Leaders: US, UK Will 'Not Be Cowed' By Militants

U.S. President Barack Obama, foreground right, and British Prime Minister David Cameron visit Mount Pleasant Primary School in Newport, Wales, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014, on the sidelines of the NATO Summit.

NEWPORT, WALES (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Faced with a mounting militant threat in the Middle East, President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron declared Thursday that their nations will "not be cowed" by extremists who have killed two American journalists.

"We will be more forthright in the defense of our values, not least because a world of greater freedom is a fundamental part of how we keep our people safe," the leaders wrote in a joint editorial in the Times of London.

Their comments come as world leaders gather at a golf resort in Wales for a high-stakes NATO summit. While the official agenda will focus on the crisis in Ukraine and the drawdown of the NATO combat mission in Afghanistan, the rise of the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria will dominate discussions on the sidelines of the summit.

The militants have claimed responsibility for murdering two American journalists, releasing gruesome videos of their beheadings. Both the U.S. and Britain are deeply concerned about the potential threat to their homelands that could come from the foreign fighters who have joined the violent Islamic State group.

Cameron on Monday proposed new laws that would give police the power to seize the passports of Britons suspected of having traveled abroad to fight with terrorist groups. Obama and Cameron appear to suggest that NATO should play a role in containing the militants, but were not specific in what action they would seek from the alliance. Arriving at the summit on Thursday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he believes the broader international community "has an obligation to stop the Islamic State from advancing further," but noted that the alliance hasn't received any request for help.

"I'm sure that if the Iraqi government were to forward a request for NATO assistance, that would be considered seriously by NATO allies," Rasmussen said. The U.S. began launching airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq last month, and both the U.S. and Britain have been making humanitarian aid drops to besieged minority groups there. Cameron said Monday that he hadn't ruled out joining the U.S. in airstrikes, but added that the priority was to support those already fighting the militants on the ground.

"We need to show real resolve and determination, we need to use every power and everything in our armory with our allies — with those on the ground — to make sure we do everything we can to squeeze this dreadful organization out of existence," Cameron told the British network ITV.

Also facing Obama is a decision about whether to expand U.S. military action against the extremists to Syria. While Obama has said he's considering that step, he has suggested in recent days that it's not imminent.

U.S. officials say Obama is reluctant to delve into Syria's quagmire on his own. He's expected to use some of his discussions in Wales to try to build a coalition that could join him in confronting the Islamic State through a combination of military might, diplomatic pressure and economic penalties.

Obama and Cameron visited a local school Thursday morning, where they greeted students learning about NATO before sitting down for a private meeting. Later, the two were to join their counterparts from France, Germany and Italy to discuss the crisis in Ukraine. In a show of Western solidarity, new Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was also to join the discussion.

Ukraine and Russia have been locked in a standoff for months, with pro-Moscow forces stirring instability in eastern Ukrainian cities. On the eve of the NATO summit, Russia and Ukraine said they were working on a deal to halt the fighting, but Western leaders expressed skepticism — noting it wasn't the first attempt to end the deadly conflict.

NATO leaders are expected to agree this week on the creation of a rapid response force that would set up in nations in the alliance's eastern flank to serve as a deterrent to Russia. Baltic nations and others in the region fear Moscow could set its sights on their borders next.

"We must use our military to ensure a persistent presence in Eastern Europe, making clear to Russia that we will always uphold our Article 5 commitments to collective self-defense," Obama and Cameron wrote.

Under Article 5 of the NATO charter, an attack on one member state is viewed on an attack on the whole alliance. Obama reiterated his support for that principle Wednesday during a visit to Estonia, one of the newer NATO members set on edge by Russia's provocations.

Associated Press writers John-Thor Dahlburg in Wales and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC

Andrew Madoff Dies Of Cancer In NYC

From video provided by CBS, Andrew Madoff, son of disgraced financier, Bernard Madoff, talks to “60 Minutes” correspondent Morley Safer in New York. Andrew, Bernard Madoff's last surviving son, died of cancer, Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2014 at a New York City hospital, according to attorney Martin Flumenbaum.

NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Madoff, Bernard Madoff's last surviving son, died of cancer on Wednesday, years after turning his father in and insisting he had been duped like the rest of the world into believing history's most notorious Ponzi king was an honest financier.

Andrew Madoff, 48, was "surrounded by his loving family" when he died at a hospital from mantle cell lymphoma, said his attorney, Martin Flumenbaum. Andrew Madoff and his brother, Mark Madoff, worked on the legitimate trading side of their father's Manhattan firm, two floors removed from the private investment business where Bernard Madoff carried out his $65 billion Ponzi scheme over several decades.

Bernard Madoff, 76, was arrested in December 2008. He pleaded guilty to fraud charges months later and is serving a 150-year sentence at a federal prison in North Carolina. Two years after the father's arrest, Mark Madoff hanged himself in his Manhattan loft apartment as his 2-year-old son slept in another room.

"One way to think of this is the scandal and everything that happened killed my brother very quickly," Andrew Madoff told People magazine last year. "And it's killing me slowly." Andrew Madoff was diagnosed with the rare form of cancer in 2003 but went into remission. He blamed the relapse on the stress of living with his father's scam. The disease returned in October 2012, and he told People magazine he felt "blindsided."

Andrew Madoff had served as the chairman of the Lymphoma Research Foundation's board of directors until his father's scheme was revealed. Flumenbaum said Andrew Madoff had "lost his courageous battle" with the disease. He said funeral arrangements will be private.

The death came as authorities continue to investigate what role, if any, close family members and others linked to the Madoff business had in the fraud. Sentencings are scheduled in several weeks for five former high-level Madoff firm employees convicted of helping carry out the fraud by conspiring to defraud clients and falsifying books and records.

This summer, a court-appointed trustee who has recovered more than half the nearly $20 billion that thousands of people had invested with Madoff filed a lawsuit claiming that Madoff's sons used his business as their "personal cookie jar," accepting sham loans, fictitious trades and deferred compensation. It accused them of knowing about the fraud and trying to cover it up by deleting emails during a Securities and Exchange Commission probe.

"The new allegations are unfounded and false," Flumenbaum said when the lawsuit was filed. "As we stated from the outset, neither Andrew nor Mark knew of, or knowingly participated, in their father's criminal conduct. It was Andrew and Mark who informed the authorities of their father's fraud and put an end to it."

During a 2011 "60 Minutes" interview, Andrew Madoff said that from the beginning he had "absolutely nothing to hide and I've been eager, almost desperate, to speak out publicly and tell people I am not involved."

He said he believed his father used the legitimate operations of the trading business to cover up the massive fraud he presided over, even showing clients the legitimate trading operation to dupe them.

"It was one of the hardest things to come to grips with in trying to get my head around this was that feeling that I had been used almost as a human shield by him. It's unforgivable. No father should do that to their sons," he told the CBS program.

The book "Truth and Consequences: Life Inside the Madoff Family," published in 2011 and promoted through media appearances by Andrew Madoff, described how Bernard Madoff sobbed as he told his sons about the fraud. It said Andrew Madoff draped his arm around his father and cried, too, before the brothers went to lawyers and authorized them to report the fraud to authorities.

"I would love to say that Mark and I were waving the flags of justice in the air, but the bottom line is that we were absolutely terrified. We knew that what we were doing was going to send our father to jail, and the feeling was awful — absolutely awful," the book quoted him as saying.

Associated Press writer Colleen Long and Tom Hays contributed to this report.

Al-Qaida Leader Says It Has Expanded Into India

In this image taken from video, Ayman al-Zawahri, head of al-Qaida, delivers a statement in a video which was seen online by the SITE monitoring group, released Thursday, Sept. 4, 2014.

NEW DELHI, INDIA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Al-Qaida has expanded into the Indian subcontinent, the leader of the terror group said in a video statement released Thursday, with a regional group that will "wage jihad against its enemies."

In the video, which was seen online by the SITE monitoring group, Ayman al-Zawahri said al-Qaida had been preparing for years to set up in the region. The new group "is the fruit of a blessed effort of more than two years to gather the mujahedeen in the Indian subcontinent into a single entity," al-Zawahri said.

While the statement referred to the "Indian subcontinent" — a term that most commonly refers to India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal — al-Zawahri's comments were widely seen as directed at India, a largely Hindu nation with a large Muslim minority.

Until recently, India had largely seen itself as beyond the recruiting territory of international jihadists like al-Qaida. However, the Islamic State militant group, which has seized control of large parts of Iraq and Syria, is increasingly believed to be gaining followers in India. Last month, an Indian engineering student who had traveled to Iraq with friends, and who was thought to have joined the Islamic State, was reported killed.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh met Thursday morning with top security and intelligence officials to discuss the threat. A spokesman for India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party said the statement was "a matter of serious concern. But there is nothing to worry about. We have a strong government at the federal level."

India, though, has a notoriously underfunded and ill-trained security infrastructure. In 2008, a small group of Pakistani militants attacked Mumbai, India's financial hub, effectively shutting down the city for days and leaving 166 people killed.

New Delhi has also waged a long-running insurgency war in Kashmir, India's only majority-Muslim state, with militants fighting to bring independence to the Himalayan region or join it to neighboring Pakistan. The fighting has left thousands of people dead.

Some analysts saw the announcement, which showed al-Zawahri speaking in front of a dark curtain, as an effort to revive the fortunes of al-Qaida, which has been largely eclipsed, at least publicly, by the Islamic State, the militant group that in Syria and Iraq that recently executed two American journalists.

"This may be ruse for al-Zawahri to enhance his diminishing clout among Arab Muslims and Pakistani mujahedeen who are veering in a big way toward the Islamic State militant group leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," said Rana Banerji, a prominent Indian intelligence and security analyst.

AP Writers Ashok Sharma and Nirmala George contributed to this report.

350 More Troops Assigned To US Embassy In Baghdad

 President Barack Obama waves as he boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2014, as he begins his trip to Estonia and Wales for the NATO Summit.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is adding 350 more troops to help protect the American Embassy in Baghdad and its support facilities in the capital, raising the number of U.S. forces in the country to over 1,000, officials said Tuesday.

President Barack Obama approved the additional troops for protection of American personnel following a request by the State Department and a review and recommendation by the Defense Department, the White House said in a statement.

The buildup of U.S. troops in Baghdad follows the growing threat from Islamic State militants in northern Iraq. Since early August the U.S. has carried out 114 airstrikes against the militants, the latest taking place near Mosul Dam on Monday.

The additional troops will not serve in a combat role, the White House said. Most are from the Army and some are Marines, the Pentagon said in a statement. Approximately 820 troops have now been assigned to augment diplomatic security in Iraq, said Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon's spokesman.

The additional troops will come from within the U.S. Central Command area of operations and will include a headquarters element, medical personnel, associated helicopters and an air liaison team, Kirby said. Fifty-five troops in Baghdad since June will be redeployed outside of Iraq and replaced by 405 newly deployed troops, he said.

The airstrike Monday near Mosul Dam involved fighters and attack aircraft that damaged or destroyed 16 armed vehicles, Central Command said in a statement late Tuesday.

Video Purports To Show Beheading Of US Journalist

Journalist Steven Sotloff being held by the militant group. On Tuesday, Sept. 2, 2014, an Internet video purports to show the beheading of Sotloff by the Islamic State group.

BEIRUT (AP) — Islamic State extremists released a video Tuesday purportedly showing the beheading of a second American journalist, Steven Sotloff, and warning President Barack Obama that as long as U.S. airstrikes against the militant group continue, "our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."

The footage — depicting what the U.S. called a sickening act of brutality — was posted two weeks after the release of video showing the killing of James Foley and just days after Sotloff's mother pleaded for his life.

Barak Barfi, a spokesman for the family, said that the Sotloffs had seen the video but that authorities have not established its authenticity. "The family knows of this horrific tragedy and is grieving privately. There will be no public comment from the family during this difficult time," Barfi said.

Sotloff, a 31-year-old Miami-area native who freelanced for Time and Foreign Policy magazines, vanished in Syria in August 2013 and was not seen again until he appeared in a video released last month that showed Foley's beheading. Dressed in an orange jumpsuit against an arid Syrian landscape, Sotloff was threatened in that video with death unless the U.S. stopped airstrikes on the Islamic State.

In the video distributed Tuesday and titled "A Second Message to America," Sotloff appears in a similar jumpsuit before he is apparently beheaded by a fighter with the Islamic State, the extremist group that has conquered wide swaths of territory across Syria and Iraq and declared itself a caliphate.

In the video, the organization threatens to kill another hostage, this one identified as a British citizen, David Cawthorne Haines. It was not immediately clear who Haines was. Britain and France called the killing "barbaric." British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a statement that he would chair an emergency response meeting with his Cabinet early Wednesday to review the latest developments.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said U.S. intelligence analysts will work as quickly as possible to determine if the video is authentic. "If the video is genuine, we are sickened by this brutal act, taking the life of another innocent American citizen," Psaki said. "Our hearts go out to the Sotloff family."

Psaki said it is believed that "a few" Americans are still being held by the Islamic State. Psaki would not give any specifics, but one is a 26-year-old woman kidnapped while doing humanitarian aid work in Syria, according to a family representative who asked that the hostage not be identified out of fear for her safety.

The fighter who apparently beheads Sotloff in the video calls it retribution for Obama's continued airstrikes against the group. "I'm back, Obama, and I'm back because of your arrogant foreign policy toward the Islamic State ... despite our serious warnings," the fighter says. "So just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people."

The killer specifically mentions the recent U.S. airstrikes around the Mosul dam and the beleaguered Iraqi town of Amirli, making it unlikely that Sotloff was killed at the same time as Foley, as some analysts had speculated.

Over the weekend, Iraqi government forces with help from U.S. airstrikes broke the Islamic State's two-month siege of Amirli, a town where some 15,000 Shiite Turkmens had been stranded. In a statement Tuesday evening from U.S. Central Command, military officials said an airstrike conducted Monday against Islamic State militants near the Mosul Dam damaged or destroyed 16 armed vehicles.

The SITE Intelligence Group, a U.S. terrorism watchdog, first reported the video's existence. In a sign of disorganization — or perhaps dissension — in the extremist group's ranks, a faction of the Islamic State apparently posted the video early, before it was supposed to be released. In a later Twitter message, those responsible apologized and asked fellow jihadis not to "reproach" them.

The Islamic State has terrorized rivals and civilians alike with widely publicized brutality as it seeks to expand a proto-state it has carved out on both sides of the border. In its rise to prominence over the past year, it has frequently published graphic photos and gruesome videos of bombings, beheadings and mass killings.

Last week, Sotloff's mother, Shirley Sotloff, pleaded with his captors for mercy, saying in a video that her son was "an innocent journalist" and "an honorable man" who "has always tried to help the weak."

Sotloff grew up in the Miami area, graduated from Kimball Union Academy, a prep school in New Hampshire, and then attended the University of Central Florida, which said he majored in journalism from 2002 to 2004 but apparently left without graduating.

Just how Sotloff made his way from Florida to Middle East hotspots is not clear. He published articles from Syria, Egypt and Libya in a variety of publications. Several focus on the plight of ordinary people in war-torn places.

In a statement, Foreign Policy magazine said it was saddened by news of his death and called him a "brave and talented journalist" whose reporting "showed a deep concern for the civilians caught in the middle of a brutal war."

Time Editor Nancy Gibbs said Sotloff "gave his life so readers would have access to information from some of the most dangerous places in the world." House Foreign Affairs Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, a California Republican, said the new video demonstrates the Islamic State's "barbarity across the region — beheading and crucifying those who don't share their ideology." He said the U.S. and allies need to step up military action against the group, including through airstrikes.

At Sotloff's parents' home in Pinecrest, Florida., two police vehicles blocked the driveway Tuesday, and officers advised journalists to stay away. Friends of the family could be seen coming and going.

"Everyone's been concerned. Everyone is grieving," neighbor Pepe Cazas said. "It's terrible. I've been praying for him."

Associated Press writers Ken Dilanian, Josh Lederman and Lara Jakes in Washington, Nariman El-Mofty in Cairo, Sylvia Hui in London and Christine Armario in Pinecrest, Florida, contributed to this report.

West Africa Struggles To Contain Ebola As Warnings And Deaths Mount

A man washes his hands at a tap outside the Green Pharmacy at Area 8 in Abuja, September 1, 2014. Image: Afolabi Sotunde

(Reuters) - The United Nations said on Tuesday the spread of the deadly Ebola virus in West Africa was causing food shortages in one of the world's poorest regions and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned the disease was threatening the stability of stricken countries and their neighbors.

Doctors in Liberia were out on strike as they struggled to cope with the worst outbreak of Ebola on record, while the global aid organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said 800 more beds for Ebola patients were urgently needed in the Liberian capital Monrovia alone, while in Sierra Leone highly infectious bodies were rotting in the streets.

Governments and aid organizations have scrambled to contain the disease, which according to the World Health Organization (WHO) has killed more than 1,500 in West Africa since March.

In an address to United Nations member states, MSF President Joanne Liu said, "Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it." She said aid charities and West African governments did not have the capacity to stem the outbreak and needed intervention by foreign states.

Slamming what she called "a global coalition of inaction," Liu called for the urgent dispatch of field hospitals with isolation wards and mobile medical laboratories.

MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said biological disaster response teams were needed to support West Africa's buckling healthcare systems.

There are no approved Ebola vaccines or treatments, but as hospitals and Ebola treatment centers battled to contain the disease and tend to the sick and dying, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said a federal contract worth up to $42.3 million would help accelerate testing of an experimental Ebola virus treatment being developed by privately held Mapp Biopharmaceutical Inc.

The agency said in a statement that Mapp, based in San Diego, California, would manufacture a small amount of its ZMapp drug, which uses antibodies manufactured in tobacco plants, for early stage safety studies and animal studies needed to prove its effectiveness and safety in people.

ZMapp is one of several treatments for Ebola under development. The drug, although never tested in humans, gained attention this summer when two American aid workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia were cured after receiving it. Their physicians said they did not know if the drug helped.

Human safety trials are due to begin this week on a vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline Plc GSK.L and later this year on one from NewLink Genetics Corp NLNK.O.

The Ebola epidemic in West Africa could infect more than 20,000 people and spread to more countries, the World Health Organization warned last week. With a fatality rate of 52 percent, the death toll stood at 1,552 as of Aug. 26.

Cases of Ebola have been reported in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Nigeria, Senegal, and Democratic Republic of Congo. The cases in Congo, which include 31 deaths, are thought to be a separate outbreak and not related to the West African cases.

AMERICAN STRICKEN, MEDICAL STAFF STRIKE

U.S. missionary organization SIM USA said on Tuesday that an American doctor treating obstetrics patients at the ELWA hospital in Monrovia had tested positive for Ebola. The doctor, who was not working in the hospital's Ebola treatment center, was in an isolation ward at the hospital and responding well so far, SIM said on its website.

At Monrovia's John F. Kennedy Medical Center (JFK) scores of staff went on strike to protest against working conditions and unpaid bonuses. Amid shortages of equipment and trained staff, more than 120 healthcare workers have died in West Africa in the Ebola outbreak.

"Health workers have died (fighting Ebola), including medical doctors at ... JFK and to have them come to work without food on their table, we think that is pathetic," George Williams, secretary general of the Health Workers Association of Liberia, told Reuters.

Williams said healthcare workers at JFK, the country's largest referral hospital, had gone unpaid for two months.

The Liberian strike came a day after healthcare workers at the Connaught hospital in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown held a one-day protest over pay and conditions.

Staff there returned to work on Tuesday after they said the government settled a backlog of hazard pay and agreed to raise the weekly risk bonus to $100 from $40 for nurses working in Ebola wards and members of burial crews.

Separately, the Liberian government began offering a $1,000 bonus to any healthcare workers who agreed to work in Ebola treatment facilities.

The World Health Organization and other international bodies have rushed to support healthcare systems in affected countries, but additional staff and resources have been slow to arrive.

PRICES SURGE, OBAMA ADDRESSES WEST AFRICANS

In Monrovia, Medecins Sans Frontieres said its new ELWA 3 center, which has 160 beds, was overflowing with patients. "Every day we have to turn sick people away because we are too full," said Stefan Liljegren, MSF coordinator at the site.

Further pressuring the ability of the region's governments to spend money on healthcare, the epidemic has put harvests at risk and sent food prices soaring in West Africa, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said. The agency issued an alert over food security for Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, which are most affected by the outbreak.

Restrictions on people's movements and establishment of quarantine zones to contain the spread of the haemorrhagic fever have led to panic buying, food shortages and price hikes.

"Even prior to the Ebola outbreak, households in some of the most affected areas were spending up to 80 percent of their incomes on food," said Vincent Martin, head of an FAO unit in Dakar coordinating the agency's response. "Now these latest price spikes are effectively putting food completely out of their reach."

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas Frieden, said he expected the outbreak to accelerate and urged governments to act now.

"We're likely to see significant increases in cases. Already we have widespread transmission Liberia. In Sierra Leone, we're seeing strong signs that that will happen in the near future," he said.

Frieden said the outbreak was the first epidemic of Ebola the world has ever known, meaning it was spreading widely in society and "threatening the stability" of affected and neighboring countries.

Frieden, who has been briefing U.S. President Barack Obama on the outbreak, said there was still a window of opportunity, but "that window is closing."

"We need action now to scale up the response. We know how to stop Ebola. The challenge is to scale it up to the massive levels needed to stop this outbreak," he said.

"The virus is moving faster than anyone anticipated. We need to move fast."

In a video message to West Africans in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria and released on YouTube, Obama affirmed the United States' support in the fight against Ebola and attempted to dispel some myths about how it is spread. here

    "Ebola is not spread through the air like the flu. You cannot get it from casual contact like sitting next to someone on a bus," he said.

    Instead, he said the most common way people become infected "is by touching the body fluids of someone who is sick or has died from it, like their sweat, saliva or blood, or through a contaminated item, like a needle."

    Obama said that was why so many people were becoming infected while caring for Ebola patients at home, and he urged people who felt sick to get prompt treatment because half of the people who become ill recover.

    "Stopping this disease won't be easy, but we know how to do it. You are not alone," Obama said.

To try to ease the strain on their economies, Ivory Coast, which closed its borders with Liberia and Guinea last month, announced on Tuesday it would open humanitarian and economic corridors to its two western neighbours.

The death toll from an Ebola outbreak in the Djera region of northern Democratic Republic of Congo has risen to 31, Minister of Health Felix Kabange Numbi told Reuters on Tuesday. The outbreak in Congo's Equateur province is thought to be separate from the West African epidemic.

(Reporting by James Harding Giahyue; Additional reporting by Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Isla Binnie in Rome, Umaru Fofana in Freetown, Susan Heavey in Washington, Bienvenu-Marie Bakumanya in Kinshasa, Michelle Nichols at United Nations, Caroline Humer and Ransdell Pierson in New York, Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Daniel Flynn in Dakar; Writing by Joe Bavier and Toni Reinhold; Editing by Howard Goller)

Obama Addresses West Africans On Facts About Ebola

President Barack Obama speaking in the James Brady Press Briefing Room in the White House in Washington. President Barack Obama urged West Africans on Tuesday to wear gloves and masks when caring for Ebola patients 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama urged West Africans on Tuesday to wear gloves and masks when caring for Ebola patients or burying anyone who died of the disease. He also discouraged the traditional burial practice of directly touching the body of someone who died of Ebola, which is one way the disease has been spreading in the region.

"You can respect your traditions and honor your loved ones without risking the lives of the living," Obama said in a brief video message to residents of hard-hit Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria. The video was posted on the White House website. "Stopping this disease won't be easy but we know how to do it."

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 1,500 people in the four countries.

In the video, Obama said the first step to slowing the disease is to know the facts, and then delivered a tutorial on how Ebola is and isn't spread.

Obama said the disease isn't spread through the air, like the flu, or through such casual contact as sitting next to someone on a bus. People also cannot get Ebola from another person until that individual shows symptoms of the disease, like fever, he said.

Obama said the most common method of infection is from touching the body fluids — sweat, saliva or blood — of someone who is ill or has died of the disease. Contact with a contaminated item, such as a needle, is another common infection method, he said.

He said anyone who feels sick should get help immediately, saying nearly half of patients can recover provided they seek prompt medical treatment.

Obama also was briefed Tuesday on the Ebola crisis by Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Frieden recently returned from a visit to West Africa.

Follow Darlene Superville on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/dsupervilleap

UN Backs Inquiry Of IS Group's Alleged Crimes

Baudelaire Ndong Ella, right, President of the Human Rights Council, sits next to Flavia Pansieri, left, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, during the special session on Iraq of the Human Rights Council, at the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, September 1, 2014

GENEVA (AP) — The U.N.'s top human rights body on Monday overwhelmingly approved the Iraqi government's request for an investigation into alleged crimes against civilians committed by the Islamic State group in its rampage across northeastern Syria and parts of Iraq.

Diplomats agreed by unanimous consent to approve a nearly $1.2 million U.N. fact-finding mission at a daylong special session of the 47-nation Human Rights Council about Iraq and the extremist group. Iraq's request for the U.N. to investigate alleged abuses by the IS was included in a resolution that more broadly condemns the group's severe tactics but also calls on Iraq's government to protect human rights.

Its aim is to provide the Geneva-based council with a report and evidence next March that could shed further light on Iraqi atrocities and be used as part of any international war crimes prosecution. The session Monday focused on the threat posed by the militants, who have seized cities, towns and vast tracts of land and carried out a number of massacres and beheadings.

"We are facing a terrorist monster," Iraq's human rights minister, Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani, said shortly before the vote. He said his country needs the world's support because the group "is not an Iraqi phenomenon, it is a transnational organization that is an imminent danger for all countries of the world."

"Their movement must be curbed. Their assets should be frozen and confiscated. Their military capacities must be destroyed," he said. Diplomats convened after the U.S. launched a series of airstrikes to prevent the group from advancing on the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil and to help protect members of the Yazidi minority who were stranded in Iraq's northwest.

In Geneva, U.N. officials expressed grave concern Monday at the reported atrocities in Iraq committed by both sides. Flavia Pansieri, the U.N. deputy high commissioner for human rights, said the militants' widespread, systematic persecution of ethnic and religious groups likely amounts to a crime against humanity. She said Iraqi government forces' execution of detainees and its shelling of civilian areas may also amount to war crimes.

Keith Harper, the U.S. ambassador for human rights in Geneva, told the council that as a co-sponsor of the Iraq resolution the U.S. is appalled at the "heinous acts" by the IS that include extrajudicial killings, enslavement, deliberate targeting of civilians, sexual assault, and religious persecution.

He also pointed a finger at the Iraqi government.

Islamist Militia Now Guards US Embassy In Libya

In this photo taken during a tour offered to onlookers and journalists by the Dawn of Libya militia on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2014, damage is seen in the front yard of a building at the U.S. Embassy compound in Tripoli, 

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — An Islamist-allied militia group in control of Libya's capital now guards the U.S. Embassy and its residential compound, a commander said Sunday, as onlookers toured the abandoned homes of diplomats who fled the country more than a month ago.

An Associated Press journalist saw holes left by small-arms and rocket fire dotting the residential compound, reminders of weeks of violence between rival militias over control of Tripoli that sparked the evacuation.

The breach of a deserted U.S. diplomatic post — including images of men earlier swimming in the compound's algae-filled pools — likely will reinvigorate debate in the U.S. over its role in Libya, more than three years after supporting rebels who toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi. It also comes just before the two-year anniversary of the slaying of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans in Libya.

A commander for the Dawn of Libya group, Moussa Abu-Zaqia, told the AP that his forces had been guarding the residential compound since last week, a day after it has seized control of the capital and its international airport after weeks of fighting with a rival militia. Abu-Zaqia said the rival militia from Zintan was in the compound before his troops took it over.

Some windows at the compound had been broken, but it appeared most of the equipment there remained untouched. The AP journalist saw treadmills, weight benches and protein bars in the compound's abandoned gym. Forks, knives and napkins set for a banquet sat on one table, while a cantina still had cornflakes, vinegar, salt and pepper sitting out.

Some papers lay strewn on the floor, but it didn't appear that the villas in the compound had been ransacked. Abu-Zaqia said his militia had asked cleaners to come to spruce up the grounds. Another Dawn of Libya commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he wasn't authorized to speak by his leaders, told the AP that the U.S. Embassy, about a kilometer (half a mile) away, also was under guard by his militiamen.

"We've secured the location and the assets of the embassy," he said. "We've informed our command ... immediately after entering the place following the exit of the rival militia. The place is secure and under protection."

The commander did not elaborate and the AP journalist could not reach the embassy. The Dawn of Libya militia is not associated with the extremist militia Ansar al-Shariah, which Washington blames for the deadly assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012, that killed Stevens and the three other Americans.

A video posted online Sunday showed unarmed men playing in a pool at the compound and jumping into it from a second-story balcony. In a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy's residential annex, though she said she couldn't "say definitively" since she wasn't there.

"To my knowledge & per recent photos the US Embassy Tripoli chancery & compound is now being safeguarded and has not been ransacked," she wrote on Twitter. She did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate. State Department officials in Washington also declined to immediately comment.

Typically, local forces provide security for diplomatic posts, but Libya's government has largely relied on militias for law enforcement since Gadhafi's ouster, as its military and police forces remain weak. In the past several weeks, the security vacuum in Tripoli deepened as militia violence worsened and the diplomatic security provided by Libya's Interior Ministry in the area apparently fled as well.

It remains unclear who the U.S. left in control of guarding its facilities after its personnel evacuated under military escort on July 26. The State Department has said embassy operations would be suspended until the security situation in Libya improved.

Libya's militias, many of which originate from rebel forces that fought Gadhafi, have become powerful players in post-war Libya. Successive governments have put militias on their payroll in return for maintaining order, but rivalries over control and resources have led to fierce fighting among them and posed a constant challenge to the central government and a hoped-for transition to democracy.

The militia violence began after Islamist candidates lost parliament in June elections and a renegade general began a military campaign against Islamist-allied militias in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city. Now, Libya has two competing governments and two parliaments, deepening divisions and escalating the political struggle that's torn the country apart.

Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb and Jon Gambrell in Cairo contributed to this report.