>> lee cowan along the syrian border for us this morning. ou, lee. >>> the death of osama bin laden has led to new calls for u.s. troops to speed their withdrawal from afghanistan nearly ten years after they went in. nbc's atia abawi is live for us in kabul. before we talk about the larger war effort, i wanted to ask you what reaction, if any, there is to the news we reported at the top of the hour that al qaeda has released a statement confirming bin laden is dead. >> reporter: well, it's too soon to get a reaction right now from afghan officials on that statement from al qaeda, but we have to also remember that al qaeda has very little to no connection left in afghanistan right now. we have a very different insurgency that our u.s. troops are facing here on the ground. it's more of a fraction nalized, decentralized insurgency who answer to different leaders. this isn't someone that's taking control of the whole operation here in afghanistan. you have different groups throughout the country trying to gain control and at the same time fightin

nbc's lee cowan is on the syrian border with the latest. lee, good morning. >> reporter: good morning. it's shaping up to be another potentially deadly day for those protesting the assad regime in syria. word from across the border indicates at least 1,000 people have gathered in damascus but once again the syrian military has deployed tanks and troops to intimidate those demonstrators or worse. since the uprising began six weeks ago, more than 500 demonstrators have been killed, thousands have been taken into custody, and the most recent is an american reporter from seattle named dorothy parva. she was working for al jazeera english at the time. she arrived about a week ago. no one has seen or heard from her since. syrian authorities say they have her in custody. so far, calls for her release have gone unanswered. natalie? >> lee cowan, thanks so much. >>> now to wall street. mandy drury is at the new york stock exchange. how will the week turn out, do you think? >> it's often billed as the mother of all data but the monthly jobs report is