resignation may eventually open the way for Labor to join the government of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, but it seems unlikely to affect the new peace process immediately.

Led by Mitzna, who became chairman of the party only in November, Labor was crushed by Sharon's Likud Party in elections in January.

Since then, riven by personal rivalries and lacking a coherent message, Labor, once Israel's dominant party and now the leader of the opposition, has not exerted much influence on Sharon's right-wing government to embrace the peace initiative, known as the road map.

MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Bush will discuss cooperation in missile defense when they meet this month at St. Petersburg's 300th anniversary celebration, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

Moscow said in January that it had proposed a draft "political agreement" for the two nations to cooperate in developing defenses against ballistic missiles. It released no details of the proposal; the United States has not commented on it.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said Sunday that missile defense was to be discussed in the context of the latest U.S.-Russian arms treaty, which is expected to be ratified by the Russian Parliament before the celebration at the end of May.

The treaty, which Putin and Bush signed in May 2002, calls on both nations to cut their strategic nuclear arsenals by about two-thirds, to 1,700 to 2,200 deployed warheads, by 2012.

PARIS - Two men attacked the director of a Paris theater Sunday, punching him and slashing his face, apparently because of a play he is staging that criticizes President Bush, the theater said.

Attilio Maggiulli, director of the Theater of Italian Comedy, was attacked in the building's entrance on Sunday, said Claudine Simon, his assistant. One man held him down, while another cut his face. They also splashed paint on the theater's walls, she said.

It was unclear exactly what motivated the beating, said Simon, who said she found her employer bleeding in the entryway. But she said it may have been over the play the theater has been showing since Wednesday, George W. Bush, or God's Sad Cowboy.

"They said things like, "Oh, you're defending the Arabs,' " Simon said. Maggiulli was treated at a Paris hospital, Simon said.

CELTIKSUYU, Turkey - On Sunday, rescuers recovered the last of 83 children killed in a 6.4-magnitude quake Thursday. Working around the clock since then, rescuers saved 115 children, most just after the tragedy.

The last two bodies found Sunday were those of 14-year-old friends Cihat Avci and Alican Celik, who often played soccer together.

The two were crushed in bunk beds as they slept when the quake hit around 3:30 a.m.

The earthquake killed 167 people and injured 1,000 in the region, according to officials in Bingol, the main city hit by the quake. About 300 buildings collapsed and more than 5,000 were damaged.

QUAKE IN CHINA: A strong earthquake hit China's northwestern region of Xinjiang, but there were no reports of injuries or damage, the State Seismological Bureau said Monday.

The magnitude-5.8 quake hit at 11:44 p.m. Sunday between Jiashi and Bachu counties, said a seismologist, who would give only his family name, Liu. The area, about 1,800 miles west of Beijing, was hit by a powerful 6.8-magnitude temblor Feb. 24, killing 268 people.

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