War_Conflict

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U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta (left) speaks with NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen during a meeting of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

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Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta briefs reporters Wednesday aboard a plane en route to a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels. He called 2013 a critical year for the decade-old U.S. military mission in Afghanistan. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** Afghan policemen walk ahead of the U.S. soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) during a foot patrol Jan. 7, 2012, in Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Associated Press)

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Mohammed Chowdhury is one of four British men who pleaded guilty on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2012, to involvement in an al-Qaeda-inspired plot to spread terror and cause economic damage by bombing the London Stock Exchange. (AP Photo/West Midlands Police)

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Syrian rebels take their position behind a wall as they fire their guns during a battle with Syrian government forces in the Rastan area of Homs province in central Syria on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2012. (AP Photo)

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** FILE ** Afghan policemen walk ahead of the U.S. soldiers with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) during a foot patrol in Kandahar, south of Kabul, Afghanistan, in this Jan. 7, 2012, file photo. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan, File)

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Afghan security forces celebrate Tuesday during a ceremony transferring authority from NATO-led troops to them in an area west of Kabul. The turnover to Afghan troops and police is to be finished by 2014. (Associated Press)

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Bosnian veteran soldiers collect money for their war-time enemies in Gorazde, 100 kilometers east of Sarajevo, on Jan. 16, 2012. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** Members of the lashkar, or local peace force, stand guard at the site of a suicide attack in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Jan. 30, 2012. A suicide bomber killed a leader of a militant group that has been fighting a rival outfit in northwest Pakistan close to the Afghan border, said police official Imtiaz Khan. (Associated Press)

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Ecuadorean backers of President Rafael Correa wave flags with his image at a rally in late October. Mr. Correa has been criticized by human rights groups and others as intolerant of dissent, but he's popular among many Ecuadoreans. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** Israeli Air Force officers stand March 7, 2007, next to an Israeli army Heron TP drone, also known locally as the Eitan, during a display at the Palmahim Air Force Base. (Associated Press)

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Oakland, Calif., police stand guard Sunday outside City Hall, where vandals left a threatening message. (Associated Press)

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People climb up on the wall next to the Chinese Cultural Center in order to get a view of the Chinese New Year Parade. (Barbara L. Salisbury/The Washington Times)

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Children gather around a scorched police truck after an attack at a police station in Kano, Nigeria, last week. Youths overran the police station in the Sheka neighborhood that morning. (Associated Press)

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Oakland police stand guard Sunday outside City Hall, where vandals left a threatening message. (Associated Press)

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Palestinian Hamas supporters hold banners of prisoners arrested by the Palestinian Authority and call for their release during a protest in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday, Jan. 9, 2012. (AP Photo/Nasser Ishtayeh)

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Ross Elementary fifth grade students, clockwise from left, Juilanna Bell, Mollie Weinberg, Courtney Turner and Mckenzie Thompson work to create a handmade sign Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012, in Creve Coeur, Mo. The sign will be used when St. Louis hosts a "Welcome Home the Heroes from Iraq Day" on Jan. 28 with a noontime parade through downtown to welcome veterans of the war in Iraq. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

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Syrian army defectors stand guard on a rooftop to secure an anti-Syrian regime protest in the Deir Baghlaba area in Homs province, central Syria, on Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. Armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad barraged residential buildings with mortars and machine-gun fire, killing at least 30 people, including a family of women and children during a day of sectarian killings and kidnappings in the besieged Syrian city of Homs, activists said Friday. (AP Photo)

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D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown, Council Chairman Kwame R. Brown, D.C. Shadow Senator Michael D. Brown and Council member Vincent B. Orange look at portraits of New Hampshire revolutionaries that hang in the main hall of the New Hampshire State House, Concord, N.H., Friday, Jan. 27, 2012. (Andrew Harnik/The Washington Times)

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** FILE ** Gen. Raymond Odierno, Army chief of staff, speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon on Jan. 27, 2012, to discuss cuts to the Army. (Associated Press)