The American-led military coalition in Afghanistan backed off Tuesday from its claim that Taliban attacks dropped off in 2012, tacitly acknowledging a hole in its widely repeated argument that violence is easing and that the insurgency is in steep decline. In response to Associated Press inquiries about its latest series of statistics on security in Afghanistan, the coalition command in Kabul said it had erred in reporting a 7 percent decline in attacks. In fact there was no decline at all, officials said. . .

Afghan officials said Monday they demanded the pullout of U.S. Special Operations forces from an insurgency-wracked province because the U.S.-backed NATO command here for months has ignored residents’ allegations of severe abuses committed by the elite American troops and armed Afghan irregulars working with them. But NATO said its past inquiries found no evidence to support allegations of misconduct by U.S. Special Operations forces in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul. A joint commission of inquiry composed of Afghan and NATO coalition officials will explore in coming days the claims raised over the weekend by President Hamid Karzai’s administration — including allegations of the arrest, torture and extrajudicial killing of civilians. . .

John Kerry has suffered his first gaffe as the new US secretary of state, inventing the nation of “Kyrzakhstan.”

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In an embarrassing slip of the tongue, Mr Kerry last week praised US diplomats working to secure “democratic institutions” in the Central Asian country, which does not exist.

The newly minted diplomat was referring to Kyrgyzstan, a poor, landlocked nation of 5.5 million, which he appeared to confuse with its resource-rich neighbour to the north, Kazakhstan. . .

The city’s murder rate, which hit an all-time low last year, continues to plummet thanks to creative new police strategies that target youth gangs and spouse beaters. The innovative tactics helped send the city’s homicide numbers tumbling to a record-low 414 murders in 2012 and they’re down another 33 percent so far this year, police said. One novel approach involves charging teen gang members with conspiracy, using taunts and threats they post on social-media sites to build mafia-style cases against them. These small crews of trigger-happy thugs are responsible for 30 percent of all the shootings in the city, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told The Post. . .

Woodward’s conclusion from his piece today on the president’s sequester blame-game:

. . .In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.

So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel isn’t used to being told “no,” but that’s the answer he has gotten from the firefighters pension fund this week on two major issues: duty disability reform and his call for the fund to dump its stock with assault weapons manufacturers. Two motions were made at Wednesday’s meeting of the Chicago Firefighters Annuity and Benefits Fund — one to divest $173,000 in Smith & Wesson stock, the other to ride herd over the 390 firefighters and paramedics who together collect $27 million a year in taxpayer-funded duty disability pay. . .

Iran appears to be advancing in its construction of a research reactor Western experts say could offer the Islamic state a second way of producing material for a nuclear bomb, if it decided to embark on such a course, a U.N. report showed. Iran has almost completed installation of cooling and moderator circuit piping in the heavy water plant near the town of Arak, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in a confidential report issued to member states late on Thursday. Nuclear analysts say this type of reactor could yield plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel is reprocessed, something Iran has said it has no intention of doing. Iran has said it “does not have reprocessing activities”, the IAEA said. . .

Weapons fire shook the northern Malian town of Gao on Thursday as Malian army troops backed by French and West African forces battled Islamist militants. A Mali defense ministry official said the army continues to repel attacks by what he called “terrorists.” The sounds of gunfire could be heard as Gao residents talked to VOA by phone on Thursday morning. One man said machine-gun fire and cannon fire “roared” around the mayor’s office in the center of town. Residents said the battle began Wednesday night around 11:30 p.m. local time, when some armed militants attacked positions in central Gao. The weapon fire continued into Thursday morning, and the French news agency reported that the town’s main courthouse was in flames. . .

Mali’s foreign minister says authorities in the West African country are investigating accusations of torture, killings and reprisals by its own soldiers fighting against suspected militants. Concerns about abuses by Malian forces have mounted in recent weeks. Malian troops are fighting alongside French forces in a month-old operation to try to take back control of northern Mali from Islamist extremists who seized power last year. Tieman Coulibaly told The Associated Press that four or five specific cases of “atrocities” by Malian troops are currently under formal investigation. Asked whether Mali’s weak military-led government is competent to carry out full and fair investigations of that kind, he said, “it’s hard.” He spoke Tuesday in Paris. . .

The father of an 18-year-old woman shot to death in North Chicago said Sunday he believes the crime was gang-related and that his daughter was an innocent victim. Janay McFarlane of the 8900 block of South Lowe in Chicago died Friday night, hours after her sister, Destini, 14, who heard President Barack Obama speak at Hyde Park Career Academy about measures to reduce violence. Authorities said McFarlane was shot once in the head about 11:30 p.m. Friday. She was found in an alley in the 1300 block of Jackson Street in the Lake County suburb. . .

Soldiers deployed to Afghanistan next year may see their war tours extended because budget cuts will drastically limit training for brigades to replace them, the top Army general said Friday. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said the military will be able to fund training and operations for combat units in Afghanistan now and for those deploying in the summer and fall. But he says there will be delays in training for those deploying in 2014. If those training delays can’t be made up, Odierno said he would have to send forces to war that aren’t ready or extend deployments of units already there. A number of combat brigades will be deploying later this year and next year, even as the U.S. winds down the war. . .

GAO, Mali — Aguissa Ag Badara, a former tour guide, now rides around the city on the back of a motorcycle looking for Islamist militants who may still be lurking about. He even wears a pin to advertise his mission. It reads, “Vigilance Brigade: Patrollers of Gao.” “We said Mujao had infiltrated the population, but no one listened,” said Mr. Ag Badara, referring to the Islamist militants who attacked this strategic city last week. “We support the French, we support the Malian state and the African forces, but why are they only at the checkpoints and in their camps? The war is here in the streets.” The battle for Mali is not over. Remnants of the militant forces that once controlled major towns have not simply burrowed into their rugged, mountain hideaways far to the north. They also appear to have taken refuge in smaller villages nearby, essentially pulling back to less-contested ground after the French-led intervention to oust them, residents and experts say. That infiltration, in a string of neighboring villages along the Niger River, is what enabled last Sunday’s attack in the heart of Gao, a town of about 86,000 whose reconquest was a pivotal part of the French offensive last month. For hours, bullets flew as jihadists from around Gao pinned down French and Malian forces. Control in the town itself has now been re-established, but Islamist fighters have blended imperceptibly with the local population around Gao. And much of that population, in the isolated villages, looks on them benevolently, say residents and experts who know the area well. . .

The insurgents who have fled from invading French troops in Mali have been taking with them some of their most important possessions — slaves. The Tuareg tribes that overran Mali’s military with the help of Arab extremist groups aligned with al-Qaeda have long held slaves and many of the captives are from families that have been enslaved for generations. “It’s no way to live, without your freedom,” said Mohammed Yattara, a former slave who ran away from his Tuareg masters years ago. . .

When the state of Illinois adjusted last year’s standardized tests to this year’s tougher standards in an attempt to prepare parents for sticker shock, the scores showed a stark drop. Last year, 82 percent of grade school students were found to have met or exceeded state standards on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test. But when adjusted to the new tougher standards, going into effect on the tests students will take in March, only 60 percent made the mark. . .

After what LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called “a bittersweet night,” investigators Wednesday were in the process of identifying the human remains found in the charred cabin where fugitive ex-cop Christopher Dorner was believed to have been holed up after trading gunfire with officers, authorities said. If the body is identified as Dorner’s, the standoff would end a weeklong manhunt for the ex-LAPD officer and Navy Reserve lieutenant suspected in a string of shootings following his firing by the Los Angeles Police Department several years ago. Four people have died in the case, allegedly at Dorner’s hands. Beck said he would not consider the manhunt over until the body was identified as Dorner. Police remained on tactical alert and were conducting themselves as if nothing had changed in the case, officials said. . .

[. . .]Responding to a Tribune report that Ward had been arrested three times while on probation for his gun conviction but still was on the street, Alvarez said the Cook County Adult Probation Department was responsible for notifying prosecutors of the new arrests and filing for a violation of probation. That can result in an arrestee being sent to prison.

“What I’ve been told (is) the probation department has admitted that they did not notify us, so obviously we didn’t proceed on that violation of probation,” Alvarez said.

Two reputed gang members were out for revenge from a previous shooting when they opened fire on a group of students in a South Side park last month, killing 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton in a heartbreaking case that has brought national attention to Chicago’s rampant gun violence, police said.

Michael Ward, 18, and Kenneth Williams, 20, were each charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm in the Jan. 29 attack that also left two teens wounded.

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McCarthy said Williams was shot July 11 at 39th Street and South Lake Park Avenue, and an arrest was made. But that gunman was let go after Williams refused to cooperate, McCarthy said.

McCarthy also noted that at the time of Hadiya’s slaying, Ward was on probation for a weapons conviction. McCarthy said weak Illinois gun laws allowed Ward to avoid jail time because of the absence of mandatory minimum sentences. . .

The nuclear test by North Korea on Tuesday, in defiance of warnings by China, leaves the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, with a choice: Does he upset North Korea just a bit by agreeing to stepped up United Nations sanctions, or does he rattle the regime by pulling the plug on infusions of Chinese oil and investments that keep North Korea afloat?. . .

The distillery behind Maker’s Mark bourbon is reducing the amount of alcohol to meet a rise in global demand, company officials said today. Maker’s Mark is distilled to 45 percent alcohol by volume — or 90 proof — and, after the change, would go down to about 42 percent ABV or 84 proof. “Lately we’ve been hearing from many of you that you’ve been having difficulty finding Maker’s Mark in your local stores,” Maker’s Mark executives Rob Samuels and Bill Samuels Jr. wrote in a joint email to clients. “Fact is, demand for our bourbon is exceeding our ability to make it, which means we’re running very low on supply.” The bourbon brand — which famously used the slogan “It tastes expensive… and is” in the ‘60s and ‘70s — looked at “all possible solutions” and “worked carefully” to reduce the alcohol by volume of the beverage by 3 percent. . .

Nine people have been wounded in shootings across the city since Friday night, police said late Sunday. The most recent shooting happened about 10:35 p.m. Sunday in the 1900 block of South Halsted in the Pilsen neighborhood, police said. A 21-year-old man was taken in good condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn with a gunshot wound to the leg, police said. . .