US designates Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra front a ‘terrorist’ group at lightning speed

The US State Department designated the Jabhat al-Nusra militia fighting Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria a foreign terrorist organization today.

The speed with which the US government moved to designate a fairly new group that has never attacked US interests and is engaged in fighting a regime that successive administrations have demonized is evidence of the strange bedfellows and overlapping agendas that make the Syrian civil war so explosive.

The State Department says Jabhat al-Nusra (or the “Nusra Front“) is essentially a wing of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the jihadi group that flourished in Anbar Province after the US invaded to topple the Baathist regime of secular dictator Saddam Hussein. During the Iraq war, Sunni Arab tribesmen living along the Euphrates in eastern Syria flocked to fight with the friends and relatives in the towns along the Euphrates river in Anbar Province.

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The terrain, both actual and human, is similar on both sides of that border, and the rat lines that kept foreign fighters and money flowing into Iraq from Syria work just as well in reverse. Now, the jihadis who fought and largely lost against the Shiite political ascendancy in Iraq are flocking to eastern Syria to repay a debt of gratitude in a battle that looks more likely to succeed every day.

The Nusra Front has gone from victory to victory in eastern Syria and has shown signs of both significant funding and greater military prowess than the average citizens’ militia, with veterans of fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya among its numbers.

The US of course aided the fight in Libya to bring down Muammar Qaddafi. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the chance to fight and kill Americans was the major drawing card.

In Iraq, the US toppled a Baathist dictatorship dominated by Sunni Arabs, opening the door for the political dominance of Iraq’s Shiite Arab majority and the fury of the country’s Sunni jihadis. In Syria, a Baathist regime dominated by the tiny Alawite sect (a long-ago offshoot of Shiite Islam) risks being brought down by the Sunni majority. Iraq’s Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in the odd position of now rooting for a Baathist regime to survive, frightened that a religiously inspired Sunni regime may replace Assad and potentially destabilize parts of his country from Haditha in Anbar’s far west to the northern city of Mosul.

For the US, the situation is more complicated still. The Obama administration appears eager for Assad to fall, but is also afraid of what might replace him, not least because of Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile. If the regime collapses, the aftermath is sure to be chaotic, much as it was in Libya, where arms stores were looted throughout the country. The presence of VX and sarin nerve gas, and the fear of Al Qaeda aligned militants getting their hands on it, has the US considering sending in troops to secure the weapons.

That’s the context in which today’s designation was made – part of an overall effort to shape the Syrian opposition to US liking, and hopefully have influence in the political outcome if and when Assad’s regime collapses. But while the US has been trying to find a government or leadership in waiting among Syrian exiles, Nusra has been going from strength to strength. Aaron Zelin, who tracks jihadi groups at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, notes in a recent piece for Foreign Policy that 20 out of the 48 “martyrdom” notices posted on Al Qaeda forums for the Syria war were made by people claiming to be members of Nusra.

Zelin writes that it’s highly unusual for the US to designate as a terrorist group anyone who hasn’t attempted an attack on the US. In fact, the US only designated the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan, which had been involved in attacks on US troops there for over a decade, this September.

His guess as to why the US took such an unusual step?

The U.S. administration, in designating Jabhat al-Nusra, is likely to argue that the group is an outgrowth of the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). While there is not much open-source evidence of this, classified material may offer proof — and there is certainly circumstantial evidence that Jabhat al-Nusra operates as a branch of the ISI.

Getting Syria’s rebels to disavow Jabhat al-Nusra may not be an easy task, however. As in Iraq, jihadists have been some of the most effective and audacious fighters against the Assad regime, garnering respect from other rebel groups in the process. Jabhat al-Nusra seems to have learned from the mistakes of al Qaeda in Iraq: It has not attacked civilians randomly, nor has it shown wanton disregard for human life by publicizing videos showing the beheading of its enemies. Even if its views are extreme, it is getting the benefit of the doubt from other insurgents due to its prowess on the battlefield.

Will it hurt the group’s support inside Syria? It’s hard to see how. The US hasn’t formally explained its logic yet, but it’s hard to see how that will matter either. The rebellion against Assad has raged for almost two years now and the country’s fighters are eager for victory, and revenge. The US has done little to militarily assist the rebellion, and fighters have been happy to take support where they can get it.

Most of the money or weapons flowing into the country for rebels has come from Gulf states like Saudi Arabia and Qatar and some of that support, of course, has ended up in the hands of Islamist militias like Nusra.

Usually the US doesn’t like support flowing to its designated terrorist organizations, and leans on countries like Saudi Arabia to cut off support. But in this case, a doctrinaire enforcement of its will could look like helping Assad (who has insisted everyone fighting his government is a terrorist since long before Nusra even existed).

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Brady throws 4 TDs, Patriots top Texans 42-14

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) — Just another game for the New England Patriots. Just a wire-to-wire domination of the team with the NFL's best record.

So when their 42-14 Monday night rout of the Houston Texans was complete, there were few big smiles and no loud music in the Patriots locker room.

They've been here before — many times.

"We've played in a countless number of big games," said guard Logan Mankins, a veteran of two of the Patriots five Super Bowls in the past 11 seasons. "We know what it takes to prepare for one and not over-hype the game."

Not exactly the way some Texans viewed it coming in — "the biggest game in the history of this franchise," wide receiver Andre Johnson had said.

Houston certainly didn't play like it, falling behind 21-0 early in the second quarter on three touchdown passes by Tom Brady. It was 28-0 on his fourth scoring toss just over five minutes into the third quarter and, with a strong showing by an improving Patriots defense, the Texans had little hope of coming back.

"If we do what we want," safety Devin McCourty said, "we can't predict the score but we know we can dominate games."

Starting with Brady.

He threw four touchdown passes for the 18th time, passing Johnny Unitas and moving into fourth place all time. In the Patriots seven-game winning streak — four by a margin of at least 28 points — he's thrown for 19 touchdowns and just one interception.

But Monday night's performance was his first as a father of three, capping off a stretch in which his wife, supermodel Gisele Bundchen, gave birth to Vivian Lake on Wednesday.

"She is doing very well," Brady said. "It's been a great week, a great way to end it."

The Patriots (10-3) tied the AFC West-leading Denver Broncos for the second best record in the conference and already have clinched the AFC East title. The Texans (11-2) still hold the top spot in the conference, and have locked up at least a wild-card berth, but two of their remaining three games are against Indianapolis, which trails them by two games in the AFC South.

"We know how important this game was to us," Johnson said after the Texans six-game winning streak ended. "We have to respond next week" against the Colts.

Wes Welker had only three catches and remains five short of becoming the first player with five 100-reception seasons. But his 31-yard punt return and 25-yard catch — the 107th straight game he's had at least one — led to the first of Aaron Hernandez's two touchdowns, a 7-yard score that gave Brady 45 consecutive games with a scoring pass, the third longest streak in NFL history.

Houston came right back, marching to the Patriots 21-yard line. But Matt Schaub forced the ball into double coverage on the next play and McCourty intercepted in the end zone.

It was the farthest the Texans would get until their second series of the third quarter that ended with Arian Foster's 1-yard scoring run that did little to shift the momentum.

"We just got outplayed in all aspects of the game," Foster said. "It's hard to come back from a deficit when you are playing a team of that caliber."

By the time he had scored, the Patriots had built a 28-0 lead on the 7-yard pass to Hernandez, a 37-yarder to Brandon Lloyd, a 4-yarder to Hernandez and a 63-yarder to Donte' Stallworth, who had been cut in training camp but re-signed last week after wide receiver Julian Edelman was injured.

"That particular play is something we had worked on, even in the spring," Stallworth said.

That helped New England to its 20th successive home win in December dating to a loss in 2002 to the New York Jets.

"It is always good to play in Foxborough in December," linebacker Jerod Mayo said. "When you go out and perform the way you do, I think Foxborough is going to be a tough place for anyone to come and play."

It certainly was for Houston, no longer the only team to be unbeaten on the road, falling to 6-1.

Brady nearly had a fifth touchdown pass when Danny Woodhead broke free on a screen pass early in the fourth quarter. Defensive end J.J. Watt, who was pretty much invisible otherwise, forced a fumble, but the ball soared 11 yards into the end zone, where Lloyd fell on it for a 35-7 lead.

Stevan Ridley made it 42-7 with a 14-yard run. Texans backup quarterback T.J. Yates scored on a 1-yard run with 2:00 remaining to close the scoring.

"We got our tails kicked," Houston coach Gary Kubiak said. "I've got to get their chins up and get ready to go play again."

Notes: Watt, who leads the AFC with 16½ sacks, had none against the Patriots. ... New England CB Aqib Talib hurt his hip in the second quarter. CB Alfonzo Dennard injured his hamstring. ... Brady completed 21 of 35 passes for 296 yards. Schaub went 19 for 32 for 232 yards. ... New England has won 10 games in each of the last 10 seasons. The record is 16 by San Francisco (1983-98).

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Personal Health: When Daily Stress Gets in the Way of Life

I was about to give an hourlong talk to hundreds of people when one of the organizers of the event asked, “Do you get nervous when you give speeches?” My response: Who, me? No. Of course not.

But this was a half-truth. I am a bit of a worrier, and one thing that makes me anxious is getting ready for these events: fretting over whether I’ve prepared the right talk, packed the right clothes or forgotten anything important, like my glasses.

Anxiety is a fact of life. I’ve yet to meet anyone, no matter how upbeat, who has escaped anxious moments, days, even weeks. Recently I succumbed when, rushed for time just before a Thanksgiving trip, I was told the tires on my car were too worn to be driven on safely and had to be replaced.

“But I have no time to do this now,” I whined.

“Do you have time for an accident?” my car-savvy neighbor asked.

So, with a pounding pulse and no idea how I’d make up the lost time, I went off to get new tires. I left the car at the shop and managed to calm down during the walk home, which helped me get back to the work I needed to finish before the trip.

It seems like such a small thing now. But everyday stresses add up, according to Tamar E. Chansky, a psychologist in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., who treats people with anxiety disorders.

You’ll be much better able to deal with a serious, unexpected challenge if you lower your daily stress levels, she said. When worry is a constant, “it takes less to tip the scales to make you feel agitated or plagued by physical symptoms, even in minor situations,” she wrote in her very practical book, “Freeing Yourself From Anxiety.”

When Calamities Are Real

Of course, there are often good reasons for anxiety. Certainly, people who lost their homes and life’s treasures — and sometimes loved ones — in Hurricane Sandy can hardly be faulted for worrying about their futures.

But for some people, anxiety is a way of life, chronic and life-crippling, constantly leaving them awash in fears that prevent them from making moves that could enrich their lives.

In an interview, Dr. Chansky said that when real calamities occur, “you will be in much better shape to cope with them if you don’t entertain extraneous catastrophes.”

By “extraneous,” she means the many stresses that pile up in the course of daily living that don’t really deserve so much of our emotional capital — the worrying and fretting we spend on things that won’t change or simply don’t matter much.

“If you worry about everything, it will get in the way of what you really need to address,” she explained. “The best decisions are not made when your mind is spinning out of control, racing ahead with predictions about how things are never going to get any better. Precious energy is wasted when you’re always thinking about the worst-case scenarios.”

When faced with serious challenges, it helps to narrow them down to specific things you can do now. To my mind, Dr. Chansky’s most valuable suggestion for emerging from paralyzing anxiety when faced with a monumental task is to “stay in the present — it doesn’t help to be in the future.

“Take some small step today, and value each step you take. You never know which step will make a difference. This is much better than not trying to do anything.”

Dr. Chansky told me, “If you’re worrying about your work all the time, you won’t get your work done.” She suggested instead that people “compartmentalize.” Those prone to worry should set aside a little time each day simply to fret, she said — and then put aside anxieties and spend the rest of the time getting things done. This advice could not have come at a better time for me, as I faced holiday chores, two trips in December, and five columns to write before leaving mid-month. Rather than focusing on what seemed like an impossible challenge, I took on one task at a time. Somehow it all got done.

Possible Thinking

Many worriers think the solution is positive thinking. Dr. Chansky recommends something else: think “possible.”

“When we are stuck with negative thinking, we feel out of options, so to exit out of that we need to be reminded of all the options we do have,” she writes in her book.

If this is not something you can do easily on your own, consult others for suggestions. During my morning walk with friends, we often discuss problems, and inevitably someone comes up with a practical solution. But even if none of their suggestions work, at least they narrow down possible courses of action and make the problem seem less forbidding. “If other people are not caught in the spin that you’re in, they may have ideas for you that you wouldn’t think of,” Dr. Chansky said. “We often do this about small things, but when something big is going on, we hesitate to ask for advice. Yet that’s when we need it most.”

Dr. Chansky calls this “a community cleanup effort,” and it can bring more than advice. During an especially challenging time, like dealing with a spouse’s serious illness or loss of one’s home, friends and family members can help with practical matters like shopping for groceries, providing meals, cleaning out the refrigerator or paying bills.

“People want to help others in need — it’s how the world goes around,” she said. Witness the many thousands of volunteers, including students from other states on their Thanksgiving break, who prepared food and delivered clothing and equipment to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Even the smallest favor can help buffer stress and enable people to focus productively on what they can do to improve their situation.

Another of Dr. Chansky’s invaluable tips is to “let go of the rope.” When feeling pressured to figure out how to fix things now, “walk away for a few minutes, but promise to come back.” As with a computer that suddenly misbehaves, Dr. Chansky suggests that you “unplug and refresh,” perhaps by “taking a breathing break,” inhaling and exhaling calmly and intentionally.

“The more you practice calm breathing, the more it will be there for you when you need it,” she wrote.

She also suggests taking a break to do something physical: “Movement shifts the moment.” Take a walk or bike ride, call a friend, look through a photo album, or do some small cleaning task like clearing off your night table.

When you have a clear head and are feeling less overwhelmed, you’ll be better able to figure out the next step.

This is the first of two columns about anxiety.

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DealBook: HSBC to Pay $1.92 Billion Fine to Settle Charges Over Laundering

4:37 a.m. | Updated

State and federal authorities decided against indicting HSBC in a money-laundering case over concerns that criminal charges could jeopardize one of the world’s largest banks and ultimately destabilize the global financial system.

Instead, authorities on Tuesday announced a record $1.92 billion settlement with HSBC. The bank, which is based in Britain, faces accusations that it transferred billions of dollars for nations like Iran and enabled Mexican drug cartels to move money illegally through its American subsidiaries.

HSBC said on Tuesday that it had “reached agreement with United States authorities in relation to investigations regarding inadequate compliance with anti-money laundering and sanctions laws.” The bank also expected to reach an agreement “shortly” with the Financial Services Authority, the British regulator.

“We accept responsibility for our past mistakes,’’ HSBC’s chief executive, Stuart Gulliver, said in the statement. “We are committed to protecting the integrity of the global financial system. To this end, we will continue to work closely with governments and regulators around the world.”

While the settlement with HSBC is a major victory for the government, the case raises questions about whether certain financial institutions, having grown so large and so interconnected, are too big to indict. Four years after the failure of Lehman Brothers nearly toppled the financial system, regulators are still wary that a single institution could undermine the recovery of the industry and the economy.

But the threat of criminal prosecution acts as a powerful deterrent. If authorities signal such actions are remote for big banks, the threat could lose its sting.

Behind the scenes, authorities debated for months the advantages and perils of a criminal indictment against HSBC.

Some prosecutors at the Justice Department’s criminal division and the Manhattan district attorney’s office wanted the bank to plead guilty to violations of the federal Bank Secrecy Act, according to the officials with direct knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The law forces financial institutions to report any cash transaction of $10,000 or more and requires banks to bring any dubious activity to the attention of regulators.

Given the extent of the evidence against HSBC, some prosecutors saw the charge as a healthy compromise between a settlement and a harsher money-laundering indictment. While the charge would most likely tarnish the bank’s reputation, some officials argued that it would not set off a series of devastating consequences.

A money-laundering indictment, or a guilty plea over such charges, would essentially be a death sentence for the bank. Such actions could cut off the bank from certain investors like pension funds and ultimately cost it its charter to operate in the United States, officials said.

Despite the Justice Department’s proposed compromise, Treasury Department officials and bank regulators at the Federal Reserve and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency pointed to potential issues with the aggressive stance, according to the officials briefed on the matter. When approached by the Justice Department for their thoughts, the regulators cautioned about the impact on the broader economy.

“The Justice Department asked Treasury for our view about the potential implications of prosecuting a large financial institution,” David S. Cohen, the Treasury’s under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement. “We did not believe we were in a position to offer any meaningful assessment. The decision of how the Justice Department exercises its prosecutorial discretion is solely theirs and Treasury had no role.”

Still, some prosecutors proposed that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. meet with Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, people briefed on the matter said. The meeting never took place.

After months of discussions, prosecutors decided against a criminal indictment, but only after securing record penalties and wide-ranging sanctions.

The HSBC deal includes a deferred prosecution agreement with the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the Justice Department. The deferred prosecution agreement, a notch below a criminal indictment, requires the bank to forfeit more than $1.2 billion and pay about $700 million in fines, according to the officials briefed on the matter. The case, officials say, will claim violations of the Bank Secrecy Act and Trading with the Enemy Act.

As part of the deal, one of the officials briefed on the matter said, HSBC must also strengthen its internal controls and stay out of trouble for the next five years. If the bank again runs afoul of the federal rules, the Justice Department can resume its case and file a criminal indictment. An independent auditor also will monitor the bank’s progress to strengthen its internal controls, and will make regular assessments on the firm’s progress.

Shares in the British bank fell less than 1 percent in early morning trading in London on Tuesday.

The HSBC case is part of a sweeping investigation into the movement of tainted money through the American financial system. In 2010, Lanny A. Breuer, the head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, created a money-laundering task force that has collected more than $2 billion in fines from banks, a number that is set to double with the HSBC case.

The inquiry — led by the Justice Department, the Treasury and the Manhattan prosecutors — has ensnared six foreign banks in recent years, including Credit Suisse and Barclays. In June, ING Bank reached a $619 million settlement to resolve claims that it had transferred billions of dollars in the United States for countries like Cuba and Iran that are under United States sanctions.

On Monday, federal and state authorities also won a $327 million settlement from Standard Chartered, a British bank. Standard, which in September agreed to a larger settlement with New York’s top banking regulator, admitted processing thousands of transactions for Iranian and Sudanese clients through its American subsidiaries. To avoid having Iranian transactions detected by Treasury Department computer filters, Standard Chartered deliberately removed names and other identifying information, according to the authorities.

“You can’t do it. It’s against the law, and today Standard Chartered is being held to account,” Mr. Breuer said in an interview.

HSBC’s actions stand out among the foreign banks caught up in the investigation, according to several law enforcement officials with knowledge of the inquiry. Unlike those of institutions that have previously settled, HSBC’s activities are said to have gone beyond claims that the bank flouted United States sanctions to transfer money on behalf of nations like Iran. Prosecutors also found that the bank had facilitated money laundering by Mexican drug cartels and had moved tainted money for Saudi banks tied to terrorist groups.

HSBC was thrust into the spotlight in July after a Congressional committee outlined how the bank, between 2001 and 2010, “exposed the U.S. financial system to money laundering and terrorist financing risks.” The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a subsequent hearing at which the bank’s compliance chief resigned amid mounting concerns that senior bank officials were complicit in the illegal activity. For example, an HSBC executive at one point argued that the bank should continue working with the Saudi Al Rajhi bank, which has supported Al Qaeda, according to the Congressional report.

Despite repeated urgings from federal officials to strengthen protections in its vast Mexican business, HSBC instead viewed the country from 2000 to 2009 as low-risk for money laundering, the Senate report found. Even after HSBC’s Mexican operation transferred more than $7 billion to the United States — a volume that law enforcement officials said had to be “illegal drug proceeds” — lax controls remained.

HSBC has since moved to bolster its safeguards. The bank doubled its spending on compliance functions and revamped its oversight, according to a spokesman. In January, HSBC hired Stuart A. Levey as chief legal officer to come up with stricter internal standards to thwart the illegal flow of cash. Mr. Levey was formerly an under secretary at the Treasury Department who focused on terrorism and financial intelligence.

On Monday, the bank said it was promoting Robert Werner, who oversaw the group at the Treasury Department that enforces sanctions, to run a specially created division focused on anti-money laundering efforts.

Regulators have also vowed to improve. The Congressional hearings exposed weaknesses at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the national bank regulator. In 2010, the regulator found that HSBC had severe deficiencies in its anti-money laundering controls, including $60 trillion in transactions and 17,000 accounts flagged as potentially suspicious, activities that were not reviewed. Despite the findings, the regulator did not fine the bank.

During the hearings this summer, lawmakers blasted the regulator. At one point, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, called the comptroller “a lapdog not a watchdog.”

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Damascus Is Tested as Clashes Draw Near

Muzaffar Salman/Reuters

A member of Syria's symphony orchestra ahead of a concert in Damascus in November.

DAMASCUS, Syria — Business has been terrible for Abu Tareq, a taxi driver, so last week, without telling his wife, he agreed to drive a man to the Damascus airport for 10 times the usual rate. But, he said later, he will not be doing that again.

On the airport road, he could hear the crash of artillery and the whiz of sniper fire. Dead rebels and soldiers lay on the roadsides. Abu Tareq saw a dog eating the body of a soldier.

“I will never forget this sight,” said Abu Tareq, 50, who gave only a nickname for safety reasons. “It is the road of the dead.”

Damascus, Syria’s capital, is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, a touchstone of history and culture.

Through decades of political repression, the city preserved, at least on the surface, an atmosphere of tranquillity, from its wide downtown avenues to the spacious, smooth-stoned courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque and the vine-draped alleys of the Old City, where restaurants and bars tucked between the storehouses of medieval merchants hummed with quiet conversation.

Now, though, the rumble of distant artillery echoes through the city, and its residents are afraid to leave their neighborhoods. Cocooned behind rows of concrete blocks that close off routes to the center, they huddle in fear of a prolonged battle that could bring destruction and division to a place where secular and religious Syrians from many sects — Sunni, Shiite, Alawite, Christian and others — have long lived peacefully.

For more than a week, Syrian rebels and government forces have fought for the airport road, as the military tries to seal off the capital city, the core of President Bashar al-Assad’s power, from a semicircle of rebellious suburbs. Rebels have now kept the pressure on the government for as long as they did during their previous big push toward Damascus last summer. This time, improved supply lines and tactics, some rebels and observers say, may provide a more secure foothold.

But the security forces wield overwhelming firepower, and while they have been unable to subdue the suburbs, some rebel fighters say they lack the intelligence information, arms and communication to advance. That raises the specter of a destructive standoff like the one that has devastated the commercial hub of Aleppo.

“Damascus was the city of jasmine,” Mahmoud, 40, a public-school teacher, said in an interview in the capital. “It is not the city I knew just a few weeks ago.”

Car bombs have ripped through neighborhoods, the targets and attackers only guessed at. Checkpoints choke traffic, turning 20-minute jaunts into three-hour ordeals. Wealthy residents find it quicker and safer to drive to Beirut, Lebanon, for a weekend trip than to the Old City.

Shells have been fired from Mount Qasioun overlooking Damascus, a favorite destination from which to admire the city’s sparkling lights. West of downtown, where the presidential palace stands on a plateau, things are relatively quiet.

Mahmoud, unable to find heating oil and medicine for his sick wife, said his grocer has lectured him daily on shortages and soaring prices. The once-ubiquitous government, he said, now appears to have no role beyond flooding streets with soldiers and security officers, “who are sometimes good and sometimes rude.”

People with roots in other towns have left, he said, “but what about me, who is a Damascene, and has no other city?”

The sense of claustrophobia has grown as rebels have declared the airport a legitimate target and the government has blocked Baghdad Street, a main avenue out of the city. On Sunday, it blocked the highway to Dara’a.

In some outlying neighborhoods and nearby suburbs, the front lines seem to be hardening.

On the route into Qaboun, a neighborhood less than two miles from the center of Damascus, the last government checkpoint in recent days was near the municipal building. Less than a quarter-mile on, rebels controlled the area around the Grand Mosque.

An employee of The New York Times reported from Damascus, and Anne Barnard from Beirut, Lebanon. Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from Beirut.

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New tragedy rocks NFL's regularly scheduled world

The games go on.

For the second straight weekend, tragedy rocked the regularly scheduled world of the NFL. It left families, friends, teammates and coaching staffs grieving over yet another senseless loss of life. It also left the league facing questions not only about efforts to safeguard players on the field but whether it's doing enough to help them stay out of harm's way once they step outside the white lines.

In the early-morning hours Saturday in Irving, Texas, 24-year-old Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Josh Brent got behind the wheel of his Mercedes alongside teammate Jerry Brown and sped off, the prelude to a one-car accident that would leave Brown dead at 25 and Brent sitting in jail facing a felony charge of intoxicated manslaughter.

All this happened little more than three years after Brent was sentenced to probation and 60 days in jail in a plea agreement following his drunken driving arrest while playing football at the University of Illinois, where he and Brown were teammates as well.

That it happened just a week after Kansas City linebacker Jovan Belcher shot his girlfriend to death, then drove to the Chiefs' training facility and took his own life with the same gun, raised questions about the league's responsibility to the young men it empowers and enriches — in some cases, almost overnight.

"I don't know that anybody has the answer, to be honest. They're human beings, kids in most of the cases like this, and they're going to make mistakes," said Dan Reeves, who played seven years for the Cowboys before launching an NFL coaching career that included four stops over four decades.

"As a coach, you've got more than 50 players, if you count practice squad guys, that you're trying to keep an eye on. And both the league and the team invest an awful lot of time and money trying to educate them about the opportunities and pitfalls that are set out in front of them. ...

"But no matter what you do, some are going to believe the bad stuff will never happen to them. And teams spend so much time together, they become like families. It's easy to get lulled into thinking you know which ones need a pat on the back and which ones a kick in the behind. Yet this shows we don't always learn the real strengths and weaknesses of some until it's too late. Everybody deals with that knowledge in their own way.

"But if you're going to play," Reeves said finally. "I don't know any other way to honor that person than to play as hard as you can."

The emotional scene that roiled Kansas City in the wake of Belcher's murder-suicide a week earlier shifted to Cincinnati, where the Cowboys arrived Saturday night to complete preparations before Sunday's kickoff against the Bengals.

The team cut short its regular two-hour meeting and made sure counselors were on hand to speak to players afterward. But when owner Jerry Jones spoke with a Fox interviewer outside the locker room shortly before the game, his eyes were rimmed red and he spoke haltingly about Brown.

"Our team loved him. They certainly are conscious of him and want his family to know and have as much of them as they can give. At the same time," he added, "they know that one of the best things they can do for him and his memory is to come to the game today, is go out and play well."

How the NFL responds to this latest tragedy remains to be seen. Earlier this summer, cognizant of both the rising number of domestic violence and DUI incidents involving players, Commissioner Roger Goodell pledged to address both problems.

"We are going to do some things to combat this problem because some of the numbers on DUIs and domestic violence are going up and that disturbs me," he told CBS Sports. "When there's a pattern of mistakes, something has got to change."

In several important ways, player conduct has already improved significantly since Goodell took over from Paul Tagliabue.

In 2006, Goodell's first season, 68 players were arrested for crimes more severe than a traffic violation. Since then, arrests for crimes including domestic violence, drunken driving and gun possession are down 40 percent.

Yet, as Goodell noted, the number of incidents in the last year have climbed at an alarming rate — according to one study, 21 of the league's 32 teams had at least one player charged with domestic violence or sexual assault — and the tragedies involving players on successive weekends has already prompted accusations that the league isn't doing nearly enough.

On Saturday in Kansas City, a dozen members of the Chiefs' organization attended a memorial service for Kasandra Perkins. Among them was general manager Scott Pioli, whom Belcher spoke with in the parking lot of the Chiefs facility to thank before turning the gun on himself. A day later, just as the Chiefs did against the Panthers last Sunday, the Cowboys rallied to win their game against the Bengals.

The team has already canceled its annual Christmas party, scheduled for Monday at Cowboys Stadium, and instead began planning a memorial service for Brown.

"From here on, they're in uncharted waters," Reeves said. "No one can point the best way forward. I was lucky in that sense: We never had to deal with the nightmare of losing a friend and teammate. One thing I'm certain of, though — it's going to haunt some of them for a long time to come."

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A Breakthrough Against Leukemia Using Altered T-Cells

PHILIPSBURG, Pa. — Emma Whitehead has been bounding around the house lately, practicing somersaults and rugby-style tumbles that make her parents wince.

It is hard to believe, but last spring Emma, then 6, was near death from leukemia. She had relapsed twice after chemotherapy, and doctors had run out of options.

Desperate to save her, her parents sought an experimental treatment at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, one that had never before been tried in a child, or in anyone with the type of leukemia Emma had. The experiment, in April, used a disabled form of the virus that causes AIDS to reprogram Emma’s immune system genetically to kill cancer cells.

The treatment very nearly killed her. But she emerged from it cancer-free, and about seven months later is still in complete remission. She is the first child and one of the first humans ever in whom new techniques have achieved a long-sought goal — giving a patient’s own immune system the lasting ability to fight cancer.

Emma had been ill with acute lymphoblastic leukemia since 2010, when she was 5, said her parents, Kari and Tom. She is their only child.

She is among just a dozen patients with advanced leukemia to have received the experimental treatment, which was developed at the University of Pennsylvania. Similar approaches are also being tried at other centers, including the National Cancer Institute and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

“Our goal is to have a cure, but we can’t say that word,” said Dr. Carl June, who leads the research team at the University of Pennsylvania. He hopes the new treatment will eventually replace bone-marrow transplantation, an even more arduous, risky and expensive procedure that is now the last hope when other treatments fail in leukemia and related diseases.

Three adults with chronic leukemia treated at the University of Pennsylvania have also had complete remissions, with no signs of disease; two of them have been well for more than two years, said Dr. David Porter. Four adults improved but did not have full remissions, and one was treated too recently to evaluate. A child improved and then relapsed. In two adults, the treatment did not work at all. The Pennsylvania researchers were presenting their results on Sunday and Monday in Atlanta at a meeting of the American Society of Hematology.

Despite the mixed results, cancer experts not involved with the research say it has tremendous promise, because even in this early phase of testing it has worked in seemingly hopeless cases. “I think this is a major breakthrough,” said Dr. Ivan Borrello, a cancer expert and associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Dr. John Wagner, the director of pediatric blood and marrow transplantation at the University of Minnesota, called the Pennsylvania results “phenomenal” and said they were “what we’ve all been working and hoping for but not seeing to this extent.”

A major drug company, Novartis, is betting on the Pennsylvania team and has committed $20 million to building a research center on the university’s campus to bring the treatment to market.

Hervé Hoppenot, the president of Novartis Oncology, called the research “fantastic” and said it had the potential — if the early results held up — to revolutionize the treatment of leukemia and related blood cancers. Researchers say the same approach, reprogramming the patient’s immune system, may also eventually be used against tumors like breast and prostate cancer.

To perform the treatment, doctors remove millions of the patient’s T-cells — a type of white blood cell — and insert new genes that enable the T-cells to kill cancer cells. The technique employs a disabled form of H.I.V. because it is very good at carrying genetic material into T-cells. The new genes program the T-cells to attack B-cells, a normal part of the immune system that turn malignant in leukemia.

The altered T-cells — called chimeric antigen receptor cells — are then dripped back into the patient’s veins, and if all goes well they multiply and start destroying the cancer.

The T-cells home in on a protein called CD-19 that is found on the surface of most B-cells, whether they are healthy or malignant.

A sign that the treatment is working is that the patient becomes terribly ill, with raging fevers and chills — a reaction that oncologists call “shake and bake,” Dr. June said. Its medical name is cytokine-release syndrome, or cytokine storm, referring to the natural chemicals that pour out of cells in the immune system as they are being activated, causing fevers and other symptoms. The storm can also flood the lungs and cause perilous drops in blood pressure — effects that nearly killed Emma.

Steroids sometimes ease the reaction, but they did not help Emma. Her temperature hit 105. She wound up on a ventilator, unconscious and swollen almost beyond recognition, surrounded by friends and family who had come to say goodbye.

But at the 11th hour, a battery of blood tests gave the researchers a clue as to what might help save Emma: her level of one of the cytokines, interleukin-6 or IL-6, had shot up a thousandfold. Doctors had never seen such a spike before and thought it might be what was making her so sick.

Dr. June knew that a drug could lower IL-6 — his daughter takes it for rheumatoid arthritis. It had never been used for a crisis like Emma’s, but there was little to lose. Her oncologist, Dr. Stephan A. Grupp, ordered the drug. The response, he said, was “amazing.”

Within hours, Emma began to stabilize. She woke up a week later, on May 2, the day she turned 7; the intensive-care staff sang “Happy Birthday.”

Since then, the research team has used the same drug, tocilizumab, in several other patients.

In patients with lasting remissions after the treatment, the altered T-cells persist in the bloodstream, though in smaller numbers than when they were fighting the disease. Some patients have had the cells for years.

Dr. Michel Sadelain, who conducts similar studies at the Sloan-Kettering Institute, said: “These T-cells are living drugs. With a pill, you take it, it’s eliminated from your body and you have to take it again.” But T-cells, he said, “could potentially be given only once, maybe only once or twice or three times.”

The Pennsylvania researchers said they were surprised to find any big drug company interested in their work, because a new batch of T-cells must be created for each patient — a far cry from the familiar commercial strategy of developing products like Viagra or cholesterol medicines, in which millions of people take the same drug.

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Karzai Implicates Pakistan in Attack on Afghan Spy Chief

KABUL, Afghanistan — The suicide bomber who tried to assassinate Afghanistan’s powerful new intelligence chief came from Pakistan and the attack was organized with the help of a sophisticated foreign intelligence service, President Hamid Karzai said Saturday.

Mr. Karzai said he would ask for clarification from Pakistan’s president, when the two men meet later this month, on whether Pakistan’s intelligence service was involved in any way. He said he wanted Pakistan’s help in easing ordinary Afghans’ suspicions that Pakistani interests were behind the attack — if not directly organizing it, then at least providing help.

The audacious assassination attempt on Asadullah Khalid, who had been leading the National Directorate of Security since September, has taken out of action an important figure in the war against the insurgency. It took place on Thursday when an unidentified attacker smuggled a bomb into a meeting at a guesthouse in central Kabul with Mr. Khalid.

“We will be seeking a lot of clarifications from Pakistan because we know that this man who came in the name of a guest to meet with Asadullah Khan Khalid came from Pakistan,” Mr. Karzai said at a news conference at the presidential palace here. “We know that for a fact, it is clear.”

The bomb, which Afghan authorities said was concealed around the attacker’s groin, left Mr. Khalid seriously injured.

The Taliban claimed responsibility, but Mr. Karzai said the attack was too sophisticated to be the work of the Taliban alone.

“This is not the work of Taliban,” he said. “This is a very professional and well-engineered attack. Taliban are not able to do this, but there are strong and skilled hands involved in the attack.”

Mr. Khalid, in his ascendancy to the top of the Afghan intelligence service, had emerged as one of the Taliban’s fiercest opponents and was also a strong critic of Pakistan’s influence in the country.

Mr. Karzai provided no evidence linking the attack to Pakistan. The government regularly accuses Pakistan of involvement in attacks, and has done so after assaults on other senior Afghan officials in recent years.

The president drew a distinction between different groups of the Taliban and said some were clearly controlled by the intelligence agencies of neighboring countries, although he said he had no evidence of where. “This is the work of a complicated, sophisticated and professional intelligence agency,” he said.

Mr. Karzai also said the attack was an effort to undermine progress toward meaningful negotiations. “Whenever the peace talks are getting closer to a conclusion or success being achieved in the peace process or hopes being achieved, we face such attacks,” he said.

Many Afghans have raised questions about how an attacker could get so close to such a powerful man regarded as an extremely sophisticated operator.

Mr. Karzai admitted that a security screening had failed, but the government’s statement that the bomb was concealed around the attacker’s groin suggests why it was not detected: an invasive search would have violated Afghanistan’s traditional mores.

Mr. Karzai said Mr. Khalid himself had prevented a more thorough search out of respect for his guest and Afghan tradition.

Mr. Karzai also said Mr. Khalid had told him the evening before the attack about the planned meeting. There was no information about who the attacker was, but Mr. Khalid told him that he hoped the meeting would advance the country’s peace and security, the president said.

Mr. Karzai visited Mr. Khalid on Thursday at a hospital in Kabul before he was taken to better medical facilities at Bagram Air Base, one of the largest coalition bases in Afghanistan.

According to Western officials, Mr. Khalid has serious abdominal injuries and will need multiple operations. Mr. Karzai on Saturday offered few details of the injuries, but said that Mr. Khalid was improving and was now fully conscious and able to speak, and move his hands.

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Marquez knocks out Pacquiao in 6th round

LAS VEGAS (AP) — No need for Juan Manuel Marquez to impress the judges. No need for the referee to count to 10.

Marquez took care of all of his business Saturday night with a thunderous right hand that left Manny Pacquiao face first on the canvas with his remarkable career in question.

Unable to win a decision in their first three fights, Marquez won the old-fashioned way with a huge right hand that put Pacquiao down for the second time in the fight at 2:59 of the sixth round.

Referee Kenny Bayless never bothered to count as Marquez leaped into his handlers' arms in celebration and Pacquiao's wife broke into tears at ringside.

"I threw a perfect punch," Marquez said. "I knew Manny could knock me out at any time."

It was a stunning end to a thrilling fight, the fourth one in the last eight years between the two men. It could also be the end of the Filipino's career, though he said in the ring afterward he would like to fight Marquez for a fifth time.

"If you give us a chance, we'll fight again," Pacquiao said. "I was just starting to feel confident and then I got careless."

Pacquiao had been down in the third round but knocked Marquez down in the fifth and the two were exchanging heavy blows in the sixth round before Marquez threw a right hand that flattened Pacquiao face down on the canvas.

"I thought I was getting him in the last couple of rounds but I got hit by a strong punch," Pacquiao said. "I never expected that punch."

Pacquiao was down for about two minutes before his handlers managed to get him up as Marquez celebrated and the sold-out crowd at the MGM erupted.

After being helped to his corner, Pacquiao sat on a stool, blew his nose and stared vacantly ahead as his handlers cut his gloves off. It was a stunning end to a furious fight, and Pacquiao was later taken to a hospital for precautionary examination.

"We always worked on that punch," Marquez said. "We knew he was going to come out aggressive so we had a fight plan that was more technical. We were able to capitalize on it."

Marquez had vowed to finally beat Pacquiao after losing two close fights and settling for a draw in the first fight. But after Pacquiao knocked him down in the fifth round and was landing big left hands, it looked like it would be Pacquiao's night.

The two came out for the sixth round and the pace was just as relentless. Both were landing big punches and both were brawling when suddenly as the round came to close Marquez shot out a right hand that landed flush to the jaw of Pacquiao, who crumpled to the canvas in a heap.

"I felt he was coming to knock me out the last three rounds and I knew he was going to be wide open," Marquez said.

It was the second loss in a row for Pacquiao, who dropped a decision to Timothy Bradley in June and who had vowed to regain his prominence in the ring.

Pacquiao was aggressive from the opening bell, but paid the price in the third round when he got caught by a Marquez right hand that put him down. Pacquiao got back up and seemingly took control of the fight, dropping Marquez in the fifth round and landing the bigger punches until he was dropped.

"I got hit by a punch I didn't see," Pacquiao said.

Pacquiao, who earned more than $20 million for the fight, was ahead 47-46 on all three scorecards after the fifth round.

There was no title at stake in the 147-pound fight, but that didn't stop 16,348 fans from filling the MGM Grand Arena and roaring in unison from the opening bell as the two fighters went after each other.

Ringside punching stats underscored the ferocity of the bout, showing Pacquiao landing 94 of 256 punches to 52 of 246 for Marquez. But it was the one big right hand from Marquez that counted more than anything, knocking Pacquiao out for the first time in a career that goes back 17 years.

"He was in charge," Pacquiao's trainer, Freddie Roach said. "He just got a little too careless and got hit with a punch he didn't see."

Promoter Bob Arum immediately said he could see a fifth fight between the two boxers, and a dazed Pacquiao seemed to agree.

"Why not?" he said.

Pacquiao weighed the class limit of 147 pounds, but it was Marquez who looked like the stronger fighter entering the ring after having bulked up with the help of a strength conditioner, though he weighed in at 143 pounds. In their earlier fights, Pacquiao had been the bigger puncher, knocking Marquez down a total of four times, but on this night it was Marquez who had the biggest punch.

The stunning knockout was the first real loss by Pacquiao in seven years. He lost a close decision to Bradley in his last fight, but most ringside observers believed he had won it fairly convincingly.

Marquez improved to 55-6-1 with 40 knockouts, while Pacquiao fell to 54-5-2.

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New Taxes to Take Effect to Fund Health Care Law

WASHINGTON — For more than a year, politicians have been fighting over whether to raise taxes on high-income people. They rarely mention that affluent Americans will soon be hit with new taxes adopted as part of the 2010 health care law.

The new levies, which take effect in January, include an increase in the payroll tax on wages and a tax on investment income, including interest, dividends and capital gains. The Obama administration proposed rules to enforce both last week.

Affluent people are much more likely than low-income people to have health insurance, and now they will, in effect, help pay for coverage for many lower-income families. Among the most affluent fifth of households, those affected will see tax increases averaging $6,000 next year, economists estimate.

To help finance Medicare, employees and employers each now pay a hospital insurance tax equal to 1.45 percent on all wages. Starting in January, the health care law will require workers to pay an additional tax equal to 0.9 percent of any wages over $200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for married couples filing jointly.

The new taxes on wages and investment income are expected to raise $318 billion over 10 years, or about half of all the new revenue collected under the health care law.

Ruth M. Wimer, a tax lawyer at McDermott Will & Emery, said the taxes came with “a shockingly inequitable marriage penalty.” If a single man and a single woman each earn $200,000, she said, neither would owe any additional Medicare payroll tax. But, she said, if they are married, they would owe $1,350. The extra tax is 0.9 percent of their earnings over the $250,000 threshold.

Since the creation of Social Security in the 1930s, payroll taxes have been levied on the wages of each worker as an individual. The new Medicare payroll is different. It will be imposed on the combined earnings of a married couple.

Employers are required to withhold Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes from wages paid to employees. But employers do not necessarily know how much a worker’s spouse earns and may not withhold enough to cover a couple’s Medicare tax liability. Indeed, the new rules say employers may disregard a spouse’s earnings in calculating how much to withhold.

Workers may thus owe more than the amounts withheld by their employers and may have to make up the difference when they file tax returns in April 2014. If they expect to owe additional tax, the government says, they should make estimated tax payments, starting in April 2013, or ask their employers to increase the amount withheld from each paycheck.

In the Affordable Care Act, the new tax on investment income is called an “unearned income Medicare contribution.” However, the law does not provide for the money to be deposited in a specific trust fund. It is added to the government’s general tax revenues and can be used for education, law enforcement, farm subsidies or other purposes.

Donald B. Marron Jr., the director of the Tax Policy Center, a joint venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, said the burden of this tax would be borne by the most affluent taxpayers, with about 85 percent of the revenue coming from 1 percent of taxpayers. By contrast, the biggest potential beneficiaries of the law include people with modest incomes who will receive Medicaid coverage or federal subsidies to buy private insurance.

Wealthy people and their tax advisers are already looking for ways to minimize the impact of the investment tax — for example, by selling stocks and bonds this year to avoid the higher tax rates in 2013.

The new 3.8 percent tax applies to the net investment income of certain high-income taxpayers, those with modified adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 for single taxpayers and $250,000 for couples filing jointly.

David J. Kautter, the director of the Kogod Tax Center at American University, offered this example. In 2013, John earns $160,000, and his wife, Jane, earns $200,000. They have some investments, earn $5,000 in dividends and sell some long-held stock for a gain of $40,000, so their investment income is $45,000. They owe 3.8 percent of that amount, or $1,710, in the new investment tax. And they owe $990 in additional payroll tax.

The new tax on unearned income would come on top of other tax increases that might occur automatically next year if President Obama and Congress cannot reach an agreement in talks on the federal deficit and debt. If Congress does nothing, the tax rate on long-term capital gains, now 15 percent, will rise to 20 percent in January. Dividends will be treated as ordinary income and taxed at a maximum rate of 39.6 percent, up from the current 15 percent rate for most dividends.

Under another provision of the health care law, consumers may find it more difficult to obtain a tax break for medical expenses.

Taxpayers now can take an itemized deduction for unreimbursed medical expenses, to the extent that they exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. The health care law will increase the threshold for most taxpayers to 10 percent next year. The increase is delayed to 2017 for people 65 and older.

In addition, workers face a new $2,500 limit on the amount they can contribute to flexible spending accounts used to pay medical expenses. Such accounts can benefit workers by allowing them to pay out-of-pocket expenses with pretax money.

Taken together, this provision and the change in the medical expense deduction are expected to raise more than $40 billion of revenue over 10 years.

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