Update at 4:53 p.m. ET. U.S. Is Not 'Hacking':

AP/IntelCenter

This 2010 image, provided by IntelCenter, shows Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi in a posthumous video message posted on extremist websites. The al-Qaida double agent killed seven CIA operatives, a Jordanian spy and himself when he set off a bomb strapped to his body at a base in Afghanistan in December 2009.

NPR's Dina Temple-Raston tells us State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland made it clear that the United States is not "hacking" the websites that appeal to al-Qaida. Instead, they are "countering propaganda with a counter-narrative that we believe is closer to the truth of the situation."

In her All Things Considered report, Dina provides an example:

"A couple of weeks ago, a tribal website linked to al-Qaida's affiliate in Yemen began an ad campaign of sorts.

"It linked to photographs of coffins draped with American flags and called on followers to kill more Americans.

"'We put up a counter post of coffins draped in Yemeni flags to indicate that it is Yemenis who are dying at the hands of al-Qaeda terrorists in Yemen,' Nuland said."

Note that because of this new information we have also changed the headline of this post.

Our Original Post Continues:

State Department specialists have replaced anti-American ads put on Yemeni websites by al-Qaida with postings that detail the "deadly impact of al-Qaida tactics on Yemenis themselves," Associated Press correspondent Kimberly Dozier reports.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talked about the successful hacking of the terrorist network's online efforts during a conference Wednesday in Tampa that was attended by "hundreds of U.S. and international special operations commanders," Dozier adds.

Clinton told the group that because of the State Department's effort, "extremists are publicly venting their frustration and asking supporters not to believe everything they read on the Internet."

Evan Kohlmann, a consultant on terrorism issues who tracks such websites, tells The Washington Post that highlighting the deadly effects of al-Qaida's actions does do "a tremendous amount of damage" to the network's image, "recruitment campaigns and its effort to launch renewed attacks." But he has doubts about whether the websites that State has hacked reach a very wide audience.

Enlarge Johannes Eisele /AFP/Getty Images

Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, last month in Kabul.

Johannes Eisele /AFP/Getty Images

Ryan Crocker, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, last month in Kabul.

The U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Ryan Crocker, is leaving his post in mid-summer, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland confirmed in an email to reporters just after 11:30 a.m. ET.

Crocker's departure is due to "health reasons," Nuland added.

Our original post:

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, "is expected to step down soon from his post," sources familiar with the matter tell Reuters and a few other news outlets.

CNN adds that while Crocker, a veteran diplomat who reopened the embassy in Kabul in January 2002 and later served as ambassador to Iraq during President George W. Bush's administration, has been ambassador in Afghanistan for just 10 months:

"The relatively short length of his service in the Afghan capital is no surprise. In recent history, American ambassadors have served similar terms."

Last week, The Washington Post reported that "Marine Corps Gen. John Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, is expected to leave his post early next year and take over the U.S. European Command."

The personnel shifts come, of course, as the U.S. and its NATO allies prepare to hand over responsibility for security to Afghan forces and to withdraw their combat troops from that nation by some time in 2014.

As President Obama and other NATO leaders wrap up a two-day summit today in Chicago, the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over reopening supply routes from that country into Afghanistan threatens to "put a crimp in the Obama administration's efforts to lay out a clear strategy for winding down the war in Afghanistan," NPR's Jackie Northam tells our Newscast desk.

As Jackie adds, Pakistan still hasn't agreed to let NATO use the routes — which Pakistan closed about six months ago after 24 of its solders were killed by fire directed their way by NATO forces across the boarder in Afghanistan. NATO officials have said there was confusion about whether Pakistani troops were in an area thought to be controlled by militants.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was invited to the Chicago summit in the hope that an agreement could be reached on the supply routes. But Jackie reports that many details still need to be worked out, including the price-per-truck NATO will pay for access to the routes.

Zardari has also pressed for a "permanent solution" concerning U.S. drone strikes on suspected militants in Pakistan, which have also killed some civilians.

The BBC adds that at the summit, NATO leaders are "expected to endorse plans to hand over combat command to Afghan forces by mid-2013 and seek progress in opening routes for troop withdrawals. They also hope to reach a commitment on who pays how much towards funding Afghan forces after 2014."

NPR's Scott Horsley rounded up the news from Chicago for Morning Edition.

Update at 1 p.m. ET. Both Sides Try To Apply Leverage.

From Islamabad, NPR's Julie McCarthy tells us more about the supply route dispute:

The issue is: how much is the U.S. willing to pay Pakistan, which knows knows that NATO is paying a high price to move supplies into Afghanistan via routes to the north, toward Russia — much higher costs than if it were moving goods thru Pakistan. Pakistan has factored that into its calculation.

But from the U.S. point of view, the proposed price on the table is many times what the Americans are willing to pay. So there's a stalemate.

Pakistan's leverage is that the U.S. also needs to get out of Afghanistan in the next couple years and Pakistan is the fastest way out. The U.S. leverage is that it will hold up some $1 billion dollars in badly needed aid, unless the routes are re-opened.

Enlarge Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

President Barack Obama meets with French President Francois Hollande on Friday in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP

President Barack Obama meets with French President Francois Hollande on Friday in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington.

Update at 1:17 p.m. ET. Support Afghanistan In 'Different Way':

During their meeting in the White House, President Francois Hollande, the new socialist leader of France, said he told President Obama that he was committed to withdrawing French troops from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

But, the AP reports, Hollande said he was committed to supporting Afghanistan in a "different way."

This was Obama's first meeting with Hollande.

The two leaders also said they wanted Greece to remain a part the European monetary union.

The pool report notes that the two leaders joked a bit.

Hollande promised not to say anything against cheeseburgers and Obama quipped that that they go "very good with French fries."

Our Original Post Continues:

Later today, President Obama welcomes leaders from the Group of 8 nations to Camp David, Md., for a two-day summit. (Which countries are part of that group? See below.)

Sunday, he joins NATO heads of state — and invited leaders such as President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan — in Chicago for the 25th NATO summit. That gathering continues on Monday.

But before all that, he hosts new French President Francois Hollande at the White House this morning. And Hollande is expected, as The Associated Press reports, "to announce a pullout of all French combat troops from Afghanistan by year's end" — about two years early (there are about 3,300 French troops in Afghanistan).

"That could infuriate NATO allies and embarrass his re-election-minded host — and may well be logistically impossible," AP adds.

The G8 nations are:

— Canada

— France

— Germany

— Italy

— Japan

— Russia

— U.K.

— U.S.

Enlarge army.mil

Army Specialist Leslie H. Sabo Jr. will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony.

army.mil

Army Specialist Leslie H. Sabo Jr. will posthumously receive the Medal of Honor at a White House ceremony.

President Barack Obama awarded a posthumous Medal of Honor today to Spec. Leslie H. Sabo Jr., a Pennsylvania rifleman killed after sacrificing his body to grenade fire in Vietnam during 1970's "Mother's Day Ambush".

A Defense Department description of Sabo's heroic actions says the 22-year old saved the lives of several other soldiers. He charged enemy positions and killed several North Vietnamese fighters while drawing fire away from his unit.

Later, when a grenade was tossed near a wounded fellow soldier, Sabo used his body to shield his comrade from the blast. Wounded from fire, Sabo then crawled towards an enemy bunker and dropped a grenade that "silenced the enemy fire, but also ended Specialist Sabo's life."

The Associated Press explains the four decade delay in recognizing Sabo's actions:

"The Army says paperwork for the award was done at the time of the war by George Koziol, one of the men wounded in the battle of Se San but that it was lost in 1970 and did not resurface for three decades.

"In 1999, Alton Mabb, a 101st Airborne Division Vietnam veteran, found the original paperwork while at the National Archives researching an article for the division's magazine. A few weeks later he asked archive personnel to send him copies of the paperwork and began the push to get Sabo recognized."

President Obama will present the medal to Sabo's widow, Rose Mary Brown, and brother, George Sabo.

Update at 4:01 p.m. ET. Medal Presented:

CBS White House Correspondent Mark Knoller tweeted from the ceremony that the 1970 Medal of Honor proposal for Sabo was only found in archives in 1999. On the Vietnam War, Obama said it's "to our shame" our troops did not receive the gratitude they deserved.

Enlarge Toussaint Kluiters /AFP/Getty Images

Former Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague earlier today.

Toussaint Kluiters /AFP/Getty Images

Former Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague earlier today.

"Bosnian Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic taunted Srebrenica survivors on Wednesday at the start of his trial for genocide, running his hand across his throat in a gesture of defiance to relatives of the worst massacre in Europe since World War II," Reuters writes from The Hague.

The wire service says Mladic "made eye contact with one of the Muslim women in the audience, running a hand across his throat, in a gesture that led Presiding judge Alphons Orie to hold a brief recess and order an end to 'inappropriate interactions.' "

According to The Telegraph, "Mladic made throat-cutting gestures to Munira Subasic, a woman who lost 22 relatives to Bosnian Serb military forces when the enclave of Srebrenica was overrun in July 1995, as she watched the trial from the glassed off public gallery."

As The Associated Press recounts:

"Twenty years after his troops began brutally ethnically cleansing Bosnian towns and villages of non-Serbs, Gen. Ratko Mladic went on trial Wednesday at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal accused of 11 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

"The ailing 70-year-old Mladic's appearance at the U.N. court war crimes tribunal marked the end of a long wait for justice to survivors of the 1992-95 war that left some 100,000 people dead. The trial is also a landmark for the U.N. court and international justice — Mladic is the last suspect from the Bosnian war to go on trial here."

Enlarge Massoud Hossaini /AFP/Getty Images

Officials and mourners prepare to place the coffin of Afghanistan High Peace Council and former Taliban leader Arsala Rahmani in a grave earlier today, in Kabul.

Massoud Hossaini /AFP/Getty Images

Officials and mourners prepare to place the coffin of Afghanistan High Peace Council and former Taliban leader Arsala Rahmani in a grave earlier today, in Kabul.

While U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker says there is a path toward relative stability in Afghanistan and away from a return to the kind of civil war that devastated the country in the early 1990s, the difficulties still facing that nation have been underscored by more violence:

— CNN.com reports that "a bomb exploded inside a shop in the northern Afghanistan province of Faryab on Monday, killing nine people, according to the Afghan Interior Ministry."

— On Sunday, The Associated Press writes, "an assassin armed with a silenced pistol shot dead a top member of the Afghan peace council at a traffic intersection in the nation's capital, police said. The killing strikes another blow to efforts to negotiate a political resolution to the decade-long war."

Still, there are these two related reports that offer somewhat more hopeful news:

The latest plot to bomb a U.S. airliner has been foiled, but U.S. intelligence officials have described the bomb as a sophisticated device that's believed to be the work of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. Many details are still not available, but here's what is and isn't known so far:

The Plot: The plan originated in Yemen, home of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston says her sources confirmed that the bomber had been instructed to choose a U.S.-bound flight to target, but that he had not yet bought his tickets. The Associated Press broke the story Monday, and U.S. officials have provided additional details.

The Mole: Temple-Raston reports that the CIA had a source who was inside an al-Qaida bomb cell in Yemen. She quotes sources as saying the informant brought the bomb out of Yemen and that it ended up in the hands of intelligence officials. What the sources are not making public is where the bomb was taken and how it came into the possession of U.S. intelligence. The insider is now said to be safely out of Yemen.

The Intelligence Payoff: In addition to whatever the experts can glean about the state of al-Qaida's bomb-making art, the operation may have yielded other information. Temple-Raston notes that the reputed head of al-Qaida in Yemen, Fahd al-Quso, was killed by a U.S. missile on Sunday. She says it's unclear whether the insider provided information that helped locate Quso.

Similarities To 2009 Case: The scheme sounds very much like the "underwear bomber" who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day in 2009. The latest case also called for equipping a suicide attacker with an explosive device that could be concealed in his underwear.

The Bomb: The bomb is now at the FBI's explosives lab in Quantico, Virginia where experts are dissecting it. It apparently did not contain any metal, and therefore may have passed unnoticed through airport security. Temple-Raston reported that intelligence experts believe the latest bomb was a more sophisticated version of device used in 2009.

The Suspected Bombmaker: This bomb, like the one in 2009, is believed to be the work of a 28-year-old Saudi named Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. The latest bomb bears the hall-marks of Asiri's work, and appears to be an effort to improve on technology that failed the first time around, Temple-Raston reports. One thing that concerns intelligence officials, she says, is that Asiri may well have trained other people, and that the latest bomb is the work of one of his protégés.

Uncovering The Plot: It's not clear exactly how or when intelligence officials learned about the plot. However, President Obama was informed of the case last month, according to Caitlyn Hayden, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.

Update at 4:51 p.m. ET. Just a quick note to let you know that we've written through this post to reflect new reporting.

It wasn't a wild scene in the Guantanamo Bay courtroom where the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four others were being arraigned on Saturday, but it was certainly in disarray.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the rest of the defendants repeatedly refused to answer the judge's questions and employed other distractions to bog down the proceedings, as the AP reports.

As NPR's Dina Temple-Raston tells our Newscast Desk, at one point defendant Ramzi Binalshibh stood up and started praying, complete with prayer rug. At another point he began shouting that he would be killed back at camp and that guards would call it suicide.

Temple-Raston was in the courtroom today, and she reports that the strategy for the defense seems to be "delay, delay, delay." Mohammed, she says, was in charge when it came to the defendants.

"He would talk to them, then they would pass sort of whatever it is he said back down the line of this row of tables where they were sitting," she says.

The antics slowed the arraignment, the final preliminary step that enters the defendants into the military commission system. The trial itself is still as much as a year away. A military commissions tribunal, Temple-Raston notes, is different from a military court or court martial.

"This is a special system that was set up specifically for terrorism suspects, and it was set up down here in Guantanamo as a way to sort of move people out of Guantanamo Bay prison," she tells Newscast.

In the military commission system, defendants don't necessarily enter a plea at an arraignment like they might in the federal system, she says. Instead today, the defense introduced a series of motions for the judge to consider — which also delayed proceedings.

"So we're unlikely to hear what they are going to plead," Temple-Raston says. "Although you know from the way that they're acting, it's pretty clear that they're not going to plead guilty and just allow the judge to decide their fate."

When President Obama on Tuesday signed a 10-year security agreement with Afghan President Karzai, it wasn't announced how many U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan past 2014 — the year Afghans are supposed to take over full responsibilty for security there.

American military officials say that the planning figure is 25,000 troops, commanded by a three-star general. They would include trainers as well as thousands of Green Berets and other special operations troops who would work with Afghans on counter-terror missions. NATO would be asked to contribute troops, but it's likely that the U.S. would contribute the bulk of those forces.

The Afghan troops face a number of hurdles before they can assume full responsibility. Illiteracy is one of them. The U.S. is trying to bring soldiers up to first grade level and officers up to third grade level. Only about 20 percent of Afghan forces have the educational abilities needed to go on to more advanced schools, such as for logistics or planning.

One U.S. officer says that not only can many Afghan soldiers not read or write, but many can't even count. The U.S. tries to get around that in some novel ways. In some cases trainers draw a rectangle in the dirt for Afghan commanders who can't tell how many soldiers they should have. The Americans say that if the soldiers standing at attention fill the rectangle, that's a full complement.

The attrition rate for the Afghan forces is nearly double what it should be and the lack of junior leaders is another problem. The Afghans have a deficit of thousands of needed sergeants, considered the backbone of any army.

[NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman filed for us from Afghanistan, where he's on assignment.]

Enlarge Mandel Ngan /AFP/Getty Images

During his brief visit to Afghanistan, President Obama spoke to troops at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul.

Mandel Ngan /AFP/Getty Images

During his brief visit to Afghanistan, President Obama spoke to troops at Bagram Air Field north of Kabul.

Among the day-after analyses of President Obama's surprise trip to Afghanistan and the new pact about U.S.-Afghan relations is this from Anthony Cordesman at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.:

The best the U.S. and its NATO allies may be able to hope for is what he refers to as "Afghan good enough." That is, Cordesman said earlier on Morning Edition, an Afghanistan in which only parts of the country are protected by Afghan government forces and much of the rest of the nation remains vulnerable to the Taliban and extremists. It would be too expensive — in lives and money — to try to secure the whole nation, he says.

The still dangerous nature of life in Afghanistan was underscored again today, as NPR's Renee Montagne said during a Morning Edition report from Kabul, by a "darker kind of news":

"A suicide car bomber and Taliban militants disguised in burqas attacked a compound housing hundreds of foreigners in the Afghan capital on Wednesday, killing seven people, officials and witnesses said. The Taliban said the attack was a response to President Barack Obama's surprise visit just hours earlier." (The Associated Press)

Some other day-after analyes about the president's trip and the agreement he signed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai about U.S.-Afghan relations after the withdrawal of most foreign forces in 2014:

— "A Visit Well Timed To Future Uncertainties In Afghanistan." (The New York Times)

— "Obama's 'We're Leaving' Message Trumps Pledge U.S. Won't Abandon Afghanistan." (The Associated Press)

— "At its heart, [Obama's] speech was a balancing act. The vast majority of Americans want to get out of Afghanistan and end the war. But anything that looks like cutting and running, leaving the Afghans in the lurch, would be criticised by the foreign policy establishment and by some allies, as well as his obvious opponents." (BBC North America editor Mark Mardell)

President Obama left Afghanistan around dawn (local time) today, and his due back at the White House around midday.

Enlarge Kevin Lamarque /AFP/Getty Images

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers an address to the American people on U.S. policy and the war in Afghanistan during his visit to Bagram Air Base on Tuesday.

Kevin Lamarque /AFP/Getty Images

U.S. President Barack Obama delivers an address to the American people on U.S. policy and the war in Afghanistan during his visit to Bagram Air Base on Tuesday.

In a speech delivered from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, President Obama said that after more than 10 years of war in the country, the U.S. is on a path toward peace.

"My fellow Americans, we have traveled through more than a decade under the dark cloud of war. Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon," President Obama said. "The Iraq War is over. The number of our troops in harm's way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al-Qaida."

President Obama gave the speech backed by military vehicles and just hours after signing a strategic partnership agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The agreement lays out the nations' relationship after the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition troops in 2014.

Obama used the prime-time, televised address to the country to make the case that he would fulfill his promise to end the Afghan war responsibly.

"Our goal is to destroy al-Qaida, and we are on a path to do exactly that," the president said.

"This time of war began in Afghanistan," Obama concluded, "and this is where it will end."

We live blogged the president's speech, so keep reading if you want a detailed look at his speech.

Enlarge Harouna Traore/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Soldiers loyal to junta leaders in Mali load their weapons, including a machine gun, onto a taxi after leaving a military camp where anti-junta forces were subdued.

Harouna Traore/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Soldiers loyal to junta leaders in Mali load their weapons, including a machine gun, onto a taxi after leaving a military camp where anti-junta forces were subdued.

Reports from the west African nation, Mali, say this week's counter-coup attempt failed against the junta that toppled Mali's democratically elected president.

Guards loyal to ousted Malian president Toumani Toure fought with junta soldiers in Bamako, Mali's capital, on Monday before junta troops grabbed control of the presidential guard barracks today, according to Reuters. Junta leader Captain Amadou Sanogo accused "mercenaries from elsewhere" of plotting the attack. AP says fighting broke out at the airport, at the junta headquarters and at the state broadcast building.

The Malian coup occurred March 22 and was condemned internationally; the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, warned it's ready to send up to 3,000 troops into Mali to make sure the transitional government recently set up by the junta remains in place for a year. VOA reports junta leaders reject the decision because they want to decide how long the interim government remains in power.

It may make little difference. That's because what's left of the Malian government only controls about a third of the country. In January, ethnic Tuaregs and Islamist fighters, many of whom fought in Libya for ex-Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, launched a separatist rebellion to create their own country - Azawad. These rebels were so successful that angry Malian troops staged the March coup to demand better supplies with which to fight back.

The northern rebels immediately capitalized on the coup d'etat confusion and within days, seized control of about two thirds of Mali, an area roughly equal to the size of France, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

Human Rights Watch says civilians are suffering under the northern rebels control, with many human rights violations committed by the Tuaregs. In an upsetting report based on scores of interviews with witnesses, HRC says the northern rebels are forcing children into combat, committing mass rapes of women and young girls and looting - including stealing hospital mattresses from underneath patients. Medical workers are threatened at gunpoint.

The rights group also says it has credible information that Malian troops have summarily executed Tuareg fighters and civilians.

Enlarge Pete Souza/White House

Iconic image: President Barack Obama and members of his national security team as they monitored the mission to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

Pete Souza/White House

Iconic image: President Barack Obama and members of his national security team as they monitored the mission to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

One year ago today, we learned that al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden had been located and killed by U.S. Navy SEALs at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

There's no shortage of stories and news related to that event, including these:

— "After Bin Laden, Al-Qaida Still Present As Movement." (NPR's Dina Temple-Raston, on Morning Edition.)

— Army's Combating Terrorism Center To Post Online Documents Seized From Bin Laden's Compound, Issue Short Report. (CTC)

— "Bin Laden: Seized Documents Show Delusional Leader And Micromanager." (CNN National Security Analyst Peter Bergen.)

— "Bin Laden's Last Stand: In Final Months, Terrorist Leader Worried About His Legacy." (The Washington Post)

We were thinking back about how the story unfolded a year go, and scanned over our live blogging that Sunday night and Monday morning. A few things of note about a night when the news moved very quickly:

— It was around 10:30 p.m. ET last May 1 when word started to leak.

— By 11:30 p.m. ET or so, a crowd was already gathering outside the White House; changing "USA!"

— At 11:38 p.m. ET, President Obama confirmed the news. "Good evening," he began. "Tonight, I can report to the American peopleand to the world that the United States has conducted anoperation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of alQaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder ofthousands of innocent men, women, and children."

— Just before midnight ET, former President George W. Bush issued a statement saying, in part, that "this momentous achievement marks a victory for America, for people who seek peace around the world, and for all those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001."

— It was around 3:15 a.m. ET, May 2, when we learned that bin Laden's body had already been buried at sea.

Enlarge Asif Hassan /AFP/Getty Images

April 13: In Karachi, activists from the Shabab-e-Milli group set fire to U.S. flags during a protest against the reopening of the NATO supply route to Afghanistan.

Asif Hassan /AFP/Getty Images

April 13: In Karachi, activists from the Shabab-e-Milli group set fire to U.S. flags during a protest against the reopening of the NATO supply route to Afghanistan.

"CIA drone missiles hit militant targets in Pakistan on Sunday for the first time in a month, as the United States ignored the Pakistani government's insistence that such attacks end as a condition for normalized relations between the two perpetually uneasy allies," The Washington Post writes.

But after initial stories focusing on how the strike could set back negotiations over reopening NATO supply routes from Pakistan into Afghanistan, there's now this from The Associated Press:

"Pakistan's prime minister struck a moderate tone Monday amid criticism of the U.S. for carrying out its first drone strike in the country since parliament demanded that Washington end the attacks two weeks ago.

"Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's comments could indicate the government does not want the drone issue to torpedo attempts to patch up ties with the U.S. ...

"When asked about the most recent strike, which killed three suspected Islamist militants Sunday, Gilani pointed out that the resolution passed by parliament also stipulated that foreign fighters must be expelled from the country and Pakistani soil should not be used to attack other countries.

" 'So, when we plan a strategy (with the U.S.), all these aspects would be discussed,' said Gilani."

As The New York Times adds:

"The C.I.A. strike underlined the tensions between American diplomatic and security priorities in Pakistan. Officials from the two countries are trying to reset relations that stalled badly after American warplanes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers along the Afghanistan border in November."