(Continued from page 26)

• But after a tumultuous week in Afghanistan that saw commanders put limits on when NATO and Afghan troops can patrol together, Panetta also acknowledged there will still be difficult days ahead.
• "The surge did accomplish it objectives of reversing the Taliban momentum on the battlefield and dramatically increasing the size and capability of the Afghan national security forces," Panetta told reporters at a press conference at the Government House here where he was meeting with New Zealand leaders.
• He said the re-deployment of the 33,000 troops was a "very important milestone" and that the U.S. is on track to accomplish its goals in Afghanistan. The withdrawal, which was completed on schedule, still leaves close to 100,000 NATO troops there, including 68,000 Americans.
• ___

• CAIRO (AP) -- The image of an Ottoman sultan glowered at the gridlock from a highway billboard in the Egyptian capital, hands clasped, his feathered headgear and gold-hewn epaulettes in elegant contrast to the grind of traffic below. The poster for a Turkish-made movie about the 1453 fall of Constantinople recalled the early feats of an empire that eventually ruled the Middle East and beyond.
• Egypt, like Turkey, has its own grand history -- evident in the pyramids and other monuments that its ancients left behind, and in a national pride that's distinctive in the Arab world.
• The descendants of yesterday's sultans and pharaohs, so to speak, also have

ambitions of an outsized role for their respective countries. Each wants to speak for the Middle East.
• But they can't go it alone so Turkey and Egypt now talk of working together. In some ways, it's an odd couple.
• Turkey is relatively stable and prosperous, though its foreign outreach has soured in some quarters, forcing it to tone down ambitions to become a statesman above the Mideast fray.
• ___

• MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A Minnesota man recently traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabab, a spokesman for his family said, renewing fears that the terror group is continuing to recruit Somalis living in the U.S. to return to their homeland to fight.

(Continued on page 28)