President Barack Obama's campaign slammed his rival's camp Tuesday for going "off the deep end," after a Republican said he wished the U.S. leader "would learn how to be an American."

In a campaign conference call former New Hampshire governor John Sununu, a supporter of Obama's challenger Mitt Romney, made a jibe that risked recalling previous attacks on the incumbent's racial and religious background.

The Pentagon is building a missile defense radar station at a covert location in Qatar, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The site will be part of a system intended to defend the interests of the United States and its allies against Iranian rockets, unnamed U.S. officials told the newspaper.

Seventeen people were wounded, four of them seriously, during a shooting at a bar in the southern U.S. state of Alabama, local media reported Tuesday.

The shooter was still on the loose, WVTM television said, adding that the shooting at the Copper Top Bar in Tuscaloosa left one person in critical condition and another three in serious condition.

Iran on Tuesday insisted that U.S. military deployment in the Gulf is "a source of insecurity", after the fatal shooting of an Indian fisherman by a U.S. navy ship in waters off Dubai.

"When the Islamic republic says that the presence of foreign forces is a source of insecurity, this is a perfect example" of what Iran means, foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters.

Thousands of Pakistani activists shouted "death to America" on Tuesday at the latest rally protesting the lifting of a seven-month blockade on NATO supplies into Afghanistan.

The march was organized by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) political party, a leading member of the Defense of Pakistan coalition of right wing and Islamist groups that have demanded mass protests against the July 3 lifting of the blockade.

Amid tensions over Iran and Syria, the United States has brought forward the deployment of an aircraft carrier to the Middle East to shorten the time when a sole carrier is in the region.

Pentagon spokesman George Little told reporters on Monday that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last week approved a request for the USS John-Stennis strike group to be deployed four months earlier than scheduled.

The U.S. Justice Department has asked for assistance from Beirut authorities on a criminal investigation into a Lebanese man’s announcement of bankruptcy and possible ties to Hizbullah, An Nahar daily reported on Monday.

A copy of the memo was sent by the Department to the Lebanese Foreign Ministry, which asked the Justice Ministry to study it, the newspaper said.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called Sunday for the U.S. to speed up the transfer of weapons to Iraq, which lacks the ability to defend its airspace or borders, six months after American troops withdrew.

The Iraqi premier also pointedly said during a meeting with General James Mattis, the visiting head of U.S. Central Command, that only the central government would decide which arms purchases would be made, in an apparent swipe at Kurdish complaints over the acquisition of F-16 warplanes.

Bahrain announced on Saturday that it had deported U.S. filmmaker Jen Marlowe, accusing her of falsifying her visa application and shooting a documentary without permission.

Marlowe, a Seattle-based documentary filmmaker who arrived in the country around a week ago, told immigration officials that she had come "to help a friend who had recently had a baby," the information affairs authority said.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Saturday reaffirmed Washington's "strong" support for Egypt's democratic transition, after talks with newly-elected President Mohammed Morsi.