MiamiHerald.com

HOTEL COPIES: A copy of The Miami Herald will bedelivered to your room. A credit of US$0.25 will beposted to your account if delivery is declined. INTERNATIONAL EDITION SATURDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2011

108TH YEAR I ©2011 THE MIAMI HERALD

PakistanipoliticiansrejectMullen’scharges

U.S.-born al Qaeda leader killed in Yemen

Iran urges Syria to start talks with protesters

BY SALMAN MASOODNew York Times Service

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Even as it revealed growing skepticism toward Pakistan’s powerful mili-tary, an extraordinary national se-curity conference ended here with a statement rejecting as “baseless” allegations from the United States’ top military offi cial that Pakistan was facilitating militant attacks in Afghanistan.

Military leaders and more than 50 politicians representing 32 politi-cal parties gathered Thursday at the residence of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani to discuss the charges made by Adm. Mike Mullen, chair-man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Last week, Mullen told a Senate panel that the Haqqani network, a potent part of the insurgency bat-tling U.S. forces in Afghanistan, was a “veritable arm” of Pakistan’s spy agency. He also accused the agency of supporting an attack this month by Haqqani militants on the U.S. Em-bassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The statements reopened a rift between the nominal allies and set off a furor in both countries, with the White House on Wednesday seeking to temper the remarks. In an interview with National Public Radio on Thursday, however, Mul-len stood by his testimony, revealing a divide within the Obama admin-istration that has, unusually, placed Mullen publicly in the hard-line po-sition toward Pakistan. He has been the U.S. offi cial leading the effort to improve cooperation.

He would not change a word of his testimony, Mullen insisted, say-ing, “I phrased it the way I wanted it to be phrased.”

Since his remarks last week, an atmosphere of crisis has gripped Pakistan, and the meeting Thurs-day was called to address fevered speculation among politicians and in the media that the United States was preparing to attack Haqqani havens, which U.S. offi cials have said are in North Waziristan, a part of Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

On Thursday, the politicians is-sued a 13-point resolution saying that Mullen’s “assertions are without substance and derogatory to part-nership approach.” They extended full support to the country’s armed forces “in defeating any threat to na-tional security.”

TURN TO PAKISTAN, 2A•

INDEXTHE AMERICAS ...........4AU.S. NEWS.....................5A OPINION ........................7A COMICS & PUZZLES ...6B

ROMNEY RETAKES LEAD IN NATIONAL POLL AS PERRY LOSES STEAM, 3A

IN TRIPOLI, U.S. SENATORS PRAISE LIBYA’S NEW LEADERS, 6A

EUROPEAN CRISIS COULD TAKE YEARS TO RESOLVE,BUSINESS FRONT

TEVEZ IS MAN CITY’S ARGENTINE ALBATROSS,SPORTS FRONT

GOP’s next big thing?

BY NIA-MALIKA HENDERSONWashington Post Service

Almost lost amid the buzz this week over the possibility that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may seek the Republican nomi-nation for president was the po-tential rise of a candidate already in the race: Herman Cain.

After a series of impressive debate performances and a new poll showing him in third place,

he is the latest GOP candidate to ride the boom and bust, we-love-you-we-love-you-not cycle of this year’s volatile race.

The former Godfather’s Pizza executive, in his double-breasted suits and gold-colored ties, has wowed debate audiences with his preacherly cadence, his hu-mor and his pizza slogan-wor-thy, 9-9-9 approach to tax policy. (That would be a 9 percent in-

come tax, 9 percent corporate tax and a new 9 percent national sales tax.)

Cain has also impressed his rivals, many of whom named him as a potential running mate in the last Republican debate.

Yet on that Florida debate stage, the choice of Cain as a hy-pothetical vice president was not so much a sign of his strength, but more of a feeling that Cain

wasn’t a true threat. That may have changed somewhat after the debate. Cain scored an upset against Texas Gov. Rick Perry two days later, notching a dou-ble-digit win in the Florida straw poll. And in the most recent Fox News poll, Cain is in third place with 17 percent of the vote, sta-tistically tied with Perry, in his

TURN TO CAIN, 2A•

BY BRIAN MURPHYAssociated Press

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Two weeks after Egypt’s upris-ing swept aside Hosni Mubarak, the presidents of Iran and Syria stood side by side in Damascus in a blunt message to the Arab Spring: The Syrian regime can count on its allies in Tehran.

Seven months later — and af-ter at least 2,700 deaths in Syria — Iran is tweaking its big brother role for Syria’s President Bashar al Assad. The Iranian leaders are now urging him to consider talks with protesters or risk heading down a path with few escape routes.

It’s Tehran’s version of tough love: Pressing Assad to do what it takes to stay in power and pre-serve one of Iran’s most important relationship in the Middle East.

“You have a decades-old strate-gic alliance on the ropes,” said Da-vid Schenker, a Syrian affairs ana-lyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “No doubt Iran is very concerned.”

But Assad appears to be fol-lowing his own rules in trying to ride out a mass revolt that has now spread into the security forces. Government troops have waged relentless crackdowns on opposi-tion protesters, as well as police and soldiers who have turned against the crackdown.

Iran is in the unfamiliar role of nervous bystander in Syria — a foothold on Israel’s border and a critical conduit to Tehran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.

Syria also adds to Iran’s worry about inspiration for its own in-ternal opposition, which has been mostly dormant since the Arab

revolts began in Tunisia. There is little chance Iran would risk the international fallout and send large-scale military forces to aid Assad, although it’s likely that Iran has boosted its cadre of secu-rity advisors and other envoys in Damascus. Instead, Iran seeks to coax Assad to offer some kind of tension-easing dialogue or at least pull back on the attacks.

Any concessions by Assad could open the way for eventual deep re-forms in his authoritarian rule. But Iran would gladly take a weakened Assad over the uncertainties un-der a new Syrian leadership, which would likely put Assad’s Iranian-oriented Alawite minority into a political deep freeze.

“There’s currently no change in Iran’s support for the Syr-ian government,” said Ahmad Bakhshayesh, a political science professor at Tehran’s Azad Uni-versity. “However, Iran is trying to convey the message . . . that Assad

TURN TO SYRIA, 2A•

BY LAURA KASINOF, MARK MAZZETTI AND ALAN COWELLNew York Times Service

SANA’A, Yemen — Anwar al Awlaki, the radical U.S.-born cler-ic who was a leading fi gure in al Qaeda’s Yemen affi liate and was considered its most dangerous English-speaking propagandist and plotter, was killed in a U.S. drone strike on his vehicle on Fri-day, offi cials in Washington and Yemen said. They said the strike also killed a radical U.S. colleague who was an editor of al Qaeda’s online jihadist magazine.

Many details of the strike were unclear, but one U.S. offi cial said that Awlaki, whom the United States had been hunting in Yemen for more than two years, had been identifi ed as the target in advance and was killed with a Hellfi re mis-sile fi red from a drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agen-

cy. The offi cial said it was the fi rst CIA strike in Yemen since 2002. Yemen’s Defense Ministry con-fi rmed Awlaki’s death.

The strike appeared to be the fi rst time in the U.S.-led war on terrorism since the Sept. 11,

2001, attacks that a U.S. citizen had been deliberately killed by U.S. forces, a step that has raised contentious constitutional issues in the United States. It was also the second high-profi le killing of an al Qaeda leader in the past

fi ve months under the Obama ad-ministration, which ordered the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistanin May.

Awlaki was an important mem-ber of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, regarded by some an-titerrorism experts as the most dangerous branch of the al Qaeda network. He was considered the inspirational or operational force behind a number of major plots aimed at killing U.S. citizens in the United States in recent years, most notably the deadly assault at a U.S. army base in Fort Hood, Tex., and attempts to bomb Times Square and a Detroit-bound jetliner.

“The death of Awlaki is a ma-jor blow to al Qaeda’s most ac-tive operational affi liate,” U.S.

TURN TO AWLAKI, 2A•

The United States had been hunting for Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen for more than two years.

SITE/AP

On Twitter, moods follow biological rhythms, study finds

MCT

‘You have a decades-old strategic alliance on the ropes . . . No doubt Iran is very concerned.’

— DAVID SCHENKERSyrian affairs analyst

CHIP

LIT

HER

LAN

D/N

EW Y

ORK

TIM

ES S

ERV

ICE

Impressive debate performances have pushed Herman Cain up to third place in the polls

BY BENEDICT CAREYNew York Times Service

However grumpy people are when they wake up, and whether they stumble to their feet in Madrid,

Mexico City or Minnetonka, Minn., they tend to brighten by breakfast time and

feel their moods taper gradually to a low in the late afternoon, before ral-

lying again near bedtime, a large-scale study of posts on the social media site Twitter found.

Drawing on messages posted by more than 2 million people in 84 countries, researchers discov-ered that the emotional tone of

people’s messages followed a simi-lar pattern not only through the day

but also through the week and the changing seasons. The new analysis suggests our moods are driven in part

by a shared underlying biological rhythm that transcends culture and environment.

TURN TO TWITTER, 2A•

01PGA01.indd 1 10/1/2011 4:44:28 AM

M I A M I H E RA L D @ H OY.CO M . EC B OA R DWA L KS1.MALECON EL SALADO

-Baquerizo Moreno Plaza and Exposition Center:

-Writers Path:

-Music Plaza:

-Health Plaza, Green Gardens, Seafood Pier:

-Sail Bridge:

-Student´s Boardwalk:

2.MALECON SIMON BOLIVAR(MALECON 2000).

-Crystal Palace:

-Olmedo Plaza:

-Malecón Shopping Mall:

-Civic Plaza:

-Playground for children,

Exe rc i se Z o n e, and Gardens,

-IMAX Theater:

-Simon Bolivar Cultural Center:

-Anthropological & Contemporary Art Museum:

-Guayaquil History Museum:

3.LAS PEÑAS.

4.SANTA ANA PORT.

5.CERRO SANTA ANA.

6.NAHIM ISAIAS MUSEUM.

7.PRESLEY NORTON MUSEUM.

8.MUNICIPAL MUSEUM.

9.CASA DE LA CULTURA.

10.FIREMAN MUSEUM.

11.NAVAL MUSEUM.

12.HISTORIC PARK.

13.FORESTAL PARK.

14.SEMINARIO PARK / IGUANA PARK.

15.PLAZA DEL CENTENARIO.

16.ADMINISTRATION PLAZA.

17.PLAZA SAN FRANCISCO / ROCAFUERTE.

18.PEDRO CARBO PARK.

19.NAVY PARK / BAE CALDERON PARK.

20.KENNEDY PARK.

21.LINEAL PARK OF EL SALADO.

22.CATHEDRAL CHURCH.

23.CITY HALL.

24 .C E M ET E RY.

www.hoy.com.ec

OCTOBER 1