Pakistanis bury slain teachers, aid workers

SWABI, Pakistan (AP) — Hundreds of villagers in northwest Pakistan turned out Wednesday to bury five female teachers and two health workers who were gunned down a day earlier by militants in what may have been the latest in a series of attacks targeting anti-polio efforts in the country.

The seven had worked at a community center in the town of Swabi that included a primary school and a medical clinic that vaccinated children against polio. Some militants oppose the vaccination campaigns, accusing health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and alleging the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

As mourners carried the coffins through the town for burial Wednesday, family and friends expressed horror that such an attack had struck their community.

"I told her many times at home 'be careful as we are poor people and take care of yourself all the time,'" said Fazal Dad, whose daughter was among the seven killed. "And always in response she said: 'Father, if I am not guilty, no one can harm me.'"

The group was on their way home from the community center where they were employed by a non-governmental organization when their vehicle was attacked Tuesday. The four militants on motorcycles spared the young son of one of the women who was riding in the van, pulling him from the vehicle before spraying it with bullets. The driver survived and was being treated at a Peshawar hospital.

There has been no claim of responsibility, and police have not made any arrests.

The director of the NGO said he suspected the attack might have been retribution for the group's work helping vaccinate Pakistani children against polio. Javed Akhtar said the community group has suspended its operations throughout the province.

Despite the killings, polio vaccination workers will be out in force this Saturday in four areas in the northwest considered at high risk for the disease in an effort to keep it from spreading.

Police will give extra protection to the workers taking part in the campaign in Peshawar, Nowshera, Charsadda and Mardan, said the commissioner of Mardan, Adil Khan.

Many local residents view the girls' primary school and medical clinic run by the NGO at the community center as saviors for the community's poor. Now many are worried about what will happen if those services are cut off.

Gul Afzal Khan, a villager whose children studied at a community center run by the group, said the attack was a big loss.

"What is their crime?" he asked. "They were just giving free education and health assistance to our children."

The attack also was another reminder of the risks to women educators and aid workers from Islamic militants who oppose their work.

Last month, nine people working on an anti-polio vaccination campaign were shot and killed. Four of those shootings were in the northwest where Tuesday's attack took place.

___

Associated Press writer Riaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.

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How to Sync All Your Calendars Onto One Smartphone

It’s a simple request: I just want my online calendars to sync with my smartphone… is that too much to ask? It took some initial research and finesse, but I’ve discovered the best ways to get your Yahoo and Google calendars to appear on either an Android or Apple IOS mobile device.

Google Calendar on Android Phone
When you first set up your Android phone, you had to create or enter your Google account info, so the phone already has the login info for your Google Calendar. Now you can go to your phone’s Settings, choose Accounts, click the Google account and then make sure “Sync Calendar” is checked. Then go to the Calendar App on your Android phone and it should be there.

For multiple calendars, hit the Settings button and then Calendars to customize which Google calendars you see.

Yahoo Calendar on Android Phone
Although it seems like it should be easy to add the Yahoo Calendar to your Android, I never got mine to sync. Theoretically, you would open the Android calendar on your phone, hit the Settings option, and Add Account. But depending on the flavor of Android I tried, I either couldn’t add a Yahoo account or when I did, it didn’t sync. It could just be me, but I found a lot of people online with the same issue. So I tried one of the most recommended apps to solve the problem – Smoothsync for Yahoo. It costs just under three dollars, and once you install it, you can sync all your Yahoo calendars into the native Android calendar. Ah, sweet relief.

[Related: New Tricks for New (and Old) Androids]

Yahoo Calendar on iPhone
On your IOS device, hit Settings. If you haven’t added your Yahoo Account yet, do so by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.” Once you’ve input your Yahoo login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure calendars is on. Hit the Home button, open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see all your calendars listed under Yahoo. If you only have one Yahoo calendar, make sure you check to have it show in your IOS Cal. Also, many people have multiple Yahoo calendars: a family calendar, a work calendar, a soccer team calendar for the kids, and a personal calendar. You can customize which of these Yahoo Calendars show up by checking or unchecking them in this screen.

Google Calendar on iPhone
It’s a little more complicated, but you can also put a Google or Gmail calendar on the iPhone. Here’s how:

If you only have your one personal Google calendar to sync, you do things the same way as with Yahoo: Go to Settings on your IOS device, add your Google account (if you haven’t done so yet) by going to Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Choose “Add Account.”

Once you’ve input your Google login info, the next screen gives you the option to Sync Mail, Contacts, and Calendars. Make sure Calendars is on. Hit the Home button, then open the IOS calendar. Hit the Calendars button on the top corner and you will see your calendar listed under Google. You can track those Google dates in the IOS calendar and multiple Yahoo calendars at the same time.

But if you want multiple Google calendars, you need an app for that. Google does let you do this through their mobile site, but that’s basically just a website without the power of notifications and all the extras you like from your calendars. So I suggest getting the CalenMob app. It’s free with ads or $ 5 ad-free. It syncs all your Google calendars to the app (not the native IOS calendar) and adds in notification options, SMS functions and email alert options. It also syncs simultaneously to your Yahoo calendars.

[Related: True/False: Never Sell Your Old Phone]

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Los Angeles photog killed shooting Bieber's car

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Justin Bieber says his thoughts and prayers are with the family of a paparazzo who was fatally struck by a car after taking pictures of the singer's Ferrari sports car in Los Angeles.

In a statement released Wednesday by Island Def Jam Music Group, Bieber says he hopes the tragedy will inspire legislation to protect the lives of celebrities, police, bystanders and photographers themselves.

Police Officer James Stoughton says the photographer died Tuesday evening at a hospital. Stoughton says Bieber was not in the Ferrari at the time.

Sgt. Rudy Lopez told the Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/ZTtuCt ) that the pop star's friend was driving the car when it was pulled over for a traffic stop.

Police say the paparazzo was struck by another motorist while returning to his own car.

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Brain image study: Fructose may spur overeating

This is your brain on sugar — for real. Scientists have used imaging tests to show for the first time that fructose, a sugar that saturates the American diet, can trigger brain changes that may lead to overeating.

After drinking a fructose beverage, the brain doesn't register the feeling of being full as it does when simple glucose is consumed, researchers found.

It's a small study and does not prove that fructose or its relative, high-fructose corn syrup, can cause obesity, but experts say it adds evidence they may play a role. These sugars often are added to processed foods and beverages, and consumption has risen dramatically since the 1970s along with obesity. A third of U.S. children and teens and more than two-thirds of adults are obese or overweight.

All sugars are not equal — even though they contain the same amount of calories — because they are metabolized differently in the body. Table sugar is sucrose, which is half fructose, half glucose. High-fructose corn syrup is 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose. Some nutrition experts say this sweetener may pose special risks, but others and the industry reject that claim. And doctors say we eat too much sugar in all forms.

For the study, scientists used magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, scans to track blood flow in the brain in 20 young, normal-weight people before and after they had drinks containing glucose or fructose in two sessions several weeks apart.

Scans showed that drinking glucose "turns off or suppresses the activity of areas of the brain that are critical for reward and desire for food," said one study leader, Yale University endocrinologist Dr. Robert Sherwin. With fructose, "we don't see those changes," he said. "As a result, the desire to eat continues — it isn't turned off."

What's convincing, said Dr. Jonathan Purnell, an endocrinologist at Oregon Health & Science University, is that the imaging results mirrored how hungry the people said they felt, as well as what earlier studies found in animals.

"It implies that fructose, at least with regards to promoting food intake and weight gain, is a bad actor compared to glucose," said Purnell. He wrote a commentary that appears with the federally funded study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers now are testing obese people to see if they react the same way to fructose and glucose as the normal-weight people in this study did.

What to do? Cook more at home and limit processed foods containing fructose and high-fructose corn syrup, Purnell suggested. "Try to avoid the sugar-sweetened beverages. It doesn't mean you can't ever have them," but control their size and how often they are consumed, he said.

A second study in the journal suggests that only severe obesity carries a high death risk — and that a few extra pounds might even provide a survival advantage. However, independent experts say the methods are too flawed to make those claims.

The study comes from a federal researcher who drew controversy in 2005 with a report that found thin and normal-weight people had a slightly higher risk of death than those who were overweight. Many experts criticized that work, saying the researcher — Katherine Flegal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — painted a misleading picture by including smokers and people with health problems ranging from cancer to heart disease. Those people tend to weigh less and therefore make pudgy people look healthy by comparison.

Flegal's new analysis bolsters her original one, by assessing nearly 100 other studies covering almost 2.9 million people around the world. She again concludes that very obese people had the highest risk of death but that overweight people had a 6 percent lower mortality rate than thinner people. She also concludes that mildly obese people had a death risk similar to that of normal-weight people.

Critics again have focused on her methods. This time, she included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases, as well as smokers with elevated risks of heart disease and cancer.

"Some portion of those thin people are actually sick, and sick people tend to die sooner," said Donald Berry, a biostatistician at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

The problems created by the study's inclusion of smokers and people with pre-existing illness "cannot be ignored," said Susan Gapstur, vice president of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.

A third critic, Dr. Walter Willett of the Harvard School of Public Health, was blunter: "This is an even greater pile of rubbish" than the 2005 study, he said. Willett and others have done research since the 2005 study that found higher death risks from being overweight or obese.

Flegal defended her work. She noted that she used standard categories for weight classes. She said statistical adjustments were made for smokers, who were included to give a more real-world sample. She also said study participants were not in hospitals or hospices, making it unlikely that large numbers of sick people skewed the results.

"We still have to learn about obesity, including how best to measure it," Flegal's boss, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden, said in a written statement. "However, it's clear that being obese is not healthy - it increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and many other health problems. Small, sustainable increases in physical activity and improvements in nutrition can lead to significant health improvements."

___

Online:

Obesity info: http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP

Mike Stobbe can be followed at http://twitter.com/MikeStobbe

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Despite deal, taxes will rise for most

WASHINGTON (AP) — While the tax package that Congress passed New Year's Day will protect 99 percent of Americans from an income tax increase, most of them will still end up paying more federal taxes in 2013.

That's because the legislation did nothing to prevent a temporary reduction in the Social Security payroll tax from expiring. In 2012, that 2-percentage-point cut in the payroll tax was worth about $1,000 to a worker making $50,000 a year.

The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan Washington research group, estimates that 77 percent of American households will face higher federal taxes in 2013 under the agreement negotiated between President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans. High-income families will feel the biggest tax increases, but many middle- and low-income families will pay higher taxes too.

Households making between $40,000 and $50,000 will face an average tax increase of $579 in 2013, according to the Tax Policy Center's analysis. Households making between $50,000 and $75,000 will face an average tax increase of $822.

"For most people, it's just the payroll tax," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center.

The tax increases could be a lot higher. A huge package of tax cuts first enacted under President George W. Bush was scheduled to expire Tuesday as part of the "fiscal cliff." The Bush-era tax cuts lowered taxes for families at every income level, reduced investment taxes and the estate tax, and enhanced a number of tax credits, including a $1,000-per-child credit.

The package passed Tuesday by the Senate and House extends most the Bush-era tax cuts for individuals making less than $400,000 and married couples making less than $450,000.

Obama said the deal "protects 98 percent of Americans and 97 percent of small business owners from a middle-class tax hike. While neither Democrats nor Republicans got everything they wanted, this agreement is the right thing to do for our country."

The income threshold covers more than 99 percent of all households, exceeding Obama's claim, according to the Tax Policy Center. However, the increase in payroll taxes will hit nearly every wage earner.

Social Security is financed by a 12.4 percent tax on wages up to $113,700, with employers paying half and workers paying the other half. Obama and Congress reduced the share paid by workers from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent for 2011 and 2012, saving a typical family about $1,000 a year.

Obama pushed hard to enact the payroll tax cut for 2011 and to extend it through 2012. But it was never fully embraced by either party, and this time around, there was general agreement to let it expire.

The new tax package would increase the income tax rate from 35 percent to 39.6 percent on income above $400,000 for individuals and $450,000 for married couples. Investment taxes would increase for people who fall in the new top tax bracket.

High-income families will also pay higher taxes this year as part of Obama's 2010 health care law. As part of that law, a new 3.8 percent tax is being imposed on investment income for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000.

Together, the new tax package and Obama's health care law will produce significant tax increases for many high-income families.

For 2013, households making between $500,000 and $1 million would get an average tax increase of $14,812, according to the Tax Policy Center analysis. Households making more than $1 million would get an average tax increase of $170,341.

"If you're rich, you're almost certain to get a big tax increase," Williams said.

___

Follow Stephen Ohlemacher on Twitter: http://twitter.com/stephenatap

Deal moves US away from fiscal cliff - for nowWASHINGTON (AP) -- An emergency deal reached after weeks of rancorous negotiations will keep the U.S. from driving off the so-called fiscal cliff, but higher taxes and continued political bickering in Washington threaten to shake the fragile U.

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Gunmen kill 5 female teachers in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed five teachers and two aid workers from a non-governmental organization Tuesday as they were driving home from work. The group's director said they may have been targeted for their anti-polio work.

Militants in the past have accused health workers of acting as spies for the U.S., alleging the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile. Last month, nine people working on an anti-polio vaccination campaign were shot and killed. Four of those shootings were in the northwest where Tuesday's attack took place.

The attack was another reminder of the risks to women educators and aid workers from Islamic militants who oppose their work. It was in the same conservative province where militants shot and seriously wounded 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai, an outspoken young activist for girls' education, in October.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest shootings.

In a separate attack in the southern city of Karachi, also likely to have been carried out by militants, four people were killed and dozens injured when a bomb went off just as a large political rally was dispersing.

The teachers and aid workers in the northwest were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on their way home from a community center where they worked at a medical clinic and primary school.

The director of the group targeted Tuesday said he suspected that the workers were attacked because the non-governmental organization has been active in vaccination campaigns designed to wipe out polio.

Javed Akhtar, from Support With Working Solutions, said the clinic where the aid workers worked had helped vaccinate children, and many of the NGO's staff had taken part in vaccination campaigns.

That attack was in an area where Islamic militants often target women and girls trying to get an education or female teachers.

Militants in the province have blown up schools and killed female educators. They have also kidnapped and killed aid workers, viewing them as promoting a foreign agenda.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, formerly called the Northwest Frontier province, borders the tribal areas of Pakistan along the frontier with Afghanistan to the west. Militant groups such as the Taliban have used the tribal areas as a stronghold from which to wage war both in Afghanistan and against the Pakistani government. Often that violence has spilled over into the mostly Pashtun province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

In 2007, the Taliban led by Maulana Fazlullah took over the scenic Swat Valley, marking the height of their strength there. The Pakistani military later pushed the militant group from the valley but the Taliban has repeatedly tried to reassert itself.

The teachers were killed along with two health workers, one man and one woman. Their driver was wounded. They were on their way home from a community center in the town of Swabi where they were working at a primary school for girls and adjoining medical center.

The injured driver told investigators that the gunmen stopped the vehicle and removed a boy — the son of one of the women — before indiscriminately opening fire, said police officer Fazal Malik.

Swabi police chief Abdur Rasheed said most of the women killed were between the ages of 20 and 22. He said four gunmen who used two motorcycles fled the scene and have not been apprehended.

The gunmen on motorcycles opened fire with automatic weapons, said Akhtar. The NGO conducts programs in the education and health sectors and runs the community center in Swabi, he said. The group has been active in the city since 1992, and started the Ujala Community Welfare Center in 2010, he added. Ujala means "light" in Urdu.

The center is financed by the Pakistani government's Poverty Alleviation Program and a German organization, said Akhtar.

He said the NGO also runs health and education projects in the South Waziristan tribal area, as well as health projects in the cities of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan and the regions of Lower Dir and Upper Kurram. All of those cities and regions are in northwest Pakistan, the area that has been most affected by the ongoing fight with militants opposed to the current government.

Aid groups such as Support With Working Solutions often provide a vital role in many areas of Pakistan where the government has been unable to provide services such as medical clinics or schools. In some areas like the northwest, they have had to work to overcome community fears that they are promoting a foreign agenda at odds with local traditions and values.

But many local residents in Swabi said the school and medical center provided a vital service to the community and mourned those who were killed.

Murad Khan said his daughter was studying at the primary school, which provided free books and uniforms to students. He said many people in the area are now worried that the school and clinic will close.

"This school is like a gift for all of us, the poor people of the village," he said. "People in our area are sad."

The NGO director said he has directed staff at all projects to stop working for the time being until security measures are reviewed but vowed that they would resume their work soon.

He said that the NGO had not received any threats before the attack.

In Karachi, senior police officer Asif Ejaz Shaikh said the bomb that killed four was planted in a motorcycle parked amid a crowd of buses for political workers returning from the rally held by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The MQM is the dominant political party in Karachi.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

The provincial health minister Dr. Saghir Ahmed said four people were killed and 41 injured.

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Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Adil Jawad in Karachi contributed to this report.

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No surprise: YouTube, Angry Birds, Instagram and Facebook among 2012′s top apps

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Pasadena's Rose Parade kicks off on a cold morning

PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — The 124th Rose Parade in Pasadena kicked off on a chilly New Year's morning with the theme "Oh the Places You'll Go!" named in honor of the Dr. Seuss book.

Led by this year's grand marshal, British primatologist Jane Goodall, the parade features 42 floats covered with flowers and plant material, 23 marching bands and 21 equestrian units from across the country.

An estimated 700,000 spectators are lining the streets to view the 5-mile-long spectacle, which is broadcast around the world. This year's parade features the first-ever float entered by the Defense Department and a couple getting married on a float.

The $247,000 military float is a replica of the Korean War Veterans Memorial in Washington to commemorate the veterans from that conflict.

The float that scooped up the parade's grand "Sweepstakes" prize for the most beautiful floral presentation and design was "Dreaming in Paradise" by fruit and vegetable producer Dole.

Die-hard parade fans staked out their spots early Monday with folding chairs, hammocks and portable barbeque grills.

They brought in the new year by throwing marshmallows, shaving cream and tortillas, and then hunkered down to stay warm in sleeping bags during a particularly cold night for Southern California.

The wave of under-40-degree temperature spurred a number of cold-weather exposure calls to emergency personnel, police department spokeswoman Lisa Derderian told City News Service.

As of 8 a.m. Tuesday, police had made a total of 22 arrests along the parade route since 6 p.m. Monday, said police Lt. Rick Aversan.

All but one arrest were for public intoxication. The other was for possession of burglary tools that could have been used to break into cars, police said.

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House faces test on ‘fiscal cliff’ deal

Vice President Joe Biden gives two thumbs up following a Senate Democratic caucus meeting about the fiscal cliff …The Republican-held House of Representatives faced a tough vote Tuesday on a last-minute “fiscal cliff” compromise to cut taxes on all but the richest Americans and stall some painful spending cuts.  The deal, cut in secret weekend talks and passed by the Senate by a lopsided 89-9 margin shortly after 2 a.m. New Year's Day, could face stiff opposition from conservatives who hoped it would contain more spending cuts and liberals who wanted to raise more taxes.

Financial markets were closed for the holiday, but lawmakers were keenly aware of the potential impact of failing to address the so-called cliff, which some experts warned could plunge the still-fragile economy into a new recession.

Vice President Joe Biden, who took the lead for Democrats in negotiating the deal over the weekend with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, was scheduled to join House Democrats at a behind-closed-doors meeting at 12:15 p.m. Biden paid a similar call on Senate Democrats late Monday.

House Republicans were also slated to huddle behind the scenes to discuss what to do about the Senate-passed measure. The anti-tax Club for Growth warned lawmakers to oppose the compromise because “this bill raises taxes immediately with the promise of cutting spending later.”

Under the compromise arrangement approved by the Senate, taxes would rise on income above $400,000 for  individuals and $450,000 for households, while exemptions and deductions the wealthiest Americans use to reduce their tax bill would face new limits. The accord would also raise the taxes paid on large inheritances from 35% to 40% for estates over $5 million. And it would extend by one year unemployment benefits for some two million Americans. It would also prevent cuts in payments to doctors who treat Medicare patients and spare tens of millions of Americans who otherwise would have been hit with the Alternative Minimum Tax.

The middle class will still see its taxes go up: The final deal did not include an extension of the payroll tax holiday. And the overall package will deepen the deficit by an estimated $3.9 trillion dollars by extending the overwhelming majority of the Bush tax cuts. Many Democrats had opposed those measures in 2001 and 2003. Obama agreed to extend them in 2010.

Efforts to modify the first installment of $1.2 trillion in cuts to domestic and defense programs over 10 years -- the other portion of the “fiscal cliff,” known as sequestration -- had proved a sticking point late in the game. Democrats had sought a year-long freeze but ultimately caved to Republican pressure and signed on to just a two-month delay while broader deficit-reduction talks continue.

That would put the next major battle over spending cuts right around the time that the White House and its Republican foes are battling it out over whether to raise the country's debt limit. Republicans have vowed to push for more spending cuts, equivalent to the amount of new borrowing.

Obama has vowed not to negotiate as he did in 2011, when a bruising fight threatened the first-ever default on America's obligations and resulted in the first-ever downgrade of the country's credit rating. Biden sent that message to Democrats in Congress, two senators said.

“This agreement is the right thing to do for our country and the House should pass it without delay,” President Barack Obama said in a written statement shortly after the Senate vote.

There were signs that the 2016 presidential race shaped the outcome in the Senate. Republican Senator Marco Rubio, widely thought to have his eye on his party’s nomination, voted no. Republican Senator Rand Paul, who could take up the libertarian mantle of his father Ron Paul, did as well. Observers were watching to see how Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, the Budget Committee chairman and his party's failed vice presidential nominee in 2012, would vote Tuesday.

In remarks just before the Senate adopted the compromise, McConnell repeatedly called the agreement “imperfect” but said it beat allowing income tax rates rise across the board.

“I know I can speak for my entire conference when I say we don’t think taxes should be going up on anyone, but we all knew that if we did nothing they’d be going up on everyone today,” he said. “We weren’t going to let that happen.”

“Our most important priority was to protect middle-class families. This legislation does that,” Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said. But Reid cautioned that “passing this agreement does not mean negotiations halt. Far from it.”

The House’s Republican leaders, including Speaker John Boehner, hinted in an unusual joint statement that they might amend anything that clears the Senate – a step that could kill the deal.

“Decisions about whether the House will seek to accept or promptly amend the measure will not be made until House members -- and the American people -- have been able to review the legislation,” they said.

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Pakistan releases 8 Afghan Taliban prisoners

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan released eight members of the Afghan Taliban from prison on Monday, including the former justice minister under the Taliban, in a bid to boost the peace process in neighboring Afghanistan, the government said.

Pakistan is seen as a lynchpin in efforts to bring about peace in Afghanistan as foreign troops plan to depart the country in 2014. Kabul has been pressing its neighbor to release more prisoners who they hope would bring the Taliban to the negotiating table before the U.S. troops go home.

The Pakistanis appear to have an interest in promoting peace across the border, as a resumption of the civil war there could bring harsh consequences on its side as well.

"We have released some more Taliban prisoners today as our help in the peace process in Afghanistan," Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman Moazzam Khan said.

In a statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said eight detainees were released, including Nooruddin Turabi, the justice minister under the Taliban.

Mohammad Azeem, a former guard of Taliban leader Mullah Omar, was also among those released, according to a Taliban official. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters about the sensitive subject.

It was not clear what role the eight released prisoners might play in bringing Taliban leaders to the negotiating table or what links they have to the group's current leadership.

Pakistan has longstanding ties to the Taliban and its support is key to any future reconciliation, just as its opposition would likely block any progress. For example, Pakistan could facilitate travel for Taliban leaders — many who are believed to reside in or travel to Pakistan frequently — to third countries for peace talks.

Last month, Pakistan released 18 prisoners at the request of the Afghan High Peace Council, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in its statement. In early December it promised to release more members of the group.

Both developments were seen as signs that Pakistan, long accused of backing militants, was supporting a new push to bring peace to a country with which it shares a long border and tumultuous history. The Afghan and U.S. governments accuse Islamabad of backing insurgents — an allegation Pakistan denies — and say many militant leaders are hiding in the country.

So far the militant group's former deputy leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, has not been released, although Afghanistan has been pressuring Pakistan to set him free.

The Afghan peace process has made little headway since it began several years ago, hobbled by distrust among the major players, including the United States.

Part of the reason Pakistan is seen to be actively helping the process is that government and military officials are worried that if American troops leave without a plan in place, Afghanistan could deteriorate into another round of vicious infighting. After the Soviets pulled out in 1989, many of the militants who had helped best that superpower then turned on each other in what played out as a vicious war across the country.

A repeat of that scenario could have horrific consequences for Pakistan, such as a flood of Afghan refugees across its borders and increased fighting in Pakistan's tribal areas, where the military is already trying to suppress a stubborn insurgency.

Pakistani intelligence officials said Monday that they found the bodies of nine militants dumped in the North Waziristan tribal region.

The men were shot several times in the head and chest, said three Pakistani intelligence officials. Their bodies were found Monday off a road in Pir Kili village. The officials said the dead men were linked to the Pakistani Taliban, a militant group affiliated with the Taliban in Afghanistan but focused on fighting the Pakistani government.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters.

North Waziristan is a hub of militant activity near the Afghan border.

The militants' bodies were found one day after 21 tribal police personnel who had been abducted were found dead in another tribal region.

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Associated Press writers Kathy Gannon and Rebecca Santana in Islamabad and Rasool Dawar in Peshawar contributed.

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