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Hundreds of young Iraqis flock to volunteer centers after top cleric's call to take up arms
• BAGHDAD (AP) -- Hundreds of young Iraqi men flocked to volunteer centers across Baghdad Saturday to join the fight against Islamic militants who have advanced across the country's north this week.
• They were responding to a call by Iraq's most revered Shiite cleric for Iraqis to defend their country against the Sunni Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which seized Iraq's second-largest city Mosul and Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit in a lightning advance.
• Fighters from the al-Qaida-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant made fresh gains on Friday, driving government forces at least temporarily from two towns in an ethnically mixed province northeast of Baghdad.
• President Barack Obama said Friday he is weighing options for countering the insurgency in Iraq, but warned Iraqi leaders that he would not take military action unless they moved to address the country's political divisions.
• The massive response to the call by the Iranian-born Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, which was issued via his representative, could aggravate the Sunni-Shiite sectarian divide, which nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007.
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Afghans line up to vote in presidential runoff amid tight security
• KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- Amid tight security, Afghans lined up Saturday to vote in a presidential runoff between two candidates who both promise to improve ties with the West and combat corruption as they confront a powerful Taliban insurgency and preside over the withdrawal of most foreign troops by the end of the year.
• Whoever wins faces major challenges in trying to bolster Afghanistan's security forces against a relentless insurgency and improving the nation's economy and infrastructure at a time when international aid for Afghanistan is drying up
• The presidential hopefuls --former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and ex-World Bank official and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai -- differ more in personality in policy. Both have promised to sign a long-delayed security pact with the United States. That would allow nearly 10,000 American troops to remain in the country for two more years to conduct counterterrorism operations and continue training and advising the ill-prepared Afghan army and police.
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