Updated at 1:37 p.m. ET: SOFIA, Bulgaria -- A bombing that killed at least seven people and injured dozens on a bus full of Israeli tourists was most likely a suicide attack, Bulgarian officials said Thursday. The suspected attacker was carrying a fake Michigan driver's license, they added.

Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said the suspect appeared on security camera tape near the bus for nearly an hour before the attack that gutted the airport in Burgas, a popular gateway for tourists visiting the Black Sea coast

"We have established there was a person who was a suicide bomber in this attack (on Wednesday)," Tsvetanov told reporters. "This person had a fake driving license from the United States, from the state of Michigan. He looked like anyone else -- a normal person with Bermuda shorts and a backpack."

Bulgarian media reported Thursday that former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mehdi Ghezali was believed to be the suicide bomber. However, U.S. intelligence officials later denied the reports.

Video footage showed the suspect wearing checked shorts and a blue T-shirt. He appeared to be Caucasian with long dark curly shoulder-length hair under a dark blue baseball cap. 

The bomber was said to be 36 years old and had been in the country for between four and seven days before the attack, Reuters reported.

Officials are still trying to determine how the alleged bomber triggered the explosion. 

"He either had turned with his backpack toward the bus when he exploded it or pretended he was one of the group putting his backpack in the baggage compartment under the bus," according to a Bulgarian official with knowledge of the investigation who spoke with the New York Times.  "Video footage clearly shows him in the airport earlier wandering back and forth, following the group, looking nervous."

Authorities had managed to obtain DNA samples from the fingers of the suspected bomber, Tsvetanov said.

Officials did not release the name that appeared on the fake driver's license. 

Prime Minister Boiko Borisov added: "We worked on this with colleagues from the FBI and CIA. They said that there is no such person in their database."

According to the Associated Press, officials lowered the death toll to seven, including the suspected bomber, after mistakenly reporting that someone had died overnight.

Bulgarian security services had received no indications of a pending attack. However, Israel accused Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants of responsibility.

Iran denied it was behind Wednesday's bombing.

Mangled metal
The tourists had just arrived in Bulgaria on a charter flight from Israel and were on the bus in the airport parking lot when the blast tore through the double-decker. Body parts were strewn across the ground, mangled metal hung from the vehicle's ripped roof and black smoke billowed over the airport.

"It felt like an earthquake and then I saw flying pieces of meat," said Georgi Stoev, an airport official. "It was horrible, just like in a horror movie."

On Thursday, the airport in Burgas -- a city of some 200,000 people at the center of a string of seaside resorts -- remained closed and police prevented people from approaching.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak accused the Tehran-backed Lebanese Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah of carrying out the bombing. "The immediate executors are Hezbollah people, who of course have constant Iranian sponsorship," Barak told Israel Radio.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said Iran, the Jewish state's arch-enemy, was behind the attack and that "Israel will react powerfully against Iranian terror."

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev linked the arrest of a foreigner in Cyprus earlier this month on suspicion of plotting an attack on Israeli tourists there with the Bulgaria bombing.

"The suspect who was arrested in Cyprus, in his interrogation, revealed an operational plan that is almost identical to what happened in Bulgaria. He is from Hezbollah ... this is a further indication of Hezbollah and Iran's direct responsibility," he told Reuters.

Bangkok blasts wound Iranian attacker, 4 others

The blast occurred on the 18th anniversary of a bomb attack at the headquarters of Argentina's main Jewish organisation that killed 85 people and the Argentine government blamed on Iran, which denied responsibility.

BGNES via AFP - Getty Images

Smoke rises over Burgas airport following a Wednesday's blast.

Israeli officials had previously said that Bulgaria, a popular holiday destination for Israeli tourists, was vulnerable to attack by Islamist militants who could infiltrate via Turkey.

Israeli diplomats have been targeted in several countries in recent months by bombers who Israel said struck on behalf of Iran.

'Inexcusable'
Although Tehran has denied involvement, some analysts believe it is trying to avenge the assassinations of several scientists from its nuclear program that the Iranians have blamed on Israel and its Western allies.

Israel and Western powers fear Iran is working towards a nuclear bomb but it says its uranium enrichment work is strictly for peaceful ends. Both Israel and the United States have not ruled out military action against Iranian nuclear facilities.

"The attack is terrible and inexcusable," said German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle. "It is a time to act responsibly. We have no information of our own. We urge caution in starting to assign blame."

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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MAINZ, Germany -- More than 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the U.S. military is fighting a new battle in Europe.

Their enemies? Drug-runners, weapons smugglers and human traffickers.

The Joint Interagency Counter Trafficking Center (JICTC) is a task force based at U.S. European Command (EUCOM) in the picturesque rolling hills of southern Germany.

It helps U.S. government agencies and their international counterparts confront the criminal groups behind the illicit trade in narcotics, guns and people.

'Dismantle the drug flow'
U.S. and European officials say the drug business bankrolls many terrorist and criminal organizations. Last year, the Obama administration launched a new strategy to combat "transnational organized crime."

Europe is an attractive location for the narcotics trade. Experts say that cocaine sells for four to five times its U.S. street value and consumption has been on the rise in central Europe.

"This is not 'Miami Vice' in Europe," Brig. Gen. Mark Scraba, director of JICTC, told NBC News. "But our organization is being modeled off of the Joint Interagency Task Force South, out of Key West Florida, which has been in existence for about 25 years, with focus on South America, where they team with law enforcement officials to disrupt and dismantle the drug flow going into the United States.

"One of the big issues in Europe is that the volume of cocaine consumption has doubled between 2009 and 2011."

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A U.S. government fact sheet released last year highlighted that "29 of the 63 top drug trafficking organizations identified by the Department of Justice had links to terrorist organizations."

According to the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime's 2011 World Drug Report, the Taliban in Afghanistan made more than $150 million in 2009 through the sale of opium. That same year, the U.N. estimated that more than 80 tons of Afghan heroin reached Central and Western Europe, and about another 100 tons transited through Central Asia to Russia.

"Latest statistics show that the global opiate market was valued at $68 billion in 2009 and I have seen recent figures that are far above that," Scraba told NBC News. 

With its 40 staff members, including representatives from the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency, customs and border protection officials and the U.S. Treasury, the JICTC leverages existing military structures from the Patch Barracks in Stuttgart. JICTC was formally established in September.

"We sometimes compare ourselves to a small mom-and-pop shop, but in fact are a very efficient organization, as we have reach-back capabilities and capacities to those far larger U.S. organizations that have a similar focus," Scraba added.

The U.S. military has provided intelligence data, logistical support and non-lethal equipment for counter-trafficking operations for years -- but until recently their primary focuses had been Latin America and Afghanistan.

While actual raids -- as well as searches, seizures and arrests -- are mainly led and conducted by law enforcement agencies, the U.S. military's air and maritime surveillance capabilities help to monitor and detect suspected traffickers.

"I wouldn't say that it's a military role, what it is is a security role," Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, commander of the U.S. Army in Europe, told NBC News. "It's a combination of military and police."

$250M cocaine seizure
Beyond offering traditional heavy military assets and providing intelligence, basic training measures for partner nations' forces have also had an impact.

In 2010, when EUCOM was in the early stages of its counter-trafficking efforts, a Ukrainian customs officer played a major role in the seizure of nearly 4400 pounds of cocaine. His involvement came only a month after returning from search-and-seizure training in the U.S.

Following intensive cooperation between Ukrainian border control and numerous U.S. agencies, several people were arrested off the coast of Odessa. Authorities confiscated cocaine with a total street value of an estimated $250 million.

"By confiscating product headed for the higher-yield European market, we also denied a large source of income for South American cocaine dealers that supply the U.S. market," EUCOM’s Capt. John Ross added.

Experts say that the economic crisis in Europe and the aftermath of Arab Spring revolutions are also fueling security concerns.

"As we see regimes in Northern Africa collapse and are confronted with other instable political environments, we can suspect that a significant portion of weapons, for example, will be seized by criminal groups," said Valentina Soria, a counter-terrorism and security expert from Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

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Officials say drug trafficking hot spots include Turkey and the Balkans, while weapons are often smuggled via the Baltic States and Northern Africa.

In October 2010, Moroccan officials dismantled a drug trafficking network that was linked to Colombian drug cartels and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). According to the Moroccan government, al-Qaida provided logistical support and transportation to dozens of cocaine traffickers in the network.

"We have seen this toxic brew in other regions in Africa," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said at a February conference dedicated to the fight against transnational crime, drug-trafficking and terrorism in West Africa and the Sahel zone. "As West Africa remains a transit point for drug traffickers between South America and Europe, the potential for instability will continue to grow." 

However, Scraba warmed the magnitude of the threat could potentially be higher.

"What keeps us up at night is a drug trafficker who has a very established drug route that was built over years and built on patronage of many in-between guys," Scraba said. "[What] if that criminal is then approached by an organization or a network that wants to traffic a weapon of mass destruction, but does not have an established route to get that weapon of mass destruction to its target? It could be downtown London, it could be downtown New York."

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Global overall confidence in and attitudes toward the United States have slipped since the beginning of President Barack Obama's presidency, a new survey of 21 countries by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project showed.

But while confidence in Obama -- and with it the United States -- fell, people in a large number of countries continued to say they were confident in the president's foreign policy leadership, according to the poll. This did not hold true among many in predominantly Muslim countries, among them key American allies. 

In Europe, favorable attitudes toward the United States fell seven points from 2009 to 60 percent in 2012, and 10 points in Muslim countries, to 15 percent. 

Confidence in Obama himself in Europe declined six points during the same period to a still-robust 80 percent. But the study showed fewer than three-in-ten in Egypt, Tunisia, Turkey and Jordan expressed confidence in Obama.

Confidence in Obama plummeted 24 points to 38 percent in China.

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Since Bush, a 'real improvement'
Opinions about the United States were not close to historic lows, however, according to Richard Wike, associate director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

"It is worth keeping in mind when talking about Obama and America's image, he is still considerably higher than during (the presidency of George W.) Bush," Wike said. "In 2009, we generally saw a real improvement in America's image (and) in general that pattern still holds."

Read the Pew report here

With Obama's presidency, the biggest improvements in the United States' image occurred among Europeans, with people in France, Spain, and Germany registering a positive view of the U.S. that is at least 20 percentage points higher than in 2008, the study showed.

Opinions about the United States also got a big boost in Japan, where 72 percent expressed a favorable opinion of the country, up from 50 percent four years ago. America's image in Japan improved dramatically in 2011, thanks in large part to relief efforts following the March earthquake and tsunami that devastated parts of that country.

But a major sore point for many was the United States' ongoing drone-strikes policy. In 17 of 20 countries surveyed, more than half disapproved of American drone attacks targeting extremists in countries such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

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About a year after he ordered the Abbottabad raid that killed Osama bin Laden, just seven percent of Pakistanis have a positive view of Obama, the same percentage that voiced confidence in President George W. Bush during the final year of his administration. 

"Obama's effect that we've seen on America's image in much of the world really hasn't happened in many of the predominantly Muslim countries that we survey," Wike said. 

Another shift in opinion came with the world's view of China in the economic balance of power. Among the 14 countries surveyed each year from 2008 to 2012, 45 percent said the U.S. was the world's top economic power in 2008, while just 22 percent said China. Today, only 36 percent said the U.S. was the leading economic power, while 42 percent said it was China.

The Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project surveyed 26,000 people in 21 countries from March 17 to April 20.

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LONDON -- An American self-defense expert -- who teaches people how to deal with "kill-or-be-killed" situations -- has been banned from entering Britain. Officials say Tim Larkin's presence "was not conducive to the public good."

Larkin attempted to board a flight to the U.K. from Las Vegas, but was given a letter from the U.K. Border Agency saying he would not be allowed in, according to BBC News.

"The home secretary [the U.K. government's interior minister] will seek to exclude an individual if she considers that his or her presence in the U.K. is not conducive to the public good," a government spokesperson told the BBC, confirming Larkin was subject to an exclusion order.

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Larkin, who runs a company called Target Focus Training, previously came to the U.K. in 2009, when he taught a class to teach people how to "maim and kill in self-defense," the BBC reported.

Trains Navy SEALs
According to his firm's website, Larkin is "the guy operations like the US Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces and the U.S. Border Patrol call in behind-the-scenes to teach them when it’s 'kill-or-be-killed.' The truth is … your best self defense in a life-or-death confrontation is injuring the other guy. And it’s the one thing that makes us so different."

Larkin has spoken to government officials and business people in more 40 countries about surviving life-or-death violence, according to the website. He also co-authored a book called How To Survive The Most Critical 5 Seconds Of Your Life and writes an online newsletter, Secrets For Staying Alive When Rules Don’t Apply.

The U.K.'s Guardian newspaper ran an online poll about the decision to prevent Larkin from coming to Britain. At 10:15 a.m. ET, more than 72 percent of those choosing to vote said he should have not have been banned.

The BBC said Larkin had been invited to speak at "The Martial Arts Show" conference in Birmingham on May 12 and 13, and to hold a seminar in the Tottenham area of London. Both places experienced rioting during widespread disorder in the U.K. in August last year.

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Larkin told the BBC that he thought he had been banned for arguing that U.K. law should be changed to allow people to defend themselves without fear of criminal charges being brought against them.

"You are sitting in your house and you're being attacked, or you're attacked out in the street... There's an awful lot of martial arts and self-defense being taught there right now that gives no instruction on [how to hurt] the human body," he said.

The science of the London riots

"There are those rare, rare black swan occasions -- like the [August] riots -- where law-abiding citizens are put in situations where they are facing grievous bodily harm and they hesitate because they are afraid of being prosecuted. That is a very real thing," he added.

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Amanda Knox, left, is comforted by her sister, Deanna Knox, during a news conference shortly after her arrival at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Oct. 4, 2011.

Amanda Knox's Italian lawyer has filed an appeal of her slander conviction in Italy, a family spokesman said Monday.

In October, an Italian appeals court overturned the young Seattle woman's murder conviction in the 2007 death of her British roommate in Perugia. But the same court upheld Knox's conviction for slander — for falsely accusing bar owner Diya "Patrick" Lumumba of involvement in the slaying.

Lumumba was freed after two weeks in prison for lack of evidence.

Knox later said she was "manipulated" during her lengthy police interrogation.

Amanda Knox 'loves Italy' and might return

An appeal of the slander conviction was filed Monday, Knox family spokesman Dave Marriott confirmed. He doesn't know when the Italian court might consider it.

Knox returned to Seattle after her murder conviction was overturned. The former exchange student had been in custody since 2007.

In its ruling last fall, the Italian appeals court also acquitted Knox's then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, in the murder of Meredith Kercher.

A third defendant, Ivory Coast-born drifter Rudy Guede, was convicted in a separate trial of sexually assaulting and stabbing Kercher. His 16-year prison sentence — reduced on appeal from an initial 30 years — was upheld by Italy's highest court in 2010.

In a lengthy court document explaining the ruling that cleared Knox and Sollecito, presiding appeals court Judge Claudio Pratillo Hellmann wrote that Knox implicated Lumumba after hours of intense police questioning because "she was convinced that was what the police wanted her to do; to name a guilty person."

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The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Oli Scarff / Getty Images

Rev. Jesse Jackson speaks to Occupy activists outside of London's St. Paul's Cathedral on Thursday.

LONDON -- Veteran activist the Rev. Jesse Jackson compared the global anti-capitalist movement to the U.S. civil rights struggle, the battle against apartheid in South Africa and the fight for Indian independence during a visit to an Occupy camp in London on Thursday.

"Jesus was an Occupier, born under a death warrant, a Jew by religion, born in poverty under Roman occupation," the two-time candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination told a crowd near Saint Paul’s Cathedral. "Gandhi was an Occupier, Martin Luther King was an Occupier, (Nelson) Mandela was an Occupier."

A man dressed in a well-tailored dark wool jacket and crisp checked shirt – not your stereotypical Occupy protester – cried as he watched Jackson. "He is my hero," he said.

While the crowd enthusiastically joined Jackson for a chant, not everybody was supportive and a few heckles punctuated his speech. 

One man who shouted that the Occupy movement wasn't addressing the needs of the homeless was detained before he reached the podium where Jackson was standing.

F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com

John, 34, who has been camped next to London's Saint Paul's Cathedral since Oct. 15, waits for Rev. Jesse Jackson to address Occupy protesters on Thursday.

Another Occupier, who said he's been camped out since the protest began on Oct. 15, said he welcomed Jackson. However, he remained skeptical.

"I have mixed feelings – someone told me he's quite a wealthy person," said John, 34, who declined to give a last name. "You don't know his agenda."

F. Brinley Bruton is a senior writer for msnbc.com based in London

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WASHINGTON - In northern Bucharest, in a busy residential neighborhood minutes from the heart of the capital city, is a secret the Romanian government has long tried to protect.

For years, the CIA used a government building — codenamed "Bright Light" — as a makeshift prison for its most valuable detainees. There it held al-Qaida operatives Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, and others in a basement prison before they were ultimately transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006, according to former U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the location and inner workings of the prison.

The existence of a CIA prison in Romania has been widely reported, but its location has never been made public. The Associated Press and German public television ARD located the former prison and learned details of the facility where harsh interrogation tactics were used. ARD's program on the CIA prison is set to air Thursday.

The Romanian prison was part of a network of so-called black sites that the CIA operated and controlled overseas in Thailand, Lithuania and Poland. All the prisons were closed by May 2006, and the CIA's detention and interrogation program ended in 2009.  

 Unlike the CIA's facility in Lithuania's countryside or the one hidden in a Polish military installation, the CIA's prison in Romania was not in a remote location. It was hidden in plain sight, a couple blocks off a major boulevard on a street lined with trees and homes, along busy train tracks.

• Excerpt: 'Black Banners: The Inside Story of 9/11 and the War Against al-Qaida'

The building is used as the National Registry Office for Classified Information, which is also known as ORNISS. Classified information from NATO and the European Union is stored there. Former intelligence officials both described the location of the prison and identified pictures of the building.

In an interview at the building in November, senior ORNISS official Adrian Camarasan said the basement is one of the most secure rooms in all of Romania. But he said Americans never ran a prison there.

"No, no. Impossible, impossible," he said in an ARD interview for its "Panorama" news broadcast, as a security official monitored the interview.

The CIA prison opened for business in the fall of 2003, after the CIA decided to empty the black site in Poland, according to former U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the detention program with reporters.

Shuttling detainees into the facility without being seen was relatively easy. After flying into Bucharest, the detainees were brought to the site in vans. CIA operatives then drove down a side road and entered the compound through a rear gate that led to the actual prison.

The detainees could then be unloaded and whisked into the ground floor of the prison and into the basement.

Imported Halal meat
The basement consisted of six prefabricated cells, each with a clock and arrow pointing to Mecca, the officials said. The cells were on springs, keeping them slightly off balance and causing disorientation among some detainees.

The CIA declined to comment on the prison.

During the first month of their detention, the detainees endured sleep deprivation and were doused with water, slapped or forced to stand in painful positions, several former officials said. Waterboarding, the notorious interrogation technique that simulates drowning, was not performed in Romania, they said.

• Video: Report: CIA spied on bin Laden for months

After the initial interrogations, the detainees were treated with care, the officials said. The prisoners received regular dental and medical checkups. The CIA shipped in Halal food to the site from Frankfurt, Germany, the agency's European center for operations. Halal meat is prepared under religious rules similar to kosher food.

Former U.S. officials said that because the building was a government installation, it provided excellent cover. The prison didn't need heavy security because area residents knew it was owned by the government. People wouldn't be inclined to snoop in post-communist Romania, with its extensive security apparatus known for spying on the country's own citizens.

Human rights activists have urged the Eastern European countries to investigate the roles their governments played in hosting the prisons in which interrogation techniques such as waterboarding were used. Officials from these countries continue to deny these prisons ever existed.

"We know of the criticism, but we have no knowledge of this subject," Romanian President Traian Basescu said in a September interview with AP.

The CIA has tried to close the book on the detention program, which President Barack Obama ended shortly after taking office.

"That controversy has largely subsided," the CIA's top lawyer, Stephen Preston, said at a conference this month.

'Years of official denials'
But details of the prison network continue to trickle out through investigations by international bodies, reporters and human rights groups. "There have been years of official denials," said Dick Marty, a Swiss lawmaker who led an investigation into the CIA secret prisons for the Council of Europe. "We are at last beginning to learn what really happened in Bucharest."

During the Council of Europe's investigation, Romania's foreign affairs minister assured investigators in a written report that, "No public official or other person acting in an official capacity has been involved in the unacknowledged deprivation of any individual, or transport of any individual while so deprived of their liberty." That report also described several other government investigations into reports of a secret CIA prison in Romania and said: "No such activities took place on Romanian territory."

Reporters and human rights investigators have previously used flight records to tie Romania to the secret prison program. Flight records for a Boeing 737 known to be used by the CIA showed a flight from Poland to Bucharest in September 2003. Among the prisoners on board, according to former CIA officials, were Mohammed and Walid bin Attash, who has been implicated in the bombing of the USS Cole.

• Video: Report: CIA lacks accountability

Later, other detainees — Ramzi Binalshibh, Abd al-Nashiri and Abu Faraj al-Libi — were also moved to Romania. A deceptive al-Libi, who was taken to the prison in June 2005, provided information that would later help the CIA identify Osama bin Laden's trusted courier, a man who unwittingly led them the CIA to bin Laden himself.

 Court documents recently discovered in a lawsuit have also added to the body of evidence pointing to a CIA prison in Romania. The files show CIA contractor Richmor Aviation Inc., a New York-based charter company, operated flights to and from Romania along with other locations including Morocco and the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

For the CIA officers working at the secret prison, the assignment wasn't glamorous. The officers served 90-day tours, slept on the compound and ate their meals there, too. Officers were prevented from the leaving the base after their presence in the neighborhood stoked suspicion. One former officer complained that the CIA spent most of its time baby-sitting detainees like Binalshibh and Mohammed whose intelligence value diminished as the years passed.

The Romanian and Lithuanian sites were eventually closed in the first half of 2006 before CIA Director Porter Goss left the job. Some of the detainees were taken to Kabul, where the CIA could legally hold them before they were sent to Guantanamo. Others were sent back to their native countries.

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MOSCOW -- Police and protesters clashed Tuesday on a central Moscow square as people tried to hold a second day of demonstrations against alleged vote fraud in Russia's parliamentary elections. Protesters in the city of St. Petersburg also broke through police lines.

Hundreds of people have been arrested in the two cities.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's United Russia party saw a significant drop in support in Sunday's election, but it will still have a majority in parliament. Opponents say even that watered-down victory was due to massive vote fraud.

Russia's beleaguered opposition has been energized by the vote, staging its biggest protests in Moscow for years.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated U.S. suggestions that Sunday's election was neither free nor fair. Russia's Foreign Ministry later branded U.S. criticism "unacceptable." Meanwhile, Republican Senator John McCain offered Putin a warning on Twitter: "Dear Vlad, The Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you."

Reuters

Police officers detain an protester during a rally in Moscow on Tuesday. Russia's opposition was energized when Vladimir Putin's ruling party struggled in a weekend election.

Updated at 2:56 p.m. ET: Police said they had detained more than 400 people in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Reuters reports. But police prevented many from joining the Moscow rally and hundreds of pro-Putin youths in blue anoraks tried to spoil it, shouting "The people! Putin" to drown out their chants of "Russia without Putin" and "We want free elections!"

Updated at 12:35 p.m. ET: The Associated Press corrects its previous report, saying its reporter saw "flare-type fireworks," not firebombs in central Moscow.

Updated at 12:20 p.m. ET: About 250 people have been arrested in connection with the downtown Moscow protests, police tell The Associated Press.

• Moscow official: I helped rig Russian election

Updated at 12:18 p.m. ET: At least two firebombs were thrown during demonstrations by both pro-Kremlin and anti-vote fraud protesters in central Moscow, an Associated Press reporter says. It is unclear who threw them or if anyone was hurt, the reporter says.

Updated at 12:10 p.m. ET: Firebombs are thrown during a protest in downtown Moscow, an Associated Press reporter says.

Updated at 12:05 p.m. ET: About 60 opposition supporters were arrested at an unsanctioned demonstration in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia Today reports. Citing news sources and people at the scene, Russia Today says police tried to cordon off the crowd but some people broke through and headed toward the city's legislative assembly building.

Updated at 11:45 a.m. ET: A man being arrested by riot police, who gives his name only as Alexei, tells Reuters, "We want fair elections. Look at what they have done to our country, our Russia."

But Maxim Mishenko, 34, tells the news service, "I don't want the same thing to happen here as in Libya or Syria. There will be no Slavic Spring here in Russia, if I have anything to do with it."

Updated at 11:40 a.m. ET: Russia's Foreign Ministry dismisses U.S. criticism of its parliamentary election as "unacceptable," Reuters reports.

Updated at 11:35 a.m. ET: Reuters reports that police have arrested 100 people in central Moscow. Anti-government protesters chant "Russia without Putin!" and "Freedom!," while pro-government demonstrators try to drown them out with "Russia, Putin!" 

Updated at 11:30 a.m. ET: Anti-corruption blogger Alexei Navalny is sentenced to 15 days in jail for his role in a protest in Moscow Monday, when about 300 people were arrested, Reuters reports.

"There is not a single doubt that my case is under the special control of the party of crooks and thieves," Navalny tells reporters in a courtroom ahead of being charged, referring to the term he uses to describe Putin's United Russia party.

Updated at 11:15 a.m. ET: At least 50 people have been arrested in Moscow amid clashes between police and protesters angry over alleged voter fraud in Russia's parliamentary elections, according to Russia Today. Opposition leaders and well-known bloggers are reportedly among those detained.

Russia Today says that reports on Twitter from people at the scene say there are about 5,000 opposition supporters, 2,000 pro-government youth group members and 1,000 police.

Updated at 11:05 a.m. ET: Russia Today reports a "large group of people" being arrested. It says the riot police presence, backed by water cannon, is "definitely noticeable" in Triumphal Square.

Pro-government supporters are trying to upstage the protest, Russia Today says.

Updated at 11 a.m. ET: The Associated Press reports that hundreds of police had blocked off Triumphal Square, then they began chasing a demonstrators, seizing some and throwing them harshly into police vehicles.

Interfax news agency reports that among the detained was Boris Nemtsov, a leader of the liberal opposition.

Updated at 10:45 a.m. ET: Clashes break out in Moscow between police and people protesting against alleged voting fraud, the Associated Press reports.

Updated at 10:20 a.m. ET: Thousands of police and Interior Ministry troops patrolled central Moscow on Tuesday, an apparent attempt to deter any further protests a day after a rally against vote fraud and corruption caught Russian authorities by surprise.

Late Monday, thousands marched chanting "Russia without Putin!"

On Tuesday evening, hundreds of police cordoned off Triumphal Square, adjacent to the capital's main boulevard, after reports that anti-Putin demonstrators would try to gather there. Hundreds of young men, some wearing emblems of the Young Guards, United Russia's youth wing, also were seen at the square. Police also cordoned off a monument to the 1905 Revolution.

Published at 9 a.m. ET:  An aide to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned Tuesday that police would prevent protesters staging rallies without official permission.

"The actions of those who hold unsanctioned demonstrations must be stopped," spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the day after up to 5,000 Russians protested against the result of Sunday's parliamentary election, which they said was rigged.

Demonstrators at Monday's rally railed against alleged electoral fraud and demanded an end to Putin's rule.

They planned a new protest to press their demands on Tuesday evening, despite the lack of permission from the authorities. Security forces beefed up their presence across the capital in an apparent anticipation of more demonstrations.

PhotoBlog: Post-election protests in Russia 

About 300 people were detained in Monday's rally and police issued a statement on Tuesday saying they would not permit any "provocations" -- a clear warning to the protesters.

'We are not going to stop'
A Moscow court sentenced Ilya Yashin, one of the organizers on Monday's rally, to 15 days in detention. "Of course we will continue protesting," he later told reporters.

"This is no doubt a political decision aimed at intimidating me and my colleagues. We are not going to stop our struggle," he said, adding that his verdict could "arouse even bigger discontent among the people."

Meanwhile, Putin said Tuesday that he was satisfied with the performance of his United Russia party, which lost a significant number of seats and won only a slim majority in parliament. But Sunday's vote points to a change of mood in Russia after years of domination by the former KGB spy and his party, which no longer has quite such an air of invulnerability.

Putin said that a drop in support is "inevitable" for any ruling party.

United Russia won about 50 percent of Sunday's vote, a result that opposition politicians and election monitors said was inflated because of ballot-box stuffing and other vote fraud. It was a significant drop from the 2007 election when the party took 64 percent, gaining a two-thirds majority that allowed it to change the constitution. But Putin said the party had retained a "stable" majority.

"Yes, there were losses, but they were inevitable," he said. "They are inevitable for any political force, particularly for the one which has been carrying the burden of responsibility for the situation in the country."

He promised a reshuffle next year.

"There will be a significant renewal of personnel in the government," Putin told members of his United Russia party.

It was a first overt sign of concern in the upper echelons of power over the election, which loosened United Russia's grip on the State Duma lower house and signaled growing weariness with Putin's 12-year rule, economic problems and corruption.

Clinton calls for probe
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reiterated U.S. suggestions that the election was neither free nor fair after the opposition complained that vote-rigging had inflated support for United Russia.

"Russian voters deserve a full investigation of electoral fraud and manipulation," she added.

Konstantin Kosachev, a senior United Russia member who headed the foreign affairs committee in the outgoing parliament, described Clinton's statement as "one of the darkest pages in the Russian-U.S. relations" and warned Washington against supporting the opposition.

Many Russian political experts have dismissed suggestions that Putin could face an uprising in a country that has little tradition of major street protests, despite the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and where dissent has often been crushed.

But Putin's popularity ratings, although still high, have fallen this year and he upset many Russians by saying he planned to swap jobs with President Dmitry Medvedev after the March presidential election, opening the way for him rule until 2024.

 Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report.