David Headley first trained by Lashkar, then ISI

Dissatisfied with the military and espionage training received by Mumbai attacks accused David Coleman Headley from the Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistan's spy agency ISI gave him special coaching in surveillance tactics before 26/11.

The training was given by Major Iqbal, Headley's ISI handler, on the streets and in a two-storey safe house in Lahore near the airport, the 50-year-old said.

"ISI did provide me (espionage) training," Headley told a Chicago court as he was grilled by defence attorney Charles Swift who's trying to prove Headley's friend and co-accused, businessman Tahawwur Rana, was in the dark about the Lashkar operative's terror role.

Headley told the court that when he met Major Iqbal in 2006, he was told Lashkar's training was "very elementary" and "not very good". So Major Iqbal, who was identified by Headley as Chaudhery Khan, decided to personally coach him. It was a double-storey house with a small compound outside in a residential neighbourhood, Headley described.

In answer to repeated questions on Thursday, Headley said he did not know the full name of Major Iqbal, but was sure he was from the ISI. Although Headley never saw Major Iqbal in military uniform, he came to meet him several times in a military jeep and his subordinates had military designations, he said.

He was introduced as Major Iqbal to him.

Headley said he never went to the ISI headquarters and added that he was introduced to Major Iqbal by military personnel.

The disclosures are part of the testimony of Headley, who has pleaded guilty, and cements India's charges that elements of ISI were involved in the 26/11 attack. Delhi's fears are being corroborated by information given by federal prosecutors in the documents to the court, which have been unsealed.

The ISI and Major Iqbal were particularly motivated by the fact that he was born in the US. As an American national, he would be able to conceal his real identity in India, they felt.

"They (ISI and Major Iqbal) wanted me to have a business so as to have the ability to have a long-term stay in India. In discussion with them I suggested it to take the help of Dr Rana's (Tahawwur Rana) business to get this objective," he said.

According to the new documents, Headley began attending terror training camps of the Lashkar in February 2002. By December 2003, Headley had attended five separate courses, and had been trained in, among other things, Lashkar's philosophy, the use of weapons and grenades, combat tactics, survival skills and counter-surveillance methods.

After completing several camps, Headley became acquainted with senior Lashkar member Zaki-ur Rehman Lakhvi, who was responsible for Lashkar's military operations and one of the brains behind 26/11.

7 U.S. soldiers among 8 killed in IED attack in Afghanistan

Eight NATO soldiers -- seven of them Americans -- were killed Thursday when two improvised explosive devices blew up in southern Afghanistan, according to the International Security Assistance Force and the Pentagon.

A coalition military official said the attack occurred in the Shorabak District, a remote area in the southeastern part of Kandahar Province, approximately 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) south of the city of Kandahar. It's the same region in which Taliban forces unleashed multiple attacks earlier this month in their so-called spring offensive.

The devices exploded one after the other, the official said.

ISAF did not identify the nationalities of the soldiers, but Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said Thursday afternoon that seven of them were American.

Both U.S. and Canadian troops are deployed in the region.

Gaddafi's son killed in Nato air strike, say Libyan officials (Part of the complex of Muammar Gaddafi has been destroyed by an airstrike.)

A Nato air strike has killed Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son and three of his grandchildren, a Libyan official in Tripoli said, while accusing the alliance of trying to assassinate the Libyan leader. It was the first time someone from Gaddafi's inner circle has been killed in six weeks of Nato air strikes.

Government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said Gaddafi's son, Saif al-Arab Gaddafi, 29, was "martyred" in the attack on his villa in Tripoli, where his father had been staying the night.

Saif al-Arab, described by Ibrahim as a student who had studied in Germany, is one of Gaddafi's less prominent sons. He is said to have had only a minor role in the country's power structure.

"[Muammar Gaddafi] is in good health. He wasn't harmed," Ibrahim told a news conference, shortly after foreign journalists were shown the site of the attack.

"His wife is also in good health." He added: "This was a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country.

"What we have now is the law of the jungle. We think now it is clear to everyone that what is happening in Libya has nothing to do with the protection of civilians."

David Cameron told the BBC that Nato targeting policy in Libya was clear and "in line" with the UN resolution.

"It is about targeting command and control rather than particular individuals," he said.

"The targeting policy has been very closely followed, these things are very carefully put together.

"Let's remember, while Gaddafi said that he wanted a ceasefire he was mining the harbour in Misrata in order to blow up vessels that were bringing humanitarian aid to help the people that he is murdering and killing with his snipers and rockets and artillery. We have got to remember that."

Nato forces are permitted, under UN resolution 1973, passed in March, to use "all necessary measures" to protect civilians from pro-Gaddafi forces, but Nato leaders have repeatedly insisted that directly targeting Gaddafi is not a goal.

A Nato statement said: "Nato continued its precision strikes against regime military installations in Tripoli overnight, including striking a known command and control building in the Bab al-Azizia neighbourhood shortly after 6pm GMT Saturday evening."

Ibrahim said: "This is not permitted by international law. Nato does not care to test our promises, the west does not care to test our statements. Their only care is to rob us of our freedom."

Reports said the complex of one-storey buildings appeared to have been hit by at least three missiles.

The roof had completely collapsed in some areas, exposing mangled steel rods and hanging chunks of concrete.

A table football machine stood outside in the garden of the house, which was in a wealthy residential area of Tripoli. The blasts were heard across the city late on Saturday night.

Gaddafi had seven sons and one daughter. He also had an adopted daughter who was killed in a 1986 American air strike on his Bab al-Azizia residential compound.

That strike came in retaliation for a deadly bomb attack on a German disco blamed on Libya.

Rifle fire and car horns rang out in Benghazi, the rebel stronghold in eastern Libya, as news of the attack spread.

Just hours earlier, Gaddafi had delivered a rambling, defiant speech on state television in which he declared that he was "more sacred [to Libyans] than the emperor of Japan is to his people", and called for talks with Nato.

"The door to peace is open," he said. "You are the aggressors. We will negotiate with you. Come, France, Italy, UK, America, come, we will negotiate with you. Why are you attacking us?"

In an echo of comments by another son, Saif al-Islam, who said on Friday that the regime would fight on for 40 years if necessary, Gaddafi said his own future would not be up for discussion in any talks.

"No one can force me to leave my country, and no one can tell me not to fight for my country," he said.

A Nato official told Associated Press that Gaddafi's call for an end to hostilities lacked credibility.

"The regime has announced ceasefires several times before and continued attacking cities and civilians. All this has to stop, and it has to stop now," he said.

Iran Acid Blinding Punishment

An Iranian man who was due to be blinded as a punishment for throwing acid in the face of a woman has had his sentence postponed.

A court convicted Majid Movahedi in 2008 for blinding Ameneh Bahrami after she spurned his marriage proposals.

The punishment is legal under the Islamic Sharia principle of qias, equivalence or analogy, which allows retribution for violent crimes.