World

KABUL — A branch of the Daesh group claimed responsibility for an attack Wednesday on Pakistan's consulate in eastern Afghanistan that killed at least seven members of the Afghan security forces.

The attack in Jalalabad, the capital of the volatile Nangarhar province that borders Pakistan, started when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives vest outside the diplomatic mission, said Attaullah Khyogani, spokesman for the province's governor.

The explosion triggered a gun battle between Afghan security forces and the militants. Along with the policemen killed, seven people were also wounded in the attack, Khyogani added.

He said all three attackers were killed, including the suicide bomber. The two gunmen, who later took positions in a guesthouse close to the consulate, were killed hours later, Khyogani said.

The US-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors militant trafficking, said the affiliate known as the "Khorasan Province of Daesh" claimed three of its "soldiers" attacked the consulate and allegedly killed "dozens" of the mission's staff.

Hazrat Hussein Mashraqiwal, the spokesman for the provincial police chief, said three police and two intelligence officers were among the killed and three civilians were among the wounded.

It was the first insurgent-style attack on a Pakistani diplomatic mission in Afghanistan, an official at the Pakistani embassy said, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Pakistani government properties have come under attack in the past during protests by Afghans angry at Islamabad's perceived support for the Taliban, who have waged war on the Kabul administration for more than 14 years.

The scene of the attack is close to a hospital and schools as well as the Indian consulate. The schools were evacuated, officials said.

The Pakistani consulate is usually busy during morning rush hour as people queue for visas. The suicide bomber joined the visa queue before blowing himself up, officials said. All consular staff were quickly evacuated.

In Islamabad, the foreign affairs ministry condemned what it called "the terrorist attack" on its consulate and requested a thorough investigation. One official at the consulate was slightly injured by broken glass, it said.

The office of Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Afghan President Ashraf Ghani telephoned him to guarantee enhanced security for Pakistani diplomats in Afghanistan.

Sharif's office said the two leaders agreed that "terrorism is a common enemy for both the countries and we will fight this menace together".

Nangarhar is home to a number of insurgent groups and criminal gangs who benefit from the proximity to the Pakistan border. The Daesh group has established a presence in the province, having fought with Taliban gunmen in recent months to take control of at least four border districts.

The attack came two days after Islamabad hosted a meeting of representatives of Afghanistan, Pakistan, China and the United States to discuss ending the Taliban's 14-year insurgency.

Pakistan is widely believed to support the Taliban through its security service, though Islamabad denies the claim. The Taliban have split in recent months, with insurgent factions divided over whether to join the peace process.

Wednesday's attack is the latest in a spate of violence this month, raising concerns of a tough year ahead for Afghanistan as the Taliban are expected to escalate their attacks, possibly in order to enter into peace negotiations from a position of strength.

In early January, a restaurant frequented by foreigners in Kabul and a contractor camp on the outskirts of the Afghan capital were attacked, and the Indian consulate in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif was besieged for more than 24 hours.

Further south, in Helmand province, the governor of Gereshk district in the poppy-growing river valley said Wednesday that nine police were killed overnight in a Taliban assault. Mohammad Ashraf said two others were wounded. He had no further details.

Helmand has seen fierce fighting between the Taliban and government forces in recent months. A Taliban heartland, Helmand is the source of opium that produces most of the world's heroin and provides an important funding source for the insurgency.

FLINT, Michigan — Gov. Rick Snyder late Tuesday activated the Michigan National Guard to help distribute bottled water and filters in Flint and asked the federal government for help dealing with a drinking water crisis that began months ago.

Snyder’s executive order triggering the guard’s deployment is intended to bolster outreach to residents, whose tap water became contaminated with too much lead after the city switched its water supply in 2014 to save money while under state financial management. Local officials first declared a public health emergency in Flint in October in response to tests that showed children with elevated levels of lead.

Since then, authorities have struggled to ensure residents have safe drinking water. People in Flint have been told not to drink the water until it is determined to be safe, and volunteers and police in recent days have been going door to door with bottled water, filters and lead test kits.

Snyder on Tuesday also requested and was granted support from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate a recovery plan with other federal agencies that have the programmes, authorities or technical expertise to help. FEMA appointed a disaster recovery coordinator to help the state, spokesman Rafael Lemaitre said.

“As we work to ensure that all Flint residents have access to clean and safe drinking water, we are providing them with the direct assistance they need,” the Republican governor said in a written statement.

Guard members are expected to begin arriving as early as Wednesday. More than 30 members will be in place by Friday, enabling American Red Cross volunteers to join door-to-door efforts instead of staffing sites where residents can pick up free bottled water, filters, replacement cartridges and home water testing kits.

Earlier Tuesday, Genesee County sheriff’s Capt. Casey Tafoya said volunteers and police hoped to get to 500 to 600 houses a day in a city of about 99,000 residents with an estimated 30,000 households.

State troopers and sheriff’s deputies escorted eight teams as they trudged through cold temperatures and 7.6cm of snow, with more falling. Flyers were left at homes where no one answered, giving the location of where to pick up the items later.

“We plan to go every day this week, and we’ll continue until everyone has safe drinking water,” state police Lt. Dave Kaiser said.

For more than a year, water drawn from the Flint River leached lead from old lines into homes after the city switched its drinking water. Exposure to lead can cause behavior problems and learning disabilities in children.

Flint has since returned to Detroit’s system for its water, but officials remain concerned that damage to the pipes caused by the Flint River could allow them to continue leaching lead. They also want to ensure monitoring protocols are followed properly this time.

The state auditor general and a task force created by Snyder have faulted the Department of Environmental Quality for not requiring Flint to treat the river water for corrosion and belittling the public’s fears. The agency’s director stepped down last month.

Nearly a month ago, the task force also raised concerns about a lack of organisation in responding to the disaster.

Snyder, who has also faced criticism, said Monday that the water situation is a “crisis” and last week declared an emergency.

He said that since October, more than 12,000 filters have been distributed, more than 2,000 blood tests have been done — uncovering 43 cases of elevated lead levels — and more than 700 water tests have been conducted.

“I trust the good men and women of the National Guard will jumpstart the Snyder administration’s lackluster response to this public health crisis,” Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, said in a statement. “Sadly, myself and many leaders of my community have advocated for this type of response for months.”

US Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat who represents the Flint area, said: “It is the state’s ultimate responsibility to act and make it right. Flint residents are the victims in this crisis and they deserve a more urgent response equal to the gravity of this crisis.”

BERLIN — German ministers outlined plans on Tuesday to speed up the deportation of foreigners who commit crimes, responding to sexual attacks on women by migrants in Cologne which have deepened doubts about the country’s open-door refugee policy.

The assaults on New Year’s Eve, which are the subject of an ongoing investigation, have emboldened right-wing groups and unsettled members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party, raising pressure on her to crack down forcefully on migrants who commit crimes.

Under plans unveiled by conservative Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and Social Democrat (SPD) Justice Minister Heiko Maas, foreigners who are found guilty of committing physical and sexual assaults, resisting police or damaging property, could be deported.

Under current law, most of these crimes carry probationary sentences and do not trigger expulsion.

Merkel welcomed the agreement between the two ministers who represent different parties in her right-left coalition.

“We must make sure the law can take effect as soon as possible. First we have to think how to get the parliamentary process going as quickly as possible,” conservative Merkel said.

On Monday night, more than 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage in the eastern city of Leipzig, throwing fireworks, breaking windows and vandalising buildings, police said.

That took place at the same time as roughly 2,000 anti-Muslim protesters marched peacefully in the city centre and chanted “Merkel must go”. They held placards showing the chancellor in a Muslim veil and reading “Merkel, take your Muslims with you and get lost”.

More than 600 women have complained of being attacked on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and other German cities. The complaints range from sexual molestation to theft and police have said their investigations are focused on illegal migrants from north Africa as well as asylum seekers.

In response, Michael Grosse-Broemer, parliamentary whip for Merkel’s conservatives, called on Tuesday for steps to limit immigration from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia by classifying them as “safe countries”.

Germany took the same step for western Balkan countries last year and has seen a sharp drop in arrivals from there since then.

The head of Cologne police was dismissed last week for his handling of the attacks and SPD Interior Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Ralf Jaeger is also under fire from political foes.

With more migrants arriving in Europe’s biggest economy, Merkel is under growing pressure to toughen her line on refugees. However, her coalition parties are at odds on a range of other steps.

An INSA poll in Bild daily put support for Merkel’s conservative bloc down 1 point at 35 per cent with the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has strongly criticised Merkel’s refugee policies, up 2 points at 11.5 per cent.

INSA polls put the conservatives a couple percentage points lower and AfD higher than the other leading polling institutes.

Social tensions have already bubbled to the surface with almost daily attacks on refugee shelters.

On Monday evening, the group of right-wingers who vandalised part of Leipzig held a placard reading “Leipzig bleibt Helle”, or “Leipzig stays light”, an apparent reference to the skin colour of residents.

KABUL — Afghanistan’s chief negotiator in peace talks that began in Pakistan this week said on Tuesday that he was hopeful Taliban insurgents would join the process, but warned that public support would wane if there were no quick results.

Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Karzai said the first meeting in Islamabad on Monday had mainly been intended to set a framework for the process before a meeting in Kabul on January 18 to draw up a roadmap for talks with the Taliban.

The key question remains whether the Taliban, badly divided as a result of the leadership dispute which broke out last year but increasingly successful on the battlefield, will participate in the process, which is backed by Pakistan, the United States and China.

“After 30 years of war, I think they are interested and they are inclined towards joining this process,” Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.

A previous round broke down in July after it became known that the Taliban’s founder and leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, had actually been dead for two years and his deputy Mullah Akhtar Mansour had been in control.

The news badly damaged trust between Kabul and Islamabad, which many in Afghanistan believed had participated in the cover-up, and set off a bloody leadership struggle within the movement.

Subsequently appointed leader, Mansour’s authority has been rejected by a substantial faction led by Mullah Mohammad Rasoul, a former governor of the southern Nimroz province when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan before 2001.

“I think there are some problems among the Taliban themselves. They do not talk with one voice but we have to be open to talk to all of them,” Karzai said.

The last round of talks began while Mansour was in effective command of the Taliban. Militants close to him have said they may consider joining but so far Rasoul’s faction has ruled out participating in any process involving foreign powers.

Next week’s meeting would aim to set up a roadmap with a three-stage process covering a pre-negotiations phase, to be followed by direct talks with the Taliban themselves and a final period where an agreement would be implemented.

But Karzai said time was pressing and concrete progress had to be achieved over the coming weeks, in time for the Persian New Year in March.

“In the next two months, the Afghan people have to see some change,” he said. “The Afghan people and politicians do not have the patience they had last year.”

Monday’s talks in Islamabad included officials from China and the United States, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan. The involvement of Beijing and Washington may help reassure public opinion in Afghanistan, where many people are deeply suspicious of Pakistan, Karzai said.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan Monday hosted four-country talks aimed at luring the Afghan Taliban back to the negotiating table with the Kabul government, even as the insurgents wage an unprecedented winter campaign of violence.

The talks in Islamabad, announced in December 2015, came as the Taliban’s insurgency intensifies, particularly in the country’s south, testing the capacity of Afghanistan’s overstretched military and placing pressure on Pakistan to rein in its one-time proxies.

The delegations were led by Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister Hekmat Khalil Karzai, Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry, US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Ambassador Richard Olson, and China’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Ambassador Deng Xijun.

“The participants emphasised the immediate need for direct talks between representatives of the government of Afghanistan and representatives from Taliban groups in a peace process that aims to preserve Afghanistan’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity,” a joint statement said after the meeting.

“The group would hold discussions on a roadmap at its next meeting to be held on January 18 in Kabul,” it said.

Some analysts hope the added presence of China and the United States may help overcome mistrust between Kabul and Islamabad, though it remains unclear when the Taliban themselves will return to the negotiating table.

They are not part of this week’s talks.

“The primary objective of the reconciliation process is to create conditions to bring the Taliban groups to the negotiation table and offer them incentives that can persuade them to move away from using violence,” said Sartaj Aziz, Pakistan’s top foreign affairs official, as he opened the talks.

The so-called “roadmap” talks are meant to lay the groundwork for direct dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban, whose bloody insurgency shows no signs of abating more than 14 years after they were ousted from power by a US-led coalition.

Pakistan was among three countries that recognised the Taliban’s 1996-2001 regime and it is widely seen as wielding influence over them today.

Aziz cautioned against “unrealistic targets and deadlines” and hinted it was unlikely major breakthroughs would be announced soon.

“Keeping in view the sensitive nature of the group’s work, it should be our endeavour to keep the work of this group out of media glare, as much as possible,” he said.

Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Centre, said the discussions gave “cautious hope” that peace negotiations can soon begin again in earnest.

Taliban infighting

A first round of dialogue with the Taliban themselves was held in July 2015 but collapsed after the group belatedly confirmed their leader Mullah Omar was dead.

The news sparked infighting between senior Taliban leaders and the group’s new chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour, which in turn led to the creation of a new faction headed by Mohamed Rasool in November 2015.

Mansour himself was shot and wounded near the Pakistani city of Quetta in December, apparently by one of his own men, according to sources with the group.

A senior Taliban source from Mansour’s faction told AFP that Pakistan had been in touch with Taliban leaders, but the group was waiting to see whether their rivals from Rasool’s faction were also likely to attend future talks.

“As far as I know, the Taliban leadership is willing to attend any such meeting in the future but we will also see which other Afghan group or a Taliban splinter group will be invited for these proposed peace talks,” he said.

Rahimullah Yousufzai, an expert on the group, termed the talks an “important development”, adding the presence of the US and China provided extra weight.

But he cautioned: “The Taliban have not yet showed their willingness to talk. They said their first priority is to end their differences. In my opinion the splinter Rasool group will come but the presence of Mansour’s group is very important, so let us wait to see how they react.”

But despite the internal rifts and the onset of winter, when the Taliban traditionally break off fighting, the insurgents are still staging brazen attacks.

In September 2015, they briefly seized the northern provincial capital of Kunduz, and in recent weeks they have seized large swathes of the key opium-rich district of Sangin in the southern province of Helmand, their traditional stronghold.

Observers say the intensifying fighting highlights a push by the militants to gain greater concessions during any future direct talks.

BERLIN — A string of attacks on women in Cologne on New Year's Eve blamed largely on foreigners was "intolerable", Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said Monday, but "nothing excuses" retaliatory assaults on immigrants.

Merkel has proposed making it easier to deport immigrants involved in crimes, and her spokesman Steffen Seibert emphasised the government is looking into both "possible consequences for criminal law [and] possible political consequences for the intolerable crimes".

But after Cologne police said a group of Pakistanis and a Syrian were attacked in the city on Sunday, Seibert said Germans must not blame all the nearly 1.1 million migrants who entered the country last year, and said the government is also focused on their welfare.

"We're doing all of these things to protect the population in Germany," he said. "We are also doing this for the great majority of innocent refugees who have sought refuge from bombs and war in our country, and who should get this protection and who are prepared to adapt to the rules and values in our country."

The six Pakistani nationals were attacked Sunday by around 20 people and two of them were briefly admitted to a hospital, police said. Also Sunday evening, five people attacked a Syrian man, who was injured but didn't need treatment.

Police official Norbert Wagner said authorities are treating those attacks as anti-foreigner crimes and believe that assailants arranged to meet via social media, news agency dpa reported.

The New Year's Eve assaults stoked tensions over Germany's open-door policy to refugees and prompted politicians to call for tougher laws against migrants who commit crimes.

"As abominable as the crimes in Cologne and other cities were, one thing remains clear: there is no justification for blanket agitation against foreigners," Justice Minister Heiko Maas said, adding that some people "appear just to have been waiting for the events of Cologne”.

Authorities and witnesses said the New Year's Eve attackers were among a group of about a thousand people, described as predominantly Arab and North African men, who gathered at Cologne's central train station. Some broke off into small groups and groped and robbed women, police said.

Maas has said German authorities need to quickly determine whether the assaults were coordinated or were linked to similar offences in other cities including Hamburg. Incidents also were reported in Sweden and Finland.

North Rhine-Westphalia state police told lawmakers Monday, however, that so far their investigation had found no indication the Cologne attacks were coordinated, or linked to others, dpa reported.

Cologne police say 516 criminal complaints have now been filed with them in connection to the New Year's attacks. About 40 per cent involve allegations of sexual offenses.

Cologne's police drew criticism both for their response and for their slowness to release information. Police chief Wolfgang Albers was dismissed Friday by North Rhine-Westphalia state's interior minister, Ralf Jaeger.

At a session Monday of the state legislature's home affairs committee, Jaeger said Cologne police hadn't called in reinforcements who were offered.

Of the 19 suspects identified by name by Cologne police, 10 were asylum seekers and the other nine were believed to be in Germany illegally, according to a report Jaeger submitted to the committee. None was registered as living in Cologne, and four are now in custody for robberies committed during the New Year events.

Separately, 32 suspects have been identified by federal police, who have jurisdiction over the Cologne train station security, the interior ministry said. They include 22 asylum seekers but also three Germans and an American, among others.

In Sweden, where police are also investigating New Year's Eve assaults in the city of Kalmar, police confirmed reports there had also been widespread sexual assaults at a music festival in Stockholm last summer. Stockholm police spokesman Varg Gyllander refused to give the nationality of the suspects, but did say "this involves young men who are not from Sweden".

In a separate incident in Germany, police said Sunday that a Syrian and an Afghan were arrested in northern Germany on suspicion of attacking and robbing a French man who was wearing a Jewish skullcap at the Puttgarden ferry port. The incident happened on Saturday, and the two men had been denied entry to Denmark the previous day.

SEOUL — The United States deployed a B-52 bomber on a low-level flight over its ally South Korea on Sunday, a show of force following North Korea’s nuclear test last week.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un maintained that Wednesday’s test was of a hydrogen bomb and said it was a self-defensive step against a US threat of nuclear war.

North Korea’s fourth nuclear test angered both China, its main ally, and the United States, although the US government and weapons experts doubt the North’s claim that the device was a hydrogen bomb.

The massive B-52, based in Guam and capable of carrying nuclear weapons, could be seen in a low flight over Osan Air Base at around noon (0300 GMT). It was flanked by two fighter planes, a US F-16 and a South Korean F-15, before returning to Guam, the US military said in a statement.

Osan is south of Seoul and 77km from the Demilitarised Zone that separates the two Koreas. The flight was “in response to recent provocative action by North Korea”, the US military said.

In Washington, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonald said on Sunday the flight underscored to South Korea “the deep and enduring alliance that we have with them”.

“Last night was a step toward reassurance in that regard and that was important,” McDonough said on CNN’s “State of the Union”.

He said the United States would continue to work with China and Russia, as well as allies Japan and South Korea, to isolate the North until it lives up to its commitments to get rid of its nuclear weapons.

“Until they do it they’ll remain where they are, which is an outcast unable to provide for their own people,” he said.

After the North’s last test, in 2013, the United States sent a pair of nuclear-capable B-2 stealth bombers over South Korea. At the time, the North responded by threatening a nuclear attack on the United States.

The United States is also considering sending a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to waters off the Korean peninsula next month to join a naval exercise with Seoul, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported without identifying a source. However, US forces and Korean officials said they had no knowledge of the plan.

The two Koreas remain in a technical state of war after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, and the United States has about 28,500 troops based in South Korea.

An editorial in the North’s Rodong Sinmun newspaper on Sunday called for a peace treaty with the United States, which is the North’s long-standing position. “Only when a peace treaty is concluded between the DPRK [North Korea] and the US can genuine peace settle in the Korean Peninsula,” state news agency KCNA quoted it as saying.

The United States and China have both dangled the prospect of better relations, including the lifting of sanctions, if North Korea gives up its nuclear weapons.

Earlier on Sunday, KCNA quoted Kim as saying no one had the right to criticise the North’s nuclear tests.

“The DPRK’s H-bomb test is a self-defensive step for reliably defending the peace on the Korean Peninsula and the regional security from the danger of nuclear war caused by the US-led imperialists,” it quoted Kim as saying.

“It is the legitimate right of a sovereign state and a fair action that nobody can criticise,” he said.

MEXICO CITY — A secretive meeting that Hollywood star Sean Penn orchestrated with Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman in a jungle hideout late last year helped Mexico’s government catch the world’s most wanted drug lord, sources said.

Guzman, the infamous boss of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested in northwest Mexico on Friday morning, and sent back to the prison he broke out of in July 2015, through kilometres long tunnel that led straight into his cell.

Mexico aims to extradite Guzman to the United States as soon as possible.

Penn’s rare access to the capo was assisted by Mexican actress Kate del Castillo. They were driven some of the way to the hideout by Guzman’s son, who the Hollywood star says was waved on by soldiers when they apparently recognised him.

Another leg of the day-long trip through central Mexico to meet Guzman was on a light aircraft allegedly fitted with equipment to evade radar detection, Penn said in a story published in Rolling Stone magazine on Saturday.

Penn said in the article that he was sure the Mexican government and the US Drug Enforcement Administration was tracking him.

Two senior Mexican government sources said they were indeed aware of the October meeting and monitored his movements.

That helped lead them days later to a ranch where Guzman was staying, one of the sources said. Mexican forces used helicopter gunships to attack Guzman’s ranch during a siege that lasted days.

The kingpin narrowly escaped, with what he told Del Castillo was a minor leg injury, but the raid in the northern state of Durango was a major breakthrough in the manhunt.

Guzman was finally recaptured on Friday in the northern city of Los Mochis after a bloody action movie-like shootout. Mexican marines pursued the wily kingpin through storm drains before intercepting his getaway in a hijacked car.

Penn’s seven-hour encounter with Guzman came about after Guzman became interested in making a movie of his life when he was inundated with requests from US movie studios following his 2014 capture, the film star said.

Guzman’s lawyer approached Del Castillo about the possibility of making a film but the project was dropped in favour of a magazine interview, Penn said.

Interview

The encounter adds a new twist to the long and larger-than-life career of Guzman, whose nickname “Chapo” means “Shorty”.

Penn unsuccessfully tried to set up a formal follow-up interview. Instead, as Mexican security forces closed in on Guzman, Penn and Del Castillo persuaded him to film a 17-minute tape answering pre-written questions, and ship them the footage.

The video clips show the drug lord in a colourful shirt and black cap at a different hideout, musing about his contribution to the narcotics trade and US consumption. Rolling Stone called it the drug lord’s first-ever interview outside an interrogation.

A senior Obama administration official told television news shows on Sunday morning that Guzman’s boasting about his heroin empire in the interview was “maddening”.

“One thing I will tell you is that this braggadocious action about how much heroin he sends around the world, including the United States, is maddening,” White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said on CNN’s “State of the Union”.

“We see a heroin epidemic, an opioid addiction epidemic, in this country,” McDonough said. “We’re going to stay on top of this with our Mexican counterparts until we get that back in the box. But El Chapo’s behind bars — that’s where he should stay.”

McDonough would not comment on any repercussions for Penn.

The meeting was made possible because Guzman struck up an unlikely friendship with Del Castillo, who herself played a Mexican drug queen in a well-known TV soap.

Mexican Attorney General Arely Gomez on Friday said that the drug boss’ yearning for the silver screen had helped bring him down.

“Another important aspect that helped locate him was discovering Guzman’s intention to have a biographical film made. He contacted actresses and producers, which was part of one line of investigation,” Gomez said.

The meeting with Penn and Del Castillo yielded insight into how Chapo may have continued to conduct business while he was incarcerated. Penn said some of Guzman’s henchmen were certified as lawyers to allow them access to the boss while he was in prison.

Guzman, who has escaped prison twice, himself said he didn’t believe his business had been impacted by his last spell in prison.

Penn said Guzman sent engineers to Germany for three months of training on how to avoid problems when excavating near a low-lying water table beneath the prison where he was being held in order to perfect the audacious escape plan.

Guzman also revealed to Penn that he had once met Colombian Pablo Escobar, perhaps the world’s most notorious cocaine trafficker “at his house. Big house”.

One Mexican government source said authorities were considering whether to investigate Penn and Del Castillo, possibly for money laundering. The source did not explain further.

COLOGNE — German riot police broke up far-right protesters in Cologne on Saturday as they marched against Germany’s open-door migration policy after dozens of asylum seekers were arrested for mass assaults on women on New Year’s Eve.

The attacks, ranging from sexual molestation to theft, shocked Germany, which took in 1.1 million migrants and refugees in 2015 under asylum laws championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, despite fervent opposition.

Shortly before Saturday’s protest began, Merkel hardened her stance towards migrants, promising expulsion for criminals and a reduction in migrant numbers over the longer term to Germany.

Police said around 1,700 people attended the rally organised by the far-right anti-Islam PEGIDA movement, which has seized on the alleged involvement of migrants in the Cologne attacks as proof Merkel’s policy is flawed.

Demonstrators, some of whom bore tattoos with far-right symbols such as a skull in a German soldier’s helmet, had chanted “Merkel must go” and “this is the march of the national resistance”. “Rapefugees not welcome,” one banner read.

A police spokesman said roughly half of those at the PEGIDA protest were from the “hooligan scene”. Some in the crowd threw bottles and fire crackers at officers, and riot police used water canon to disperse the protesters.

Two people were injured in the clash, and police detained a number of demonstrators, a Reuters witness said.

PEGIDA, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, almost fizzled out last year when its leader resigned after a photo was published of him posing as Adolf Hitler.

But its ranks have swelled as resentment spread of Merkel’s welcoming stance to refugees.

In all, about 1,700 police officers were on the streets of Cologne, dwarfing the number on duty during the chaotic scenes of New Year’s Eve when at least 120 women were robbed or sexually molested.

“The events on New Year’s Eve led to a lot of emotion,” said a police spokesman. “We had feared that emotions would boil over.”

About 1,300 people attended a rival left-wing protest in Cologne, according to police.

“No means no. Keep away from our bodies,” read one sign held by one of the demonstrators, most of them women.

‘We can do it’

Merkel’s remarks on Saturday were in stark contrast to her earlier optimism about the influx to Germany, which has taken in far more migrants than any other European country.

Her “we can do it” slogan irritated many Germans, uneasy about the mass arrival.

“The right to asylum can be lost if someone is convicted, on probation or jailed,” Merkel said after a meeting of the leadership of her Christian Democrats (CDU) Party that was overshadowed by the attacks in Cologne and other cities.

“Serial offenders who repeatedly rob or repeatedly affront women must feel the full force of the law,” Merkel told journalists in Mainz.

Under German law, asylum seekers are now typically only deported if they have been sentenced to at least three years in prison, and providing their lives are not at risk at home.

Merkel’s conservative party said it wanted to reduce and control migration to Germany, and send those who had been refused asylum home promptly. Such a move would require a change to German law.

“Cologne changed everything,” Volker Bouffier, one of the conservative party’s most senior members, told the meeting, according to people present.

Earlier in the week, German federal police said they had identified 32 people who were suspected of playing a role in the attacks on women on Cologne, 22 of whom were in the process of seeking asylum in Germany.

They documented 76 criminal acts, most them involving some form of theft, and seven linked to sexual molestation.

Of the suspects, nine were Algerian, eight Moroccan, five Iranian, and four Syrian. Three German citizens, an Iraqi, a Serb and a US citizen were also identified.

Similar assaults happened in other cities such as Frankfurt.

MEXICO CITY — Betrayed by his desire to make a biopic, Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was back Saturday in the prison he escaped from six months ago, amid calls to extradite him to the US.

The world's most wanted drug baron was arrested in a military raid early Friday that left five suspects dead in Los Mochis, a coastal city in his native northwestern state of Sinaloa.

Hours later, the Sinaloa cartel kingpin was flown in a military helicopter from Mexico City to the Altiplano maximum-security prison, the scene of his daring July 11 escape some 90 kilometres west of the capital.

On July 11, after just 17 months at Altiplano, Guzman slipped through a hole in his cell's shower, climbed on a motorcycle mounted on rails, and travelled 1.5 kilometres through a tunnel to freedom.

But six months later, Guzman was back in the prison after authorities located him, in part because the kingpin wanted to make a biographical film about himself, according to Attorney General Arely Gomez.

Gomez said an "important aspect that allowed us to locate him was that we discovered Guzman's intention to make a biographical film, for which he established contact with actresses and producers".

"The follow-up work allowed us to document meetings between attorneys of the now-detainee and these people," she said, adding that the matter was under investigation.

Another tunnel escape

The manhunt led to his recapture, which featured one last underground escape for the man who became known as "The Lord of Tunnels" for his ability to ship drugs to the US under the border and dig his way out of trouble.

Guzman was nearly captured in the mountain region in October, but marines chasing him in a helicopter decided not to shoot because he was accompanied by two women and a girl, Gomez said.

The months-long investigation culminated in a house in Los Mochis, which authorities began to stake out in December.

Marines were met by gunfire when they swooped in on Friday, leaving five suspects dead and one marine wounded. Six others were detained in the operation.

Guzman and his security chief fled through the city's drainage system, repeating a tactic the drug kingpin successfully used in escaping authorities in 2014 in the nearby city of Culiacan. This time however the marines expected such a move, Gomez said.

The wanted men came out of a manhole and stole a car, but they were captured on a road and taken to a motel, where Guzman was seated on a bed, wearing a dirty sleeveless shirt — an ignominious end for a kingpin whose billionaire drug business reaches as far as Asia and Europe.

Extradition calls

The 58-year-old's arrest provided a major sigh of relief for President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose administration was humiliated when Guzman broke out of prison.

"Mission accomplished: We got him," Pena Nieto wrote on Twitter.

But calls quickly mounted among US politicians for Mexico to ship Guzman to the United States, where he also faces charges in half a dozen of US states. The Americans had sent an extradition request two weeks before his July escape.

Some questioned Mexico's ability to hold on to Guzman, who previously escaped from another maximum-security prison in 2001 by hiding in a laundry cart with inside help.

More than a dozen of prison and federal police officials have been arrested on charges of helping Guzman flee again last year, along with several associates of the drug lord who worked from the outside on building the tunnel.

"Given that 'El Chapo' has already escaped from Mexican prison twice, this third opportunity to bring him to justice cannot be squandered," said US senator and Republican presidential hopeful Marco Rubio.

Senator John McCain congratulated Mexico's navy for the capture, but he added: "Now let's extradite him to the US."

President Barack Obama's administration did not indicate whether it would press Pena Nieto to send Guzman across the border.

US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said Guzman will "now have to answer for his alleged crimes”, without indicating where.

The Mexican attorney general's office secured an extradition warrant in September, but Guzman's attorneys sought an injunction that could delay the process.

But a leading Mexican politician, Senator Miguel Barbosa of the leftist opposition Democratic Revolution Party, is already opposing an extradition.

"The easiest thing would be to swiftly extradite 'Chapo' Guzman and, once again, the Mexican state shows that it doesn't have the strength to punish those who commit crimes in our territory," Barbosa said.