Do fence me in: Israel closing Sinai loopholes

SINAI BORDER, Israel (Reuters) - It may be only a "dumb" fence, but it's a big one. Israel hopes it will protect the remote Sinai border from infiltration by enemies exploiting the wandering ways of Bedouin tribes and a perceived surge in lawlessness following Egypt's political upheavals.

When it is finished in 2013, the 5-metre (16-foot) high barrier of galvanized steel bars and razor mesh -- at this stage minus the smart electronic sensors used elsewhere -- will run most of the 266 km (165 miles) from Eilat on the Red Sea's Gulf of Aqaba up to the already-closed Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean.

For much of its course, the silvery steel fence weaves up and down among the barren brown hills beside Route 12, a lonely two-lane blacktop through the desert that was closed to traffic after gunmen crossed the border last August and attacked a bus, killing eight Israelis.

On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that the fence had already improved security to the point where Route 12 could now be reopened, although in daylight hours only.

Like no other country in the world Israel is fenced off, to the north with Lebanon and Syria, to the east with Jordan, in the centre by a barrier partly of high concrete walls enclosing the occupied West Bank, and now to the west with Egypt.

"This is a hot border now," said IDF Lt. Col Yoav Tilan at the fence, where welders, pile-drivers and tractors were at work in the empty desert.

On the Lebanon border Israel faces a rocket threat from the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement. On the blockaded Gaza Strip a fortified front line separates Israeli forces from Gaza's armed Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas. The Jordan River valley is fenced and patrolled along its length.

The landmines, movement detectors and heat sensors that enhance the protective power of Israel's border fences elsewhere are not yet installed on the Sinai barrier. IDF Bedouin trackers daily inspect a path smoothed in the sand for any sign of nighttime infiltrations.

"This is what we call a dumb fence. It is only one part of our defensive suite," Tilan told reporters on a tour. "It has already been cut once. But they didn't get through."

SINAI HAS CHANGED

Sinai was relatively quiet for 30 years, but a rapid increase in the flow of migrants from Africa since the mid-2000s highlighted how easy it was to cross the border.

The situation has only become worse after Egypt's revolution a year ago relaxed the grip of the Cairo authorities on Sinai's desert tribes.

Israel's primary concern then and now is that its enemies will exploit any security lapses. Israel says Egypt's security forces have been paying less attention to Sinai since President Hosni Mubarak was overthrown in February 2011, opening the door to lawlessness that helps terrorist organizations.

Israeli military authorities say Palestinian militants in Gaza, led by Hamas but including Islamic Jihad, are trying to use the peninsula as a back door.

"The fence is part of a security concept � intended to stop infiltrations and terror activity in the country," said Brig-Gen Eran Ofir, who heads the 1.3-billion-shekel ($380-million) project. It was first authorized in January 2010 but construction began only in November of that year.

On August 18, 2011, eight Israelis were killed on Route 12 by militants who crossed the unfenced border with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades. Three attackers and five Egyptian soldiers were killed in the ensuing gun battle with the IDF, igniting furious protests outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo.

The IDF says Palestinian gunmen carried out the attack.

"We believe there are other groups with the same plans right now. We could face another terror attack at any time," said an Israeli commander who briefed reporters at the IDF's regional command post on Route 12. "There is a constantly increasing threat from the Western border, turning into a hostile terror threat."

The IDF says it must treat any criminal activity on the border initially as a terrorist threat. Last Wednesday, it said a border patrol chased off smugglers and found a bomb.

"A smuggling attempt was identified, and the force that operated to stop the smuggling identified a man hurling a suspicious bag and escaping from the scene," the IDF said. "It was discovered the bag contained a powerful explosive device."

This was a reminder that smuggling routes over the border "are constantly being used by terror organizations", it said.

There have been no lethal attacks since August, however.

The commander, who asked not to be named, said cooperation with Egypt is good. Liaison officers talk daily and commanders meet in person every two weeks or so. But Israel hopes that as Egypt is stabilized, it will put more into policing the desert.

Israel says while it has increased manpower on the border, Egypt's force is two battalions below permitted strength.

"The quality of intelligence is very low," the officer said.

BORDER MOSTLY EMPTY

Some 55,000 migrants have entered Israel from Sinai since 2006, and the flow is accelerating. In all of 2006 there were 2,777. In the past quarter they averaged about 2,500 per month.

People-smugglers equipped with 4x4s and night-vision scopes deliver them to the rocky ridges north of Eilat. They make no effort to escape once they reach Israel but surrender to the IDF, hoping to be processed as asylum seekers.

The Israeli commander said 90 percent of Africans infiltrating Israel are economic migrants seeking a better life. Many of the migrants are educated city dwellers with skills and even professional qualifications, he said.

Their journeys are well organized by companies specializing in the trade and typically begin with a flight from Eritrea to Cairo, from where they cross the Suez Canal by road into the Sinai peninsula, completing the final trip to the border over desert tracks at night. It takes about two and a half days.

"The Bedouin smugglers are excellent drivers by day or night. They can outrun us in most places and they know the terrain very well," the commander said.

Thousands of migrants in legal limbo gravitate to the gray economy of the interior. Israel recently adopted stiff penalties to deter the influx, permitting detention for up to three years, to make the point that the country is not a soft route to Europe.

Ahmed Youssuf, 23, is one migrant who got in under the wire, arriving two months ago from Sudan, he says. He already has a job -- as a welder on the fence.

Retirement' missing from vocabulary of NY judges

NEW YORK (AP) — Some are old enough to recall pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh's tickertape parade. Others can share vivid memories of World War II or the Great Depression.

But unlike most people their age, New York City's federal judges prefer to strike one topic from the record: retirement.

"We don't talk about when anybody's going to quit or retire," says John F. Keenan, an 82-year-old Manhattan judge. "Some of the best judges we ever had ... they worked right up until they died."

The federal judicial system has become a case study in how the country will cope with a graying America, where each economic crisis forces more people to work beyond 65.

Recent interviews with several lifetime tenured judges and experts suggest people often can thrive when challenged to work into their 70s, 80s and even 90s. Nearly all the judges have one thing in common: no plans to drop the gavel on their careers. The trend caused the government in December to adjust its projection for planning purposes that federal judges retire by age 85. For New York, the expectation is now that only half will retire by then.

"Everybody kind of goes on the assumption that you're going to crap out. Maybe you don't have to," says Robert Sweet, another Manhattan judge.

Sweet is preparing for his 90th birthday. He skis two to three days a week when he's at his Idaho getaway. He also ice skates and plays tennis.

"The arbitrary idea of 65 now is insane, in terms of capacity," said Sweet, who's had knee replacement and wears a hearing aid. "There are now increasing numbers of ways when things begin to poop out, there are curative things that make things better."

The federal courts from coast to coast are places where age is valued like nowhere else. Thanks to the founding fathers, the Constitution guarantees judges jobs for life with full pay — whether they work or not. Many state judges must retire at age 70.

"It's extraordinary," Sweet said. "Just the idea you can keep going if you wish until A, you croak, or B, you or somebody else comes to the realization that you can't go on."

He added: "Don't you think societally, it's important to have the seniors not sitting on the porch, rocking and thinking about how things used to be? But thinking about tomorrow, how things are and how they're going to be?"

Experts on the aging workforce agree.

"There's no question that people who keep on working are happier and healthier," said George Valliant, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and the former director of the Harvard "Grant Study of Adult Development."

Valliant calls mandatory retirement in many professions "really dumb," given the steady rise in mortality rates. The judges' performance is proof that wisdom and the ability to see irony and paradoxes frequently improves with age, he said.

"They've got what's called compensatory or reserve intelligence," he said.

With aging, "You sometimes lose names," said 90-year-old Jack Weinstein. "You don't lose the capacity for decision making and the capacity for analysis."

Older judges benefit from having nothing to prove, added Weinstein, a World War II veteran appointed by President Lyndon Johnson to the bench in Brooklyn more than four decades ago.

"You don't care really what people think of you," he said. "You're not going anyplace. You're doing it for the joy. And as a public service."

When the Senate confirmed Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum in 1986, there were only two other female district judges in the Manhattan courthouse.

Back then, Cedarbaum was afraid to take a vacation. Now at 82, she's among a dozen women on the bench — and, like Weinstein, has nothing to prove.

"Experience really does matter," she said.

Under the federal system, judges whose years of service and age add up to 80 can take "senior status." That means they can choose a reduced caseload and keep a chambers and staff of four, including up to three law clerks — often until death.

Wesley Brown, a Wichita, Kan., federal judge, worked regularly until he died last month at age 104. Appointed to the bench in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy, Brown was six years older than the next oldest sitting federal judge.

A week ago, 77-year-old Roger J. Miner, a federal appellate judge in Manhattan, died of heart failure. His wife Jacqueline said an unfinished opinion remained on his desk in their Hudson, N.Y., home.

Milton Pollack, another judge appointed by President Johnson in 1967, remained hard at work before he died in August 2004 at age 97. Just a year earlier, he tossed out numerous lawsuits that tried to blame Merrill Lynch & Co. for a late '90s stock bubble, saying the plaintiffs were "high-risk speculators."

Judge Barbara S. Jones, a relative youngster at 64, recalled Pollack telling her after she became a judge in 1995 never to quit so she'd keep her mind active.

"It would have been unthinkable to him to stop working," she said.

Of the 40 trial-level judges — the most anywhere — in the Manhattan courthouse, about half are working as senior judges. And nearly half of them are over age 80, handling some of the biggest mob, white-collar and terrorism cases.

Still, some judges step down. Michael Mukasey went into private practice and later became attorney general under President George W. Bush. And Richard Holwell, appointed to the bench in 2003, resigned just weeks ago to start a law firm, where he'll likely make millions rather than the $174,000 annual salary for judges.

"When Judge Holwell stepped down, you could have picked everybody around here off the floor," said Chief Judge Loretta Preska, who is 63. "It's quite unusual."

The judges who stay on credit stimulating jobs for their longevity. Exercise helps too.

The stout, 6-foot-2 Weinstein starts his day with a gym workout that would challenge most people half his age.

"I read the New York Times on the bike — 30 minutes," he said when asked to detail his routine. "Rowing machine — 10 minutes. Elliptical machine — 10 minutes. Jogging machine — 10 minutes. Then the stomach and the other things. And I have a trainer. All told, between an hour and half and two hours."

Then he heads straight to work in his 14th floor chambers with sweeping views of the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

"I can't wait to get in," he said. "It's fascinating work and you hope at the end of the day that you've done less harm than good. ... Why would anyone want to play golf when I can come in and do this?"

Stephen Spindler, professor of biochemistry at the University of California-Riverside, said studies show that exercise helps people maintain cognitive abilities. But he said the judges were likely a unique subset of the population.

"These are those rare people who feel good already. One of the reasons they can exercise and be very active and are mentally astute is because they are healthy," he said.

Keenan believes the job gives the mind a workout.

"As long as you keep active, it helps you mentally," Keenan said. "It's like exercise in a sense. If you don't exercise, your muscles atrophy. I think that if you don't exercise your mind, it's the same way."

Weinstein says he draws strength from a marriage that's spanned 66 years. Heredity might be working in his favor as well. His great-grandfather, a blacksmith in Russia, lived to 103.

"He died when he was shoeing a horse," he said with a sly smile. "Whether he was kicked in the head or dropped dead, I don't know."

231 nominations for 2012 Nobel Peace Prize

OSLO, Norway (AP) — A spokesman for the Nobel Peace Prize jury says 231 nominations have been submitted for this year's award, with publicly disclosed candidates including a former Ukrainian prime minister and the U.S. soldier accused of leaking classified material to WikiLeaks.

The secretive committee doesn't reveal who has been nominated, but those with nomination rights sometimes announce their picks. They include Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army private charged with the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history, Russian human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina and former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

Norwegian Nobel Committee secretary Geir Lundestad told the AP on Monday that "The list of nominees is a mixture of repeated nominations and some new names."

Canadian banks play "O Canada" card to grow abroad

TORONTO (Reuters) - When Royal Bank of Canada created advertising for its European wealth management business last year, it built some ads around the image of a shimmering gold maple leaf, playing on Canada's reputation for financial prudence.

Embarking on an aggressive expansion, Canada's largest bank wanted to emphasize its roots in a country whose banking sector wins plaudits as the soundest in the world. With Europe's debt crisis dominating the headlines, it was a message designed to resonate with prospective customers.

"We actually restructured some of the launch ads to dial up the Canadianness, because all of the research was demonstrating that is a value to the consumer right now," said Jim Little, chief brand officer with Royal Bank. "If instability is sadly the word of the day in Europe, then stability in Canada is a good message to lead with."

Royal's ad strategy is just one example of a shift in tactics by Canadian banks, which were once seen as a backwater bastion of stodginess.

Far from hiding their roots, now Royal and other Toronto-based banks believe the strength of the Canadian brand can help them close foreign expansion deals and win over Europeans and Americans who have lost faith in local lenders.

Bank of Montreal, the country's fourth-largest bank, has rebranded its U.S. Harris Bank arm as BMO Harris Bank, adding a Canadian link to what is now one of the biggest personal and commercial banks in the U.S. Midwest.

BMO, based in Toronto, Canada's financial center, made the move when it added Wisconsin bank Marshall & Isley to its existing Harris Bank network last year.

"We have never run from the fact that we were owned by a Toronto-based organization, but it's never been as critical as it is today, just because of the safety and soundness that the Canadian banking system has," said Dave Casper, head of U.S. commercial banking at BMO.

While the banks do their own in-house research into the strength of their branding, prominent surveys bear out the strength of "Brand Canada," as some call it.

London-based BrandFinance, which releases an annual bank brand survey, said four Canadian banks were among the five global bank brands which gained the most value in 2012.

The consultancy put Toronto-Dominion Bank second, with year-on-year brand value growth of $1.9 billion, followed by Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal, and BMO. The four banks trailed only American Express.

"There's more confidence that the Canadian brand name is now an asset," said Alan Middleton, a marketing professor at York University's Schulich School of Business in Toronto.

Middleton sees the shift as part of a general increase in Canada's profile within the global banking industry. Last year Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney was named to head the G20's Financial Stability Board, putting a Canadian at the top of an institution charged with making the financial world a safer place.

SOUNDEST IN THE WORLD

Unlike their counterparts in Europe or the United States, Canadian banks navigated the global turbulence in fine form thanks to their conservative lending style.

The banks needed no U.S.-style bailouts, although the government did inject liquidity by buying up mortgage assets. They have expanded their business since, while foreign competitors cut jobs and sold assets.

The Canadian bank sector, which is now also taking advantage of the European bank industry's troubles, has been named the world's soundest by the World Economic Forum four years running.

Rick Waugh, CEO of No. 3 lender, Bank of Nova Scotia, said that reputation has helped Scotiabank as it expands into its preferred markets of Latin America and Asia.

The bank recently closed its $719 million acquisition of a 20 percent stake in China's Bank of Guangzhou to win a strong presence in China's third most populous city.

"It was an open process, but they wanted Scotiabank, a successful international bank from a successful financial sector. They wanted Canadian over American or European," said Waugh.

The willingness to pump the Canadian brand marks a shift from the banks' push of more a decade ago to appear global and not tied to a country that, at the time, faced a weak currency and ballooning national debt.

Waugh said the Canadian dollar's recent firmness has helped underpin the banks' stability to foreign players.

After trading below 62 U.S. cents in 2001, the Canadian dollar reached parity with the U.S. currency in 2007 and since 2010 has traded consistently close to par with the greenback.

WALKING THE LINE

To be sure, the banks have to walk a fine line in pushing the Canadian brand.

Toronto-Dominion bills its 1,300-plus TD Bank U.S. branch network as "America's most convenient bank," although it does maintain "TD" in its name.

Its domestic branch network operates under the banner TD Canada Trust.

"I don't know that the (Canada) brand strength is fully recognized by consumers at the branch level," said Craig Fehr, a bank analyst at Edward Jones in St. Louis, Missouri.

He says customers tend to value a local presence more than a strong balance sheet in bricks-and-mortar branch banking, while companies and institutional clients focus on financial strength.

"I think, at the end of the day, corporate clients want to know that they're working with an underwriter that's going to be here for the long term," said Fehr.

With U.S. and European players still struggling, Waugh and Casper expect their banks to try to press their advantage to gain new business in foreign markets.

"We definitely have a very unique window of opportunity, because the window probably won't totally shut, but it will not be as wide open in five years as it is today," said Waugh.

(Reporting By Cameron French; Editing by Frank McGurty and Janet Guttsman)

Muslims and Arab Americans in Michigan aren’t getting attention from Republican presidential candidates

DEARBORN, Mich.--A light snow was falling outside the largest mosque in the country, the Islamic Center of America, as the parking lot filled with worshipers at Friday prayers. Outside, four people passed out flyers in support of Ron Paul, which included Arabic and English translations of Paul's campaign message.

"Ron Paul's Plan to Restore America," the flyer read on the English side, and listed seven of Paul's campaign priorities, including: balancing the budget, cutting spending by $1 trillion in one year, and, of course, auditing the Federal Reserve.

The Arabic-language side, according to a translation provided by Todd Weston, Paul's regional volunteer coordinator for Dearborn, had a slightly different emphasis, including a mention of "these difficult times," and only four priorities--the three above plus an end to foreign wars. (The additional pledges on the English-language side were all domestic: lower taxes, entitlement reform, reduced spending on government employees and deregulation.)

The flyers were the brainchild of Weston, who had the campaign literature translated into Arabic by students at a nearby college. He pitched the plan to the campaign, but ultimately made the flyers himself, he said.

"When I got involved with the Ron Paul campaign, I felt that it was kind of an untapped voter base by the other GOP candidates and even the Democratic candidate, so I really thought it was a great area to pursue especially with Ron Paul's standing with foreign policy and civil liberties," Weston said.

The other Republican presidential candidates have all but ignored Muslim voters in Michigan, which holds its primary on Tuesday. As many Muslims here see it, the rhetoric and proposals of the candidates have repelled even longtime Republicans in their community.

That's one reason why Paul, a candidate who has questioned American aid to Israel and whose non-interventionist foreign policy has gained wide support among Arab voters, received an endorsement Friday from the Arab American News, a Dearborn-based newspaper published in Arabic and English.

"The Arab American News ... sees Dr. Paul's refreshing, forthright foreign policy philosophy as one of his greatest strengths at a time when the specter of a potentially catastrophic war looms over festering, misunderstood and misreported conflicts in the Middle East," the paper's editors wrote on Friday. "His positions are perhaps the best hope for even a remotely balanced policy in the troubled region that we've seen in decades."

Arab Republicans in the Detroit area say they are planning to announce a joint endorsement of Paul with about 150 mostly Muslim business leaders. In interviews with Yahoo News, those signing onto the pending endorsement expressed dismay with candidates like Newt Gingrich, who refers to Palestinians as an "invented people"--Arab Americans here jokingly call Gingrich "the invented candidate"--and Rick Santorum, for his hawkish stance on Iran and his stalwart defense of Israel.

"They've come out against practically every position that the Arabs in the community support," said Nasser Beydoun, the former head of American Arab Chamber of Commerce in Dearborn. "I don't think Republicans are focused on immigrants in general or Arab Americans. They're too busy catering to the fringes of the party."

Yahya Basha, a medical doctor in Royal Oak, Mich., and a board member of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce, told Yahoo News he was frustrated with the lack of outreach from the presidential campaigns, and although he is committed to supporting former Mitt Romney, he expects a sizable number of his fellow Muslim and Arab Republicans in Michigan to cast a vote for Paul on Tuesday.

"As a group, we like Ron Paul," he said.

Those organizing the endorsement said they were trying to arrange a meeting or an event with Paul, who spent the weekend campaigning in Michigan, but have not heard back from campaign officials.

"We haven't really had any official outreach efforts in Michigan," said Gary Howard, a spokesman for Paul's national campaign, when asked about specific efforts toward Muslims. The candidate is planning to attend a Dearborn rally the night before the primaries sponsored by the University of Michigan-Dearborn's Arab Student Union, a group with members of various faiths.

The Romney and Santorum campaigns, which are devoting the most resources to the tight Michigan race, did not return requests for comment.

Nationally, Republicans have become less popular among the Muslim population in recent years. Muslims of all ethnic backgrounds in the United States make up less than 1 percent of the population, but 76 percent of them approve of President Barack Obama's job performance, according to an August 2011 Pew survey. Almost half of the Muslims surveyed in the poll said they found Republicans to be "unfriendly" to the faith.

The relationship between followers of Islam and the Republican Party was not always so contentious. In the 2000 presidential election, before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the civil liberties crackdown and wars that followed, 7 in 10 Muslims supported the candidacy of former President George W. Bush, according to a poll at the time taken by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Bush made a concerted effort to engage with Muslim and Arab Americans while he was a candidate and during the early days of his presidency. Bush met with Muslim religious leaders in 1999 while he was governor of Texas, and then again in 2000 when he was the Republican presidential nominee. On Sept. 17, 2001, just days after the 9/11 attacks, he visited a mosque about two miles from the White House, the Islamic Center of Washington.

That relationship began to crumble in the years following the attacks, as the Bush administration pushed for passage of the Patriot Act, argued for indefinite detention of "enemy combatants" and engaged in a war with Iraq in 2003. During that time, outreach to Muslims became less of a priority.

"Republicans did reach out in 2000, and then they didn't follow up," said Grover Norquist, the conservative activist who co-founded the Islamic Free Market Institute. "They didn't stay in touch."

In the 2004 presidential election between Bush and John Kerry, exit polls showed that 85 percent of Muslim voters supported the Democrat. Four years later, Obama captured 90 percent.

Now, more than a decade after Bush's first election, the Republicans seeking the party's nomination are not just avoiding Muslim supporters, they seem to be actively distancing themselves with inflammatory rhetoric.

So although there may be disappointment within the community with the Obama administration--which has continued most of the Bush-era policies that drove so many Arabs and Muslims from the Republican Party--the frustration is not enough to translate into Republican support, said James Zogby, the founder and president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, D.C.

"One side may be disappointing," Zogby said, "but the other side is scaring the hell out of you."

At the Islamic Center in Dearborn, after most worshipers had left following Friday prayers, the Paul volunteers departed as well, leaving flyers scattered across the parking lot, soaking in the snow.

"I don't vote," one man leaving the mosque told Yahoo News as he walked toward his car. "It's all shady politics."

Despite having the largest congregation in the country, Kassem Allie, the mosque's executive administrator, said he had received no official outreach from any of the Republican presidential campaigns.

"It's not surprising they wouldn't reach out to us," he said, pointing out that most Muslims in the area were Democrats. "Of course, it's not too late."

Sheriff's office reports shooting at northeastern US high school; number of victims unknown

CHARDON, Ohio - A sheriff's office is confirming a shooting at a high school in the U.S. state of Ohio.

Civil deputy Erin Knife with the Sheriff's Office says the shooting was reported Monday morning at Chardon High School.

Knife says she doesn't have the number of victims yet, and says a single person suspected in the shooting has left the school but is not in custody.

Schools in the area are locked down.

Chardon is about 30 miles (50 kilometres) east of Cleveland.

British arms-to-Iran suspect faces Texas court

EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A retired British businessman is to appear in a federal court in El Paso after being extradited last week on charges that he tried to sell missile batteries to Iran in 2006.

Christopher Tappin turned himself in Friday after fighting extradition from the United Kingdom for two years. Two other men were sentenced in 2007 to 20 and 24 months in federal prison for their roles in the scheme.

The 65-year-old Tappin was denied a final appeal of his extradition last month and delivered to El Paso by federal marshals. His deportation sparked a debate in the U.K. over whether British and American citizens are treated equally under the two countries' extradition treaty.

Don Cogdell, Tappin's attorney in Texas, said he plans to aggressively push to have Tappin granted bail.

9 Afghans killed in blast outside NATO base

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into the gates of a NATO base and airport in eastern Afghanistan on Monday, triggering a blast that killed nine Afghans, officials said. The Taliban claimed the attack was revenge for U.S. troops burning copies of the Quran.

The bombing in the city of Jalalabad follows six days of deadly protests in the country over the disposal of Qurans and other Islamic texts in a burn pit last week at a U.S. military base north of Kabul.

American officials have called the incident a mistake and issued a series of apologies. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has urged calm, calling on his countrymen not to let the insurgents capitalize on their indignation to spark violence.

Monday's attack appeared to be a sign that the Taliban are seizing the opportunity to do just that.

Shortly after daybreak, the bomber drove up to the gates of the airport, which primarily serves international military aircraft, and detonated his explosives in a "very strong" blast, said Nangarhar provincial police spokesman Hazrad Mohammad.

Among the dead were six civilians, two airport guards and one soldier, Mohammad said. Another six people were wounded, he said.

An AP photographer saw at least four mangled, charred cars at the site destroyed in the blast.

NATO forces spokesman Capt. Justin Brockhoff said that no international forces were killed in the attack and that the base was not breached by the blast.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying a suicide car bomber had driven up to the airport gate and detonated his explosives as international forces were changing from night to morning guard duty.

"This attack is revenge against those soldiers who burned our Quran," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in an email.

More than 30 people have been killed in protests and related attacks since the incident came to light this past Tuesday, including four U.S. soldiers.

On Sunday, demonstrators hurled grenades at a small U.S. base in northern Afghanistan and the ensuing gun battle left two Afghans dead and seven NATO troops injured.

Still, the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan said Sunday that the violence would not change Washington's course.

"Tensions are running very high here, and I think we need to let things calm down, return to a more normal atmosphere, and then get on with business," Ambassador Ryan Crocker told CNN. Afghan officials, including the defense and interior ministers, canceled planned visits to Washington this coming week so they could remain in Kabul for consultations about how to quell the violence, U.S. officials said.

In the highest-profile attack, two military advisers were found dead in their office at the Interior Ministry in the heart of the capital with shots to the back of their heads.

The incident prompted NATO, Britain and France to recall hundreds of international advisers from Afghan ministries. The advisers are key to helping improve governance and preparing the country's security forces to take on more responsibility ahead of the drawdown of Western forces planned for 2014.

The U.S. had already pulled its advisers from Afghan government offices. The Canadian government also canceled all meetings in Afghan ministries, according to a spokesman.

Police were still searching Monday for the suspect — an Afghan man who worked as a driver for an office on the same floor as the advisers who were killed, said an official at the Interior Ministry who spoke anonymously to discuss ongoing operations. Eight shots were fired at the men — two at the first victim and eight at the second, the official said.

The Taliban claimed that the shooter was one of their sympathizers and that an accomplice had helped him get into the compound to kill the Americans in retaliation for the Quran burnings.