LONDON (AP) - Two men accused of butchering a British soldier had been part of previous investigations by security services, a British official said Thursday, as investigators searched several locations and tried to determine whether the men were part of a wider plot to instill terror on the streets of London.

The men, suspected of hacking the off-duty soldier to death while horrified bystanders watched, boasted of their exploits and warned of more violence in images recorded on witnesses' mobile phones. Holding bloody knives and a meat cleaver, they waited for the arrival of police, who shot them in the legs, according to a passerby who tried to save the dying soldier.

Prime Minister David Cameron vowed that Britain would not be cowed by the horrific violence, and that it would reject "the poisonous narrative of extremism on which this violence feeds." Indeed, there were few signs of alarm in the British capital, which has been hit by terrorist attacks during a long confrontation with the Irish Republican Army and more recently by al-Qaida-inspired attacks.

"It's hateful, it's horrific and upsetting. But it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference," Christian White, 43, said at King's Cross station, close to the site of a subway bomb in July 2005. "Londoners are used to living in a city where life is complicated."

Even so, security was increased at military barracks and installations in the capital, with extra armed guards added in many cases. Police said extra patrols were added at sensitive areas, including places of worship, transport hubs and congested areas.

Britain's Ministry of Defense said the soldier killed was Lee Rigby, of 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Rigby, a 25-year-old with a 2-year-old son, Jack, joined the army in 2006 and was posted first to Cyprus and later served in Afghanistan and Germany. He took up a recruiting post with the military in London in 2011.

Wednesday's attack took place near a military barracks in the Woolwich area of south London.

The scene was bizarre in a prosperous capital known for its decorum: A man hacked to death in mid-afternoon, lying on the ground dead as the two alleged assailants talked with shocked bystanders and tried to score propaganda points on video cameras while apparently waiting for a bloody confrontation with police.

There was little hard information available about the wounded suspects. Police gave no details of their injuries or conditions. They did confirm that the victim was a serving British soldier. His family has asked that his name not be immediately released.

Both suspects in the London attacks had been part of previous terror investigations by Britain's security services, according to a British official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the police inquiry and cautioned that details could jeopardize future trials.

It was unclear how recent the investigations were or whether the men were loosely tied to other suspects being investigated or whether they themselves had been put under surveillance, which could have included being watched by undercover investigators or having their phone calls and emails intercepted.

Dramatic video footage showed a black male - animated, hands stained with blood and holding a meat cleaver - criticizing the British government and the presence of U.K. troops in foreign lands.

Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist now with the London-based Quilliam anti-extremism think tank in London, said the footage and details emerging indicated that the men had been inspired by al-Qaida even though they may not have been directed by any specific affiliate to attack the soldier.

"There is always mood music playing before these attacks happen," Nawaz told the AP. "In this instance, I'm not saying they are operationally linked to al-Qaida, but these men clearly felt an affinity to this global jihadist zeitgeist. And they wouldn't have had to have visited any foreign countries for this ideology to have resonated with them."

Security officials have been worried over the recent increase of men seeking training and fighting opportunities in countries such as Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

Dozens of British men and women are said to have been radicalized by U.S.-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the militant leader who was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

A Twitter account used by members of Somalia's al-Qaida linked terrorist group al-Shabab made a lengthy post Thursday about the attack in Woolwich.

The Twitter account referenced a video of the bloodied suspect calling the attack "an eye for an eye" for what it called the British army's "woeful record of abuses" against Muslims worldwide.

"We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you," the man in the video declared, complaining about British troops fighting Muslims. "We must fight them as they fight us."

The camera then panned away to show a body lying on the ground. This video, with its venomous threats, may provide the lasting image of the tragedy.

Police in the county of Lincolnshire in eastern England said a property was being searched in connection to the attack in Woolwich. Police said a search warrant had been obtained but would not provide details about the search. Police were also scouring the attack site for further clues.

There was also a police raid on a public housing complex in east Greenwich just outside of London thought to be related to the attack investigation.

Britain's security threat remained the same since Wednesday's attack, but security officials said they were reviewing preparations for next month's Group of Eight summit in Northern Ireland. President Barack Obama and other world leaders are expected to attend the meeting on June 17-18.

The incident unfolded Wednesday afternoon when officers responded to reports of an assault just a few blocks from the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich.

Fred Oyat, 44, who lives in a high-rise nearby, said he heard four gunshots and went straight to the window.

"I saw one man lying there bleeding, another lying on the pavement being disarmed. A policeman was pointing a gun at him. A third man was lying further up the street. ... He was bleeding profusely," Oyat said. "There were four knives on the ground - big kitchen knives. The knives were very bloody."

Witnesses recounted seeing the suspects - armed with meat cleavers and possibly a firearm - rushing toward police when officers arrived on the scene. Police then opened fire.

Images from the scene showed a blue car that appeared to have been used in the attack, its hood crushed and rammed into a signpost on a sidewalk that was smeared with blood. A number of weapons - including butchers' knives, a machete and a meat cleaver - were strewn on the street.

The Associated Press examined the footage to verify its authenticity, cross-referencing images from the scene, aerial shots, the location of a car behind the alleged attacker and the appearance of a body and a car in the background. There was no immediate way for the AP to verify who the cameraman was.

Other images showed the second suspect clutching a long knife as he engaged in conversation with a woman who British media said tried to intervene to prevent further bloodshed.

The woman was identified as Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, 48, and said she confronted the attackers, telling them: "It is only you versus many people. You are going to lose."

Police defended the speed of the department's response to the attack.

In a statement, Assistant Commissioner Simon Byrne said police were on the scene nine minutes after receiving the first emergency call. Once it became clear that firearms were involved, firearms officers were called and arrived 14 minutes after the first call to police, he said.

Britain has been at the heart of several terror attacks or plots in recent years, the most deadly being the 2005 rush-hour suicide bombings when 52 commuters were killed. More recently, Parviz Khan was convicted in 2008 of plotting to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier in Birmingham.

Muslim religious groups and charities were quick to condemn the attack and urged police to calm tensions. The Muslim Council of Britain called it a "barbaric act that has no basis in Islam," adding that "no cause justifies this murder."

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Associated Press writers Cassandra Vinograd, Sylvia Hui, Matt Surman, Danica Kirka and Gregory Katz in London contributed to this report.

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LONDON (AP) - Two men attacked another man near a London military barracks Wednesday, in what British authorities were investigating as a possible terror act. One man is dead and two others were injured.

While details were scant, Prime Minister David Cameron called the killing "truly shocking" and said he had asked Home Secretary Theresa May to call an urgent meeting of the government's emergency committee.

A British government official who spoke only on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the investigation said the details that had emerged were indicative of a "terrorist-motivated attack."

May said she had been briefed by Britain's domestic security service, MI5, and by police on what she called a "sickening and barbaric" attack.

Britain's Ministry of Defense said it was urgently investigating reports that a serving soldier was involved in the incident.

Police said armed officers responded to reports of the assault Wednesday afternoon just a few blocks from a military training barracks in southeast London.

Commander Simon Letchford said reports indicated that one man was being assaulted by two other men, and that a number of weapons - including possibly a firearm - were used in the attack.

He confirmed that one man was found dead at the scene and that two men were shot by police and taken to separate London hospitals. One of them is in serious condition, according to London Ambulance Service.

Live television images of the scene showed a trail of blood staining a pavement, cordoned off streets and crime scene investigators marking the scene.

David Dixon, head teacher of a nearby primary school, said police told him there was a serious incident. He said he saw body lying in the road outside.

He told the BBC that he then made sure children were inside and put the school into lockdown mode. He said he then heard shots fired.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is called in when officers are involved in shootings, confirmed that it is investigating the incident, which took place near the Royal Artillery Barracks.

The barracks - which house a number of the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery and independent companies of the Grenadier and Coldstream Guards - were the site of shooting events during the 2012 London Olympics.

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WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. officials say they have identified five men they believe might be behind the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, last year. The officials say they have enough evidence to justify seizing them by military force as suspected terrorists - but not enough proof to try them in a U.S. civilian court as the Obama administration prefers.

So the officials say the men remain at large while the FBI gathers more evidence. The decision not to seize the men militarily underscores the White House's aim to move away from hunting terrorists as enemy combatants and toward trying them as criminals in a civilian justice system.

The officials spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive briefings publicly.

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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - A suicide car bombing tore through a U.S. convoy during rush hour in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing at least 15 people, including six U.S. military advisers and two children, officials said. U.S. soldiers rushed to the scene to help, including some wearing only T-shirts or shorts under their body armor.

An Islamic militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was carried out by a new suicide unit formed in response to reports that the U.S. plans to keep permanent bases and troops in Afghanistan even after the 2014 deadline for the end of the foreign combat mission. Hezb-e-Islami said its fighters had stalked the Americans for a week to learn their routine before striking.

It was the deadliest attack to rock the Afghan capital in more than two months and followed a series of other attacks against Americans that has made May the deadliest month for international forces this year. U.S.-led forces are increasingly leaving the fighting to their Afghan counterparts and focusing more on training mission in a bid to prepare the government forces to take over their own security after the international combat mission ends by the end of 2014.

The explosion was powerful enough to rattle buildings on the other side of the city, and left body parts scattered on the street.

Cmdr. Bill Speaks, a spokesman for the U.S. Defense Secretary, confirmed that two American soldiers were killed, while international security company DynCorp International said four of its American civilian contractors were among the dead. DynCorp International said its employees were working with U.S. forces training the Afghan military when the blast occurred.

Nine Afghan civilians also were killed, including two children, and 35 people were wounded, Health Ministry spokesman Kanishka Beektash Torkystani said.

The deaths pushed the monthly toll for the U.S.-led coalition to 18, making May the deadliest month so far this year. By comparison, 44 international troops were killed in the same period last year, reflecting the fact that the overall number of deaths has dropped as Afghan forces increasingly take the lead.

The suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car at about 8 a.m., Kabul provincial police spokesman Hashmad Stanakzi said. "The explosion was very big. It set the nearby buildings on fire," he said.

Kabul Deputy Police Chief Daud Amin said it was difficult to count the dead because the blast tore apart many of the bodies.

"We saw two dead bodies of children on the ground," Amin said. "But the rest of the (shattered) bodies were scattered around."

It was the bloodiest attack in the Afghan capital since March 9, when suicide bombers struck near the Afghan Defense Ministry while U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel was visiting.

President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack, saying it was the work of "terrorists and enemies of Afghanistan's peace."

A spokesman for Hizb-e-Islami, Haroon Zarghoon, told The Associated Press that one of the movement's operatives carried out the attack on two vehicles of U.S. advisers.

Zarghoon says the militant group has formed a new cell to carry out suicide attacks on U.S. and other coalition troops.

"The cell had been monitoring the movement and timing of the American convoy for a week and implemented the plan Thursday morning," Zarghoon said.

He said the cell was established in response to reports that the U.S. plans to keep permanent bases and troops in Afghanistan even after the NATO withdrawal.

The U.S. has said it wants no permanent bases in Afghanistan after 2014, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai raised eyebrows last week when he announced he had agreed to an American request to keep nine bases.

A small American force is expected to remain in the country to assist Afghans in keeping security, but the exact number or mission has not yet been decided.

Hizb-e-Islami, a fierce rival of the Taliban movement as well as the Americans, is headed by 65-year-old Gubuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister and onetime U.S. ally who is now listed as a terrorist by Washington. The militia has thousands of fighters and followers in the country's north and east.

Hekmatyar's government was heavily financed by the U.S. during Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. He is now is being hunted by Afghan and NATO troops. U.S. bombs have targeted his military chief, Kashmir Khan, in Kunar province in northeastern Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan. Khan was wounded but survived.

However, Hekmatyar's son-in-law has held peace talks with Karzai and American officials. In a further sign of the complexities of the Afghan insurgency, Hizb-e-Islami is also a rival to the Taliban insurgency, even though both movements share the goal of driving out foreign troops and establishing a state that would follow a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Hekmatyar and the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Omar, are said to be bitter personal enemies.

Thursday's attack was the second in eight months claimed by Hizb-e-Islami. In September, the militant group claimed responsibility when a female suicide car bomber killed least 12 people. At the time, Hizb-e-Islami said the attack was revenge for the film "Innocence of Muslims," which was made by an Egyptian-born American citizen and infuriated Muslims for its negative depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

___

Associated Press writer Kay Johnson contributed to this report.

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MOSCOW (AP) - A U.S. diplomat disguised in a blond wig was caught trying to recruit a Russian counterintelligence officer in Moscow, Russia's security services announced Tuesday, claiming the American was a CIA officer.

Ryan Fogle, a third secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, was carrying special technical equipment, disguises, written instructions and a large sum of money when he was detained overnight, Russia's Federal Security Service said.

The FSB, the successor agency to the Soviet-era KGB, said Fogle was trying to recruit a Russian counterterrorism officer who specializes in the Caucasus, the volatile region in southern Russia where the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects have their ethnic roots.

Fogle, who was handed over to U.S. Embassy officials, was declared persona non grata and ordered to leave Russia immediately, the Foreign Ministry said. He has diplomatic immunity, which protects him from arrest.

It was the first case of an American diplomat publicly accused of spying in about a decade and seemed certain to aggravate already strained relations between Russia and the United States.

The Foreign Ministry summoned U.S. Ambassador Michael McFaul to appear Wednesday in connection with the case. McFaul, who was doing a question-and-answer session on Twitter when the detention was announced, said he would not comment on the spying allegation.

Russia's Caucasus region includes the provinces of Chechnya and Dagestan. The suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings are ethnic Chechen brothers and the elder brother spent six months last year in Dagestan, now the center of an Islamic insurgency.

U.S. investigators have been working with the Russians to try to determine whether suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev had established any contacts with the militants operating in Dagestan.

Russian officials expressed indignation Tuesday that a U.S. diplomat would carry out such an espionage operation at a time when the presidents of the two countries have pledged to improve counterterrorism cooperation.

"Such provocative actions in the spirit of the Cold War do nothing to strengthen mutual trust," the Foreign Ministry said.

Despite the end of the Cold War, Russia and the United States still maintain active espionage operations against each other. Last year, several Russians were convicted in separate cases of spying for the U.S. and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences.

On Tuesday, Russian state television showed pictures of a man said to be Fogle, wearing a baseball cap and a blond wig, lying face down on the ground. The man, without the wig, was also shown sitting at a desk in the offices of the FSB. Two wigs, a compass, a map of Moscow, a pocket knife, three pairs of sunglasses and packages of 500 euro notes ($649 each) were among the items the FSB displayed on a table.

The FSB also produced a typewritten letter that it described as instructions to the Russian agent who was the target of Fogle's alleged recruitment effort. The letter, written in Russian and addressed "Dear friend," offers $100,000 (€77,059.41) to "discuss your experience, expertise and cooperation" and up to $1 million (€0.77 million) a year for long-term cooperation. The letter also includes instructions for opening a Gmail account to be used for communication and an address to write. It is signed "Your friends."

Samuel Greene, director of the Russia Institute at King's College London, called the evidence bizarre.

"I wouldn't have thought that spies gave each other written instructions," he said in a telephone interview. Greene also noted that the FSB had displayed Fogle's official diplomatic ID, suggesting he was carrying it along with the spy paraphernalia when he was detained.

"Maybe this is what the CIA has come to, maybe the propaganda folks in the Kremlin think we are this stupid, or maybe both," he said.

A five-minute video produced by the FSB and aired on state television showed a Russian official speaking to what appear to be three American diplomats who had come to pick up Fogle in the FSB office. The official, whose face is blurred, alleged that Fogle called an unnamed FSB counterintelligence officer who specializes in the Caucasus at 11:30 p.m. on Monday. He then said that after the officer refused to meet, Fogle called him a second time and offered him 100,000 euros ($129,770) if he would provide information to the U.S.

The Russian official said the FSB was flabbergasted. He pointed to high-level efforts to improve counterterrorism cooperation, specifically FBI director Robert Mueller's visit to Moscow last week and phone calls between President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"At a time when the presidents of the two countries are striving to improve the climate of relations between the two countries, this citizen, in the name of the U.S. government, commits a most serious crime here in Moscow," the official said.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed that an officer at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow was briefly detained and released.

"We have seen the Russian Foreign Ministry announcement and have no further comment at this time," said Psaki, who was in Sweden with Secretary of State John Kerry. The CIA declined to comment on the case.

Little was immediately known about Fogle. A third secretary is an entry level position at the State Department, the lowest diplomatic rank in the foreign service.

Putin has stoked anti-American sentiments among Russians in recent years in what is seen as an effort to bolster his support at home. He also appears to have a genuine distrust of Russian nongovernmental organizations that receive American funding, which he has accused of being fronts that allow the U.S. government to meddle in Russia's political affairs. Hundreds of NGOs have been searched this year as part of an ongoing crackdown by the Russian government.

Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University who studies the Russian security services, said the public exposure of Fogle and the pictures splashed across Russian television suggest a political purpose behind the detention. He said these kinds of spying incidents happen with some frequency, but making such a big deal of them is rare.

"More often, the etiquette is that these things get dealt with quite quietly - unless they want to get a message out," Galeotti said. "If you identify an embassy staffer who is a spy for the other side, your natural impulse is to leave them be, because once you identify, you can keep tabs on them, see who they talk to and everything else."

"There's no reason to make a song and dance, detain them, eject them," he said.

Greene said the American diplomat's detention should be seen as part of Putin's confrontation with the opposition and not as something likely to have a major impact on U.S.-Russia relations.

"I think this is mostly for domestic consumption in Russia so that people say, 'look at these naughty Americans trying to meddle in our internal affairs and spy on us,'" Greene said. "But everybody's got spies everywhere so I don't see this as a major issue."

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell also said the incident was unlikely to hamper U.S.-Russia relations.

"I'm not sure I'd read too much into one incident one way or another," he told reporters, and pointed to Kerry's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Sweden on Tuesday evening. "We have a very broad and deep relationship with the Russians across a whole host of issues, and we'll continue to work on our diplomacy with them directly."

Alexei Pushkov, who heads the international affairs committee in Russia's parliament, wrote in a Twitter post that the spy scandal would be short-lived and would not interfere in Kerry and Lavrov's discussions aimed at bridging deep differences over the civil war in Syria.

"But the atmosphere is not improving," Pushkov commented.

___

Associated Press writers Max Seddon in Moscow, Bradley Klapper in Washington and Lara Jakes in Kiruna, Sweden, contributed to this report.

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SAVAR, Bangladesh (AP) - Even amid the euphoria over finding a woman alive in the rubble of a garment factory that collapsed more than two weeks ago, rescuers on Saturday returned to the grim task of dismantling the wreckage and retrieving decomposing bodies, knowing there was little chance of finding any more survivors.

The death toll from Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster is more than 1,000 and climbing. More than 2,500 people were rescued in the immediate aftermath of the April 24 disaster, but until Friday, crews had gone nearly two weeks without discovering anyone alive.

Then, in the midst of what had become a grim search for decaying bodies following the world's worst garment industry disaster, rescuers found a woman alive, providing a much-needed boost for the weary workers.

For 17 days, the woman, a seamstress, lay trapped in a dark basement pocket beneath thousands of tons of wreckage as temperatures outside climbed into the mid-30s Celsius (mid-90s Fahrenheit). She rationed food and water. She banged a pipe to attract attention. She was fast losing hope of ever making it out alive.

In the ruins of the collapsed eight-store garment factory building above her, the frantic rescue operation had long ago ended.

"No one heard me. It was so bad for me. I never dreamed I'd see the daylight again," the seamstress, Reshma Begum, told Somoy TV from her hospital bed after her astonishing rescue on Friday.

The miraculous moment came when salvage workers finally heard Begum's banging. They pulled her to safety. She was in shockingly good condition, wearing a violet outfit with a large, bright pink scarf.

"I heard her say, 'I am alive, please save me.' I gave her water. She was OK," said Miraj Hossain, a volunteer who crawled through the debris to help cut Begum free.

The rescue was broadcast on television across Bangladesh. The prime minister rushed to the hospital, as did the woman's family to embrace a loved one they thought they'd never again see alive.

On April 24, Begum was working in a factory on the second floor of Rana Plaza when the building began collapsing around her. She said she raced down a stairwell into the basement, where she became trapped near a Muslim prayer room in a wide pocket that allowed her to survive.

Her long hair got stuck under the rubble, but she used sharp objects to cut her hair and free herself, said Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, the head of the local military units in charge of the disaster site.

"There was some dried food around me. I ate the dried food for 15 days. The last two days I had nothing but water. I used to drink only a limited quantity of water to save it. I had some bottles of water around me," Begum told the television station, as doctors and nurses milled about, giving her saline and checking her condition.

The last survivor had been found April 28, and even her story ended tragically. As workers tried to free Shahina Akter, a fire broke out and she died of smoke inhalation.

Crews were instead engaged in the painstaking work of trying to remove bodies so the victims' families could bury their loved ones. They eventually approached the section where Begum was trapped.

"I heard voices of the rescue workers for the past several days. I kept hitting the wreckage with sticks and rods just to attract their attention," Begum said.

She finally got the crews' attention when she took a steel pipe and began banging it, said Abdur Razzak, a warrant officer with the military's engineering department who first spotted her in the wreckage.

The rescue crews could not believe there might be a survivor. "But within minutes, we were sure that there was someone," Razzak said.

The workers ran into the dark rubble, eventually getting flashlights, to free her, he said.

They ordered the cranes and bulldozers to stop immediately and used handsaws and welding and drilling equipment to cut through the iron rod and debris still trapping her. They gave her water, oxygen and saline as they worked.

Hundreds of people engaged in removing bodies from the site in recent days raised their hands together in prayer for her survival.

"God, you are the greatest, you can do anything. Please allow us all to rescue the survivor just found," said a man on a loudspeaker leading the supplicants. "We seek apology for our sins. Please pardon us, pardon the person found alive."

After 40 minutes, she was free.

"When we were able to reach there, we lifted her together with our hands and brought her out to put her on a stretcher. She was baffled as rescuers outside shouted 'God is great,'" said Hossain, one of her rescuers.

Soldiers and men in hard hats carried Begum on a stretcher to a waiting ambulance, which brought her to a military hospital. Her rescuers said she was in good condition, despite her ordeal. Razzak said she could even walk.

"She was fine, no injuries. She was just trapped. The space was wide," said Lt. Col. Moyeen, an army official at the scene who uses only one name.

Doctors at the hospital told Bangladeshi television that Begum was out of danger and that her kidney and liver function were fine.

Begum survived for more than two weeks in temperatures that touched the mid-30s C (mid-90s F).

"This is just a miracle, this is so pleasing!" said Razzak, the warrant officer.

Begum told her rescuers there were no more survivors in her area. Workers began tearing through the nearby rubble anyway, hoping to find another person alive.

"Reshma told me there were three others with her. They died. She did not see anybody else alive there," Suhrawardy said. The bodies were eventually recovered from another section of the building not far from Begum, he said.

Begum's sister Asma said she and her mother kept a vigil for the seamstress, who is from the rural Dinajpur district, 270 kilometers (170 miles) north of Dhaka. She said they had been losing hope amid the endless string of grim days, when scores of bodies and no survivors were removed from the rubble.

"We got her back just when we had lost all our hope to find her alive," she told Somoy TV. "God is so merciful."

The women rushed to the hospital to see her.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina called Begum in the hospital, and the rescued woman began crying on the phone, Suhrawardy said. She told Hasina: "I am fine, please pray for me," he said.

Hasina, whose government has come under criticism for its lax oversight over the powerful garment industry, raced to the hospital by helicopter to meet her and congratulated the rescuers, officials said.

"This is an unbelievable feat," Hasina was quoted as saying by her assistant, Mahbubul Haque Shakil.

Begum lived in a rented house in this Dhaka suburb with her sister, who worked at a different garment factory.

The death toll from the disaster soared past 1,000 on Friday, with officials confirming that 1,045 bodies had been recovered from the ruins of the fallen building, which had housed five garment factories employing thousands of workers.

Suhrawardy said rescuers returned to work soon after finding Begum. He would not specify a time frame for the recovery operation.

The disaster has raised alarm about the often deadly working conditions in Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry, which provides clothing for major retailers around the globe.

Brig. Gen. Mohammed Siddiqul Alam Shikder, an army official overseeing the recovery work, said the bodies being recovered were badly decomposed and identification was difficult.

"We are working carefully," he said. "If we get any ID card or mobile phone with them, we can still identify them. Our sincere effort is to at least hand over the bodies to the families."

Brig. Gen. Azmal Kabir, a top official of the military's engineering section, said more than half of the estimated 7,000 tons of debris have been removed from the site but he did not know when the work would be finished.

Officials say the owner of Rana Plaza illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install heavy machines and generators, even though the structure was not designed to support such equipment.

The owner and eight other people, including the owners of the garment factories, have been detained.

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DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - A fire at a sweater manufacturer killed eight people - including a senior police officer, a Bangladeshi politician and a top clothing industry official - barely two weeks after the collapse of a building housing other garment factories where the death toll approached 1,000 on Thursday.

Unlike the collapse at the Rana Plaza building, which was blamed on shoddy construction and disregard for safety regulations, the Tung Hai Sweater factory appeared to have conformed to building codes. A top fire official said the deaths in Wednesday night's fire were caused by panic and bad luck.

"They are really unfortunate," said Mamun Mahmud, deputy director of the fire service.

The fire engulfed the lower floors of the 11-story factory, which had closed for the day. The smoldering acrylic products produced immense amounts of smoke and poison gas and the victims suffocated as they ran down the stairs, Mahmud said.

The building appeared on first inspection to have been properly built, though fire inspectors would conduct further checks, he said. It had two stairwells in the front and an emergency exit in the back, he said. Those inside probably panicked when they saw smoke and ran into one of the front stairwells, he said. Had they used the emergency stairwell, they would have survived, he said.

"Apparently they tried to flee the building through the stairwell in fear that the fire had engulfed the whole building," he said.

They also would have likely survived the slow-spreading fire had they stayed on the upper floors, he said.

"We found the roof open, but we did not find there anybody after the fire broke out. We recovered all of them on the stairwell on the ninth floor," he said.

The blaze comes just two weeks after the collapse of the eight-story Rana Plaza building, home to five garment factories, killed at least 950 people and became the worst tragedy in the history of the global garment manufacturing industry. The disaster has raised alarm about the often deadly working conditions in Bangladesh's $20 billion garment industry, which provides clothing for major retailers around the globe.

The identities of the victims of Wednesday's fire showed the entanglement of the industry and top Bangladeshi officials. The dead included the factory's managing director, Mahbubur Rahman, who was also on the board of directors of the powerful Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association. Along with him was senior police official Z.A. Morshed and Sohel Mostafa Swapan, head of a local branch of the ruling party's youth league.

Independent TV, a local station, reported that Rahman had plans to contest next year's parliamentary elections as a candidate for the ruling party and had been meeting friends to discuss his future when the fire broke out.

It was not immediately clear what caused the fire, which began soon after the factory workers went home for the day and took three hours to bring under control. Mahmud speculated it might have originated in the factory's ironing section. Officials originally said the building also housed several floors of apartments, but later said it was just a factory.

The Facebook page of the Tung Hai Group claimed it was a sprawling enterprise with a total of 7,000 employees at its two factories and the capacity to produce well over 6 million sweaters, shirts, pants and pajamas every month. The group claimed it did business with major retailers in Europe and North America.

The country's powerful garment industry has been plagued by a series of disasters in recent months, including a November fire at the Tazreen factory that killed 112 and the building collapse.

More than two weeks after the building in the suburb of Savar collapsed, workers with cranes and other heavy equipment were still pulling apart the rubble and finding more bodies. On Thursday, authorities said the death toll had risen to 950 and it was unclear how many more people remained missing. More than 2,500 people were rescued alive after the April 24 accident.

Maj. Ohiduzzaman, an army official who uses only one name, said 100 decomposing bodies have been kept at a makeshift morgue at a school and were to be sent to hospitals in Dhaka for DNA testing to identify them.

A total of 648 bodies have so far been handed over to the families, he said. Some of those who authorities have been unable to identify have been buried by the government.

Bangladeshi Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus said in an article published in Bangladeshi newspapers Thursday that the tragedy was a "symbol of our failure as a nation."

"The crack in Rana Plaza that caused the collapse of the building has only shown us that if we don't face up to the cracks in our state systems, we as a nation will get lost in the debris of the collapse," he said, urging the government and citizens to work together for reforms.

He also urged global brands not to abandon the country, saying that the workers in the factories - which often subcontract from the well-known brands - should be seen as de facto employees of those companies.

The European Union's delegation to Bangladesh urged the government Wednesday to "act immediately" to improve working conditions in the country's garment industry.

Abdul Latif Siddiqui, head of special Cabinet committee to inspect garment factories that was formed days after the Rana Plaza collapse, said the government has closed 18 garment factories in recent days for failing to meet work and safety standards. He did not say whether the closures were temporary or permanent.

Officials say the owner of Rana Plaza illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install heavy machines and generators, even though the structure was not designed to support such equipment.

The owner and eight other people, including the owners of the garment factories, have been detained.

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DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) - Dozens of bodies recovered Wednesday from a collapsed garment factory building were so decomposed they were being sent to a lab for DNA identification, police said, as the death toll from Bangladesh's worst industrial disaster topped 800.

Following protests, authorities also began disbursing salaries and other benefits to survivors of the collapse.

Also Wednesday, the European Union's delegation to Bangladesh urged the government to "act immediately" to improve working conditions. Authorities said the government has closed 18 garment factories in recent days for failing to meet work and safety standards.

Police said 803 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage of the eight-story Rana Plaza building by late afternoon and more were expected as salvage work continued two weeks after the April 24 collapse.

There is no clear indication of how many bodies still remain trapped in the debris because the exact number of people inside the building at the time of the collapse is unknown. More than 2,500 people were rescued alive.

The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association earlier said 3,122 workers were employed at the five factories housed in the building, but it was not clear how many were there during the packed morning shift when it collapsed. Several stores and a bank were also in the building.

Maj. Gen. Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardy, a top military official in the area, said the operation to recover bodies from the tangle of wreckage could continue for two to three more days before they would ask the local administration to take care of the site.

Suhrawardy said they had to send 36 decomposing bodies to Dhaka Medical College Hospital to collect DNA samples because they were beyond identification. Authorities expected to send more bodies for testing in the coming days, with temperatures in the high 80s Fahrenheit (low 30s Celsius) and rain pouring down.

The disaster is the worst ever in the garment sector, far surpassing fires last year that killed about 260 people in Pakistan and 112 in Bangladesh, as well as the 1911 garment disaster in New York's Triangle Shirtwaist factory that killed 146 workers.

After hundreds of garment workers protested for compensation Tuesday, authorities started disbursing salaries and other benefits.

About 2,000 people gathered at a military athletic field in Savar on Wednesday to receive their salaries, but the process was slow because many had no identity cards, said Faruk Hossain, an inspector for the Industrial Police.

He said factory supervisors were helping to identify workers who did not have ID cards or other proof that they were employed by the five factories.

Rafiqul Islam, a BGMEA official, said the disbursement would continue in phases.

The workers, many of whom made little more than the national minimum wage of about $38 per month, are demanding at least four months' salary. They had set Tuesday as a deadline for the payment of wages and other benefits.

Local government administrator Yousuf Harun has said no salary remained unpaid except for the month of April and there was an agreement for the workers to receive an additional three months of pay.

The BGMEA said Monday that it was preparing a list of workers employed by the Rana Plaza factories and the process would take a few more days.

Bangladesh earns nearly $20 billion a year from exports of garment products, mainly to the United States and Europe.

William Hanna, head of the EU delegation in Bangladesh, told a news conference Wednesday that the EU would help Bangladesh ensure safe working conditions.

Abdul Latif Siddiqui, head of special Cabinet committee to inspect garment factories that was formed days after the Rana Plaza collapse, told a separate news conference that the government has closed 16 factories in the Dhaka area and two in Chittagong in the last few days for substandard working and safety conditions. He did not say whether the closures were temporary or permanent.

Officials say the owner of Rana Plaza illegally added three floors and allowed the garment factories to install heavy machines and generators, even though the structure was not designed to support such equipment.

The owner and eight other people including the owners of the garment factories have been detained.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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MEXICO CITY (AP) - A natural gas tanker truck lost control, hit a center divider and exploded on a highway lined by homes in the Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec early Tuesday, killing at least 20 people and injuring nearly three dozen, according to the Citizen Safety Department of Mexico State, which surrounds Mexico City.

Officials did not rule out the possibility the death toll could rise more as emergency workers continued sifting through the charred remains of vehicles and homes built near the highway on the northern edge of the metropolis.

Residents pitched in to rescue people from the wreckage of the 5:30 a.m. explosion, crushed and burned cars and shattered homes. Television footage showed plumes of flame shooting out of homes in the pre-dawn darkness.

A huge piece of the truck's gas tank was blown 50 yards by the force of the blast, landing atop the wall of a house and cars parked outside. A number of pigs and other farm animals that were kept on patios were killed.

"It was thunderous sound. I thought we were all going to die," said Rita Enriquez, 42, a housewife who lives near where the blast occurred. "When we ran out, we saw a car on fire and flames everywhere. Smoke was pouring all over the freeway."

Enriquez said five of her relatives were gravely injured in their concrete slab home along the freeway, though she had no other details as she waited for word outside Magdalena Las Salinas Hospital in Mexico City.

Her 15-year-old niece, Wendy Garrido, who was pregnant, was forced to give birth after the explosion, she said.

The pre-dawn accident exposed two recurrent public safety issues in Mexico: extremely heavy trucks that are frequently involved in serious accidents, and the construction of improvised homes just feet away from major highways.

Some of the cinderblock homes hit by the massive explosion were just steps away from the busy, eight-lane highway. Other homes were mere shacks, built of sheet tin.

Cesar Gomez, Mexico state health secretary, said the injured people receiving care at Magdalena had burns over at least 70 percent of their bodies. He said the teenager and baby survived, but both were in intensive care. More than 20 remained hospitalized at various facilities by Tuesday afternoon, eight in grave condition.

Gomez said some of the victims may be airlifted to Texas for burn treatment.

The driver, Juan Olivares, 36, was heading to Mexico City from Pachuca, a city to the north in a tractor, hauling two gas tanks, that belonged to a company called Termogas, said Jose Luis Cervantes, assistant prosecutor for the state of Mexico.

Cervantes said the tractor hit a center divider and broke apart, with one tank flying into a house and exploding, killing 15 people, and another part of a tank hitting a separate house, killing four. Cervantes did not say where the 20th person died.

Cervantes said the driver may face manslaughter and property damage charges.

"We just pulled burned people, and put out the fire in the houses, but we don't really know what happened," said Rogelio Martinez, a resident of the neighborhood where the crash occurred.

Emergency personnel at the scene pulled dead victims from their homes, some apparently burned in their beds. An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw rescue workers carry three bodies, covered with white sheets, from one home.

One small passenger van had been totally gutted by flames and tossed against the wall of one of the many improvised houses built next to the highway.

Hundreds of police, ambulance drivers, paramedics, soldiers and firefighters gathered at the scene.

Pablo Bedolla, the mayor of Ecatepec, a mainly working-class area, said 20 homes and one school had been damaged in the blast. The explosion happened before class hours, so there were no apparent injuries in the school.

"People are very shaken, above all because of the injuries and the large number of dead," said Bedolla. "I've spoken with the families of the victims, and they are just sobbing."

The explosion closed the highway between Mexico City and Pachuca for hours.

Speaking in Mexico City, President Enrique Pena Nieto suggested something would have to be done to separate major highways from poor neighborhoods.

"I have instructed the Transportation Department ... to review the safety conditions on this federal highway in places where structures have been built on the right of way, so that in the near future, work can be carried out to make it safer," Pena Nieto said.

Often in Mexico, squatters settle on the right of way, the strip of land on either side of a highway or railway line, and put shacks there, gradually building up neighborhoods that are inherently unsafe, because they are built in what was intended to be a buffer zone.

This highway, however, was recently expanded, so it was unclear whether the land was legally settled.

Mexican trucks, often overloaded or unsafely operated, have been involved in a number of spectacular, deadly accidents in recent years.

The truck involved in Tuesday's accident was a double tanker: one cab pulling two gas tanks. The driver was injured in the crash, and was under detention at a local hospital.

One year ago, the Mexican government announced measures to tighten inspections and lower maximum allowed weights for freight trucks after protests over a string of deadly accidents involving double-trailer trucks.

Mexico had allowed trucks to travel two-lane roads with loads of up to 80 metric tons and lengths exceeding 100 feet, compared to a U.S. limit of is 80,000 pounds (40 tons) on interstate highways. It subsequently reduced that limit by about 4.5 tons.

In April 2012, a double-trailer truck on a two-lane road in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz lost its rear trailer, which slammed into a bus carrying farm workers, killing 43 people.

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Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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BEIRUT (AP) - Israel's weekend airstrike on a military complex near the Syrian capital of Damascus killed at least 42 Syrian soldiers, a group of anti-regime activists said Monday, citing information from military hospitals.

The Syrian government has not released a death toll, but Syrian state media have reported casualties in Sunday's pre-dawn airstrike, Israel's third into Syria this year.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said about 150 soldiers are normally stationed in the area that was targeted, but that it was not clear how many were there at the time of the strike.

Rami Abdel-Rahman, the head of the group, said his sources at Syrian military hospitals gave him information on 42 Syrian soldiers killed in the Israeli attack.

Israel's government has not formally confirmed involvement in strikes on Syria.

However, Israeli officials said the attacks were meant to prevent advanced Iranian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, an ally of Syria and foe of Israel.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss covert military operations.

Israel on Monday signaled a return to "business as usual," with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arriving in China for a scheduled visit.

Syria and its patron Iran have hinted at possible retribution for the strikes, though the rhetoric in official statements has been relatively mild.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi warned Monday that Israel was "playing with fire," but gave no other suggestions of possible consequences, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Syria's government called the attacks a "flagrant violation of international law" that has made the Middle East "more dangerous."

Israeli officials have indicated they will keep trying to block what they see as an effort by Iran to send sophisticated weapons to Lebanon's Hezbollah militia ahead of a possible collapse of Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to intervene in the Syrian civil war to stop the transfer of what it calls "game-changing" weapons to Hezbollah, a Syrian-backed group that battled Israel to a stalemate during a month-long war in 2006.

Since carrying out a lone airstrike in January that reportedly destroyed a shipment of anti-aircraft missiles headed to Hezbollah, Israel had largely stayed on the sidelines. That changed this weekend with the pair of airstrikes, including an attack near a military complex close to Damascus early Sunday that set off powerful explosions.

A senior Israeli official said both airstrikes targeted shipments of Fateh-110 missiles bound for Hezbollah. The Iranian-made guided missiles can fly deep into Israel and deliver powerful half-ton bombs with pinpoint accuracy.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a covert military operation.

Israeli defense officials have identified several strategic weapons that they say cannot be allowed to reach Hezbollah.

They include Syrian chemical weapons, the Iranian Fateh-110s, long-range Scud missiles, Yakhont missiles capable of attacking naval ships from the coast and Russian SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles. Israel's airstrike in January destroyed a shipment of SA-17s meant for Hezbollah, according to U.S. officials.

Israeli officials said the Fateh-110s reached Syria last week. Friday's airstrike struck a Damascus airport where the missiles were being stored, while the second series of airstrikes early Sunday targeted the remnants of the shipment, which had been moved to three nearby locations, the officials said.

None of the Iranian missiles are believed to have reached Lebanon, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence assessment.

In launching the strikes, Israel took a gamble that Assad has little desire to open a new front with Israel when he is preoccupied with the survival of his regime.

Still, Israel was taking precautions. Israel's military deployed two batteries of its Iron Dome rocket defense system to the north of the country Sunday.

"Alongside readiness and alertness, it's always good to prepare and train - but there are no winds of war," the head of Israel's northern command, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, told Israeli media.

On Monday afternoon, the Israeli military reported that two shells fired from Syria had landed in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. The military said the shelling appeared to be accidental spillover from the Syrian civil war and was not connected to tensions over the reported airstrikes.

Stray shelling and gunfire from the Syrian civil war has periodically landed in the Golan in recent months. The Israeli military believes most of these incidents have not specifically targeted Israel.

Tzahi Hanegbi, an Israeli lawmaker who is close to Netanyahu, said Monday that Israel's aim is to "keep advanced weapons from Hezbollah as soon as intentions are exposed and refrain from tension with Syria."

"So if there is activity, then it is only against Hezbollah and not against the Syrian regime," Hanegbi told Israel Radio. "In that context you must see the fact that Israel doesn't officially admit to its operations, and that the prime minister left yesterday for China and (there is) the feeling of business as usual."

Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets into Israel during the 2006 war, and Israel believes the group now has tens of thousands of rockets and missiles.

The attacks pose a dilemma for the embattled Assad regime.

If it fails to respond, it looks weak and opens the door to more airstrikes. But any military retaliation against Israel would risk dragging the Jewish state and its powerful army into a broader conflict. With few exceptions, Israel and Syria have not engaged in direct fighting in roughly 40 years.

The airstrikes come as Washington considers how to respond to indications the Syrian regime may have used chemical weapons in its civil war. President Barack Obama has described the use of such weapons as a "red line," and the administration is weighing its options.

The White House declined for a second day to comment directly on Israel's air strikes in Syria, but said Obama believes Israel, as a sovereign nation, has the right to defend itself.

The uprising against Assad erupted in March 2011, quickly turning into an armed insurgency and then a civil war. More than 70,000 people have been killed and millions displaced, while Assad and those trying to topple him remain deadlocked on the battlefield.

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Federman reported from Jerusalem. AP writer Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

 

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