------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Security increased at Lucas Heights nuclear reactor
DOE to develop plan for conversion facilities;
Nuclear Experts Worry About Pakistan
US Accepts India, Pakistan as Nuclear Powers
Nuclear Plants Called Vulnerable to Terrorist Attack

MILITARY
THE largest air armada seen since World War Two
Bin Laden proclaims war on U.S. 'crusade'
For Afghan Fighters, a Tangled Web of Loyalties
Taliban Deploys Its Fighters to Borders
Long-Ignored Afghan Rebels Are Courted by U.S.
NATO Chief in Macedonia to Tackle Peace Pitfalls
U.S. takes precautions against biological attacks
China tests supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles
U.S. Explores Recruiting Iran Into New Coalition
Israel braces for chemical attack from Iraq
Civil war feared in Pakistan
Pakistan May Soften Stand on Afghans Fleeing There
Navy Resumes Vieques Bombing Drills
On Vieques, Islanders Disagree
Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties With Taliban
Hill approves paying to U.N. its back dues, Jordan accord
U.N. to hold special session on terrorism
Taliban threatens to execute UN workers
Senators support base closings

OTHER
Israeli Rights Group Slams Israeli Army Violations
Push for Increased Surveillance Powers Worries Some
National ID Card Push Roils Privacy Advocates
Proposed Anti-Terrorism Laws Draw Tough Questions
Resumes Flood the CIA After Terrorist Attacks
D.C. Outlines Attack Response Plan
Chemical Weapons Training Revealed
Hijackers Linked to Hazardous Waste

ACTIVISTS
Plowshares activist found guilty
More details on "Oboe 8" subcritical nuclear test
Greenpeace Condemns US Vision of Security



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- australia

Security increased at Lucas Heights nuclear reactor

Tue, 25 Sep 2001
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.abc.net.au/news/state/nsw/archive/metnsw-25sep2001-16.htm

Operators of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney have increased security following the attacks in the US.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), says the move follows government advice. ANSTO says a report on what would happen if a plane flew into the reactor was compiled in 1997, when a second Sydney airport was being proposed.

The report concluded that the radiation doses to people beyond the buffer zone would be low.

Dr John Loy, head of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, says in the worst case scenario there could be a substantial release of radioactivity but emergency plans are in place.

"I'd also like to emphasise of course, we don't have any information that says there is a particular threat to the reactor at Lucas Heights," he said.

The airspace above the reactor is always subject to an exclusion zone.


-------- depleted uranium

DOE to develop plan for conversion facilities;
work would be done on depleted uranium hexafluoride

from staff reports,
The Oak Ridger
September 25, 2001
http://www.oakridger.com/ns-search/stories/092501/new_0925010001.html?NS-search-set=/3bb1c/aaaa22151b1cb01&NS-doc-offset=0&

The Department of Energy is planning to prepare an environmental impact statement concerning the construction, operation and eventual closing of two facilities that would be used to convert depleted uranium hexafluoride.

DOE has a legacy of approximately 700,000 metric tons of depleted uranium hexafluoride that was created over the last 40 years. It is contained in 57,700 cylinders stored at DOE facilities at Portsmouth, Ohio, and Paducah, Ky., and at the Oak Ridge K-25 site, according to a DOE press release.

This material was created at each facility during processing to make natural uranium suitable for use as fuel, such as that used in nuclear power plants.

DOE's preferred alternative is to construct two conversion facilities, one at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant site and another at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant site.

The cylinders currently stored at Oak Ridge would be transported to Portsmouth for conversion, the press release stated. The conversion products such as the depleted uranium, as well as fluorine components, would either be stored, put to beneficial uses, or disposed of at an appropriate disposal facility.

DOE is seeking input from the public on its plans during a scoping period that is now under way and extends through Nov. 26.

Community members can provide comments on the plan during a meeting from 6 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, at Oak Ridge Associated Universities' Pollard Auditorium, 210 Badger Ave.

Comments may also be mailed directly to Kevin Shaw, Department of Energy, Office of Environmental Management, Office of Site Closure -- Oak Ridge (EM-32), 19901 Germantown Road, Germantown, MD 20874; faxed to Shaw at (301) 903-3479; or e-mailed to DUF6.comments@em.doe.gov (type "NOI Comments" in the subject line). To ensure consideration, comments must be postmarked, faxed or e-mailed by Nov. 26.

-------- india / pakistan

Nuclear Experts Worry About Pakistan

September 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Nuclear-Worries.html?searchpv=aponline

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The possibility of political instability in Pakistan because of its promised help to the United States following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has nuclear experts worried about the South Asian nation's nuclear arsenal.

Some participants at a Monday seminar of nuclear and arms control experts at the United Nations worried who would control Pakistan's weapons-grade nuclear material if the government collapsed.

``Instability of the regime in Pakistan is worrying,'' said Patricia Lewis, a nuclear physicist who heads the Geneva-based U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research, which organized the seminar. ``If we had genuine democratic control in Pakistan, we might not have the same concerns.''

Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the country's military chief, overthrew a civilian government in a bloodless coup in 1999.

U.S. officials say the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington is Osama bin Laden, the fugitive Saudi millionaire believed to be enjoying the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Musharraf's offer to help the United States is considered key because Pakistan borders Afghanistan and has extensive intelligence on that country's Taliban rulers. However, the Pakistani government's support for Washington has stirred intense opposition at home from anti-American Muslim militants.

Pakistan's U.N. Ambassador Shamshad Ahmad called the concerns about the country's nuclear arsenal ``unwarranted and baseless apprehensions.''

``I can only reject any such concerns because our nuclear command and control system is in very responsible hands,'' he said. ``We are capable of taking care our responsibilities as a nuclear member state.''

Terence Taylor, a retired British army colonel and former U.N. weapons inspector for Iraq who heads the U.S. office of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said he thought the nuclear material was safe for now because it's under military control.

``I think they will keep their arsenal secure, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't worry about it,'' Taylor said.

Protesters in Pakistan have burned effigies of President Bush and vowed to fight U.S. forces if they attack Afghanistan. Bin Laden has called on the Pakistani people to join a jihad, or holy war, against America.

Lewis said some countries may help Pakistan secure its nuclear arsenal at a time of instability. But she also warned that helping Pakistan protect its nuclear arsenal could give legitimacy to those weapons.

Washington has already lifted sanctions on Pakistan and India, two rivals who conducted nuclear tests in 1998. The two countries have fought three wars in as many decades.

Rose Gottemoeller, senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the international community should consider taking nuclear weapons out of Pakistan in case of political turmoil. Gottemoeller estimated Pakistan had enough nuclear material for 20 to 30 warheads.

--------

US Accepts India, Pakistan as Nuclear Powers - Papers

September 25, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-india-sanctions.html?searchpv=reuters

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - The U.S. decision to lift sanctions on India and Pakistan effectively recognizes the two foes as members of the nuclear club and was driven by self-interest, Indian newspapers said on Tuesday.

President Bush said the sanctions, imposed on the two neighbors after they conducted tit-for-tat nuclear tests in 1998, were no longer in the U.S. national security interest in wake of the deadly air attacks in Washington and New York.

The sanctions were lifted after India and Pakistan pledged to cooperate in Bush's war against terrorism.

``The U.S. is no longer interested in hair-splitting about the nuclear order but about combating the menace of terrorism,'' the Hindustan Times said in an editorial. ``It means the status of India and Pakistan as nascent nuclear powers has been recognized.''

The U.S. move to lift sanctions on India had been on the cards amid increasingly warm ties between the two countries which were on opposite sides during the Cold War.

But Washington had given no such signals to Pakistan which it had cold-shouldered, especially since the military coup that brought President Pervez Musharraf to power in 1999.

``When it comes to self-interest, the U.S. will do anything...with breathtaking speed, call it opportunism, call it flexibility,'' the Times of India said in an editorial.

``The rapidity of the decision now to remove all nuclear-related sanctions against Pakistan...shows how Washington's war against terrorism is rearranging its policy priorities in South Asia,'' the Indian Express added.

Indian economists have said the economic impact of the lifting of sanctions would be minimal. But Pakistan has said the move could give a much-needed boost to its struggling economy as it would permit Washington to support multilateral lending to the country.

``Multilateral and bilateral economic assistance will flow more easily and may well rise to generous levels if Pakistan's policymakers do the right thing,'' the Express said.

-------- u.s. nuc facilities

Nuclear Plants Called Vulnerable to Terrorist Attack

By Cat Lazaroff
September 25, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-25-06.html

WASHINGTON, DC, The nation's 103 nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to attack by terrorists, two watchdog groups warned today. The groups charge that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other government entities have failed to impose the security measures needed to prevent a successful attack and avert a potential catastrophe.

Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant is located on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, just 45 miles southeast of Washington DC (All photos courtesy NRC)

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) admitted Friday that it "did not specifically contemplate attacks by aircraft such as Boeing 757s or 767s" - the types of planes used to destroy the 110 story World Trade Center towers and heavily damage the recently fortified Pentagon on September 11.

While the containment buildings that shelter nuclear reactors are able to withstand severe events including hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes, "nuclear power plants were not designed to withstand such crashes," the agency said in a statement. "Detailed engineering analyses of a large airliner crash have not yet been performed."

In a report released today, the Washington based Nuclear Control Institute (NCI) and the Los Angeles based Committee to Bridge the Gap released a recent exchange of letters with NRC chair Richard Meserve. The organizations cited "the extraordinary and unprecedented threat that now exists inside the United States in the wake of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."

They laid out specific proposals for denying terrorists the opportunity to destroy nuclear power plants, including use of National Guard troops to deter attacks from land and water, deployment of advanced anti-aircraft weapons to defeat suicidal attacks from the air, and a thorough re-vetting of all plant employees and contractors to protect against sabotage by insiders.

In addition, the groups called on the NRC to upgrade its security regulations to protect against the larger numbers and the greater sophistication of attackers posed by the new terrorist threat.

The groups said they have made many attempts over the past 17 years to convince the NRC and commercial nuclear plant operators to upgrade their defenses against assaults by terrorist organizations.

NRC chair Richard Meserve

In a brief response to the groups' specific proposals, Meserve stated only that the "Commission is evaluating current requirements and statutory authority relating to acts or threats of terrorism, including but not limited to those that you presented in your letter."

"This is a familiar refrain, and we do not have the luxury of time to allow the NRC and other federal agencies to engage in a prolonged bureaucratic review process," said Paul Leventhal, president of NCI, at a press conference in Washington. "Iran threatened attacks against U.S. reactors as early as 1987, but recent trial testimony has revealed that [terrorist leader Osama] bin Laden's training camps are offering instruction in 'urban warfare' against 'enemies' installations' including power plants."

"It is prudent to assume, especially after the horrific, highly coordinated attacks of September 11, that bin Laden's soldiers have done their homework and are fully capable to attack nuclear plants for maximum effect," Leventhal warned.

Dr. Edwin Lyman, a physicist and NCI's scientific director, pointed out that a direct, high speed hit by a large commercial passenger jet "would in fact have a high likelihood a penetrating a containment building" that houses a power reactor.

"Following such an assault," Lyman said, "the possibility of an unmitigated loss of coolant accident and significant release of radiation into the environment is a very real one."

David Kyd of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN last week that a if a fully fueled large jetliner hit a nuclear reactor, "which is a very extreme scenario, then the containment could be breached and the cooling system of the reactor could be impaired to the point where radioactivity might well be set free."

Used nuclear fuel storage pools, like this one at Calvert Cliffs, could be vulnerable to a meltdown if their water was boiled away or otherwise drained during a terrorist attack

Such a release, whether caused by an air strike, or by a ground or water assault, or by insider sabotage could result in tens of thousands of cancer deaths downwind of the plant. A number of these plants are located near large cities, Lyman noted.

Daniel Hirsch, president of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, underscored the immediate danger by noting that nearly half of the plants tested in NRC supervised security exercises have failed to repel mock terrorist attacks.

"These exercises involve small numbers of simulated attackers compared with the large cell of terrorists now understood to have waged the four sophisticated attacks of September 11," said Hirsch. "The NRC's mock terrorist exercises severely limit the tactics, weapons and explosives used by the adversary, yet in almost half the tests they reached and simulated destruction of safety systems that in real attacks could have caused severe core damage, meltdown and catastrophic radioactive releases."

"Now in response to operator complaints, the NRC is actually preparing to shift responsibility for supervising these exercises to the operators themselves," Hirsch added. "Current events clearly show that nuclear power plant security is too important to be left to industry self assessment."

Representative Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who sent his own letter to Meserve, questioned the NRC's hands off approach, asking why the NRC issued only a recommendation that nuclear power plants go to their highest state of alert on September 11, rather than ordering them to do so.

Markey also warned that allowing commercial nuclear power plants to self police their readiness to withstand terrorist attacks, "lowers standards, it lowers costs and it increases profitability of shareholders."

In 1993, an individual with a history of mental illness crashed a car through the front gates at the Three Mile Island plant near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, site of the nation's worst nuclear accident

The watchdog organizations acknowledged today that they have long been troubled by the dilemma of speaking about the present vulnerability of nuclear power plants.

"We have tried to work quietly for a decade and a half in a largely unsuccessful attempt to get the NRC to upgrade reactor security." said Leventhal. "Our principal success came in 1994 when the NRC agreed to require nuclear plant operators to erect barriers and establish setback distances to protect against truck bomb attacks. But this reform came only after the lesson of the bombing of the World Trade Center the year before, and the NRC has refused our appeals to upgrade protection to defend against the much larger bombs used by terrorists since."

Hirsch said that the horrendous attacks of September 11 have now made NRC foot dragging intolerable.

"The new threat should now be evident to all, and the country can afford to wait no longer," Hirsch said. "The vulnerabilities at these plants can and must be closed, now. The American people have a right to know the dangers and to demand the prompt corrective actions that we propose to protect nuclear power plants from terrorist attacks and the unthinkable consequences that could follow."


-------- MILITARY

THE largest air armada seen since World War Two

The Sun (UK)
September 24, 2001
http://www.geocities.com/freedomofpress/sun1.html

THE largest air armada seen since World War Two was zeroing in on evil mastermind Osama bin Laden last night.

At least 630 US warplanes will join the battle against international terror - THREE TIMES as many as America deployed in the war against Saddam Hussein. More than a hundred jets are already in the Gulf, poised to strike at bin Laden and his henchmen in the wildernesses of Afghanistan.

Another 250 have been ordered to the region from bases around the world by President George W Bush. And 280 more are on board four US aircraft carriers which are moving into position with a 41-ship battlefleet.

The warplanes will be backed up by America's stockpile of 3,500 cruise missiles. Crack British SAS troops are ready to slip into Afghanistan to link up with anti-Taliban rebels and capture bin Laden.

And a British fleet - including an aircraft carrier, a nuclear sub, destroyers and a troop support carrying 3,000 Marines - was last night heading for the Suez Canal. The unprecedented show of strength sends a clear message to the world that the US-led war on terrorism is about to begin.

The four US carriers will be key players in any large-scale attack on Afghanistan.

They have been ordered to the area from as far away as Virginia and Japan.

Might ... USS Kitty Hawk leaves Japan yesterday

The USS Theodore Roosevelt is accompanied by 13 ships, one nuclear submarine and 15,000 American troops.

USS Carl Vinson has 11 ships alongside it, including destroyers, battle cruisers and attack subs.

USS Enterprise will be joined by 12 ships - all similar types to Carl Vinson's escort. As well as warplanes, it will be carrying about 120 special forces troops.

And the USS Kitty Hawk will be joined by four support ships.

Giant B-52s - which can launch cruise missiles - and deadly stealth bombers are also expected to fly to the region.

RAF Tornado jets can be called in quickly to boost the force because many still patrol in the Gulf in the wake of the 1991 war against Iraq.

The announcement of the massive deployment spurred Afghanistan's rebel Northern Alliance to launch a bloody new offensive against the hated Taliban forces yesterday.

In a day of heavy fighting, the rebels claimed to have killed 80 Taliban militia, taken 200 others prisoner and captured key territory.

Meanwhile, Taliban leaders tried to worm their way out of defying America's demand that they hand over bin Laden - by claiming he had gone missing. But US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused them of lying - and he repeated America's vow to hunt him down and bring him to justice.

Taliban fighters responded last night by building bunkers, setting up anti-aircraft batteries and arming men in key border areas to defend against possible attack.

Their arsenal includes deadly Stinger anti-aircraft missiles - which America itself supplied the Soviet occupation.

An unmanned US spy plane went missing over northern Afghanistan yesterday.

The Taliban immediately insisted they had shot it down.

But Pentagon chiefs dismissed the claim and said the aircraft may simply have had technical trouble.

It was said to have been gathering intelligence for the CIA.

Earlier, Bush lifted sanctions against Pakistan and India as a reward for their backing of US action following the carnage in New York and Washington which has left an estimated 6,750 people dead or missing.

The sanctions were imposed in 1998 after the rival nations successfully tested nuclear weapons.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is due to visit Iran today to discuss co-operation in a war on terrorism with the anti-Taliban Islamic state.

-------- afghanistan

Bin Laden proclaims war on U.S. 'crusade'

September 25, 2001
By Thomas Wagner
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010925-7463135.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Osama bin Laden has called on Muslims to join a holy war against "the American crusade," and the United Nations said yesterday that Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia has virtually shut down its humanitarian operations by threatening to kill its remaining staff.

In a statement provided yesterday to Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel, bin Laden - the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks in Washington and New York - said: "We are steadfast on the path of jihad [holy war] with the heroic, faithful Afghan people."

Bin Laden also expressed sorrow for the deaths of pro-Taliban Pakistanis killed for protesting "the aggression of the American crusade forces and their allies on Muslim lands in Pakistan and Afghanistan."

He called them martyrs in the statement, which the TV station said was signed by bin Laden and dated Sunday.

In other developments, the Taliban's leader said yesterday that the United States should withdraw its forces from the Persian Gulf and end its "bias" against Palestinians if it wants to eliminate the threat of global terrorism.

The United States is gearing up for military strikes on Afghanistan because of the Taliban's refusal to hand over bin Laden and his lieutenants. Bin Laden has used Afghanistan as headquarters of his al Qaeda terrorist network since 1996.

Faced with the prospect of attack, the Taliban said it was dispatching 300,000 fighters to defend Afghanistan's borders - as fighting increased in the north of the country with a coalition of opposition forces.

Despite the threat, the Taliban was defiant.

In a statement faxed to news agencies here, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar said eliminating bin Laden would do little to remove the threat of more terrorism against the United States.

"If Americans want to eliminate terrorism, then they should withdraw their forces from the Gulf and they should put an end to the biased attitude on the issue of Palestine," Mullah Omar said from his headquarters in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

"America wants to eliminate Islam, and they are spreading lawlessness to install a pro-American government in Afghanistan," Mullah Omar said. "This effort will not solve the problem, and the Americans will burn themselves if they indulge in this kind of activity."

The Taliban also has cracked down on the remaining U.N. relief workers in Afghanistan, threatening to kill staff members who use computers or other communications equipment, U.N. officials in Islamabad said yesterday.

The militia began raiding U.N. offices in Afghan cities over the weekend and sealing their satellite telephones, walkie-talkies, computers and vehicles to bar them from further use, said Stephanie Bunker, the chief U.N. spokeswoman in Islamabad.

"They warned our staff that if they use these things, they will face execution," said Gordon Weiss, spokesman for UNICEF.

The threats nearly shut down the relief work of Afghan staffers who were left behind when all foreign U.N. workers were withdrawn from Afghanistan as a safety precaution.

"The U.N. has ordered its staff to obey the Taliban directive to avoid risking their lives," Miss Bunker said in an interview yesterday. "This will have a very serious impact on our operations."

With tensions mounting, Pakistan pulled its 12 diplomats from its embassy in Kabul, the Afghan capital, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Riaz Khan said. However, relations between Pakistan and the Taliban have not been severed, and a Taliban Embassy remains in operation in Islamabad.

Over the weekend, the United Arab Emirates broke diplomatic relations with the Taliban, leaving Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as the only countries maintaining formal ties.

Pakistan has agreed to support the U.S. military campaign against bin Laden and his Taliban allies. A Pentagon team is in Pakistan to discuss details of Pakistani cooperation in any campaign.

In northern Afghanistan, meanwhile, heavy exchanges of artillery fire were reported overnight and early yesterday in the Panjshir Valley and in Balkh province between the Taliban and opposition forces, who control about 5 percent of the country.

The opposition has offered to cooperate with the United States in trying to drive the Taliban from power.

--------

For Afghan Fighters, a Tangled Web of Loyalties

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 25, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19688-2001Sep24.html

KHALOZAI, Afghanistan, Sept. 24 -- The commander of the rebel post strode into his communications center after a night of shelling, in this case an 8-by-8-foot hovel with an assault rifle hanging from the mud wall and a Japanese two-way radio hooked up to a Japanese car battery.

He flipped a switch to change frequencies, pressed a button and asked for Oriyon.

"How are you?" the commander asked when the other man came on the line.

"I'm okay."

"Are all of your friends okay?"

"Yes, all of my friends are okay."

Said Rafiq smiled. Oriyon was not one of his lieutenants, but his opposite number, a commander of Taliban forces that Rafiq's guerrillas have been fighting for five years. It turned out that Oriyon and Rafiq hail from the same village, have known each other for years, even fought beside one another until Oriyon defected to the other side about two years ago.

"He was my friend," Rafiq explained simply. "But now he is my enemy."

Such is the nature of conflict in Afghanistan. Chat over the radio by day; lob mortar shells at each other by night. After 22 years of constant warfare, Afghanistan has evolved into a web of loyalties and hatreds almost indecipherable to outsiders.

The United States will have to navigate these tribal rivalries as it moves to oust the Taliban militia, a radical Islamic movement that rules most of Afghanistan and has sheltered suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden. As the radio exchange between the rebel commander and his friend to the south suggests, local allegiances cross the current battle lines. If the American forces support the rebels in the north, the Taliban could be vulnerable to defections of the same fighters who joined it in earlier years.

A visit to the front lines just north of Kabul reveals not just the complicated tapestry of ethnic, religious and personal differences but also the military stalemate it has yielded. Soldiers on both sides have dug into positions that have not moved substantially for two years. A strange sort of acclimation has taken hold as civilians wander through ostensibly dangerous zones with no hint of tension or worry. The soldiers do more talking than fighting.

At the mud fort commanded by Rafiq, just 30 miles from Kabul, two tanks have been encased in earthen walls, rendered immobile for use essentially as artillery pieces. Rafiq has also built himself a mud garage for his Russian-made jeep and settled into a routine of small-scale action, at most.

In the early morning darkness today, he said, he fired two 81mm mortars from his desert base for an hour. The spent shells were still lying next to the guns a few hours later, the dirt stained black from the powder. But Rafiq seemed unworried about any attacks, standing atop one of the tanks, presenting an easy target if Taliban troops were near enough -- and so inclined to try.

Like many fighters, he seemed to be waiting for the Americans, anticipating that a U.S. attack would finally clear the way to Kabul.

"It's a good idea for Americans to come into Afghanistan," said the 25-year-old commander. "I hope Americans can destroy Osama bin Laden. I hope to see American soldiers in Kabul."

A few miles to the east, the top officers for the rebels' southern front expressed similar anticipation. In Bagram, the farthest-forward rebel position, Gen. Babajan, who like many Afghans uses just one name, said his lines had not changed in two years but he hopes now to ride into Kabul to liberate it from the Taliban with U.S. help.

"When the Americans attack by bombing Afghanistan, we'll progress," he said, sitting cross-legged in his stocking feet in a small room at his base. Referring to the Taliban, he added: "We will destroy all of them. After that, we hope security will come to Afghanistan. This has been continuing in my country for 25 years. My country is poor. Many people are disabled. We hope that security will come to Afghanistan."

"If the Americans had started action two years ago, they would have destroyed terrorism in other countries by now," added Babajan's brother, Mirakhman, another rebel commander. "When the Americans attack, God willing, we will go to Kabul."

Babajan said the Taliban has renewed fighting on the southern front in the two weeks since the rebels' celebrated military commander, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was mortally wounded and the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked by hijackers believed to be affiliated with bin Laden.

But on this front line, neither side has made any forward movement. In two weeks of fighting, Babajan said, just two of his 2,000 troops have been killed; he asserted that 14 had died on the other side.

A few hours later, after pitch-black night fell, more gun and artillery fire could be heard from the direction of Bagram, heavier than the night before.

In the northern part of Afghanistan, rebel leaders said today that one of the alliance's strongest commanders, ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdurrashid Dostum, had captured the town of Tokzar, which could give the rebels a clear path to attempt to retake the strategic city of Mazar-e Sharif. The Taliban's capture of Dostum's fortress and airfield in Mazar-e Sharif led him to leave the country in 1997; now he is back seeking to avenge that defeat.

While fighting in the south has been relatively quiet, the territory around Bagram testifies to plenty of damage. Destroyed tanks and other military vehicles lie abandoned and stripped of whatever useful parts may have remained. Many buildings have been reduced to rubble. The road to Bagram is blocked at several locations by large metal shipping containers, so vehicles simply go off the road.

Bridges have been blown out as well, with makeshift replacements fashioned out of sheet metal that hardly looks strong enough to support the weight of passing jeeps. At one bridge, the better part of valor dictates traversing the shallow river in an off-road vehicle rather than trying to cross the shelled bridge.

Soldiers heading to or from the front said their morale was high and that they looked forward to finally moving beyond the impasse that has dominated the war here for so long.

"The situation at Bagram is good," said Saifor Rakhman, 29, a gun slung over his shoulder, as he walked along the road in a group that included a man carrying a grenade launcher. "It's been quiet for a long time."

A 27-year-old tank commander who gave his name as Jalali did not expect that to last much longer. Driving along the road, with a small boy riding atop his tank, Jalali said he placed his hopes in one direction: Washington. "I hope the Americans bomb," he said, because then the war would finally be over

-------

Taliban Deploys Its Fighters to Borders
Offices of Aid Agencies Are Taken Over;
Pakistan Pulls Diplomats Out of Afghanistan

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, September 25, 2001; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19568-2001Sep24.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 24 -- With a U.S. military strike against Afghanistan appearing increasingly likely, the country's ruling Taliban militia said today that it had mobilized thousands of fighters to guard its borders. At the same time, U.N. officials said the Taliban had taken over several aid agency offices, severely impeding most humanitarian relief operations in the country.

Here in Islamabad, a Foreign Ministry official said today that Pakistan, which has pledged to support the United States in its efforts to capture alleged terrorist Osama bin Liden, has pulled all of its diplomats out of Afghanistan. Pakistan had been one of only three nations to formally recognize the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government; on Sunday, the United Arab Emirates severed ties with the Taliban.

[Early Tuesday, the Reuters news agency reported that Saudi Arabia also cut its links to the Taliban, leaving Pakistan as the only country to recognize the regime.]

In another blow to the Taliban, which has harbored bin Laden for five years, Russian President Vladimir Putin said his government will increase its assistance to Afghan opposition forces, and he gave tacit approval for former Soviet republics in Central Asia to give the United States access to airfields and military bases for a potential strike on Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, a statement attributed to bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on Sept. 11, urged Muslims in Pakistan to fight a holy war against "America's crusader forces" that are preparing to strike his bases in Afghanistan, according to an Arab television broadcast.

Taliban officials said they were dispatching 300,000 fighters to defend Afghanistan's borders, a figure Western officials and analysts called a gross exaggeration. The Taliban is estimated to have about 45,000 fighters, 20,000 of whom currently are fighting the opposition Northern Alliance, with the rest probably taking up defensive positions against a possible U.S. strike, analysts said.

The Taliban leader, Mohammad Omar, said in a statement faxed to news agencies in the Afghan capital, Kabul, that if the United States wants to eliminate global terrorism, it should withdraw its forces from the Persian Gulf area and end its "bias" against Palestinians.

"America wants to eliminate Islam, and they are spreading lawlessness to install a pro-American government in Afghanistan," Omar said. "This effort will not solve the problem, and the Americans will burn themselves if they indulge in this kind of activity."

On Friday and over the weekend, the Taliban entered several U.N. offices in Afghanistan and confiscated communications and transportation equipment, said Stephanie Bunker, the U.N. spokeswoman in Islamabad. The militia also took over offices belonging to the United Nations and aid agencies in the city of Kandahar, she said. The Taliban also repeated a threat to execute any U.N. worker who uses communications equipment.

Bunker said the seizure of the communications equipment has hindered efforts to provide food and medical assistance to millions of Afghans who are living in near-famine conditions. "This is going to have a big impact on our work there," she said.

The closure of Pakistan's diplomatic missions, which occurred over the weekend, was ordered because of the "abnormal situation" in Afghanistan, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan. He said Pakistan has not severed diplomatic ties and that the Taliban Embassy in Islamabad would be allowed to operate.

The authenticity of a statement purported to be the first issued by bin Laden since the attacks could not be independently verified. The typed statement was received this afternoon by al-Jazeera, a satellite television channel based in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar, and the station's news director said correspondents in Afghanistan confirmed with their sources that the message came from bin Laden. He generally does not communicate by fax, and Taliban officials have said that he does not even have a telephone. But analysts said it was possible that he conveyed the message by a courier, who then sent it to the station.

The statement did not address allegations that he masterminded the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Instead, it focused on the death Friday of three Pakistanis who were protesting plans to target bin Laden and encouraged others to follow their example.

"We hope that these brothers are among the first martyrs in Islam's battle in this era against the new Christian-Jewish crusade led by the big crusader Bush under the flag of the cross," it read. ". . . I assure you, dear brothers, that we are firm on the road ofjihad for the sake of God."

The day after the attacks on New York and Washington, a Palestinian journalist in Pakistan, quoting a close aide of bin Laden's, said bin Laden congratulated the people who carried out the strikes but denied that he was involved.

Today's statement urged Pakistanis to repay a debt to the Afghan people, who repelled Soviet occupation forces in the 1980s. "The Muslim nation in Pakistan should rise in defense of Islam, for it is considered Islam's first line of defense in this region, as Afghanistan was the first line of defense for itself and for Pakistan against the Russian invasion more than 20 years ago," the statement said.

Officials and analysts in Pakistan expressed concern that the statement could embolden conservative Muslims, who have been staging public protests, to try to attack any U.S. forces deployed in the country. The statement, analysts said, also could help to increase the number of people -- already believed to be in the hundreds -- crossing into Afghanistan from Pakistan to help the Taliban.

Many Pakistanis view bin Laden as an Islamic hero and object to their government's decision to cooperate with the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign. Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has agreed to U.S. requests to open his airspace to U.S. military aircraft, share military intelligence and allow troops to stage operations in Afghanistan from Pakistani military bases.

Today, a U.S. military team headed by Air Force Brig. Gen. Kevin Chilton, the Pentagon's director of planning for the Near East and South Asia, met with government officials here to prepare plans for the use of Pakistani military and intelligence facilities to support possible attacks against Afghanistan. The team is trying to work out security arrangements for U.S. personnel who may work in Pakistan and to identify which Pakistani bases might be used to launch U.S. operations, officials familiar with the talks said.

The U.S. ambassador here, Wendy Chamberlin, signed an agreement today rescheduling $379 million in Pakistani debt to the United States. On Saturday, the U.S. government lifted sanctions imposed on Pakistan and India after both nations conducted nuclear tests in 1998.

Chamberlin said the United States is "looking very seriously" at removing the remaining sanctions on Pakistan, which were implemented after the 1999 coup that brought Musharraf to power.

Correspondents Molly Moore in Islamabad and Howard Schneider in Cairo contributed to this report.

--------

THE OPPOSITION
Long-Ignored Afghan Rebels Are Courted by U.S.

New York Times
By DAVID ROHDE
September 25, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/25/international/25NORT.html

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan, Sept. 24 - The tiny, long-ignored embassy of the alliance of Afghan rebel groups fighting the Taliban was buzzing with activity today. American diplomats and Russian generals are coming courting, testing the mettle of the new commander of the Northern Alliance, appointed after his predecessor died from wounds suffered in an assassination everyone here blames on the Taliban's most infamous guest, Osama bin Laden.

American officials - who in general have ignored the alliance for years - contacted the group last Wednesday, seeking possible cooperation, rebel leaders said.

The Bush administration is trying to build a coalition that can replace the Taliban after America strikes at Afghanistan to try to remove Mr. bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the United States.

Saleh Muhammad Registani, the Northern Alliance's military attaché to Moscow, said the diplomatic contacts continued. The administration, he said today, should not rely solely on Pakistan in its confrontation with the Taliban. The Northern Alliance, Mr. Registani said, needs direct American assistance and can coordinate land assaults while the Americans strike from the air.

On Saturday, the chief of staff of the Russian military met with the alliance's new commander, Gen. Muhammad Fahim. Today, alliance officials assembled for a trip to Italy to meet with Afghanistan's exiled king, who at age 86 is at the center of renewed efforts to build a unified anti-Taliban coalition out of his country's famously fractious ethnic and political groups.

While alliance officials here put on a brave face, doubts exist about its military abilities. The group claims to field 15,000 soldiers, but Russian officials say the number is closer to 5,000. They claim to control 15 percent of northwest Afghanistan; Russian officials put the figure at 5 percent.

The alliance is supported mainly by Tajiks, Uzbeks and other northern minority groups, representing about 10 to 15 percent of the population. Afghanistan's population ation is mainly Pashtun.

The killing this month of Ahmed Shah Massoud, long the alliance's military leader and a master tactician and veteran of the Soviet invasion, could prove crippling.

The alliance has also been accused of drug and gun-running and human rights violations, including summary executions, the burning of houses and looting. Most of the targets were ethnic Pashtuns, a base of Taliban support.

If it gains power, there are fears that the vicious internecine war that followed the Soviets' departure in 1989 could rekindle.

Mr. Registani and other alliance officials today claimed gains in a new ground offensive in chaotic northern Afghanistan. The envoy to Moscow pointed to the moves as proof that his group of former warlords is holding together despite the death of Mr. Massoud. The commander was buried eight days ago after succumbing to injuries suffered when two suicide bombers posing as Arab journalists visited him Sept. 9, two days before the terrorist attacks on the United States.

The Afghan rebels are convinced that Mr. Massoud's death was the work of Mr. bin Laden in a quid pro quo for the Taliban's continued protection after Sept. 11.

"Things are not like the Taliban predicted, that our affairs would collapse, and there would be disunity," Mr. Registani said. Mr. Registani was at pains to deny any wrongdoing by the Northern Alliance, insisting that it wanted a multiparty democracy in Afghanistan and that it would fight on, even without American backing, particularly if an alliance backed by Pakistan took over.

Mr. Registani said the rebels had gained ground in recent days in Balkh and Samangan Provinces in northwest Afghanistan and Reuters reported heavy fighting in the strategic Panjshir Valley today. A leader who had split with the alliance, Gen. Rashid Dostum, was said to have rejoined it over the weekend. Taliban officials have admitted losing control of a strategic village in Balkh Province.

The alliance leaders are the latest of dozens of proxies financed over the centuries by outside powers in Central Asia, notably in recent history in the 1980's, when the United States lent huge support to resist the 1979 Soviet invasion.

The Northern Alliance has long been backed by powers as disparate as Russia and Iran. Moscow supports the group because it blames the Taliban for exporting Islamic insurgency into the Russian republic of Chechnya. The Islamic rulers of Iran oppose the Taliban's strict brand of Islam, and they almost went to war with Afghanistan three years ago after 10 Iranian diplomats and an Iranian journalist were killed.

Besides being wooed by diplomats, officials of the alliance embassy here are now besieged by reporters from around the world trying to get into Afghanistan.

Ex-Rebel to Join Fray

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 - Abdul Haq, who forged a reputation as one of the mujahedeen leaders during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, declared today that he would soon return from exile in Dubai to join the fight against the Taliban.

Mr. Haq spoke from Rome, the home of the exiled 86-year-old king of Afghanistan. He indicated that he had had contacts with the National Security Council but had yet to obtain a commitment of financial support from the White House. He said he would go to Pakistan on Tuesday.

The former commander said his plan is to head a resistance force of thousands of fighters. He estimated that as many as one-third of the fighters with the Taliban were disaffected.

"One of the easiest things in Afghanistan is to get fighters," he said.

-------- balkans

NATO Chief in Macedonia to Tackle Peace Pitfalls

September 25, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-balkans-macedonia.html

SKOPJE (Reuters) - NATO Secretary General George Robertson flew into Macedonia on Tuesday to head off threats to a Western-sponsored peace agreement, tackling parliamentary resistance to reforms and fears of a security vacuum.

Hindered by nationalists railing about ``capitulation to Albanian terrorism,'' parliament has neither amended the constitution nor amnestied guerrillas who have honored the accord by turning in weapons to NATO, the alliance says.

A 30-day NATO mission to monitor voluntary disarmament by the rebel National Liberation Army ends on Wednesday and NATO spokesmen said it was on target to collect the NLA's entire declared stockpile of 3,300 weapons, possibly more, by the deadline.

Robertson came to prod Skopje into reciprocating by passing crucial legislation including an amnesty, so that rebels do not risk arrest after demobilization, and to complete the details of a transitional NATO force to buttress security.

``The skeptics have been proven wrong. Arms have been handed in and the disarmament process has gone ahead,'' Robertson told reporters at Skopje airport. ``NATO has delivered, and it is up to the parliamentarians to deliver (now).''

He welcomed parliament's preliminary approval on Monday of 15 key constitutional reforms, after weeks of obstruction by nationalist hard-liners who condemn the Western-mediated August peace accord as ``capitulation to Albanian terrorism.''

``My message will be that peace is within reach...of a country that was once on the brink of a civil war...I bring a strong message to the politicians to remember how much could slip away but how much has been achieved,'' Robertson said.

``The politicians of this country ... have an obligation to fulfil. We have done our part.''

Parliament now plans 10 days of deliberation on the fine print of the amendments, designed to improve the civil rights of minority Albanians, before putting them to a final ratification vote that requires a two-thirds majority.

Nationalist legislators have vowed to water down some of the draft clauses, and ethnic Albanians say that this, or a decision by the assembly to put the package to a referendum, would sabotage the whole dead and reignite conflict.

AMNESTY CRUCIAL TO PEACE

Western analysts said an amnesty was crucial to preserving the precarious peace bargain.

``The NLA made clear that it was surrendering its weapons to NATO, not to the Macedonians, so they trust in NATO to provide some sort of protection from the Macedonians if there is no (immediate) amnesty,'' said Edward Joseph, Macedonia analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank.

``The amnesty issue fell off the radar screen because of the arduous, tortuous process of getting constitutional reforms merely through the preliminary stage,'' he told Reuters.

``The problem now (with amnesty delay) is that there may be conflicting expectations of NATO. The Albanians are looking to NATO to be their guarantor while the Macedonians want it to ensure their security forces re-enter crisis areas.''

NATO's policy-making council was due on Tuesday to authorize a force of around 1,000 troops to protect international peace monitors from intimidation by extremists as they oversee the reintegration of rebel territory.

They are to replace the 4,500 weapons collectors who will start pulling out later this week. But most of the troops for the new force are likely to be drawn from the ranks of the ''Essential Harvest'' disarmament mission.

``The military has been working around the clock to get an agreement on ... a lean but effective force that can remain here and make sure the international monitors are given the final assurance of safety,'' Robertson said.

He said an important reason for his visit was to congratulate the NATO troops on a ``highly successful'' performance.

SUSPICIONS OVER GUERRILLA ARMS

Tension persists along cease-fire lines in northern Macedonia, and hours before Monday's parliamentary vote state security forces shot dead an ethnic Albanian at a checkpoint.

Many Macedonians and Western critics suspect the guerrillas have hidden their best weapons and have ready access to firepower smuggled from elsewhere in the Balkans.

But NATO says its intelligence assessment is that the NLA will have effectively dismantled itself as a fighting force.

``We must remain focused on parliamentary procedures required to fulfil the obligations of the Ohridagreement but also on the future -- the re-entry (of Macedonian institutions) into the disputed areas,'' Robertson said.

``So I (also) bring a message of hope and reassurance that NATO will not leave this country alone.''

-------- biological weapons

U.S. takes precautions against biological attacks

September 25, 2001
By August Gribbin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010925-69206116.htm

Crop-dusting aircraft and other planes equipped for "agricultural operations" - grounded Sunday "for national security reasons" - were barred again yesterday from taking to the air.

The flight ban is scheduled to end just after noon today.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued the initial stand-down following reports that one of the suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks, as well as several other suspicious persons with no obvious reason for their interest, had been inquiring about the speed of crop-dusting aircraft, their fuel loads and cargo-carrying capacity. Moreover, it was widely reported over the weekend that investigators had found crop-dusting manuals in the possession of at least one potential terrorist suspect.

This is deemed significant because the swift, maneuverable crop dusters are considered ideal vehicles for delivering chemical or biological weapons over population centers or for contaminating water supplies or crops. So even though there have been no reports that terrorists actually planned airborne attacks with weapons of mass destruction, the FAA acted. An agency spokesman said the agency was just being careful - "erring on the side of caution."

Still, the FAA's action and other precautions being taken, along with the appointment of Tom Ridge, Pennsylvania's Republican governor, to head the new Office of Homeland Security, indicate government officials and defense analysts now regard heightened civil defense as an imperative. Terrorists' use of crowded airlines as missiles has convinced them that America's foes have no moral compunction against using weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, Osama bin Laden said three years ago that in today's wars there are "no morals." And yesterday Dr. Gro Harlem, head of the World Health Organization, told Western Hemisphere health ministers meeting in Washington that "we must prepare for the possibility that people are deliberately harmed with biological or chemical agents."

The complacency that in the past caused officials to blink when focusing on the worst possible terrorist threats - the possibility of chemical, biological and radiological attacks - is yielding. And members of Congress and various federal officials now admit the nation has been left ill-prepared to defend against previously unthinkable assaults with such weapons.

Kevin Briggs, a former Pentagon official who now heads the U.S. Preparedness Institute and directs the American Civil Defense Association, says the government's inclination to prevent panic has discouraged honest discussion of the kinds of threats the U.S. population could be facing. Consequently, there has been little effort to provide information on methods individuals can use to survive if germs, viruses, poison gas or "suitcase" nuclear bombs are used against them.

Russian suitcase bombs were first disclosed in 1997 and later produced by U.S. forces. They weigh about 80 pounds, fit into a duffel bag and have a 1,000-ton explosive charge capable of leveling everything within a half-mile radius of the Capitol. Terrorists also could use cheap "dirty nukes," small bombs composed of inexpensive, low grade and accessible uranium wrapped around a charge of dynamite or home-made explosive. Exploded dirty nukes release invisible, lethal radiation.

It's not that the government has totally ignored defending against such weapons.

The weekly Budget Bulletin published for members of the Senate confirms that "efforts to counter the unconventional threats of terrorism have moved from relative obscurity to become a familiar element of the national security debate."

Familiarity, however, seems to have bred contempt.

Raymond J. Decker, the General Accounting Office's Director of Defense Capabilities and Management, reported in April that the government had not resolved "key problems."

Forty agencies now have a hand in shaping policy and planning counter-terrorism strategies, programs and activities. And at least until now, there has been "no consensus - in Congress, the Executive Branch, the various panels and commissions and among organizations representing first responders" - on ways to improve the federal response to terrorism, Mr. Decker has said. "First responders" are fire and rescue and other emergency organizations of state and local agencies.

Organizational concerns aside, the GAO has found that the United States currently lacks sufficient supplies of antibiotics to counter the effects of biological weapons like the plague and a myriad other diseases. It has been widely reported that most hospitals lack decontamination showers, breathing equipment for medical teams, nerve gas antitoxins or even a rudimentary plan for coping with a large-scale emergency resulting from a chemical or biological attack.

Moreover, Bronius Cikotas, a biological warfare specialist with the Defense Association, says "our major cities and communities with high population concentrations do not have sensors that can be used to detect the release of chemical or biological weapons."

Says Mr. Cikotas, "I am most concerned about biological threats. They are the most difficult to deal with. Nuclear may be a problem - small, tactical devices rather than something very big."

"Basically, I think the public should know there is the possibility of attacks," he says, noting a Sept. 17 assessment by Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III, chairman of one of the prestigious congressional commissions, that the likelihood of attack is low but the consequences would be devastating. "I think we should present the facts and give the public ideas of what the government can do and what people themselves can do. We don't have years to prepare," Mr. Cikotas says.

Among the facts that the new chief of homeland defense must act on, culled from Centers for Disease Control documents and other government sources:

• The ingredients for making biological agents and weapons are available in nature and can readily be obtained from collections of germ and virus cultures held by private companies in industrialized and in some developing nations. Biological agents make attractive weapons because most can replicate after being disseminated.

• The methods for producing various biological agents are explained in easily obtained literature to which terrorist groups have access.

• A single laboratory could produce enough of a given germ or virus for "most terrorist purposes," as one study puts it, and a facility for large-scale production of biological weapons could be built for less than $10 million.

• A small group of persons scattering germs, viruses or poisons could infect large numbers of a targeted population. Symptoms could develop in a day and last two to three weeks, causing immense social disruptions and a chaotic medical situation.

Consider the most frequently discussed biological, or "germ warfare" weapon - anthrax.

About 10 grams (0.35 of an ounce) of anthrax spores - to cite just one example - can kill as many persons as can a ton of the nerve gas Sarin, and just 0.6 milligrams (or about 1/2000 of a gram) of Sarin can kill one adult. A Department of Defense document explains the germ this way:

"Anthrax is the preferred biological warfare agent." The reason: "It is highly lethal." One gram [0.035 of an ounce] of anthrax contains 100 million "lethal doses" and the disease is "100,000 times deadlier than the deadliest chemical warfare agent."

Anthrax is a "silent, invisible killer." When inhaled, it is "almost always fatal." It is cheap, easy to produce, and easy to make into a weapon. Besides, anthrax spores are "extremely stable" and can be preserved almost indefinitely as dry powder. In a freeze-dried condition the disease can be loaded into munitions or spread "as an aerosol with crude sprayers."

Biological warfare specialists say that effective sprayers can be mounted on pick-up trucks, lugged onto a small aircraft or otherwise easily mobilized. And as the Defense Department document concludes: "Knowledge [about anthrax] is widely available. Currently, we have a limited detection capability."

The United States has limited protection because, since World War II, it has worked on the theory that the best defense is a good offense.

Mr. Briggs, the defense specialist, explains the defense policy has been one of "mutual destruction," meaning that this nation would respond with annihilating nuclear force against any nation that attacked with weapons of mass destruction. However, the force now attacking is not a nation. It is described as an amorphous, decentralized, multinational network of small units. The old U.S. policy can't be effectively employed against it.

Defense specialists are saying the United States may have to borrow tricks from the small, less powerful nations that after World War II considered a good homeland defense the best offense. Their policy has been to make attacks ineffectual and less likely by assuring that use of weapons of mass destruction in their nations cannot guarantee mass casualties or maximum disruption.

Switzerland, Israel, Norway and other Scandinavian countries require, for example, that new homes and public buildings contain hardened, dual purpose shelter areas that can be sealed in the event of biological, chemical, or radiological attack. Throughout the Scandinavian nations, there are gymnasiums, garages, sports arenas and other public buildings whose secondary function is to protect and house residents in the event of an attack or natural disaster. Similarly, most homes have hardened and well-provisioned garages, game rooms, workshops or basements.

Phone directories contain lists of shelters and maps that show how to reach them, and the public is taught about the capability and impressive limitations of certain biological agents.

They're told how masks similar to surgical masks can protect against certain germ and virus weapons, how gas masks protect against certain nerve gases, and, for instance, how to convert vacuum cleaners into filters that will screen out germs and gases. Jury-rigged vacuums can be used to create a low pressure environment within a home that will keep poisoned outside air from entering.

"In our nation, people have been inoculated against thinking about such things. Some even say, 'Why bother? In a major attack, we'll all die anyway,'" says Mr. Briggs.

But he adds, "There's much people can do to save their lives - if they only knew about it." Among his many other duties, the new chief of homeland defense must determine when, how and if they will find out.

-------- china

China tests supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles

September 25, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/default-200192502549.htm

China has conducted the first flight test of its new Russian-made anti-ship cruise missile, the most potent naval weapon in China's growing arsenal and a major improvement over its other anti-ship cruise missiles, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

A Chinese Sovremenny-class guided missile destroyer fired an SSN-22 Sunburn missile during a test Sept. 15, said officials familiar with reports of the test.

"This is the first test from sea, and it gets them close to an initial operating capability," said one military official.

The new supersonic cruise missile is part of China's naval buildup, which Pentagon analysts say is focused on developing the capability to sink U.S. warships.

Testing of the Sunburn, called the Moskit by Russia, had been expected. U.S. intelligence agencies monitoring the region had spotted both of China's Sovremenny destroyers in the northern China port of Bo Hai Bay a week before the test, as the ships were loaded with missile cannisters.

The first batch of 48 SSN-22s were transferred from Russia last year. It is not known exactly how many of the missiles the Chinese navy has stockpiled, but officials said it could be several hundred.

One Navy official said recently that the new Chinese warships and their missiles "changed the capability of the [Chinese] surface force."

The missile, which can be equipped with both conventional and nuclear warheads, has a range of between 80 and 85 miles, and its high-explosive warhead is believed to be capable of sinking most U.S. ships. Its supersonic speed worries Navy officials.

Richard Fisher, a specialist on the Chinese military, said the Chinese missile ships are now operational, and "there is an expectation that China will be purchasing a more advanced version of this ship."

"The testing of the Sunburn serves as a reminder that as we seek cooperation with Beijing over the terrorist threat, we should keep in mind that Beijing's ultimate goal is the conquest of the democracy on Taiwan for which the Sovremennys were purchased," said Mr. Fisher, who is working on a book about the Chinese military.

Mr. Fisher said published reports have stated that China also is planning to purchase a small, Russian-built attack boat that will be armed with two Sunburns. "This would be an excellent blockade weapon" in a conflict with Taiwan, he said.

China began its purchase of the weapons after the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. Beijing fired short-range missiles north and south of Taiwan prior to scheduled elections in what U.S. officials said was an attempt to intimidate the island.

The United States responded by dispatching two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region in a show of force.

China then began building up its anti-aircraft carrier weapons, taking delivery of the first two Sovremennys last year.

U.S. intelligence agencies believe Beijing may purchase two more of the missile ships in the next several years.

During China's recent large-scale war games near Dongshan Island, opposite Taiwan, Chinese press reports said Chinese naval forces practiced engaging U.S. aircraft carriers and warships in combat.

China regards Taiwan as a breakaway province and is preparing for a conflict with the United States if Beijing's leaders decide to use force to retake the island.

President Bush earlier this year said the United States would do "whatever it took" to defend Taiwan from such an attack. U.S. officials said Russia initially built the SSN-22 for use by the Soviet navy against U.S. ships during the Cold War.

-------- iran

U.S. Explores Recruiting Iran Into New Coalition

By Alan Sipress and Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 25, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19457-2001Sep24?language=printer

The Bush administration is delicately exploring whether Iran could be brought into a coalition against terrorism, a development that could significantly boost the U.S. campaign against Osama bin Laden and his Afghan backers but prove highly divisive in both the United States and Iran.

After the Iranian government issued a strong statement of condemnation following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, U.S. officials set out to determine through indirect channels what kind of intelligence and other assistance Iran could provide, particularly on bin Laden's whereabouts.

Though Iran has been deemed by the State Department to be a state sponsor of terrorism for supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon and other militant groups, it has opposed the Taliban movement that rules most of Afghanistan and provides a haven to bin Laden and his followers. Tehran moved to the brink of war with its eastern neighbor three years ago, massing 200,000 troops on the Afghan border after Taliban forces stormed the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif and massacred Iran's co-religionist Shiite Muslims. Nine Iranians were killed when their diplomatic mission was overrun.

U.S. officials hope to convert Iran's antipathy to the Taliban into a broader campaign against militant groups, and some foreign policy experts say these indirect contacts could usher in a new era of U.S.-Iranian relations, which were severed following the 1979 Islamic revolution and the storming of the American Embassy in Tehran.

Despite this optimism, significant obstacles remain to any meaningful improvement in U.S.-Iranian ties, among them Iran's alleged involvement in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia in which 19 U.S. airmen died and its reputed connection to the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 22 people.

Even so, administration officials took note when Iran's leaders condemned the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In response, the administration sent the Iranian leadership a message through the Swiss government, which represents U.S. interests in Tehran, according to sources familiar with the communication.

The message not only thanked Iran for its condolences but asked it to join the drive against terrorism. More specifically, U.S. officials asked if Iran would share information about bin Laden and the Taliban. Iran monitors developments in Afghanistan, supports several opposition factions battling the Taliban and is home to an estimated 1.5 million Afghan refugees, some of whom may have valuable intelligence, according to U.S. experts on Iran.

Administration officials continued their discussions about Iran yesterday with Switzerland's ambassador to Tehran, Tim Guldimann, who was in Washington for a two-day visit. Though the trip was scheduled before the Sept. 11 attacks, the talks have taken on more urgency, U.S. officials said.

At the same time, the administration is anxious to hear what British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw learns during a trip he began yesterday to Tehran, the first visit by a British foreign minister to Iran since 1979. Straw's trip comes one day after he conferred with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

"We did not ask him to take any particular message from us," State Department spokesman Richard A. Boucher said. "But I think we look forward to hearing what transpires in those discussions." He said the United States still does not have a "broader appreciation" about whether Iran is prepared to crack down on all terrorist groups in its territory.

During his visit, Straw is expected to emphasize the West's need for Iranian intelligence about the Taliban and other governments hosting terrorists, British sources said. At a minimum, he wants the Iranian government to stay neutral during any Western attack on the Taliban, sources said. Straw called on Iran before his departure to join the anti-terrorist effort as a way of demonstrating that it is not designed as an anti-Muslim campaign.

Straw's visit was hastily arranged after Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a telephone conversation as Blair was flying to Washington to meet President Bush on Thursday.

A separate delegation of European Union leaders, who met with Powell on Thursday to discuss the response to the terrorist attacks, is also scheduled to visit Iran this week as part of a regional tour.

American and European leaders are hoping to tap into a groundswell of sympathy in Iran for the United States, evidenced by a condolence message sent to New York City by the mayors of Tehran and Isfahan and a moment of silence observed by 60,000 fans at an Iranian soccer game.

Some influential former U.S. policymakers have advocated a reopening toward Iran, including former assistant secretary of state Robert H. Pelletreau and Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to Bush's father.

"We need to try to separate these people into constituencies and not treat everybody as terrorists," said Scowcroft, who now runs an international business consulting firm. "Certainly Iran is a major supporter of Hezbollah, but it is also a pretty bitter enemy of the Taliban. . . . it seems to me there is a possibility for at least a limited amount of cooperation."

There are also strong commercial pressures for establishing a reopening with Iran. U.S. oil companies have long chafed at the restrictions that bar them from exploring for oil and gas in Iran.

While some in the current administration sympathize with those advocating closer ties with Iran, U.S. officials have remained silent about the current overtures, fearing that a higher profile could torpedo them.

A move toward closer ties with the United States would be met with significant opposition in Iran. The sensitivity of Tehran signing on to a U.S.-led campaign against terrorism was evident in Iran's newspapers yesterday, which lambasted Straw for trying to secure its participation in an effort to track down bin Laden. Iran has already ruled out allowing the West to use its airspace in an attack on bin Laden and his supporters.

An embrace of Iran would spark an outcry in the United States as well. Influential figures in both the administration and Congress are deeply concerned about Tehran's backing for Hezbollah, which is suspected in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, its financial support for the Palestinian militant group Hamas, as well as its alleged involvement in the Khobar Towers and Israeli Embassy bombings.

An administration effort earlier this year to loosen economic sanctions on Iran and Libya was overwhelmingly beaten back on Capitol Hill in large part because of a campaign by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In a statement yesterday, Tim Wuliger, AIPAC's president, welcomed the comments by Bush last week that the United States would stand against countries that continue to support terrorism. "Iran must decide whether it will continue to sponsor terrorism or join the U.S.-led effort against terrorism," Wuliger said.

Correspondent T.R. Reid in London contributed to this report.

-------- israel

Israel braces for chemical attack from Iraq

By Abraham Rabinovich
September 25, 2001
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010925-19998640.htm

JERUSALEM - The long lines that have formed outside gas-mask distribution centers in Israel over the past few days reflect a widespread feeling that while the U.S. retaliation for the Sept. 11 attacks may begin in Afghanistan, it will eventually reach Iraq.

If that indeed happens, the expectation is that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein may, if threatened, attempt to take Israel with him before he falls.

Iraq fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1991 Gulf war and it is believed to still have 10 to 20 missiles hidden. This time, it is feared, Saddam may attempt to use chemical or biological warheads instead of high explosives. Israel did not respond to the Scuds in 1991 at Washington's request.

Israeli military sources say that Israel is better positioned to forestall such attacks than it was a decade ago. An Israeli spy satellite is now aloft in the skies of the Middle East, keeping a diligent eye on Iraq. Other means of intelligence are also in place.

Israel's modern air fleet and its special forces have improved their capability of reaching Iraqi launch sites since the Gulf war. Israel's Arrow anti-missile system is now operational, as are several Patriot anti-missile batteries acquired from the United States. Patriots proved unable to interdict missiles in the Gulf war, but an improved version, now in place, is said to be effective.

Despite all these safeguards, Israel and the United States would prefer to forestall an Iraqi attack in the event of a showdown, which is why Israel is more likely to insist on striking first if it feels threatened this time.

Osama bin Laden has also targeted Israel, say Israeli officials, although his organization has not yet carried out operations in the country. Last year, Israeli authorities arrested a Palestinian in the Gaza Strip who, they said, had returned from Pakistan with a mission from bin Laden's organization to set up a network in the Palestinian territories.

Israelis generally understand Washington's desire to keep their country out of the coalition, as it did during the Gulf war, in order not to undermine efforts to recruit Muslim nations to the anti-terror cause. Behind the scenes, Israel will continue to provide intelligence.

The irony of being kept out of the coalition while states that harbor terrorist organizations, like Syria - and perhaps the Palestinian Authority as well - are invited in is not lost on Israel.

A senior aide to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, Avi Gil, is reported to have commented on it to a senior Palestinian official last week. Washington has demanded that the Palestinian Authority make "a 100 percent effort" to curb terror while Israel, which has insisted on "100 percent results," says that the authority is in fact encouraging terror.

Noting that the authority might nevertheless be invited to join the coalition, Mr. Gil said in jest, "Maybe you can put in a good word for us with the Americans." The Palestinian, likewise appreciating the irony of the situation, said, "We'll make a 100 percent effort."

-------- pakistan

Civil war feared in Pakistan

September 25, 2001
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010925-92299484.htm

KHATTAK, Pakistan - Pakistan's most powerful tribal leader, Ajmal Khattak, yesterday pleaded with the country's leading fundamentalist agitator, Sami ul-Haq, "to keep Pakistan calm during the present crisis."

But Mr. Khattak's entreaties were unsuccessful. Mr. ul-Haq, who serves as the co-president of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islami, president of the University for the Education of Truth and chairman of the Afghan Defense Council, was not listening. His cell phone rang each time Mr. Khattak tried to make a point.

At the end of a narrow, dusty, dirt alley choked with donkey carts weaving between fruit and vegetable stalls, the two leaders sat on stained white plastic chairs outside Mr. Khattak's rundown, mud-brick abode. Mr. ul-Haq kept telling his callers "not to worry because our Islamic forces are ready." Mr. Khattak would then start his pitch again, urging Mr. ul-Haq to give President Pervez Musharraf "the benefit of the doubt."

But Mr. ul-Haq did not seem to be interested in what Mr. Khattak had to say. "The Israeli Mossad intelligence service organized the acts of terrorism against America to give America a pretext to launch a general offensive against the Muslim world," he said. "So we must reply."

"If you believe that," replied Mr. Khattak, president of the National Alliance Party, "all the more reason not to fall into the trap and to keep your powder dry." Mr. ul-Haq once again brought his cell phone to his ear, most obscured between his top-hat-sized turban and his flowing black-dyed beard. "No, don't worry," he told the caller. "Everything is under control. You will be pleased."

After Mr. ul-Haq drove off in his 4x4 Subaru, honking donkey carts off the narrow path into the space between the stalls, Mr. Khattak shook his head sadly and said, "They seem to be preparing something big."

Fazlur Rehman, the other co-president of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islami, yesterday was in Chaman, the border town on the road that links Quetta and Kandahar, headquarters for Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar. Mr. ul-Haq told Mr. Khattak he had gone there to address Afghan refugees. When asked what he thought might defuse the immediate crisis, Mr. Khattak said, "the United States must talk to Taliban leaders with a high-level delegation."

Told that it was too late for what would probably be seized upon by Omar as a pretext for more dilatory tactics, Mr. Khattak said, in a barely audible voice, "It won't take much at this stage for our extremists to light the fuse of civil war."

Mr. Khattak also said that U.S. support for the Northern Alliance battling Taliban forces in the hope of taking Kabul and bringing back old king Zahir Shah, 88, "would be a tragic mistake."

The alliance, he explained, "is made up of minority Tajik and Uzbek tribes who can never control the dominant Pashtuns. Before dipping its toes in Afghanistan's treacherous waters, Washington should always remember that these fierce warriors defeated two of history's mightiest empires - Great Britain and the Soviet Union."

Repeated attempts to get through to Mullah Omar's office were unsuccessful. Someone kept answering the phone and saying each time, "Call back in 5 minutes."

Meanwhile, journalists continue to trickle in from all over the world. An estimated 400 are scattered in small hotels from Islamabad to Rawalpindi and from Peshawar to Quetta. A total of 280 of them are at the Islamabad Marriott. Construction workers have put up plywood partitions in the ballroom to create 16 more beds - without bathrooms. They go for $100 a night. Regular rooms run $300 a night. Some 250 Afghan hotel staff have been sent home on indefinite leave under orders from Pakistani security.

A U.S. delegation that arrived Saturday night has split into State Department and Defense Department teams to negotiate the modalities of the assistance pledged by Pakistan for real-time intelligence, overflight rights and logistical facilities. U.S. teams also went directly to Peshawar near the Afghan border and Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan.

• Distributed by United Press International

--------

THE REFUGEES
Pakistan May Soften Stand on Afghans Fleeing There

New York Times
September 25, 2001
By BARRY BEARAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/25/international/asia/25REFU.html

JALOZAI REFUGEE CAMP, Pakistan, Sept. 24 - Jamal Khan, a junkman, deals in old shoes, empty bottles and piles of tin. But his biggest seller is bits of stale bread. Vendors buy his supply at 3 cents a pound and then resell it at this refugee camp, where a paste of boiled, spiced scraps of bread is often the only meal.

The Jalozai camp, a wretched repository for 80,000 unwanted Afghans, is notorious even among the most seasoned aid workers. For the last year Pakistani officials have kept it intentionally miserable as something of a stop sign to others seeking sanctuary.

But now hundreds of thousands more Afghans may be on their way, a panicked horde expecting a military attack by the United States. On one hand, the Pakistanis are discussing the unavoidable need for additional camps. On the other, they want to deter the inevitable for as long as possible, sealing their borders and sending back those who squeeze through.

In Pakistan's southwest, about 15,000 Afghans crossed the border at Chaman before the checkpoint was closed last week. They are now being rounded up and deported.

People who live near a soccer stadium in Quetta said 400 to 500 refugees were living in the arena until last Friday when the authorities swept them into trucks and ushered them away. "They didn't leave even a single person behind," said a man resting on a woven mat beneath a makeshift shelter near the stadium.

Some who were sent back to Afghanistan intend to turn right around.

William Sakataka, head of the Quetta office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said today that thousands of people, including many of those just deported, were waiting to enter Pakistan.

He said he had watched them on Sunday from an observation tower at the border. Some 5,000 to 10,000 refugees were standing in the open or clustered in the shade of trees.

Most appeared to be women and children. "You can see them standing against the barbed-wire fence," he said. The authorities told him that two women gave birth at the fence last week.

"They were permitted into Pakistan for treatment for a day and then returned to Afghanistan," he said.

For some of the persistent there may be hope. Mr. Sakataka said the government had tentatively agreed to allow the most vulnerable to cross at Chaman. The United Nations will build a screening center near the border where it will begin determining which refugees are eligible. Those who are cleared will be taken to two empty refugee camps at Dara that can accommodate about 20,000, Mr. Sakataka said.

"Pakistani officials have told me, `For now we are not allowing people to cross the border, for strategic reasons, but we know we are going to have to let some in, and we are prepared to let people cross,' " Mr. Sakataka said.

"There are reports of diarrhea among children and unconfirmed reports of children dying," he said.

Afghanistan has suffered through 22 straight years of war - and has sent refugees to its neighbors during all that time. Pakistan is home to an estimated 2.5 million Afghans, most of them settled in Northwest Frontier Province, where the Jalozai camp is located.

The sustained misery at the refugee camp was something of a Pakistani protest against the withering interest of the world. In 1981, when Afghanistan was a hot spot in the cold war, the United Nations program for refugees in Pakistan spent $87 million, according to numbers supplied by the organization. In 2000 the amount was only $13 million.

Now attention has again focused on Afghanistan, and both Pakistan and the United Nations are hopeful that donors will once more prove generous with refugee aid.

"We have nothing here, no blanket, no proper tent," complained Noor Bibi, a widow who arrived at Jalozai last week from Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. She left Afghanistan soon after the terrorist attacks in America. The ruling Taliban made an announcement on the radio, she said. "They told us there are fears of an attack from the outside and we should leave if we could."

Her family boarded a bus to the border crossing at Torkham - and then bribed Pakistani guards who were charging 400 rupees, or about $6, a person - to pass the checkpoint, she said.

Now in Jalozai, she finds herself in Sector 37 of the camp, a spot mostly inhabited by newcomers. It is a place of improvised tents, where families sleep beneath sheets of flimsy plastic and strung-together cloth.

They have been unable to register with aid agencies and have no eligibility for a monthly allotment of grain and oil. They must satisfy themselves with the paste made from moldy bread and boiled water.

"You can imagine what our lives will be like here," Mrs. Bibi said. "We brought only a single cup to drink with and some red pepper. But at least we are alive. And I don't know if that will be true for anyone who stayed behind in Afghanistan."

-------- puerto rico

Navy Resumes Vieques Bombing Drills

September 25, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Vieques.html?searchpv=aponline

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) -- Puffs of smoke rose from the bow of a distant destroyer as cannon fired non-explosive shells in the first military exercises on this Puerto Rican island since the United States declared war on terrorism.

In response, a small group of protesters simply bowed their heads and prayed for world peace.

The U.S. talk of war has had an effect on protesters on Vieques. Residents are toning down their demonstrations against the U.S. Navy's use of the eastern tip of the island for bombing practice. Peaceful anti-war vigils are replacing civil disobedience.

``It's a deception to look for peace through war,'' said the Rev. Nelson Lopez as he led 20 protesters in prayer on Monday.

In recent years, hundreds of people opposed to the Navy training have invaded Navy lands and been arrested for trespassing. But since the U.S. terror attacks, most have decided to limit their show of opposition to avoid raising tensions.

However, some hard-liners are shunning the softer stance. On Sunday night, they cut through a U.S. Navy fence on the island. No one was arrested, and the Navy said the fence was quickly repaired.

The Navy has used Vieques for six decades, training sailors for major conflicts from World War II to the Gulf War.

Opponents say the Navy bombardments harm the environment and residents' health. The Navy denies its exercises harm Vieques, where 9,100 people live in a civilian sector separated from the firing range by 10 miles of forested hills.

As the exercises resumed Monday, F/A-18 Hornet fighter bombers dropped 500-pound and 25-pound inert bombs on the Vieques range. The guided missile destroyers USS The Sullivans and USS Spruance fired inert 5-inch shells at the range.

The Navy had used live bombs until a Marine jet dropped two bombs off target in 1999, killing a Puerto Rican guard on the range and igniting a storm of protest that continues.

Those fatal exercises involved the USS John F. Kennedy, the aircraft carrier participating in the current exercise with about 12,000 sailors and its battle group of cruisers, destroyers, frigates and attack submarines.

In a nonbinding referendum in July, nearly 70 percent of Vieques voters said the Navy should leave immediately. A binding federal referendum scheduled for November would ask islanders whether the Navy should leave in 2003 or stay and pay $50 million for infrastructure and public works projects.

A House defense bill currently under consideration in Washington would cancel the November referendum and require the Navy to continue training on Vieques until an equivalent site is found.

A vote is expected this week.

--------

On Vieques, Islanders Disagree

Tue, Sep 25
By IAN JAMES,
Associated Press Writer
http://webcrawler-news.excite.com/news/ap/010925/19/int-attacks-vieques

VIEQUES, Puerto Rico (AP) - The terrorist attacks in the United States have stirred a quiet tension on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, where residents who have lived unhappily with decades of U.S. Navy bombing exercises are now at odds over how to respond.

While the guided missile cruiser USS Vicksburg fired non-explosive 5-inch shells at the Navy's firing range on the U.S. island Tuesday, shopkeeper Miguel Perez sold newspapers with headlines describing an imminent war against terrorism.

During past Navy training, Perez sang protest songs. But this time, with the U.S. military gearing up for what President Bush has said will be an exhaustive campaign against terrorism, he said protesting just doesn't seem right.

"The exercises began, and I don't even feel upset," he said. "Everything has its time."

The Navy has used a tip of Vieques as a bombing range for six decades, training sailors for conflicts from World War II to the Persian Gulf War. Opponents say the bombardment harms the environment on Vieques and the health of its 9,100 residents. The Navy denies those allegations.

The latest exercises began Monday with non-explosive ammunition. The Navy used live bombs until a Marine jet dropped two bombs off target in 1999, killing a Puerto Rican guard on the range and igniting a storm of protest that has continued ever since.

After the terrorist attacks, most protest groups agreed not to force their way onto Navy lands as they have during past exercises, when hundreds have been arrested for trespassing, prosecuted and jailed.

On Tuesday, small groups prayed for world peace outside Navy fences. A few disagreed on scaling back protests.

"I don't understand why one act of terrorism justifies another," said Miguel Gonzalez Rodriguez.

Opponents of the Navy exercises have called for an islandwide strike Oct. 4 that would close businesses, schools and government offices. But some argue it would hurt the island's struggling businesses - not the Navy.

Navy supporter Charlotte Ballard, a South African-born U.S. citizen who lives on Vieques, said some business owners felt intimidated by protesters into participating.

"I think they're absolutely wrong saying 'Navy get out' now that there is a worldwide emergency," said Ballard, a retired home builder.

Some Vieques residents have reported family members missing in the ruins of the World Trade Center, and islanders across the political spectrum have expressed sorrow at the attacks.

But fisherman Juan Quesada said getting the Navy to leave Vieques is more important to him than a distant war against terrorists.

"You have to look at your house first before looking out at the street," he said, echoing a widely held view that was also reflected by columnist J.M. Garcia Passalacqua, who wrote in Sunday's San Juan Star newspaper, "World War III, I must state, is not my war."

In a nonbinding referendum in July, 68 percent of Vieques voters said the Navy should leave immediately.

A binding federal referendum scheduled for November would ask islanders whether the Navy should leave in 2003 or stay, resume live bombing and pay $50 million for infrastructure and public works projects.

A vote is expected this week on a House defense bill that would cancel the November referendum and require the Navy to continue training on Vieques until a comparable site is found. The Senate was considering a similar amendment.

-------- saudi arabia

ARAB ALLY
Saudi Arabia Cuts Ties With Taliban

New York Times
September 25, 2001
By JOHN F. BURNS with CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/25/international/25CND-STAN.html?pagewanted=all

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 25 - Saudi Arabia announced today that it had broken relations with Afghanistan because of the ruling Taliban's insistence on supporting "criminals and terrorists."

An official statement issued through the Saudi Press Agency said the kingdom of Saudi Arabia was severing diplomatic ties because "the Taliban have ignored all of the contacts and the attempts by the kingdom to persuade them to stop harboring criminals and terrorists and training them and inciting them and making its land a refuge and haven for them."

The Afghan people's fight for independence - an allusion to their violent resistance to Soviet occupation - had earned their country "a special status" in the hearts of those who championed the right of nations to be free and independent, the Saudi announcement said.

It charged that "the Taliban have used that special status for Afghanistan not for building the ties of brotherhood and for building and development and enforcing the lofty aims which Islam represents, but have made its land a center for attracting, training and recruiting a number of gullible men from different lands, especially citizens of the kingdom, in order to carry out criminal acts that violate all faiths and creeds."

The Taliban, it added, was "continuing to reject handing over those criminals to justice." Such behavior by the Taliban, it said, was "defaming Islam and defaming Muslims' reputation in the world."

The statement did not specifically mention Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born terrorist leader wanted in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Mr. bin Laden has lived in Afghanistan since 1996 under the protection of the Taliban, which refused to hand him over and now claims not to know where he is.

"In spite of what happened and what is happening," the Saudi statement said, "the Taliban government is still continuing to use its land to harbor, arm and encourage those criminals in carrying out terrorist attacks that horrify those who live in peace and the innocent and spread terror and destruction in the world." An English translation of the announcement was carried by the Associated Press.

Saudi Arabia's decision to break relations has potentially far reaching consequences, not least because the Saudis are the guardians of Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina. Saudi Arabia recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan's government in 1997, only to freeze relations a year later over Mr. bin Laden's presence in Afghanistan as the "guest" of the Taliban. Mr. bin Laden was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994.

The Saudi government's break in relations leaves Pakistan as the only nation that still recognizes the Taliban. The United Arab Emirates cut its ties with the Taliban government over the weekend.

But Pakistan signaled that it, too, had all but abandoned the Taliban when it announced that it had withdrawn all its remaining diplomats over the weekend from missions in Kabul and Kandahar, as well as Herat and Jalalabad.

Sounding a note of finality, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday that Pakistan had done all it could. "We sent a delegation," he said. "We did so because we care about the Afghan government and Afghan people" he said.

Military officers from the United States and Pakistan, planning for probable American strikes into Afghanistan, have been meeting behind a wall of secrecy here to work out ways of using Pakistan's air bases, ports and other sites in the war President Bush has promised against international terrorism.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said a three-man American military team had begun working out details of Pakistan's role, but its presence here was so sensitive, in a volatile nation of 140 million Muslims that has already been swept by protests, that the American Embassy would not go beyond acknowledging that the Pentagon team had arrived.

"I can confirm their presence, but I won't go into any details," Mark Wentworth, an embassy spokesman, said Monday.

Although the Pentagon has given no indication of when or how the first strikes might come, a senior Pakistani military officer said before the meetings began that Pakistan's frontier forces facing Afghanistan had not been raised to their highest state of alert or given any hint of what the American war plans might be.

His conclusion, the officer said, was that the first American strikes would probably involve air attacks from bases elsewhere, including ships in the Arabian Sea, and air bases in the Persian Gulf, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Pakistan, he said, seems likely to be involved only at a later stage, when ground operations inside Afghanistan were ordered. That, he said, appeared to be "weeks away" at the earliest.

As planning proceeded, the chances of avoiding conflict appeared to diminish as belligerent statements were issued on Monday in the name of two men certain to be at the top of American priorities: Mr. bin Laden, and Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Muslim cleric who heads the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

The signed statement attributed to Mr. bin Laden referred to a "new Jewish-Christian crusader campaign that is led by the chief crusader Bush under the banner of the cross." It said, "We ask God to make us defeat the infidels and oppressors and to crush the new Jewish-Christian crusader campaign on the land of Pakistan and Afghanistan."

The message made no mention of the attacks in the United States, opening instead with an expression of "great sorrow" for three protesters shot dead by policemen confronting Islamic militants in Karachi, Pakistan's most populous city, on Saturday.

It warned of the bloodshed awaiting American troops, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which has pledged "full support" for any American military operation aimed at uprooting Mr. bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda, and punishing the Taliban for giving him sanctuary.

The statement purported to be Mr. bin Laden's was faxed to Al Jazeera television network in Qatar, which has often been chosen by Mr. bin Laden as the outlet for statements and videotapes propagating his "holy war" against the United States. Al Jazeera said it believed that the statement, which it translated from Arabic, was authentic, with a signature that appeared identical to Mr. bin Laden's earlier messages, but gave no details of where the message had originated.

The authenticity of Mullah Omar's message was not challenged, since it was delivered by telephone to Reuters here by Abdul Hai Mutmaen, the Taliban's chief spokesman, from Kandahar.

"America should not mislead itself," the statement said. "It cannot emerge from this crisis by the murder of myself and Osama bin Laden." It demanded that the United States withdraw its forces from the Persian Gulf and "end its partisanship in Palestine," and concluded, "If America does not take the above-mentioned steps, it will be involved in a vain and bloody war."

Since the attacks in the United States, Mr. bin Laden has disappeared from view. Statements by Taliban officials Monday, in Islamabad and from their headquarters in Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, stuck to the claims made repeatedly since Sept. 11 that the Taliban had no idea where he was.

"Of course he will be somewhere in Afghanistan, in some hidden place," Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, said at a news conference at the Afghan Embassy today. Asked about a welter of unattributed reports in Pakistan that Mr. bin Laden had been moving from hideout to hideout in Afghanistan, Mullah Zaeef offered one the Taliban's most ambiguous formulations.

"As I said, he is missing in Afghanistan, but it doesn't mean he is lost," he said. "He may be some place hiding."

Mullah Omar's whereabouts were also uncertain as pressures on the Taliban mounted with the increasing tempo of American military planning. On Sunday a spokesman for the Northern Alliance, the fractious opposition force in Afghanistan that Washington is looking to as a possible partner in operations against the Taliban, said the alliance had "sure" information that Mullah Omar was with Mr. bin Laden, probably in the mullah's mountainous home province of Oruzgan, north of Kandahar.

Mullah Zaeef, the ambassador in Islamabad, hedged on the issue, saying it was "an Afghan security issue." But reports in Pakistan, attributed to Taliban officials, have said the reclusive Taliban leader left his modest home near the old royal palace in the center of Kandahar after his meetings early last week with a Pakistan military delegation that carried an ultimatum from Mr. Bush for the handover of Mr. bin Laden.

The Taliban's embassy in Islamabad remains open, but even there, officials appeared at Monday's news conference to be increasingly nervous at what lies ahead. Mullah Zaeef, the ambassador, played down the growing refugee crisis in Afghanistan, where more than a million people are said to have fled the major cities, fearing American attacks.

He returned several times to pleas for the United States to turn away from war. Reading a statement from the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Kabul, he said Afghans remembered "sympathetically" the United States support in the fight against occupying Soviet forces in the 1980's.

"We want to say to the American people to urge their authorities to save the people of Afghanistan and America from the impacts and consequences and untoward problems of a war," it said.

-------- u.n.

Hill approves paying to U.N. its back dues, Jordan accord

September 25, 2001
By Dave Boyer
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010925-768259.htm

Lawmakers yesterday agreed to pay the United Nations $582 million in back dues and approved a trade pact with Jordan as Congress turned its attention to strengthening alliances on the eve of war.

Conservatives swallowed objections on both issues. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay dropped his effort to link the U.N. dues payment to a provision barring U.S. participation in the International Criminal Court.

And Republican senators approved the trade pact with Jordan over their concerns that it could affect U.S. labor and environmental standards.

The House approved the U.N. dues, a perennially contentious issue, by the necessary two-thirds majority on a simple voice vote. The action had been planned before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but lawmakers said it was even more critical now as President Bush seeks international cooperation to combat terrorists and states that harbor them.

"It is one of the most important foreign policy decisions Congress will make this year," said Rep. Christopher Shays, Connecticut Republican. "The Cold War is over, but on Sept. 11 we saw in very plain terms that the world is a far more dangerous place. We must increasingly rely on the United Nations."

He said unpaid dues totaling $926 billion have been "a gigantic impediment to our diplomatic efforts."

The United States already has paid $100 million of the back dues, and the Senate in February approved the next installment of $582 million. The House was on its way to the same action in May when the U.N. Human Rights Commission booted the United States off the panel, raising a storm of protest in Congress.

Mr. DeLay responded with a provision that would prevent U.S. military personnel from ever being tried in the International Criminal Court. The Texas Republican wanted to link the measure to payment of the U.N. dues but was dissuaded by the White House. An aide said Mr. DeLay did not want to stand in the way of anything Mr. Bush wants to do in this crisis.

Under the agreement, the U.S. share of the U.N. general fund budget is to drop from 25 percent to 22 percent. The U.S. portion of the U.N. peacekeeping budget is also to be pared from about 32 percent to 25 percent over the next six years. A senior House Republican aide estimated the savings to the United States at $2 billion over 10 years.

The Senate approved on a voice vote the trade deal with Jordan, one of the strongest U.S. allies in the Middle East.

Sen. Phil Gramm, Texas Republican, dropped his objections to the pact because "we have a crisis in the world."

"The president wants his agreement to show Jordan our friendship," Mr. Gramm said. "We need Jordan's support in this war on terrorism."

Mr. Gramm said the deal contains "very serious" problems, including provisions that could find the United States in violation if it changes labor or environmental standards that put Jordan at a trade disadvantage. He said the United States is risking ceding its sovereignty.

"If it weren't for this crisis,... this trade agreement would never have become the law of the land," Mr. Gramm said.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, South Dakota Democrat, said the pact "signals that the United States is not the enemy of the Arab and Muslim world."

Mr. Daschle said the trade deal "will only hasten our triumph" against terrorism.

President Clinton negotiated the trade agreement with Jordan last year, but its approval had been slowed by conservatives' concerns over the labor and environmental provisions. Jordan is not a major trading partner with the United States; last year commerce between the two nations totaled $386 million.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican, said he was encouraged by letters that the two nations exchanged in July stating that neither country intends to block trade over the labor and environmental provisions.

--------

U.N. to hold special session on terrorism

By Betsy Pisik
September 25, 2001
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010925-28631209.htm

NEW YORK - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday urged governments to avoid violence in the fight against terrorism and to give the United Nations a central role in coordinating comprehensive efforts.

"Let us respond to it in a way that strengthens international peace and security - by cementing the ties among nations and not subjecting them to new strains," he told the General Assembly yesterday.

"The organization is the natural forum in which to build such a universal coalition. It alone can give global legitimacy to the long-term struggle against terrorism."

The secretary-general also cautioned governments not to use violence in the effort to root out terrorists, saying that international cooperation is preferable to "nihilism and despair."

"The need for a vigorous response to terrorism, and for a sustained, comprehensive strategy to defeat it, is not in doubt," said Mr. Annan.

"But we also need to give greater urgency to our humanitarian task of relieving the victims of conflict and starvation - especially, at this time, those displaced from their homes in Afghanistan."

Mr. Annan made those remarks on what should have been the opening day of the high-profile General Debate, an annual event that routinely draws scores of presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers.

Out of respect for New York City's overburdened police department, the debate has not yet been rescheduled.

However, diplomats have agreed to hold a special session on terrorism starting Monday.

Many of yesterday's speakers - mostly diplomats discussing a routine report summarizing the work of the U.N. organization - used some of their podium time to condemn the Sept. 11 attacks.

More than 6,500 people from more than 60 nations are dead or missing and presumed dead as a result of the attacks.

In his brief remarks to the assembly yesterday, U.S. Ambassador Cameron Hume, the third-ranking diplomat at the U.S. mission, agreed that the United Nations "must play an international role in marshaling the international community's long-term efforts to defeat this scourge."

However, he added, "these efforts will also require absolute clarity that the international community condemns and rejects any effort to offer false justification for the attack or to protect those who committed it."

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, the highest ranking national speaker yesterday, urged governments to work within the "the coordinating leadership of the United Nations."

"In fighting new dangers, of which international terrorism is no doubt the greatest one, the main objective is to set up a global system to counteract new threats and challenges," he said.

The Russian diplomat noted that national prestige "should be measured not by its military or economic might, but rather by its ability to responsibly fulfill its international obligations."

Moscow has publicly supported Washington's right to retaliate for the attack, in which four passenger jets were hijacked.

Three of the jetliners slammed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

However, the Russian leadership has repeatedly demanded Security Council approval even for non-U.N. action, such as the Kosovo intervention and initial East Timor protection force.

Members of the Security Council, meanwhile, have been holding low-key talks about how to craft a more forceful anti-terrorism resolution than the one they passed unanimously in the aftermath of the bombing.

According to U.N. diplomats, the Americans want to see an anti-terrorism regime explicitly authorized under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which would legitimize the use of force.

Washington, London and Paris are leading the efforts, say council diplomats, who note that the remaining veto-holders, Beijing and Moscow, are expected to weigh in with their own red lines when a draft proposal is introduced, possibly by the end of this week.

"All options are on the table," said a U.S. diplomat, declining to be more specific. The day after the dramatic attacks, the council unanimously passed a resolution condemning them and calling on nations to bring to justice "those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts."

--------

Taliban threatens to execute UN workers

USA TODAY
09/25/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/24/taliban-aidworkers.htm

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - The Taliban have threatened to execute any U.N. worker who uses computers and communications equipment in Afghanistan, forcing a near halt to the remaining relief work in the country, U.N. officials said Monday. The militia raided U.N. offices in Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, where the Taliban leadership is based, during the weekend and sealed their satellite telephones, walkie-talkies, computers and vehicles to bar them from use, according to U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker. "They warned our staff that if they use these things they will face execution," said Gordon Weiss, the spokesman for UNICEF in Islamabad.

There was no immediate comment from the Taliban.

After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the United Nations removed its foreign staffers from Afghanistan for their safety but left behind Afghan employees. The U.N. workers are one of the last providers of subsidized food and health care to the impoverished and war-ravaged country.

"We are worried about the safety of our remaining workers there and concerned about the fate of our programs," Weiss said. "Life will become more miserable for the more than 1 million people displaced because of drought and civil war."

Bunker said that without communications, relief operations would be impossible.

"The U.N. has ordered its staff to obey the Taliban directive to avoid risking their lives," she said. "We have requested the Taliban to allow at least one high frequency radio transmitter" in cities with U.N. operations.

U.S. forces have begun mobilizing in the Persian Gulf for an expected attack on Afghanistan to punish the hard-line Taliban government for refusing to extradite Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the deadly suicide attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled their homes in areas that could be targeted by U.S. forces and have been stranded along the country's borders with Pakistan, Iran and Tajikistan, which were recently closed at Washington's request.

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Senators support base closings

USA TODAY
09/25/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/25/bases.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate narrowly endorsed a new round of base closings Tuesday, supporting the Bush administration's bid to shed unneeded facilities and use the money to fight the war against terrorism. The vote was 53-47, with Democrats giving greater support to President Bush's initiative than he got from his fellow Republicans, many of whom contended the nation shouldn't mothball bases just as it gears up for an extended battle. It was the first roll call vote taken as the Senate opened debate on the $343 billion defense authorization bill for the next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1

Just before the vote, Sen. John Warner, R-Va., the top Republican on the Armed Services Committee, read part of a letter from Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, seeking support for a new round of closings.

"The authority to eliminate excess infrastructure will be an important tool our forces will need to become more efficient and serve as better custodians of the taxpayers' money," Shelton wrote. "We cannot afford the costs associated with carrying this excess infrastructure."

Opponents of more base closings included Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., who said it was the wrong time for such upheavals "when our reserves are being called up, our National Guard is being called up, our communities are being told, 'Support our military."'

Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., who offered the amendment to cut a base-closings provision from the measure, argued: "Now, more than ever, we should hold off further downsizing ... until we have analyzed how to fight the first war of the 21st century."

The Bush administration's February budget said the nation had a 23% surplus of bases, and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld reiterated the need to close them in letters to committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Warner on Friday.

"In the wake of the terrible events of September 11, the imperative to convert excess capacity into warfighting ability is enhanced, not diminished," Rumsfeld wrote. "We simply must have the freedom to maximize the efficient use of our resources."

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a longtime base-closing supporter, argued: "This vote is really all about whether we're going to do business as usual, and preserve our bases in our states whether they're necessary or not, or whether we're going to have ... the most efficient military machine to fight this long, protracted struggle."

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved a single round of base closings in 2003 by a bipartisan vote of 17-8 on Sept. 7 - four days before the attacks - as part of the bill authorizing spending for military work by the Defense and Energy departments.

The House Armed Services Committee tried to derail base closures by omitting them from its version of the bill, which the House was starting to debate Tuesday.

There have been four rounds of base-closings, in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995. A total of 451 installations, including 97 major ones, were ordered closed or realigned.

Lawmakers dislike base closures because the upheavals can hurt communities. They also question whether the nation has realized the massive savings touted as a reason to shutter facilities.


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Israeli Rights Group Slams Israeli Army Violations

September 25, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-rights-mideast.html

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - An Israeli human rights group said Tuesday that the army had committed unprecedented human rights violations in battling a year-old Palestinian uprising, including executing Palestinians without trial.

The group, B'Tselem, said the army had used excessive force against unarmed Palestinian demonstrators and ``executes without trial Palestinians suspected of actions against Israel.''

``Human rights violations in the occupied territories in the past year were of unprecedented proportion,'' the group said in a statement.

Israel has said it hunts and kills Palestinians who carry out or are planning attacks against Israelis. An army spokesman denied the accusations of excessive force against civilians or of unprecedented human rights violations.

In its report marking the one-year anniversary of the Palestinian uprising that flared after peace talks stalled, B'Tselem also criticized Israeli soldiers for abusing Palestinians at military checkpoints.

``Israeli restrictions on the freedom of movement of Palestinians make living intolerable and normal life impossible,'' said the group, which monitors Israeli soldiers' behavior in the occupied territories.

Israel said it imposed a blockade on Palestinian areas at the start of the uprising to prevent attacks on Israelis. Palestinians brand the measures, which have dealt a severe blow to their already weak economy, collective punishment.

Palestinian militants have carried out dozens of suicide bombings in Israel that have killed scores of people since the uprising flared last September.

B'Tselem also said Israeli civilians attacked Palestinians while security forces turned a blind eye and that Israeli security forces ``abuse, beat and degrade'' Palestinian civilians.

The group also criticized Palestinians for attacking and killing Israeli civilians and for executing Palestinians suspected of collaborating with the Jewish state.

``None of these phenomena are new, but all of them increased in severity in the past 12 months,'' the group's statement said.

At least 587 Palestinians and 169 Israelis have been killed in the year of violence.

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Push for Increased Surveillance Powers Worries Some

By Guy Gugliotta and Jonathan Krim
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 25, 2001; Page A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19500-2001Sep24.html

To fight the new war against terrorism, the Bush administration wants to give law enforcement electronic surveillance capabilities that currently are allowed only in espionage cases.

Arguing that the country is under a continuing threat from terrorists equipped with technology never envisioned in existing law, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft has asked Congress for a package of measures enabling law enforcement officials to act more quickly in fast-moving cases.

But privacy advocates worry that the measure might short-circuit constitutional safeguards by, under the guise of counterterrorism, allowing broader wiretapping and surveillance powers in all criminal investigations.

Under the Ashcroft proposals, not all of which are opposed by privacy advocates, investigators could obtain wiretaps and electronic eavesdropping authorization valid anywhere in the United States for up to a year. Investigators could seize unopened voice mail and e-mail messages with a search warrant and not a court order. And they could execute a search warrant without prior notification.

The proposal also provides for more information-sharing between intelligence and law enforcement agencies. It allows intelligence gathered by foreign governments to be used against suspects in the United States.

Privacy advocates want Congress to slow down to allow a full debate on the proposal: "What's the rush?" asked Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Some things should be left for later."

The current wiretapping law was written in 1968, long before the age of cell phones, voice mail, personal computers and e-mail. It requires a court order for each telephone number and a description of the incriminating conversations that a particular individual is expected to have.

"You had to describe the conversation even before you heard it," said Ronald Goldstock, chairman of the American Bar Association's Committee on Standards. "We had no vision of the telephone moving."

Because that was a cumbersome procedure, Congress 10 years later passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, making it easier to obtain a wiretap to monitor suspected espionage activities by a "foreign power," defined to include international terrorist organizations.

In rare circumstances, the act allowed intelligence agencies to pass information collected in that fashion to law enforcement officials, but surveillance evidence gathered in criminal cases was never passed to intelligence officials. Under the Ashcroft proposal, that would be allowed.

But the act, known as FISA, had a second purpose -- to avoid domestic spying abuses such as those that grew out of the FBI's surveillance of anti-Vietnam War activists and the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

Since then, of course, communications technology has changed radically. Today, criminals have extra telephone lines at home, a different cell phone each week and a personal computer that can send encrypted e-mails.

"The technology and the methods of communication have far outpaced law enforcement's ability to track them," said New York-based consultant Fred Rayano, an expert on listening devices. "And lagging behind that are the laws that allow you to do the work."

Indeed, part of the aim of the administration's legislation is to fulfill a long-held law enforcement desire to put surveillance laws for the Internet on the same footing as those of telephone communications.

With the rapidly growing exploitation of e-mail and the Internet by criminals, law enforcement has sought greater access to electronic message traffic as a crime-fighting tool. The FBI developed sophisticated eavesdropping technology for the task, most prominently a system code-named "Carnivore."

Carnivore can be installed on the network of an Internet service provider such as America Online or Earthlink to capture e-mail messages to and from a specific account, or simply to capture routing information on whom a specific user corresponds with. Carnivore is the electronic e-mail equivalent of a telephone wiretap that traces calls or eavesdrops on conversations.

But Carnivore can also track all the Web servers -- which house Web sites and other networks visited by a suspect. Conversely, it can track all the visitors to a particular server or Web site. E-mail routing information also shows the subject line of a message.

For those reasons, privacy advocates have argued that telephone and Internet communications should be treated differently because Web site identification and the subject line of e-mail provide far more information than telephonic surveillance.

Privacy advocates are also unconvinced that Carnivore limits electronic sniffing to an intended target. As a result, Internet service providers are not required to allow the FBI to install Carnivore, and until the recent attacks have declined to do so. Instead, when the FBI has had a court order for specific user information, the service provider has used its own tracking systems to gather it.

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National ID Card Push Roils Privacy Advocates

By Brian Krebs,
Newsbytes
25 Sep 2001, 3:43 PM CST
http://www.newsbytes.com/cgi-bin/udt/im.display.printable?client.id=newsbytes&story.id=170488

WASHINGTON, D.C., U.S.A., 2001 SEP 25 (NB) -- By Brian Krebs, Newsbytes. In 1986, while the government of Australia was drafting legislation requiring citizens to carry a national identification card, civil liberties advocates formed Privacy International, a group dedicated to sharing information on similar movements around the globe.