The death of Ahmed Wali Karzai was confirmed by Zalmai Ayubi, the spokesman for Kandahar province, and Sediq Sediqqi, a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior.

Ahmed Wali Karzai, who was head of the Kandahar provincial council, had become a political liability for the Karzai government. But the president repeatedly defended him, denouncing accusations that his brother was involved in criminal activities in the restive south.

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There was also deadly violence in the east on Wednesday. A suicide bomber crashed a car into a police bus, killing 14 people and wounding 16, said Zemeri Bashary, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. Most of the casualties were police officers, he said.

There was no claim of responsibility, but it matched the pattern of Taliban attacks against government workers and security forces.

The bus was traveling to a police academy in Jalalabad city when it was ripped apart in the explosion, Nangarhar province government spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai said.

In the demonstration in Takhar province in the north, protesters fought with police and tried to assault a German military outpost in the city of Taloqan, the provincial capital, officials said, adding that some 50 were injured.

The protest was triggered by an overnight NATO raid on the outskirts of the city. The coalition said four insurgents died in the operation and that two others were detained.

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I found myself thinking about this recently while visiting the narrow strip of northern France and Belgium that has the densest concentration of young men's graves in the world. This is the old Western Front of the First World War. Today, it is the final resting place for several million soldiers. Nearly half their bodies, blown into unrecognizable fragments by some 700 million artillery and mortar shells fired here between 1914 and 1918, lie in unmarked graves; the remainder are in hundreds upon hundreds of military cemeteries, still carefully groomed and weeded, the orderly rows of headstones or crosses covering hillsides and meadows.

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Talking about secretaries of defense...

Oh, we weren't?

Well, let's. After all, they're in the news.

Take former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who, on leaving government service -- and I hope you don't mind if I mangle a quote from General Douglas MacArthur here -- refused to die, or even fade away. Instead, he penned Known and Unknown, a memoir almost as big as his ego and almost as long -- 832 pages -- as the occupation of Iraq, which promptly hit the bestseller lists (making the American reader a Known Unknown).

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This is a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history. Yes, comparisons can be made to the wave of people power that swept Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-91. For those with longer memories, perhaps 1968 might come to mind, that abortive moment when, in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere, including Eastern Europe, masses of people mysteriously inspired by each other took to the streets of global cities to proclaim that change was on the way.

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Biden says he won't comment on that process, but has strong words about WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (ah-SAHNJ').

Biden says if Assange conspired to get classified documents with a member of the U.S. military, then "that's fundamentally different" than if a reporter were given classified material by a source.

The vice president tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that he would argue it's closer to being "a high-tech terrorist" than what happened in the Pentagon Papers -- with the 1971 leak of a government study about U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

An Army private is suspected of passing classified information to WikiLeaks.

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Remember as the invasion of Iraq was about to begin, when the Bush administration decided to seriously enforce a Pentagon ban, in existence since the first Gulf War, on media coverage and images of the American dead arriving home at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware?  In fact, the Bush-era ban did more than that. As the Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote then, it "ended the public dissemination of such images by banning news coverage and photography of dead soldiers' homecomings on all military bases." 

For those whose lives were formed in the crucible of the Vietnam years, including the civilian and military leadership of the Bush era, the dead, whether ours or the enemy's, were seen as a potential minefield when it came to antiwar opposition or simply the loss of public support in the opinion polls. Admittedly, many of the so-called lessons of the Vietnam War were often based on half-truths or pure mythology, but they were no less powerful or influential for that. 

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Despite the aura of omnipotence most empires project, a look at their history should remind us that they are fragile organisms. So delicate is their ecology of power that, when things start to go truly bad, empires regularly unravel with unholy speed: just a year for Portugal, two years for the Soviet Union, eight years for France, 11 years for the Ottomans, 17 years for Great Britain, and, in all likelihood, 22 years for the United States, counting from the crucial year 2003.

Future historians are likely to identify the Bush administration’s rash invasion of Iraq in that year as the start of America's downfall. However, instead of the bloodshed that marked the end of so many past empires, with cities burning and civilians slaughtered, this twenty-first century imperial collapse could come relatively quietly through the invisible tendrils of economic collapse or cyberwarfare.

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McConnell says that the online release of secret diplomat exchanges has done "enormous damage" to the country and to its relationship with its allies.

McConnell tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that he hopes WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange will be prosecuted for the disclosures. And he says that if it's found that Assange hasn't violated the law, then the law should be changed.

Of Assange, McConnell says, "I think the man is a high-tech terrorist."

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Clinton's trip, announced by State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley Sunday evening, had been planned long before hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables were released by WikiLeaks, the online anti-secrecy group, and published by The New York Times and newspapers in Europe.

Crowley said Clinton will begin her trip Tuesday in Kazakhstan, where she will head the U.S. delegation to a summit meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe -- the first top-level meeting of the 56-nation group in 11 years.

Clinton also will meet with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and his foreign minister, Kanat Suadabeyev. Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan unchallenged since the late 1980s, when it was still part of the Soviet Union, and has been repeatedly re-elected by landslide victories.

Clinton also will visit Kyrgyzstan, which hosts a U.S. air base that is important for resupplying and ferrying U.S. troops in Afghanistan. She also will visit Uzbekistan and stop in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet headquarters.

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The website has defied U.S. demands that it not publish the hundreds of thousands of documents. The material includes candid assessments of foreign leaders and governments.

The White House says such initial reporting is "often incomplete information" and doesn't always shape final policy decisions.

The White House calls the release "reckless and dangerous" and counter to President Barack Obama's goal of open and accountable government at home and around the world.

It considers the files to be "stolen" and says they put at risk the cause of human rights across the globe.

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The trove of nearly 400,000 WikiLeaks papers detail U.S. military reports of alleged abuse by Iraqi security forces -- some of which happened after al-Maliki became prime minister in May 2006. They were released as al-Maliki scrambles to keep his job, nearly seven months after national elections failed to produce a clear winner.

In a statement, al-Maliki's office lashed out at WikiLeaks, accusing it of creating a national uproar by releasing documents that it said were being used "against national parties and leaders, especially against the prime minister."

Al-Maliki's office questioned the timing of the release, but expressed confidence in "our peoples' awareness regarding such games or media bubbles that are motivated by known political goals."

The statement said the documents did not present any proof of detainees being improperly treated while al-Maliki has headed Iraq's Shiite-led government. Instead, it praised him as courageous for taking a tough stance against terrorists. It did not offer any details.

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The accounts of civilian deaths among nearly 400,000 purported Iraq war logs released Friday by the WikiLeaks website include deaths unknown or unreported before now -- as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent research group.

The field reports from U.S. forces and intelligence officers also indicate U.S. forces often failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces mistreated, tortured and killed their captives as they battled a violent insurgency.

Iraq's prime minister accused WikiLeaks of trying to sabotage his re-election hopes by highlighting years-old abuses by Iraqi security forces. A statement released Saturday by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's office said the documents show no proof of any improper treatment of detainees under al-Maliki's administration.

The war logs were made public in defiance of the Pentagon, which insisted that the release would put the lives of U.S. troops and their military partners at risk.

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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who only last month had said it was too soon for high-level reconciliation talks, struck a different chord at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

"Whenever opportunities arise that are worth exploring, I think we ought to take advantage of that," Gates said.

Senior U.S. officials have long said they didn't expect the Taliban to talk peace as long as the militants believed they were winning, and at least some administration officials had been cool to peace feelers put forth by President Hamid Karzai.

The new acceptance of reconciliation could be seen as an admission that the war is going badly. Or it may reflect the view of U.S. military commanders that NATO troops have damaged the insurgency following the surge of more than 30,000 U.S. forces ordered by President Barack Obama.

Some administration officials recently said stepped-up NATO operations, as well as U.S. drone attacks on militants across the border in Pakistan, have shaken the Taliban enough to coax them into negotiations.

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The AP count is six more than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT.

At least 955 military personnel have died in Afghanistan as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers.

Outside of Afghanistan, the department reports at least 94 more members of the U.S. military died in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Of those, 12 were the result of hostile action.

The AP count of total OEF casualties outside of Afghanistan is two fewer than the department's tally.

The Defense Department also counts two military civilian deaths.

Since the start of U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, 7,950 U.S. service members have been wounded in hostile action, according to the Defense Department.

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The latest deaths reported by the military:

-- No new deaths reported.

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The latest identifications reported by the military:

-- Lance Cpl. Joshua T. Twigg, 21, of Indiana, Pa.; died Sept. 2 while conducting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Lejeune, N.C.

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Swedish authorities issued an arrest warrant for Assange on rape suspicions this weekend but quickly withdrew it. The Australian remains under suspicion of a lesser crime of molestation.

Aftonbladet quoted Assange as saying he hasn't had sex with anyone in a way that wasn't consensual.

He said the allegations had damaged the whistleblower site because WikiLeaks' enemies will keep trumpeting things even after they have been denied."

Assange said he doesn't know what's behind the accusations "but we have been warned that for example the Pentagon plans to use dirty tricks to spoil things for us."

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But in opposing military action against Iran, Makiya is parting ways with the very same "liberal hawks" he greatly influenced on Iraq. Those liberal hawks -- individuals who are left-wing on domestic policy but frequently support the use of American military power to intervene in conflicts around the world -- have been enormously influential in the Democratic coalition since the 1990s, when the Bill Clinton and the centrist Democratic Leadership Coalition consciously remade the party in an effort to jettison its soft-on-defense image. Politically, these liberal hawks have been represented by Madeleine Albright, Joe Biden, Al Gore and Joe Lieberman, among other Democratic Party heavyweights.

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In a brief statement Saturday, chief prosecutor Eva Finne says: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape."

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- The founder of WikiLeaks was accused of rape in a Swedish arrest warrant Saturday that turned the spotlight onto the former hacker who's infuriated governments with his self-proclaimed mission to make secrets public.

The accusation was labeled a dirty trick by Julian Assange and his group, who are preparing to release a fresh batch of classified U.S. documents from the Afghan war.

Swedish prosecutors urged Assange -- a nomadic 39-year-old Australian whose whereabouts were unclear -- to turn himself in to police to face questioning in one case involving suspicions of rape and another based on an accusation of molestation.

They issued a warrant for his arrest, a move that doesn't necessarily mean that criminal charges will be filed. Investigators want him in custody because they believe there is a risk he will obstruct the probe by destroying evidence, said Karin Rosander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority.

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Sweden's support for Internet freedom has made it a base for cyberactivists ranging from a Chechen rebel site to the file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay.

But even here, WikiLeaks may not be home free.

The self-styled whistleblower, which has angered Washington by publishing leaked documents about U.S. military activities in Iraq and Afghanistan, could present a strong test of how far Sweden is prepared to go to defend its freedom of expression.

Swedish laws allow prosecutors to intervene against publication of material deemed harmful to national security. It's unclear whether that could also include the security of a friendly nation. The U.S. argues the secret documents risks the lives of coalition forces and Afghans helping them.

Another question is whether there is political will in Sweden to go after WikiLeaks. The site's founder, Julian Assange, is confident there isn't.

"The will of the Swedish people is with us," Assange told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

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It is difficult to find clear-cut examples of the public exposure of informants leading to their deaths, although there are documented cases of a deadly ending to the secret unmasking of foreign agents. Recall the Aldrich Ames espionage case of the early 1990s: The now-jailed CIA turncoat ratted on Soviet informants and at least nine of them were believed executed by the KGB.

The WikiLeaks leak is unrivaled in its scope, but so far there is no evidence that any Afghans named in the leaked documents as defectors or informants from the Taliban insurgency have been harmed in retaliation.

Some private analysts, in fact, think the danger has been overstated.

"I am underwhelmed by this argument. The Pentagon is hyping," says John Prados, a military and intelligence historian who works for the anti-secrecy National Security Archive. He said in an interview that relatively few names have surfaced and it's not clear whether their present circumstances leave them in jeopardy.

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