World

MOSCOW — Russia accused NATO on Monday of destabilising northern Europe and the Baltics by carrying out drills there and announced new military exercises of its own, increasing tension over the Ukraine crisis.

NATO responded by blaming Moscow for instability in the region and accused it of violating a ceasefire agreement in eastern Ukraine by sending in large deliveries of advanced weapons to pro-Russian separatists.

The recriminations deepened the worst stand-off between Russia and the West since the Cold War as the death toll mounts in a conflict that has killed more than 4,300 people.

“They are trying to destabilise the most stable region in the world — northern Europe,” Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Meshkov said of NATO in an interview with the Russian news agency Interfax.

“The endless military exercises, transferring aircraft capable of carrying nuclear arms to the Baltic states. This reality is extremely negative.”

Moscow is sensitive to any NATO manoeuvres, especially in countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, and Meshkov said Russia would take “every step” to protect its security.

In a move likely to be seen abroad as more flexing of muscles, Russia announced it would hold more military exercises in 2015 than this year — including one in the Central military district that includes Moscow and another involving Belarus.

Military drills by both Russia and NATO have contributed to the deterioration in relations since the overthrow of a Moscow-backed leader in Ukraine in February, after which Russia annexed Crimea and backed the separatists in east Ukraine.

Baltic states concerned

Asked to comment, the US ambassador to NATO said additional measures taken by the alliance were defensive and meant to demonstrate members’ commitment to mutual self-defence.

“If you look at the scale of Russian activities in Crimea, first in Crimea and now in southeastern Ukraine, it’s quite evident that they are destabilising,” the envoy, Douglas Lute, told a news conference in Brussels.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius told Reuters Russia was to blame for instability by “carrying out aggression against its own neighbour” in Ukraine, and the Latvian and Estonian defence ministries expressed concern about Russia’s “increased activity in the Baltic Sea region”.

Moscow says NATO threatens Russia’s security by offering membership to countries once in the Soviet Union, but NATO says Russia has increased air activity around Europe.

“We see a significant military buildup in and around Ukraine,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg added in Brussels. “Large transfers of Russian advanced weapons, equipment and military personnel to violent separatists.”

Ukraine said on Sunday a convoy of 106 vehicles had entered its eastern territory from Russia without Kiev’s permission and accused Moscow of send arms to the separatists.

A Ukrainian military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said on Monday Russian special forces were now taking part in attacks on Donetsk Airport in the east. Moscow denies sending in troops.

Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said in an interview that Europe and the United States should begin supplying arms to his country, as this would deter the rebels.

ZURICH — Swiss voters overwhelmingly rejected proposals on Sunday to boost gold reserves and impose strict new curbs on immigration, averting a potential nightmare for policy makers struggling with a popular backlash against the country’s open borders.

The referendums are part of a recent flurry of initiatives under Switzerland’s model of direct democracy that have had threatened to undermine the non-EU member’s reputation for stability.

They reflect a growing public view that Switzerland is under siege from foreign workers eroding its Alpine culture and from trading partners who have insisted in recent years that the Swiss dismantle their business model based on banking secrecy.

“The result of both today’s gold and immigration referenda show that the Swiss public want to pursue a coherent international economic policy and do not want to create new tensions with their EU neighbours,” said Reto Foellmi, professor of International Economics at the University of St Gallen.

The “Save our Swiss gold” initiative, proposed by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party out of concern the central bank has sold too much of its gold in the past, was rejected by 77 per cent of voters, said Swiss broadcaster SRF.

The measure would have compelled the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to boost its gold reserves to 20 per cent of its assets from around 8 per cent currently, and banned it from ever selling the metal, threatening its ability to defend a 1.20-euro cap on the Swiss franc imposed at the height of the euro crisis.

The SNB welcomed the result with the refrain that it would continue to defend the cap, buying unlimited quantities of foreign currency and take further measures immediately, if necessary.

Spot gold was holding just below $1,167 an ounce on Sunday, down 3 per cent this year.

“We anticipate a short-term sell off in gold, although a no vote was mostly priced in,” said Peter Rosenstreich, an analyst at Swissquote.

A separate proposal to cut annual immigration by three-quarters from current levels, put forward by environmentalist group Ecopop, was rejected by 74 per cent of voters, SRF said.

The Ecopop referendum, which proposed capping the number of immigrants at just 0.2 per cent of the resident population, was been seen as a proxy vote on Switzerland’s raft of treaties with the EU, its biggest trading partner.

The outcome allows the Swiss government to push ahead with its attempts to salvage these bilateral agreements after the approval of a previous proposal to introduce unspecified immigration quotas in February called into question its commitment to the free movement of people act — a key tenet of the treaties.

“The government has got more breathing space to negotiate with the EU,” said Regula Rytz, co-president of the Green Party.

However, the Swiss government said the state of play between Switzerland and the EU, which maintains free movement of people is non-negotiable, was unchanged after Sunday’s vote.

Switzerland’s system of direct democracy gives the electorate the right to force popular votes if they can gather enough signatures of support. A third set of proposals to scrap one of Switzerland’s biggest tax perks for expatriates was also defeated.

FERGUSON, Missouri — Demonstrators shut down a shopping mall near Ferguson, Missouri, at the start of the holiday shopping season on Friday as protests over the killing of an unarmed black teen by a white police officer turned on some retailers around the country.

After a quiet Thanksgiving Day, protesters were out in force again to vent their anger at Monday’s decision by a grand jury not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the August 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb.

Activists around the country said they were encouraging a boycott of Black Friday sales to highlight the purchasing power of black Americans, and to draw links between economic and racial inequality.

“You have to disrupt business as usual for this to happen and that’s the only thing that’s ever made change,” said Sergio Uzurin, a protester in front of Macy’s flagship store in New York.

The killing of Brown, which has renewed a debate over race relations in the United States and the treatment of blacks and other minorities by police, has triggered months of sometimes violent protests in Ferguson and sympathy protests elsewhere.

More than 200 people in New York sought to disrupt shopping on Friday with a protest in front of the Macy’s store in Herald Square and marched into the ground floor as staff and shoppers looked on in apparent surprise.

Demonstrators later marched through the streets of New York, and a police spokesman said officers arrested seven protesters for disorderly conduct.

Similar protests were staged in other cities, including Chicago, Seattle and Oakland, California, on Black Friday, when many retailers offer deep discounts and shoppers traditionally turn out in droves.

At the upmarket Galleria near St Louis, demonstrators chanted “No Black Friday” before singing carols and then briefly lying on the floor, leading officials to close the mall.

National Guard troops were posted outside, and mall security stopped anyone from entering, telling disappointed bargain-hunters the shopping centre was shut for the rest of the day.

Eddie Cox, the 23-year-old assistant manager of a Lids baseball cap store, said he was proud to watch the demonstrators march past his shop.

Cox, who is black, said his store was seeing only about a fifth as many Black Friday sales as last year, due to the boycott call.

“The business side of me kinda hates it, but at the same time, the young, activist, pro-conscious part of me loves every bit of this,” Cox said. “It’s a really cool time to be young, black and American.”

Peaceful protest in Ferguson

Ferguson itself was peaceful after more than 100 arrests on Monday and Tuesday, when some demonstrators reacted to the grand jury’s decision by looting or burning businesses, and officers in riot gear fired tear gas and smoke bombs to disperse crowds.

Late on Friday, about 100 protesters marched up and down the road outside the Ferguson police department. As National Guard troops in camouflage and combat helmets looked on, the crowd chanted: “Soldiers, turn your guns around! Shoot this racist system down!”

Authorities ultimately arrested 15 protesters in Ferguson, after demonstrators failed to move from the streets, St Louis county police said.

Earlier, police had briefly reopened West Florissant Avenue, a main thoroughfare where most of the damaged or destroyed businesses are located. That allowed clean-up efforts to begin and gave residents a glimpse of more burned-out stores.

In neighbouring Dellwood, the mayor called for state and federal aid for his city, where 13 businesses were burned on Monday and five were looted.

One Walmart store near Ferguson decided to cancel Black Friday sales, and merchandise was moved to other locations in the St Louis area, employees said.

In Oakland, about 16 people were arrested after chaining themselves to a train during a demonstration at a Bay Area Rapid Transit rail station in protest, a BART spokeswoman said.

Later in San Francisco, protesters marched through the city’s downtown, with some smashing windows at retailers in Union Square, police said.

“We just took one on the chin for Michael Brown,” said Paul Zhou, a manager at Grace Jewellers that suffered vandalism.

Images broadcast by local television station ABC7 showed hundreds of demonstrators marching through the middle of a main city thoroughfare. Police said there were multiple arrests, and added that an officer was struck in the face by a bottle and required stitches.

In Seattle, protesters chained shut at least two doors to the downtown Pacific Place mall, police said. They later disrupted a tree-lighting ceremony at the nearby Westlake Centre, and the mall closed early.

Seattle police reported five arrests in the day’s protests.

In Los Angeles, where more than 300 people have been arrested in Ferguson-related demonstrations last week, about 120 protesters marched through the streets. There were eight arrests, police said.

KABUL — A suicide bomber attacked a British embassy vehicle in the Afghan capital on Thursday, killing five people including one Briton, officials said.

The blast in the east of Kabul wounded 33 people, including many bystanders, the latest in a wave of bombings to hit the city as the majority of foreign combat troops prepare to withdraw from the country by the end of the year.

Taliban insurgents, who were ousted from power by a US-led coalition in 2001, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it “targeted foreign invading forces”.

Attacks aimed at foreign embassy personnel are less common than the near-daily strikes against Afghan and international military forces on the country’s roads.

Britain said that two embassy personnel, including one British national, were among the five killed.

“I am deeply saddened to confirm that a British national civilian security team member and an Afghan national working for the embassy were killed in the incident,” Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said in a statement, adding that another Briton had been injured.

A Reuters witness saw at least one survivor being led away from the charred shell of the vehicle on foot by a member of the British security force.

Spate of Kabul attacks

G4S, the world’s biggest security firm, later confirmed one of its staff had been killed in the blast and another injured.

“Next of kin have been informed and we will continue to provide them with support,” a company spokesperson said.

“Our thoughts and most heartfelt condolences are with the families, friends and colleagues of those involved in this tragic incident.”

The interior ministry initially reported the blast was caused by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle, but later said the attacker was travelling by car.

Thursday’s bombing was at least the fourth in Kabul since Monday, when two American soldiers were killed in a powerful blast close to the airport.

While not common, attacks against diplomatic missions and personnel in Afghanistan show a determination to target anyone associated with the US-led mission.

A 25-year-old American diplomat was killed last year in an attack on a convoy in the country’s east.

The Indian consulate in the western province of Herat was attacked in May by insurgents with rocket-propelled grenades and suicide vests. Last year, the US consulate in Herat was also attacked with a truck bomb.

BRUSSELS — European Union lawmakers overwhelmingly backed a motion on Thursday urging anti-trust regulators to break up Google, the latest setback for the world's most popular Internet search engine.

Google has been in the EU's regulatory sights since 2010, and is also grappling with privacy issues, requests to scrub search results to comply with a court ruling, copyright concerns and tax controversies.

The non-binding resolution in the European Parliament is the strongest public signal yet of Europe's concern with the growing power of US tech giants. It was passed with 384 votes for and 174 against.

German conservative lawmaker and co-sponsor of the bill Andreas Schwab said it was a political signal to the European Commission, which is tasked with ensuring a level playing field for business across the 28-country bloc.

"Monopolies in whatever market have never been useful, neither for consumers nor for the companies," he said.

Schwab said he had nothing against Google and was a regular user. "I use Google every day," he said.

Google declined to comment. European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager has said she will review the case and talk to complainants before deciding on the next step.

Her predecessor rejected three attempts by the company to settle complaints that it unfairly demoted rival services and stave off a possible fine of up to $5 billion.

Four-year investigation

The resolution did not mention Google or any specific search engine, though Google is by far the dominant provider of such services in Europe with an estimated 90 per cent market share.

The lawmakers called on the commission to consider proposals to unbundle search engines from other commercial services.

Some politicians criticised the proposal.

"Parliament should not be engaging in anti-Google resolutions, inspired by a heavy lobby of Google competitors or by anti-free market ideology, but ensure fair competition and consumer choice," said lawmaker Sophie in't Veld from the parliament's ALDE liberal group.

Google is the target of a four-year investigation by the commission, triggered by complaints from Microsoft, Expedia, European publishers and others.

Lobbying group Computer & Communications Industry Association, whose members include Google, eBay Facebook, Microsoft and Samsung, said unbundling was an "extreme and unworkable" solution that made no sense in rapidly changing online markets.

"While clearly targeting Google, the parliament is in fact suggesting all search companies, or online companies with a search facility, may need to be separated. This is of great concern as we try to create a digital single market," it said.

FERGUSON, Missouri — Police arrested scores of people in cities around the United States who were protesting a Missouri grand jury's decision not to indict a white police officer for killing an unarmed black teenager, authorities said on Wednesday, but the town where the shooting took place was a little calmer.

Protests in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta and elsewhere came on a second night of street violence in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, where policeman Darren Wilson shot to death 18-year-old Michael Brown on August 9. The shooting has highlighted the often-tense nature of US race relations and the strains between black communities and police.

There was less violence on the streets of Ferguson than on the previous night, as the deployment of some 2,000 National Guard troops to the area helped police prevent the rioting, looting and arson that erupted on Monday night.

Police made 45 arrests in Ferguson from Tuesday night into early Wednesday for offenses ranging from a couple of dozen misdemeanors for unlawful assembly to five for assaulting law enforcement officers. Thirty of the arrested listed Missouri addresses and one was from Berlin, Germany, police said.

In other cities, demonstrators marched through city streets, sometimes blocking traffic and scuffling with police. Police in Boston said on Wednesday 45 people were arrested in protests overnight that drew more than a thousand demonstrators.

Wilson said he was acting in self-defence and his conscience was clear. He told ABC News that there was nothing he could have done differently that would have prevented Brown's death. But the parents of the slain teenager said they did not accept the officer's version of the events.

"I don't believe a word of it," Brown's mother Lesley McSpadden told "CBS This Morning" on Wednesday.

Tensions between police and black Americans have simmered for decades, with many blacks feeling the US legal system and law enforcement authorities do not treat them fairly. For example, blacks account for disproportionate percentages of the overall prison population and of the inmates sentenced to death.

The crowds in Ferguson were smaller and more controlled than on Monday, when about a dozen businesses were torched and others were looted amid rock-throwing and sporadic gunfire from protesters and volleys of tear gas fired by police. More than 60 people were arrested then.

"Generally, it was a much better night," St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar told reporters early on Wednesday, adding there was very little arson or gunfire, and that lawlessness was confined to a relatively small group.

In New York, where police used pepper spray to control the crowd after protesters tried to block the Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge, 10 demonstrators were arrested, police said.

Protesters in Los Angeles threw water bottles and other objects at officers outside city police headquarters and later obstructed both sides of a downtown freeway with makeshift roadblocks and debris, authorities said.

Atlanta police made 24 arrests Tuesday night, including some in a group of about 150 people who broke away from an otherwise peaceful protest of more than 1,000 people and blocked traffic on a downtown freeway, Mayor Kasim Reed said on Wednesday.

Reed said protesters also threw rocks at police cars and damaged property, including a bank and a taxi cab. No officers were hurt, the mayor said, adding the city police force used a strategy of "available force with a light touch".

"I'm not going to have the city of Atlanta look like it's under martial law," he said.

Two Milwaukee police officers suffered minor injuries on Tuesday when they tried to stop protesters from entering the BMO Harris Bradley Centre, where the Milwaukee Bucks were playing an NBA basketball game, police said. No arrests were made.

In Oakland, California, protesters set rubbish on fire in the middle of a street and swept onto a downtown stretch of Interstate 980, briefly halting traffic.

Four people were arrested for blocking a roadway in Denver, where police said several hundred people turned out for a protest march.

KIEV — Russian forces are still operating in eastern Ukraine, providing the backbone of separatist rebels fighting the Kiev government, NATO's top military commander said on Wednesday after talks with Ukrainian leaders.

US Air Force General Philip Breedlove, visiting Kiev as head of US forces in Europe, said Russia's "militarisation" of the Crimea peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in March meant Moscow could exert influence over almost the entire Black Sea region.

Breedlove met Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and others in the pro-Western leadership to discuss ways the United States could assist Kiev's defence potential in the conflict with Russian-backed separatists in eastern territories.

Asked for an assessment of the situation, Breedlove said Russian troops in the east were "training, equipping, giving backbone... helping [separatist] forces in the field”.

Russia denies sending troops or equipment to the rebels but accuses Kiev of using indiscriminate force against civilians in the two eastern territories of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Breedlove said Russian forces were also helping the rebels "understand the advanced weaponry that is being brought across", referring to military equipment which Kiev and the West says is being funnelled into Ukraine from Russia.

He said the United States remained concerned by Russia's "militarisation" of the Crimea peninsula which included possible stationing of coastal defence cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles "that are able to exert military influence over the Black Sea”.

The United States also continued to watch for indications Russia might move "nuclear capabilities" onto the peninsula in line with a Russian defence ministry announcement last March, he said.

Breedlove's visit followed that of US Vice-President Joe Biden to Kiev last week at which he announced strong US support for a democratic Ukraine — but made no announcement of any new non-lethal military aid.

Despite appeals by Kiev, NATO and NATO member countries have drawn the line at providing weapons to Ukraine for fear of being embroiled in a conflict with Russia on behalf of a country that is not a member of the US-led alliance.

Pressed on Wednesday to say whether Washington might change its policy, he said the United States continued to look at requirements in Ukraine and "nothing at this time is off the table”.

FERGUSON, Missouri — Aiming to head off more looting and rioting, Missouri's governor on Tuesday ordered National Guard reinforcements into the St Louis suburb of Ferguson following overnight violence ignited by the clearing of a white police officer in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager.

Attorneys for the family of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old who was shot to death by officer Darren Wilson in August, condemned the grand jury process that led to Monday's decision not to bring criminal charges against the officer.

About a dozen buildings in Ferguson burned overnight and 61 people, mostly from the St Louis area, were arrested for crimes including burglary, illegal weapons possession and unlawful assembly, police said on Tuesday. Shops were looted during the unrest.

The case underscores the sometimes tense nature of race relations in the United States. The St Louis County grand jury's decision also led to protests in other major US cities. The people who took to the streets in Ferguson seemed to disregard calls for restraint issued by President Barack Obama and others.

Police fired tear gas and flash-bang canisters at protesters on Monday night. Police said protesters fired guns at them, lit patrol cars on fire and hurled bricks into their lines.

Brown family lawyers Benjamin Crump and Anthony Gray said in a news conference the process had been unfair because the prosecutor in the case had a conflict of interest and Wilson was not properly cross-examined. They said a special prosecutor should have been appointed.

"This process is broken. The process should be indicted," Crump said.

Missouri Governor Jay Nixon said he was meeting with law enforcement and bolstering the National Guard deployment to ensure that people and property are protected in the days ahead.

"Violence like we saw last night cannot be repeated," Nixon said on his Twitter feed. His office said "the guard is providing security at the Ferguson Police Department, which will allow additional law enforcement officers to protect the public”.

While news channels aired Obama's live remarks calling for restraint from the White House on one side of the screen, they showed violent scenes from Ferguson on the other.

"This is going to happen again," said Ferguson area resident James Hall, 56, as he walked past a building smoldering from a blaze set during the street protests in the city that is predominately black and the police force is mostly white.

"If they had charged him with something, this would not have happened to Ferguson," he said.

Although no serious injuries were reported, St Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said the rioting on Monday night and early Tuesday morning was "much worse" than the disturbances that erupted in the immediate aftermath of the August shooting.

The smell of smoke hung in the air along a stretch of West Florissant Avenue in Ferguson. The street was closed by police but heaps of broken glass and piles of rubble accumulated in front of the few buildings that had not been boarded up ahead of time.

"We see that Michael Brown's death has been spit upon by the criminal justice system here," said the Reverend Michael McBride, an activist from California.

"Now is the opportunity for the president to really be my brother's keeper," said McBride.

In the city of St Louis, where windows were broken and traffic was briefly stopped on a major highway overnight, Police Chief Sam Dotson vowed a stronger response on Tuesday night.

Officials disclosed the grand jury's ruling well after sunset and hours after saying it was coming, a set of circumstances that led to protesters taking to the streets well after dark.

Wilson could have faced charges ranging from involuntary manslaughter to first-degree murder. Brown's family said through their lawyers that they were "profoundly disappointed" by the grand jury's finding.

Wilson offered thanks to his supporters, saying "your dedication is amazing", in a letter attributed to him posted on Tuesday on a Facebook page for those who have rallied to his side.

Attorneys for Wilson, who was placed on administrative leave and has avoided the spotlight since the shooting, said he was following his training and the law when he shot Brown.

Wilson told the grand jury that Brown had tried to grab his gun and he felt his life was in danger when he fired, according to documents released by prosecutors.

"I said: 'Get back or I'm going to shoot you'," Wilson said, according to the documents. "He immediately grabs my gun and says: 'You are too much of a pussy to shoot me.'"

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — More than 45 people were killed when two female suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowded market in northeast Nigeria on Tuesday, the latest in a wave of such attacks blamed on Boko Haram.

The explosions in the Borno state capital targeted the same Monday Market area where at least 15 people died on July 1 in a blast also thought to have been carried out by the Islamist militants.

Tuesday's attacks came after the militants seized control of another town in Nigeria's restive northeast, adding to their increasing haul of territory captured in recent months.

Health worker Dogara Shehu said he counted more than "45 people killed, some of them completely decapitated" in the Maiduguri blasts in an account supported by another witness.

An official with Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) confirmed that "many people have been killed" but did not have an official death toll.

"What we have is a case of suicide bombings involving two females," said a senior security source in the city, who requested anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The source told AFP that the first bomber stood by a motorised rickshaw packed with goods in the bustling market and took a call on her mobile phone.

"She then dropped it [the mobile phone] and at that moment she blew herself up, so people thought the bomb was concealed in the rickshaw," he added.

"About 10 minutes later, another woman who looked about 19 and carrying what looked like a baby on her back under hijab arrived at the scene that was crowded by rescuers and locals.

"She then detonated the bomb on her back."

Wave of bombings 

Northern Nigeria has been hit by a wave of suicide bomb attacks by women in recent months, including earlier this month in the northeastern state of Bauchi and Niger state in the northwest.

In July, there were four such attacks within a week in Kano city.

The previous month, a woman was said to have blown herself up in a twin bombing in the southwestern city of Lagos, although her involvement was never confirmed.

Weeks earlier, Nigeria saw its first female suicide bombing, when a middle-aged woman detonated her explosives at a military barracks in the northern state of Gombe.

Analysts have said that Boko Haram is using either willing volunteers or coercing young women and girls into becoming human bombs as part of its strategy to create a hardline Islamic state.

Three women said to be "female recruiters" for Boko Haram were reportedly arrested in July while an alleged trainer of women bombers was detained in Kano in August with up to 16 "trainees".

Boko Haram has attacked Maiduguri dozens of times during its five-year insurgency, using a range of tactics from suicide attacks and bombings to full-scale assaults on military barracks.

The Islamist group was founded in Maiduguri more than a decade ago and the city was once the epicentre of the conflict until its fighters were pushed out into more rural parts of the northeast.

Another town seized 

Boko Haram had earlier taken over the town of Damasak, in the far north of Borno near the border with neighbouring Niger, starting their assault with an attack on the market there early Monday.

Maina Ma'aji Lawan, who represents northern Borno state in Nigeria's Senate, said soldiers and hundreds of residents fled when the heavily armed militants opened fire on traders.

"There is not a single male in Damasak. Boko Haram is in control because all males and soldiers have fled. No one expects women to fight them," Lawan told AFP by telephone from Abuja.

The security source in Maiduguri and a senior local government official both corroborated Lawan's account, although it was unclear how many were killed in the attack.

Boko Haram's territorial gains are a change in strategy from its previous trademark of deadly hit-and-run raids or high-profile strikes against government, police or military targets.

The group's seizure of towns has raised fears about a potential loss of government control in the region.

Many in recent weeks have warned that violence would return to Maiduguri and some have voiced concern that the Islamists might try to capture the key city.

Losing Maiduguri would be a huge blow for Nigeria's territorial integrity, but the military dismissed the warnings as alarmist.

WASHINGTON — US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel announced his resignation Monday as President Barack Obama's White House faces mounting criticism over perceived fumbling in its global security strategy.

The former Republican senator, who has been in the job for less than two years, was chosen to oversee a shift to a peacetime military with smaller defence budgets but found the United States at war again.

The rapid advance of Islamic States jihadists in Syria and Iraq forced the Pentagon chief into managing a complex campaign, and Obama concluded Hagel was not the man for the task.

The 68-year-old Vietnam war veteran joined Obama at the White House to confirm his departure.

"When I asked Chuck to serve as secretary of defence we were entering a significant period of transition: the drawdown in Afghanistan, the need to prepare our forces for future missions and tough fiscal choices to keep our military strong and ready," Obama said.

"Last month, Chuck came to me to discuss the final quarter of my presidency and determined that, having guided the department through this transition, it was an appropriate time for him to complete his service."

Both Obama and Hagel presented the decision as mutually agreed, but administration officials privately suggested he had been pushed out, while Obama's critics said Hagel had become frustrated.

At the White House announcement, Hagel thanked Obama for his "friendship" and "leadership", saying he believed he had put the military and the nation on a "stronger course towards stability".

The White House did not say who might be Hagel's eventual replacement at the Pentagon, but in Washington three candidates are widely considered to be in the running.

'At odds' with White House 

Former undersecretary of defence Michele Flournoy — who would be the first woman to run the Pentagon — is touted as the most likely choice.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island — a former army airborne officer — and former deputy secretary of defence Ashton Carter, are also deemed possible successors.

Confirmation hearings for whoever gets the nomination will provide Republican critics a platform to slam the Obama administration's campaign against the Islamic State (IS).

Some hawks are demanding bolder action, including the use of US ground units to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces in their battle to contain the jihadist threat.

As a senator, Hagel voted in favour of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, but later became a critic of the drawn-out conflict that ensued.

Hagel's combat experience as a non-commissioned officer who was wounded in Vietnam was seen as a strength as he took on the job.

But his public appearances have often appeared clumsy or underwhelming as the administration struggles to adapt to new conflicts and articulate its strategies.

Although administration officials indicated the defence secretary had been pressured to resign, a senior national security staff member in Congress told AFP that was not the case.

"Hagel quit," the aide said. "Hagel found himself at odds with the administration."

Hagel's experience was similar to that of his predecessors, Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, who both complained after they left office of meddling by political appointees in the White House, the aide and some lawmakers said.

Senator John McCain, an outspoken critic of Obama's foreign policy, said he had spoken to Hagel by phone Monday.

"I know that he was very, very frustrated," McCain said.

"Already the White House are leaking, 'Well he wasn't up to the job'. Believe me, he was up to the job."

McCain said the Obama administration had "no strategy" to fight the IS and that Hagel had never been allowed into a White House inner circle making decisions.

Hagel had disagreed with the administration's approach to Syria, writing a two-page memo arguing for a more assertive stance towards President Bashar Assad, his aides recently disclosed.

Apart from the air war against the IS group, the White House has also come under criticism for its plans in Afghanistan, with some Republicans questioning a timeline that will have all US troops out of the country by the end of Obama's term in two years.

Speculation about Hagel's future gathered steam in October, when anonymous administration officials castigated his performance to a high-profile Washington Post columnist, David Ignatius.