Iran will kill "dozens" of U.S. military commanders for each Iranian commander murdered, if covert hits urged by two U.S. defense analysts last month are carried out, a senior Iranian military chief warned on Tuesday.

"If you kill one of us, we will kill dozens of yours," the Fars news agency quoted Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards' aerospace division, as saying.

Iran "does not need an atomic bomb" to confront the United States, preferring to use its wits to see off U.S. threats, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday, according to state media.

"If America wants to confront the Iranian nation, it will certainly regret the Iranian nation's response," Ahmadinejad said, warning Iran would not accept any accusation against its nuclear program, the IRNA news agency reported.

The White House said Monday it expected a forthcoming report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog to echo its concerns about Iran's nuclear program but refused to comment on widely leaked details.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Washington still believed the best way to combat Iran's nuclear aspirations was through international diplomacy, but as is customary, did not rule out the use of military force.

A senior U.S. official will on Monday launch a three-country campaign to firm up sanctions against Syria and to tackle transnational organized crime, the U.S. Treasury Department said.

Assistant Secretary Daniel Glaser will travel to Beirut, Moscow and Amman for a week-long visit.

Syria has sent the Arab League a letter asking for support against what it called U.S. involvement in "bloody events" in the country, the 22-member pan-Arab group said in a statement on Monday.

The statement said the letter from Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem accused Washington "of actual involvement in bloody events in Syria" and asked the League to "condemn the involvement and to do what is necessary to end it."

Say goodbye to the United States of America. Say hello to "the United States of Awesome Possibilities" as it looks to visitors from abroad to help lift it out of the economic doldrums.

By soft-pedaling patriotism, the newly-formed U.S. national tourism board tasked with getting more tourists -- and their money -- onto U.S. soil is reinventing the nation as a hip new land of diversity and possibilities.

Pakistan on Sunday angrily rejected a report that it had been moving its nuclear weapons in unsafe conditions, saying nobody should underestimate its capability to defend itself.

Two U.S. magazines reported Friday that Pakistan has begun moving its nuclear weapons in low-security vans on congested roads to hide them from U.S. spy agencies, making the weapons more vulnerable to theft by Islamist militants.

Nigeria marked the Muslim feast of Eid el-Adha amid fears and tears as the U.S. warned of possible new attacks after deadly blasts claimed by Islamists killed 150 people in the northeast of the country.

The attacks on Friday in Damaturu were among the deadliest ever carried out by Boko Haram, an Islamist sect based in the north of Africa's most populous country.

Damascus on Saturday strongly condemned Washington after the U.S. State Department advised Syrians against surrendering following an amnesty for those who give up weapons.

"The American administration disclosed again its blatant interference in Syria's internal affairs, and its policy which supports killing, in addition to its funding of the terrorist groups in Syria," SANA state news agency said citing a foreign ministry official.

Beijing on Friday hit out at a U.S. intelligence agency report accusing the Chinese of extensive cyber spying, saying it was unprofessional and irresponsible.

The unusually blunt report on foreign cyber spying submitted to the U.S. Congress on Thursday said the Chinese were the world's "most active and persistent perpetrators" of economic espionage.