Other developments

Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former top U.S. commander in the Mideast, said the Obama administration offered him the job of ambassador to Iraq but withdrew the appointment without explanation, apparently in favor of veteran diplomat Christopher Hill.

Zinni said President Obama's choice for national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, made the job offer before the inauguration and it was seconded in late January by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Zinni said he learned from Jones on Monday that Hill would get the job instead.

"As a sorry offer to placate me, they offered me ambassador to Saudi Arabia," Zinni said. "I told them to stick it where the sun don't shine."

The United States is considering resuming military cooperation with authoritarian Uzbekistan as part of a backup plan for the potential loss of an air base in Kyrgyzstan that has been used to send troops and supplies to Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said in Washington.

Uzbekistan is a surprise contender because diplomatic relations with it are rocky at best. The Uzbeks expelled U.S. forces from a base there in 2005, and the two nations have traded accusations ever since.

Kyrgyzstan's president announced this week that he wanted to cut off U.S. use of Manas Air Base. A vote on the issue by parliament that initially had been scheduled for today was pushed back to next week, and talks are continuing with the United States.

A suicide bomber killed 16 people and injured 12 after stepping into a crowded restaurant in Khanaqin, a city in Diyala Province bordering the Kurdish-controlled region in northeastern Iraq. Local media reported that most of the victims were Kurdish and that the bomber was a woman.