BEIRUT - Lebanon's Maronite Catholic bishops underscored their "full confidence" in the country's military and security forces as the Lebanese army battled Islamist militants' incursion into Lebanon near the border with Syria.

DUBLIN - A U.S. al-Qaida official concluded that Catholics were "fertile ground" for conversion, "particularly after the rage expanding against the mother Church (Vatican) as a result of its scandals and policies refused by many of its public."

American al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn wrote Osama bin Laden in January 2011 and laid out reasons for reaching out to Catholics, particularly the Irish. He urged bin Laden to use public anger at the Church's mishandling of clerical abuse to encourage Irish people to convert to Islam, according to newly declassified documents.