The Pakistan military and the Taliban are guilty of rights abuses with a lack of justice fueling a crisis in the tribal areas on the Afghan border, a report by Amnesty International said Thursday.

The military is using new security laws and a colonial-era penal system to act with impunity in the northwestern, semi-autonomous region where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked violence is concentrated, the watchdog said.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta conferred with commanders in Afghanistan on Wednesday on how many American troops should remain in the country after most combat forces withdraw in 2014.

Panetta's unannounced visit comes as President Barack Obama moves to wind down the unpopular 11-year war, weighing the pace of a troop withdrawal and a future follow-on force after the NATO-led mission is due to end.

The Syrian regime has begun using missiles and barrel bombs against opposition rebels in the past week or so, a top U.S. official said Wednesday, denouncing the increasing use of "vicious weapons."

Amid reports that Scud missiles have been fired, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said she "was not in a position to confirm types of missiles, simply to say that we're seeing missiles employed now."

A U.S. military judge ordered Wednesday that testimony from defendants accused of taking part in the September 11 attacks describing their torture and secret imprisonment must be kept secret.

Judge James Pohl released his ruling on his military tribunal's website, agreeing with a request from the U.S. government that the testimony should be kept secret from the public and media for reasons of national security.

The head of the Syrian National Coalition has been invited for talks in Washington following U.S. recognition of the opposition bloc as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, a senior U.S. envoy said on Wednesday.

"We have extended an invitation to (Ahmed) Moaz al-Khatib and the Coalition leadership to visit Washington at the earliest opportunity," Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said in Morocco, where he was attending a meeting of the Friends of Syria group.

The opposition National Coalition, newly recognized by Washington as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people, on Wednesday urged the U.S. to review its blacklisting of the jihadist Al-Nusra Front.

"The decision to blacklist one of the groups fighting the regime as a terrorist organization must be re-examined," the bloc's leader, Ahmed Moaz al-Khatib, said at a meeting in Morocco of the Friends of Syria group that includes the United States.

Afghanistan may consider giving conditional immunity from local prosecution for U.S. troops remaining in the country after NATO forces withdraw in 2014, President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday.

Negotiations on a U.S.-Afghan security pact that involves talks on the status of U.S. bases in post-2014 Afghanistan were launched in November but negotiators said the immunity issue was not discussed in the first round.

U.S. President Barack Obama expressed "deep concern" Thursday over the recent deadly political protests in Egypt, in a call to his counterpart Mohammed Morsi, the White House said.

Obama also told Morsi that it was "essential for Egyptian leaders across the political spectrum to put aside their differences and come together to agree on a path that will move Egypt forward," the White House said in a statement.

A Bosnian court on Thursday sentenced an Islamist who opened fire at the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo last year to 18 years in prison.

"Mevlid Jasarevic committed a terrorist act by shooting 105 bullets over 50 minutes towards the American embassy," judge Branko Peric said. "This court sentences him to 18 years in prison."

The United States has deployed naval ships equipped with ballistic missile defenses and is monitoring North Korea "very closely" ahead of an anticipated rocket launch, the head of U.S. Pacific Command said Thursday.

It was "logical" that U.S. naval ships in the region would be employed to track North Korea's launch and "to the degree that those those ships are capable of participating in ballistic missile defense, then we'll position them to be able to do that," Admiral Samuel Locklear told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.