Twin suicide attack at Afghan tribal meeting: officials

KANDAHAR: Two suicide bombers struck inside a meeting of community leaders in the southern Afghan town of Spin Boldak on Sunday, causing an unknown number of casualties, local officials said.

"There has been a twin suicide bombing in the Spin Boldak council building. The blasts were inside the hall during a meeting of tribal elders," Jawed Faisal, spokesman for the governor of Kandahar province, told AFP.

"There are casualties but we don't have the numbers at this time."

Witnesses said that two explosions were heard, followed by small arms fire in Spin Boldak, a town in the restive Kandahar province close to the border with Pakistan.

The council building was badly damaged and some people were feared trapped in the rubble.

"Every Sunday the local shura (council) meet at the administrative building, that is where the attack happened," said Mohammad Ali, the border police chief in Spin Boldak, 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of Kandahar city.

"Two suicide attackers detonated themselves during the meeting."

- AFP/xq

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Armstrong's lawyer: No mea culpa talks

By Jillian Martin and Chelsea J. Carter

updated 1:06 PM EST, Sat January 5, 2013

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The New York Times report cites unnamed associates and doping officials in its report


• Cyclist's lawyer says his client was not in discussion with U.S. or world anti-doping agencies


• Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life


• Cyclist has repeatedly denied using banned performance-enhancing drugs

(CNN) -- Lance Armstrong's attorney denied his client was in discussion with the U.S. or world anti-doping agencies following a report by The New York Times that the disgraced cycling icon was contemplating publicly admitting he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

Attorney Tim Herman in an email to CNN Sports late Friday did not address whether Armstrong told associates -- as reported by the newspaper -- that he was considering the admission as a way to restore his athletic eligibility.

Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life last year after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency found there was overwhelming evidence that he was directly involved in a sophisticated doping program.

Silence falls as Austin awaits Armstrong's 'last word'

Lance Armstrong over the years

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Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong is the subject of annual Bonfire Night celebrations in the British town of Edenbridge. An effigy of Armstrong will be burned during the celebrations, which mark the foiling of Guy Fawkes' "gunpowder plot" to blow up the Houses of Parliament and kill King James I in 1605. The Edenbridge Bonfire Soceity has gained a reputation for using celebrity "Guys," including Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein.

Up in flames

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Armstrong has repeatedly and vehemently denied that he used banned performance-enhancing drugs as well as illegal blood transfusions during his cycling career.

In the past, Armstrong has argued that he took more than 500 drug tests and never failed. In its 202-page report that detailed Armstrong's alleged use of performance-enhancing drugs and blood transfusions, the USADA said it had tested Armstrong less than 60 times and the International Cycling Union conducted about 215 tests.

The agency did not say that Armstrong ever failed a test, but his former teammates testified as to how they beat tests or avoided the tests altogether.

The New York Times, citing unnamed associates and anti-doping officials, said Armstrong has been in discussions with USADA officials and hopes to meet with David Howman chief of the World Anti-Doping Agency. The newspaper said none of the people with knowledge of Armstrong's situation wanted to be identified because it would jeopardize their access to information on the matter.

Under World Anti-Doping Agency rules, an athlete who confesses to using performance-enhancing drugs may be eligible for a reinstatement.

Armstrong has been an icon for his cycling feats and celebrity, bringing more status to a sport wildly popular in some nations but lacking big-name recognition, big money and mass appeal in the United States.

He fought back from testicular cancer to win the Tour from 1999 to 2005. He raised millions via his Lance Armstrong Foundation to help cancer victims and survivors, an effort illustrated by trendy yellow "LiveSTRONG" wristbands that helped bring in the money.

The cyclist's one-time high-profile relationship with singer Sheryl Crow also kept him in the public eye.

But Armstrong has long been dogged by doping allegations, with compatriot Floyd Landis -- who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France title after failing a drug test -- making a series of claims in 2011.

Armstrong sued the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency last year to stop its investigation of him, arguing it did not have the right to prosecute him. But after a federal judge dismissed the case, Armstrong said he would no longer participate in the investigation.

In October 2012, Armstrong was stripped of his titles and banned. Weeks later, he stepped down from the board of his foundation, Livestrong.

It is unclear whether Armstrong would face criminal prosecution for perjury should he confess. Armstrong was involved in several cases where he gave sworn testimony that he never used banned drugs.

Armstrong and his publicist did not immediately respond to a CNN requests late Friday and early Saturday for comment on The New York Times report.

Armstrong's demise: How he fell from grace

Part of complete coverage on

Lance Armstrong

updated 1:21 PM EDT, Mon October 22, 2012

Lance Armstrong's feat of winning seven consecutive Tour de France titles was like the demigod Hercules achieving his "Twelve Labors."

updated 3:40 PM EDT, Mon October 22, 2012

The International Cycling Union announces hat Lance Armstrong is being stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

updated 11:45 AM EST, Thu December 6, 2012

Forty days alone in the wilderness was enough for Jesus, but Lance Armstrong is facing an altogether longer period of solitude.

updated 4:43 PM EST, Wed November 7, 2012

Lance Armstrong's fall from grace has left one of the cyclist's former sponsors not only "sad" -- but also without one of its biggest marketing tools.

updated 2:15 PM EDT, Fri October 26, 2012

Lance Armstrong has been asked to return all prize money from his seven annulled Tour de France victories by the sport's governing body.

updated 2:57 PM EDT, Wed October 24, 2012

For years, as Lance Armstrong basked in the glow of an adoring public, his critics frequently were banished to the shadows, dismissed by the cycling legend and his coterie as cranks or worse.

updated 4:55 PM EDT, Sat October 20, 2012

Connie and Daniel Roddy did all they could to support Livestrong, raising tens of thousands of dollars for the cancer charity. Now they want their money back.

updated 10:59 AM EDT, Mon October 22, 2012

Lou Hablas has supported Livestrong for years and worn the iconic yellow bracelet in honor of his uncle, stepmother and friends who have lost loved ones to cancer.

updated 5:44 AM EDT, Mon October 22, 2012

For years, Lance Armstrong carried a growing burden of doping accusations up increasingly steep hills, accumulating fans, wealth and respect along the way.

updated 9:38 AM EDT, Wed October 17, 2012

Johan Bruyneel has become the first victim of a U.S. government investigation into Lance Armstrong and doping.

updated 8:45 AM EDT, Wed October 17, 2012

The 84 million bright yellow wristbands distributed by Lance Armstrong's cancer charity have become a well-known symbol of strength and perseverance.

updated 5:45 AM EDT, Mon October 22, 2012

The systematic use of performance enhancing substances within Lance Armstrong's former U.S. Postal Service team has been detailed by one cyclist who resisted the temptation to dope.

updated 9:57 PM EDT, Wed October 10, 2012

Cyclist Lance Armstrong was part of "the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

updated 5:53 PM EDT, Sat October 13, 2012

A former teammate of Lance Armstrong says there was no question why U.S. Postal Service team members doped during big races.

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Syrian president to give speech

BEIRUT Syrian President Bashar Assad will deliver a speech on Sunday in a rare address to the nation, state media said, as rebels fighting to topple his embattled regime pressed ahead with an offensive on the capital.

The official SANA news agency said in a brief statement Saturday that Assad will speak about the latest developments in Syria. The speech would be the first by the leader since June, and comes amid intense fighting between government troops and rebels on the outskirts of Damascus.

Assad has rarely spoken in public since the uprising against him began in March 2011. In each of his previous speeches and interviews, the president has dug in his heels even as Western powers have moved to boost the opposition in Syria's civil war.

In his last public comments, Assad vowed in an interview with Russia Today on Nov. 8 that he would "live and die in Syria."

Fighting has raged for weeks in the neighborhoods and towns around Damascus that have been opposition strongholds since the Syrian revolt began. The uprising started with peaceful protests but morphed into a civil war that has killed more than 60,000 people, according to a recent United Nations recent estimate.

The rebels are trying to push through the government's heavy defenses in Damascus, prompting the regime to unleash a withering assault on the suburbs that has included intense barrages by artillery and warplanes.

Diplomatic efforts to end the Syrian crisis have failed so far to bring an end to the bloodshed, although the international community continues to push for a peaceful settlement.

On Saturday, Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal told reporters after a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart in Riyadh that there should be an immediate end to the bloodshed in Syria and called for a peaceful political transition.

Play Video

A savage week in Syria

Saudi Arabia and Egypt have both called on Assad to step down, and Riyadh has also been an outspoken supporter of the rebels.

The president of the U.N. Security Council said Thursday there are important developments in efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the 21-month conflict in Syria and there could be another U.S.-Russia meeting with international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi next week.

Brahimi and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov both said after their meeting last Saturday that the Syrian crisis can only be settled through talks, while admitting that neither the government nor the opposition has shown a desire to compromise. Neither official hinted at a possible solution that would persuade the two sides to agree to a ceasefire and sit down for talks about a political transition.

But Lavrov said Syrian President Bashar Assad has no intention of stepping down — a key opposition demand — and it would be impossible to try to persuade him otherwise. Russia is a close ally of the Syrian government, and has shielded it from punitive measures at the U.N.

It was not clear what kind of initiative, if any, Assad may offer in his speech.

Meanwhile the violence continued unabated Saturday.

Rebels and government troops clashed in suburbs south of Damascus, including Harasta and Daraya, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Fighting in Daraya alone left 10 dead, including six rebels, according to the Observatory, which relies on reports by activists on the ground.

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Gun Show Near Newtown Goes on Despite Anger

A little more than 40 miles from Sandy Hook Elementary School, where last month 20 first graders and six staff members were massacred, gun dealers and collectors alike ignored calls to cancel a gun show, and gathered for business in Stamford, Conn.

Four other gun shows with an hour of Newtown, Conn., recently cancelled their events in the wake of the shootings, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza broke in to the elementary school with a semi-automatic assault rifle and three other guns.

The organizers in Stamford emphasized their show only displayed antique and collectible guns, not military style assault weapons like the one used by Lanza in Sandy Hook.

Still, Stamford Mayor Michael Pavia had called for the show to close its doors, calling it "insensitive" to hold so close to the murders.

Gun show participant Sandy Batchelor said he wasn't sure about whether going ahead with the show was "insensitive," but said the shooter should be blamed, not the weapons he used.

"I don't have a solid opinion on [whether it is insensitive]," Batchelor said. "I'm not for or against it. I would defend it by saying it wasnt the gun."

In nearby Waterbury, the community cancelled a show scheduled for this weekend.

"I felt that the timing of the gun show so close to that tragic event would be in bad taste," Waterbury Police Chief Chief Michael J. Gugliotti said.

National Rifle Association News Conference Interrupted by Protesters Watch Video

Gugliotti has halted permits for gun shows, saying he was concerned about firearms changing hands that might one day be used in a mass shooting.

Across the state line in White Plains, N.Y, Executive Rob Astorino also canceled a show, three years after ending a had that had been in place since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Colorado. He said he felt the show would be inappropriate now.

But across the country, farther away from Connecticut, attendance at gun shows is spiking, and some stores report they can hardly keep weapons on their shelves with some buyers fearful of that the federal government will soon increase restrictions on gun sales and possibly ban assault weapons altogether.

"We sold 50-some rifles in days," said Jonathan O'Connor, store manager of Gun Envy in Minnesota.

President Obama said after the Sandy Hook shooting that addressing gun violence would be one of his priorities and Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she would introduce an assault weapons ban this month.

But it is not just traditional advocates of gun control that have said their need to be changes in gun laws since the horrific school shooting.

Republican Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat but a long-time opponent of gun control who like Hutchison has received an A rating from the NRA, have both come out in support of strengthening gun laws.

In Stamford, gun dealer Stuart English said participants at the gun show there are doing nothing wrong.

"I have to make a living. Life goes on," gun dealer Stuart English said.

ABC News asked English, what he thought about the mayor of Stamford calling the show "insensitive."

"He's wrong," English said. "This is a private thing he shouldn't be expressing his opinion on."

If you have a comment on this story or have a story idea, you can tweet this correspondent @greenblattmark.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Graphic in-car crash warnings to slow speeding drivers

Paul Marks, chief technology correspondent

(Image: Cityscape/a.collection/Getty)

"You would die if you crashed right now." Would such a warning make you take your foot off the accelerator? That's the idea behind a scheme to warn drivers of the consequences of speeding developed by engineers at Japan's Fukuoka Institute of Technology and heavy goods vehicle maker UD Trucks, also in Japan. They are developing what they call a "safe driving promotion system" that warns drivers what kind of crash could ensue if they don't slow down.

Their patent-pending system uses the battery of radar, ultrasound sonar and laser sensors found in modern cars and trucks to work out the current kinetic energy of a vehicle. It also checks out the distance to the vehicle in front and keeps watch on its brake lights, too. An onboard app that has learned the driver's reaction time over all their previous trips then computes the likelihood of collision - and if the driver's speed is risky, it displays the scale of damage that could result.

The warning that flashes up could vary from something like a potential whiplash injury due to a rear-end shunt to a fatal, car-crushing collision with fire. The inventors hope this kind of in-car advice will promote safety more forcefully than current warning systems, which merely display the distance to the vehicle in front. "A sense of danger will be awakened in the driver that makes them voluntarily refrain from dangerous driving," they predict.

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Giant rubber duck floats into Sydney

SYDNEY: A gigantic, bright yellow rubber duck floated into Sydney's Darling Harbour as part of the Australian city's annual arts festival, a celebration where high art meets popular entertainment.

Each January hundreds of thousands of people attend theatre, music, dance, film, talks and other events for three weeks, often braving sweltering summer temperatures and thunderstorms for their dose of culture.

The 2013 festival, which will present 92 events from some 750 artists from 17 countries, kicked off on Saturday under bright sunshine, with thousands lining Darling Harbour for the entry of artist Florentijn Hofman's inflatable duck.

"What makes Sydney Festival unique I think is this amazing blend of serious art and quirky and playful entertainment," festival director Lieven Bertels told AFP.

"And what better to celebrate that than with a really, lovely public art work such as the rubber duck."

Bertels said the duck -- a 15-metre high creation by Dutchman Hofman, models of which have appeared in other cities -- appealed to the young and old, bringing back childhood memories for some.

"This is the Sydney duck and for him (Hofman) what's important about it is that it is not just a playful thing but also one that connects," Bertels explained.

"Because his whole theory around this, which is quite beautiful, is that all these harbours are connected to the local seas, and all these seas are part of one big ocean. So he says, well, really the whole world is one big bathtub.

"And what better way to celebrate summer than to have a giant bathtub party?"

Many Sydney Festival events, such as the duck's arrival, are free and family-oriented to showcase the personality of Australia's biggest city.

This year the big attractions will be a sexy Latino circus show from Circolombia and soul singer Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, but the January 5 to 27 festival will also present an interpretation of Handel's opera "Semele" and encompass an exhibition of works by painter Francis Bacon.

Quirky events include a performance by an actor who will run a full marathon on a treadmill in front of spectators at Sydney's Hyde Park while wearing gold trainers and recounting an ancient Greek tale.

Sydney Festival was designed to bring life back into the city during the slow summer months. It first took place in 1977 and has since then grown to become one of the country's largest annual cultural celebrations.

"For me, from my European perspective, what made it really unique is this amazing way where you can combine high art and entertainment and very popular stuff all in one festival which is something you don't often do in European arts festivals," said Belgium-born Bertels.

- AFP/xq

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Feds: 2nd inmate who escaped Chicago jail captured

This undated photo provided by the FBI shows , Kenneth Conley one of two inmates who escaped from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012.

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AP Photo/FBI,HONS

(AP) CHICAGO -- The second of two bank robbers who escaped last month from a high-rise federal jail in downtown Chicago was captured Friday at an apartment complex across the street from a suburban police department, authorities said.

Kenneth Conley was arrested in Palos Hills, according to U.S. Marshals Service spokeswoman Belkis Cantor. She said someone called local police Friday morning thinking they recognized Conley. FBI spokeswoman Joan Hyde said the Palos Hills Police Department took him into custody.

Conley fled the Metropolitan Correctional Center last month with Joseph "Jose" Banks, apparently by smashing a hole in a wall at the bottom of a narrow cell window and squeezing through before scaling down about 20 stories using a knotted rope made out of bed sheets. Banks was arrested without incident two days later at a home on the city's North Side.

A man who answered the phone at a number listed for Conley's brother, Nicholas Conley, in Orland Hills refused to answer questions and asked that the family be left alone. A message left for Conley's mother was not immediately returned.

This undated photo provided by the FBI shows Jose Banks, one of two inmates who escaped from the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Chicago Tuesday, Dec. 18, 2012. Chicago Police Sgt. Michael Lazarro says their disappearance was discovered at about 8:45 Tuesday morning. Lazarro says the pair used a rope or bed sheets to climb from the building. (AP Photo/FBI,HONS

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Uncredited

Jail officials did not notice for hours on the morning of the escape that Banks and Conley were gone. Surveillance video from a nearby street showed the two hopping into a cab shortly before 3 a.m. on Dec. 18. They had changed out of their orange jail-issued jumpsuits.

When the facility did discover the two men were gone around 7 a.m., what was found revealed a meticulously planned escape, including clothing and sheets shaped to resemble a body under blankets on beds, bars inside a mattress and even fake bars in the cells.

A massive manhunt involving state, federal and local law enforcement agencies was launched, as SWAT teams stormed into the home of a relative of Conley only to learn the two escapees had been there and left. The authorities searched other area homes and businesses -- even a strip club where Conley once worked.

Law enforcement officials left a host of questions unanswered, including how the men could collect about 200 feet of bed sheets and what they might have used to break through the wall of the federal facility.

Conley, 38, pleaded guilty last October to robbing a Homewood Bank last year of nearly $4,000. He wore a coat and tie during the robbery and had a gun stuffed in his waistband.

Banks, 37, known as the Second-Hand Bandit because he wore used clothes during his heists, had been convicted of robbing two banks and attempting to rob two others. Authorities say he stole almost $600,000, and most of that still is missing.

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Mapping malware's genome to fight future attacks

Uncovering the family resemblances between nasty computer bugs could help stop them in their tracks

Editorial: "Unmasking the cyber saboteurs, whoever they are

EVERY year a computer worm emerges to stalk the internet, each one seemingly bigger and badder than the last (see diagram). Although they seem to come from nowhere, every new bit of malware has a history. Sussing out the family resemblances could generate a faster response to future threats.

"Our vision is to have a database of the world's malware, which people can use to share insights," says Josh Saxe from Invincea labs in Fairfax, Virginia. His firm's scheme is based on a novel method for classifying malware, the programs hackers use to steal passwords, send spam and carry out other nefarious activities.

Malware is produced at such an astonishing rate that security experts already have automated systems for classifying new strains. But many of their plans are based on analyses of malware code, which hackers can often disguise. The new approach focuses instead on the behaviour of the malware itself.

Saxe and colleagues tested their ideas on just over 100,000 malware samples collected between February 2011 and June 2012. The team ran each piece of malware and logged the communication between the software and the machine it was running on. This communication is made up of "calls", such as requests to read the contents of a particular file. Individual strains often produce tens of thousands of such calls.

After watching the behaviour of many strains, Saxe and colleagues were able to break the communication data into blocks containing specific sequences of calls that occurred repeatedly across different samples. These blocks are a consequence of malware authors reusing code from older strains. The team used these blocks to classify the strains and to group them into what Saxe calls "malware families". He presented his work last month at the Neural Information Processing Systems Conference in Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Analysts will be able to use this catalogue of malware families to share information about new threats. Such a tool could be extremely useful, because much of the collaboration that takes place in the security community is ad hoc. Groups of researchers sometimes band together to tackle new threats, but detailed analyses of emerging strains tends to happen in parallel and independently.

The Invincea system offers an alternative. Analysts can attach notes to the blocks of sequence calls and, if a new strain produces the same block, those notes pop up. This should allow others to get to grips with the strain more rapidly.

Analysts should also be able to visualise groups of malware families, which could help determine the ancestors and authors of new strains, says Gunter Ollmann, chief technology officer at IOActive in Seattle. But he cautions that such sharing may be hampered by technical differences between analysts' set-ups.

The Invincea project is one of several funded under the Cyber Genome Program, run by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The results, many of which have not been made public, will be used to secure computer networks run by the Department of Defense.

"We're trying to allow people to make more intelligent choices about what to analyse to avoid repetition," says Saxe. "We're trying to multiply the effectiveness of analysts."

If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

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Germany plans 5 to 6b euros in more cuts by 2014: report

FRANKFURT: The German government is eyeing 5.0-6.0 billion euros (US$6.5-7.8 billion) in additional spending cuts in 2014 in a bid to balance the government budget, a newspaper reported on Friday.

The regional daily Rheinische Post quoted the deputy chief of the conservative CDU party, Michael Meister, as saying: "If we want to reach the so-called structural zero in 2014, we must close a gap of around 5.0 billion euros.

"That can only be achieved by spending cuts," Meister added.

The so-called structural deficit is the government's financial shortfall after adjustment for cyclical factors.

Already in December, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Germany planned to balance the overall state budget -- which on top of the government budget also includes the regional state and municipal budgets -- as early as 2012 rather than in 2014 as previously envisaged.

And in those projections, the government budget would still be in deficit in 2014, to the tune of around 5.0 billion euros.

Under rules enshrined in the European Union's Maastricht Treaty, member countries are not allowed to run up overall states deficits in excess of 3.0 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) and must balance their budgets in the medium term.

- AFP/xq

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U.S. troops in Turkey to ward off Syria

Destruction in the old souk of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo is seen after government forces allegedly recaptured the area.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• The missiles and troops will be under the overall control of NATO


• Syrian rebels are determined to take out a helicopter base


• Parents of a kidnapped U.S. journalist in Syria plead for his release


• An explosion at a gas station in Damascus kills 10 people

(CNN) -- U.S. troops arrived in Turkey on Friday to man Patriot missile defense batteries near the Syrian border, according to Turkish state media.

Syria has previously launched Scud missiles at cities near the Turkish border in a desperate bid to extend its firepower.

In response, the U.S., Germany and the Netherlands deployed Patriot air defense missiles to the border region to intercept any Syrian ballistic missiles.

The missiles and troops will be under the overall control of NATO, but the missiles will be operated by U.S. forces

A group of 27 U.S. troops landed in Gaziantep, Turkey, where they will survey the Patriot deployment, according to Turkish state news agency, Anadolu.

U.S. officials did not release any information about the troops arrival, but had said last month that forces will be deployed to Turkey.

"We've made very clear to them that were going to protect countries in this region," Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month. "We have to act to do what we have to do to make sure that we defend ourselves and make sure that Turkey can defend itself."

The fight for the helicopter airport

Taftenaz airbase in northern Syria has been a deadly thorn in the side of rebels for months.

For the third day Free Syrian Army fighters tried to wrest control of the helicopter airbase from government forces.

If successful, it would shut down President Bashar al-Assad's military helicopter pads and diminish his airstrikes in the region.

Both opposition and government sources reported that the extremist Nusra Front, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group, is taking part in the assault on the airport.

Al-Assad has exacted retribution on the nearby city of Binnish, where amateur video shows dozens of smoke plumes marking the spots where deadly ordnance has struck.

On Thursday, rebels published videos of themselves firing on the air base with heavy truck-mounted machine guns and a captured tank, destroying one government tank and appearing to shoot down a helicopter.

CNN cannot confirm the authenticity of videos from the Syrian conflict posted online.

Gas station attack in Damascus

An explosion at a gas station in Damascus near a hospital killed 10 people Friday, Syrian TV reported.

An opposition organization expects the toll to rise as many of the injured are in critical condition after fire spread to nearby cars and buildings.

The explosion came from a car bomb, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights posted on its Facebook page.

Appeal for missing U.S. journalist

A picture taken on November 5 in Aleppo shows U.S. freelance reporter James Foley,

In New Hampshire, the parents of American journalist James Foley appealed Thursday to his kidnappers to release him and inform them of his whereabouts and condition of his health.

Foley's father visibly choked up while reading a statement directed at the abductors. "We'd like them to contact us," he said. "I ask the captors for their compassion and Jame's quick release."

Foley was abducted in November in Syria, where he has worked for a year. He had been detained before while working in Libya but was later released by the government.

The rapidly mounting death toll

The overall death toll in devastated Syria has surpassed an estimated 60,000 people, the United Nations said Wednesday.

To put it in perspective: 60,000 people is roughly the population of Terre Haute, Indiana; or Cheyenne, Wyoming. It's how many people would fit in Dodger Stadium, and it's more than the 50,000-plus U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam.

The figure is about 15,000 higher than the death toll CNN had cited from a collection of sources.

On Thursday, al-Assad's forces repeatedly bombed the Damascus suburb of Douma with airstrikes. Residents could be seen combing through rubble, pulling out the bodies of those killed on videos posted on the Internet.

CNN's Amir Ahmed and Joe Sterling contributed to this report

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