The Obama administration is stepping up pressure on Pakistan to expand and reorient its fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, warning that failing to do so would undercut the new strategy and troop increase for Afghanistan that President Obama is preparing to approve, American officials say.

While Afghanistan has dominated the public discussion of Mr. Obama's strategy, which officials say could be announced as early as this week, Pakistan is returning to center stage in administration planning. As the president traveled to Asia, his national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, was quietly sent to Islamabad, its capital.

His message, officials said, was that the new American strategy would work only if Pakistan broadened its fight beyond the militants attacking its cities and security forces and went after the groups that use havens in Pakistan for plotting and carrying out attacks against American troops in Afghanistan, as well as support networks for Al Qaeda.

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington's health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation's drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation's drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.

BAGHDAD -- In a massacre that revived memories of Iraq's worst years of sectarian bloodshed, assailants dressed in Iraqi army uniforms savagely killed 13 men and boys late Sunday near the restive city of Abu Ghraib, according to Iraqi officials and villagers.

Most of the victims -- some of whom reportedly were beheaded, while others were shot and then mutilated -- were members of the Awakening, a Sunni Muslim movement that with U.S. backing and funding has fought the terrorist group al Qaida in Iraq.

Residents and security officials said that shortly before midnight, armed men in civilian vehicles raided two villages near Abu Ghraib -- a city to the west of Baghdad that houses a major prison -- took captives to a nearby cemetery named Seyid Mhimmed and killed them.

"I believe they were targeted because they formed Sahwas (Awakening councils) in the area and fought back al Qaida," said Ibraheem Ismail, who described himself as a first cousin of seven of the victims and more distantly related to the rest.

Conditions are ripe for a fresh surge in food prices as the global economy recovers, says the senior United Nations agriculture official.

Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), believes that the world is not doing enough to avert another food crisis. His warning comes as leaders are expected to gather in Rome on Monday for the World Food Summit .

"When the recovery picks up, we will be back to square one," Mr Diouf told the Financial Times in an interview.

He said the same structural problems behind last year's spike in food prices were still affecting the market. These included lack of investment, surging demand in Asia and diversion of food commodities into biofuels.

"We have all the elements of the crisis," he said, adding that a weakening US dollar could exacerbate the upward price pressure in food commodities.