The U.S. defense budget to be proposed next month by President Barack Obama will cut military spending five percent to $525 million, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

The fiscal 2013 budget proposal will show the first decline since the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the base Pentagon budget, which excludes operations in conflicts such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

Police in China shot dead more protesters in Tibetan-inhabited areas as unrest spread, official media and an advocacy group said Wednesday, amid signs of a physical and virtual lockdown on the region.

China's Sichuan province, which has big populations of ethnic Tibetans, many of whom complain of severe repression, has been rocked by violent clashes this week -- some of the worst since huge protests against Chinese rule in 2008.

The United States said Monday that a European Union embargo on Iran's oil exports and other sanctions are "another strong step" to raise pressure on Tehran to curb its nuclear ambitions.

The EU agreed on an immediate ban on oil imports and a gradual phase-out of existing contracts between now and July 1. They also froze the assets of the country's central bank, but allowed for "legitimate trade" to continue.

Protestors linked to the "Occupy" movement apparently threw a smoke bomb over the White House fence on Tuesday, capping a day of protests in Washington, the Secret Service said.

No arrests were made after demonstrators from the Occupy DC group marched on the White House, and protesters were peacefully dispersed, as officers dealt with the device, a Secret Service spokesman said.

Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents warned Thursday that their support of peace talks did not mean they had given up fighting or accepted the constitution of the "stooge" government in Kabul.

The comments came as the United States announced that it would send a senior official to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai next week to see whether he agrees to a resumption of preliminary talks with the Taliban.

The United States on Wednesday denied that it was to blame for the killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist by a car bomb, after Tehran said Washington and Israel were responsible for the attack.

"The United States had absolutely nothing to do with this. We strongly condemn all acts of violence, including acts of violence like this," said National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor.

The United States said Thursday it had sent a "strong message" to the Gulf region, as tensions rise with Iran, by signing a $29.4 billion deal to provide F-15 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.

The deal, which was signed over the weekend, will supply 84 new Boeing F-15SA aircraft and modernize 70 existing planes and include munitions, spare parts, training and maintenance contracts, U.S. officials said.

U.S. officials suspect that Yemen fed them false intelligence for a 2010 strike against al-Qaida suspects that killed a local leader locked in a dispute with the president's family, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

The disclosure of such an incident would complicate relations between the two allies at a time when Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is seeking to visit the United States amid months of popular protests demanding his ouster.

An Iraqi Shiite militia group behind the kidnap of a British consultant and his four bodyguards, and blamed for the killing of U.S. troops, said on Monday it would join the political process.

Qais al-Khazali, leader of Asaib Ahel al-Haq or League of the Righteous, said the departure of American forces a week ago meant violent "resistance" was no longer required.

A war of words is heating up between Hizbullah and Washington, with allegations and counter-allegations flying between the two foes as the crisis in Syria takes its toll on the Shiite group.

The cold war between Iranian- and Syrian-backed Hizbullah and the United States runs back decades.