The office's stepped-up action against gangs reflects a nationwide shift in priorities by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, which says it is now focusing on capturing immigrants who pose a threat to public safety and security, rather than those with civil violations.
Some analysts view the stepped-up actions as a diversion from the coming once-a-decade leadership transition, letting the government show strength at a potentially vulnerable moment.
Both reports find that the spike was the result of a stepped-up anti-government insurgency, not NATO action.
These actions have prompted a stepped-up US-led campaign to toughen UN sanctions, which Pyongyang has called an act of war.
The Pakistani official, Yousaf Raza Gilani, spoke at joint news conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain just days after Mr. Brown demanded that Afghanistan and Pakistan match plans for increased allied troop levels in Afghanistan by taking tough actions of their own, including a stepped-up effort in Pakistan to capture Mr. bin Laden.
The gunman reportedly said the action was intended as a protest against a stepped-up effort by Colombia and the United States against coca plantings in southern Colombia, American officials said.
This week, the Robin Hood campaign, which has exploded across the world, took a major step forward in the US with a stepped-up campaign that included visits by Robin Hood and his merry men and women to JP Morgan branches across the country, and scores of other actions.
LONDON — Highlighting themes likely to be taken up by President Obama in his military policy speech on Tuesday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain has demanded that Afghanistan and Pakistan match plans for increased allied troop levels in Afghanistan by taking tough actions of their own, including, in Pakistan, a stepped-up effort to capture Osama bin Laden.
It came during a stepped-up campaign against Planned Parenthood by anti-abortion groups.
Satisfyingly, though, her response is not a grateful surrender but a stepped-up viciousness.
It was part of a stepped-up cooperative effort against organized crime in Southern Europe.
