------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Terrorists could use mass-destruction arms
Security rises at oil, gas fields, nuclear plants
Depleted Uranium documentary
Rabbis from Europe and Israel ask Katsav to pardon Vanunu
Dutch Arrest Two with Fake ID at Nuclear Center
NEW LABORATORY TO SUPPORT WASTE ISOLATION PILOT PLANT
NRC FINES URANIUM COMPANY FOR DISCRIMINATION
NO MORE FUNDS FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS
Ban on Shipping Nuclear Waste Is Lifted

MILITARY
Afghan protesters hit symbols of U.S.
Afghanistan's Atmosphere Of Mistrust
Afghanistan asks bin Laden to leave
Ethnic Albanian rebel group disbands
Al Qaeda May Have Crude Chemical, Germ Capabilities
Pakistan's New Role Riles Indian Leaders
Iran Rejects Role in U.S. Anti-Terror Coalition
Allied Warplanes Hit Iraqi Artillery
Peres, Arafat agree on peace effort
Israelis Fire on Refugee Camp in Response to a Bomb Blast
Bin Laden's Culpability 'Clearer,'
Pakistan Pledges to Use 'All Resources' in Defense
Chechnya linked to terrorists
U.S. Introduces Counterterrorism Measure at U.N.
U.S. can strike without U.N. nod
Military Strike Not Imminent,
Key U.S. Computer Systems Called Vulnerable to Attack
Cost of Raising Japanese Ship Skyrocketing

OTHER
Some See Execution in New Light
Ambassador for religious liberty named
Police sweep Europe in search of terrorists
Bush confident in Tennet
Ex - Colonel Gets Life for Espionage
FBI going after college students' files
LEARNING THE LINGO
Document outlines suspects' goals, 'mindset'



-------- NUCLEAR

Terrorists could use mass-destruction arms

September 27, 2001
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010927-31465520.htm

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz warned NATO yesterday that terrorists in the future could carry out attacks using weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Wolfowitz told NATO defense ministers in Brussels there is an "alarming coincidence between those states that harbor international terrorists and those states that have active and maturing WMD [weapons of mass destruction] programs," a U.S. official told reporters.

"This raises the specter of potential access to those WMD by international terrorist networks, and it also potentially creates a problem for dealing with those states that harbor international terrorists," the official told reporters in Brussels.

The comments followed new intelligence reports that Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist group is acquiring materials for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons through Russian organized crime groups.

Bush administration spokesmen declined to comment on the reports, first reported in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times, citing a policy of not discussing intelligence matters.

Intelligence officials said the efforts did not mean bin Laden currently possesses such weapons, only that he is trying to get them.

The intelligence reports also indicate that bin Laden has a secret weapons laboratory inside Afghanistan where terrorists are working on nuclear arms, according to officials familiar with the reports.

Defense officials said the threat of bin Laden's organization conducting attacks with deadly chemical, biological or nuclear-related materials is real.

"There's a lot of concern at the attempts of terrorist groups, particularly bin Laden's, to use weapons of mass destruction, since he has shown he's willing to attack innocent people as he did this time," said a senior defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "Anytime there is such disregard for human life, you have worry about them having more powerful weapons."

The intelligence reports come amid alarming reports that the U.S. government temporarily grounded agricultural crop-dusting aircraft because of fears they could be used to spray chemical or biological weapons.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said on Tuesday there also are fears that the hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center were seeking drivers' licenses for transporting hazardous materials.

Yossef Bodansky, author of a 1999 book on bin Laden, stated that Islamic terrorists in Afghanistan under bin Laden's command "have been actively preparing for spectacular terrorist strikes using chemical, bacteriological and perhaps radiological weapons in a well-equipped, fortified compound concealed near Kandahar."

Mr. Bodansky said there are reports from Russian and Southwest Asia indicating bin Laden has purchased several tactical nuclear weapons from organized crime elements in Chechnya.

Frank Cilluffo, a global crime analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Russian and Central Asian mob groups have had close ties to groups linked to bin Laden, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

"They are a loosely affiliated group connected to bin Laden," Mr. Cilluffo said.

The connections between Russian organized crime and Afghanistan have included trade in illegal drugs, primarily opiates, opium and heroin, he said.

Mr. Cilluffo said Russian crime groups could be helping provide weapons of mass destruction goods to bin Laden.

"The tentacles do reach there, so that is certainly possible," he said.

• This article is based in part on wire service reports.

-------- canada

Security rises at oil, gas fields, nuclear plants

September 27, 2001
By Robert Fife, Ottawa Bureau Chief
National Post, with files from news services
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?f=/stories/20010927/708084.html

OTTAWA - Canada has dramatically tightened security at vital oil fields, nuclear power plants and hydroelectric facilities to prevent possible terrorist strikes that could disable the Canadian and U.S. economies, Ralph Goodale, the Minister of Natural Resources, said yesterday.

The federal and provincial governments acted quickly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to protect vulnerable economic installations such as Alberta's vast oil and gas fields, which supply more energy to the U.S. market than Saudi Arabia.

Security has also been increased at major hydroelectric dams in Quebec and at 20 nuclear reactors in Ontario as well as electrical utilities in other provinces. New Brunswick and Quebec each operate one Candu reactor.

''Security measures were increased immediately. They remain in place,'' Mr. Goodale told reporters. ''Obviously I cannot discuss what they are or what their nature is, but the process is ongoing and there is a high degree of collaboration among all the jurisdictions.''

Also, Atomic Energy of Canada has imposed a secure air space of 3,000 feet and 3.5 nautical miles around its research campus at Chalk River, Ont., said spokeswoman Louise Duhamel.

Any aircraft must get permission to come within that space. Public tours and visits to the Chalk River facility have also been halted.

The campus, home to nuclear material and Canada's top nuclear scientists, was already under extremely tight security. Officials say CF-18 fighter jets can be scrambled to ward off any attack.

Mr. Goodale would not say whether military personnel have been deployed to Canadian nuclear facilities, but acknowledged Ottawa has not ruled out the serious threat of a terrorist-manned plane hitting a reactor.

''Obviously that is an issue that is at least a hypothetical concern that people want to make sure that we address,'' Mr. Goodale said. ''I have spoken to both the president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission and also the president of the AECL [Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.] to satisfy myself about their level of confidence in terms of the safety and security arrangements that are in place at a heightened level.''

As early as 1987, Iran threatened attacks against U.S. reactors, and recent trial testimony in New York revealed Osama bin Laden's training camps are offering instruction in urban warfare against enemy installations that include power plants.

In the United States, two nuclear watchdog groups warned the 103 nuclear power reactors in the country are vulnerable to terrorist attacks because regulatory bodies have failed to implement adequate security.

The Nuclear Control Institute in Washington and the Los Angeles-based Committee to Bridge the Gap say they have tried over the past 17 years to persuade the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and commercial nuclear plant operators to improve their defences against possible terrorist strikes.

The two groups outlined specific proposals to foil any terrorist, including immediate use of National Guard troops to deter attacks from land and water, deployment of anti-aircraft weapons against suicide attacks, and a thorough revetting of all plant employees and contractors to protect against sabotage by insiders.

However, U.S. officials downplayed the possibility of serious damage, saying both nuclear reactors and outdoor casks used to store spent nuclear fuel are shielded by layers of steel and concrete.

''It hasn't been analyzed whether the casks could withstand a crash from a large commercial aircraft, but the casks are robust,'' said Sue Gagner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Washington. ''If a cask were breached, any impact would be localized.''

Mr. Goodale said the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service are co-operating with the National Energy Board and the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. The overall security is being handled by the Office of Critical Infrastructure Protection and Emergency Preparedness, which falls under the umbrella of the Department of National Defence.

Premier Ralph Klein said last week that Alberta's energy industry fires much of the nation's economy and is becoming increasingly important to the United States. He said the province wouldn't rule out asking Ottawa to commit troops to protect oil sites if deemed necessary.


-------- depleted uranium

Depleted Uranium documentary

From: "Jawad Metni" <metni7@hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:15:56 -0400

Greetings everyone,

My name is Jawad Metni, an independent documentary filmmaker working in New York. I have recently completed a documentary dealing with DU weapons entitled "Downwind: Depleted Uranium Weapons in the Age of Virtual War". The film places the weapons within an historical context of the memory of Hiroshima/Nagasaki and the above-ground testing of nuclear weapons in America. The film also maps out the movement towards a kind of virtual warfare, a dissociation of the representation and reality of war (of which I imagine we shall see a great deal in the coming months).

There are six interviews within the film, most of them no doubt familiar names to those regularly on the du-list. They are as follows:

Dan Fahey Carole Gallagher Dr. Rosalie Bertell Dr. Doug Rokke James Der Derian Dr. Melissa McDiarmid

This interviews are interwoven with stock footage from Hiroshima, Nevada, and the 1991 Gulf War. The film hopes to raise questions about the true human cost when the desire for total victory outweighs the moral obligations of humanitarian intervention.

If anyone is interested in obtaining this documentary, please contact me at metni7@hotmail.com, or du_downwind@hotmail.com. Also, please feel free to pass this information along to anyone who may be interested in this issue.

There will also be a website for the documentary on the web by the 5th of October, 2001. The site will be pinholepictures.com. Please also forward this information to any interested parties.

Thank you for your time and continued concern for this important issue, and thank you in advance for any support you may give to this film.

Peace to you all,
Jawad Metni Pinhole Pictures

-------- israel

Rabbis from Europe and Israel ask Katsav to pardon Vanunu

September 27, 2001,
By Joseph Algazy,
Ha'aretz Correspondent

From: Max Obuszewski <MObuszewski@afsc.org>

Mordechai Vanunu: Convicted of selling Israeli atomic secrets in 1988.

Twelve prominent rabbis from Europe and Israel asked President Moshe Katsav on Tuesday to pardon Mordechai Vanunu on "humanitarian grounds." They said his release from jail would "demonstrate the strength of Israeli democracy and improve Israel's standing in the world."

In 1986, Vanunu leaked details about Israel's nuclear program to The Sunday Times. He was convicted of selling Israeli atomic secrets at his 1988 trial and was sentenced to 18 years in prison, of which he has served 11.

Among the rabbis who signed the petition are Rabbi David Rozen, former head rabbi in Ireland; Rabbi Yitzhak Newman, former head rabbi of the Royal Air Force and community rabbi of the United Synagogue in London; Rabbi Meir Shimon Vershovski, former head rabbi of Strassbourg, France; and Rabbi Ya'acov Milgrom, professor emeritus of the University of California who now resides in Jerusalem.

The rabbis' petition was sent to the president's residence in Jerusalem by Dr. Daniel Rohrleich, who participated in a demonstration calling for a pardon for Vanunu that took place Tuesday outside the president's residence. Similar demonstrations were held in front of Israeli representatives' residence's throughout cities in Europe, the United States, Australia, India and other places in the world.

-------- netherland

Dutch Arrest Two with Fake ID at Nuclear Center

By REUTERS
September 27, 2001
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-crime-dutch-nuclear.html?searchpv=reuters

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch police arrested two people carrying fake identification at a nuclear research center owned by the European Commission on Thursday.

The two were detained at the Joint Research Center site in the northwestern Dutch coastal town of Petten, police said.

``Shortly before 10 a.m. EDT two people were apprehended at the Petten facility. They were holding false identification,'' said police spokesman Menno Hartenberg.

No further details about the identity of the two people arrested were available. Police would not confirm reports they were apprehended after gaining entry.

Officials at the research center were not immediately available for comment.

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

-------- new mexico

NEW LABORATORY TO SUPPORT WASTE ISOLATION PILOT PLANT

September 27, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-27-09.html

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico, A new research program for the Department of Energy's (DOE) Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) will study the chemistry of materials that can affect underground radioactive waste storage sites.

The program is a cooperative effort of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Carlsbad Operations and the Carlsbad Environmental Monitoring and Research Center of New Mexico State University to develop new research and laboratory capabilities to support WIPP's scientific needs.

WIPP, located 26 miles east of Carlsbad, New Mexico, became the nation's first operating underground repository for permanent disposal of weapons related radioactive waste on March 26, 1999.

"This project dovetails with DOE's intent to conduct more of its efforts in support of WIPP right here in Carlsbad, and make Carlsbad one of the few state of the art centers for repository science in the world," said Roger Nelson, chief scientist for the DOE Carlsbad field office.

The new research program focuses on actinide chemistry, or the chemical behavior and properties of those elements that are heavier than radium. Actinide chemistry is important to understanding the long term performance of the WIPP repository.

These radioactive exotic elements attempt to become more stable by throwing off particles and energy from their overcrowded nuclei. This actinide chemistry activity can be applied to weapons and energy production but it increases the challenge of handling these elements.

The new laboratory collaboration seeks to understand the behavior of these elements to a degree never before achieved. The research program includes repository science investigations to support WIPP, reduce costs and ensure its safe and economical use far into the future.

The team will use the mobile Contaminant Analysis Automation laboratory, which was developed by the DOE as a tool that can be sent to contaminated sites for quick analyses of hazardous materials. The automated lab lowers costs and reduces the time required to analyze environmental samples.

The lab will be used to investigate the behavior of plutonium under many possible underground conditions, as well as developing new methods to package and treat radioactive materials to make them easier to handle.

-------- ohio

NRC FINES URANIUM COMPANY FOR DISCRIMINATION

September 27, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/sep2001/2001L-09-27-09.html

ASHTABULA, Ohio, The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has proposed a $17,600 fine against RMI Environmental Services (now Earthline Technologies), for apparently violating NRC requirements protecting employees from discrimination.

From 1962 until 1988, the company fabricated uranium metal products for the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and other commercial clients. The facility is now being decontaminated and decommissioned.

An NRC investigation found that an RMI radiation protection technician was placed on involuntary leave after he raised safety concerns about the handling of a radioactively contaminated pipe and other radiation protection issues. The NRC cited RMI for discriminating against the employee who had raised safety concerns and proposed the $17,600 fine.

The NRC staff issued a second violation pertaining to RMI's deliberate failure to control or limit access to licensed material, from July 31 to August 2, 1998, when sections of a contaminated pipe were improperly stored and labeled at RMI's Ashtabula, Ohio, site. That failure to control the contaminated pipe sections led to the improper removal of the pipes from the site.

The pipe sections have since been returned to RMI's Ohio facility. The company took prompt and effective corrective actions, and, as a result, no fine was proposed for this violation.

The NRC staff also issued a separate but related violation to an RMI radiation protection supervisor for violating the agency's rule prohibiting deliberate misconduct. The NRC stated the violation, which did not result in a fine, occurred when the supervisor failed to control the concrete pipe contaminated with uranium.

In notifying the company of the proposed fine, NRC regional administrator James Dyer noted that the amount of the fine was doubled because RMI did not take corrective actions pertaining to the discrimination violation.

-------- us nuc politics

NO MORE FUNDS FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAMS

From: David Culp <david@fcnl.org>
Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 07:54:19 -0400

A few senators are proposing to add more than $300 million to the nuclear weapons budget. A floor vote in the Senate could occur next week (week of Oct. 1).

Sens. Domenici (NM), Reid (NV) and Bingaman (NM) have filed an amendment, Senate Amendment 1671, to increase the nuclear weapons budget of the Energy Department by $339 million. They could offer the amendment as a floor amendment to the defense authorization, as soon as Monday, October 1.

ACTION

Please call the Washington offices of your two Senators. Ask them to oppose Senate Amendment 1671 by Sen. Domenici, which would increase the nuclear weapons budget in the defense authorization bill.

The U.S. should not be spending more money on nuclear weapons development and testing. This is the wrong message to send to the world following the tragedy of September 11. Instead, the Senate should increase funding for non-proliferation programs-such as the "Nunn-Lugar" threat reduction initiative--to safely and securely dismantle and dispose of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in the U.S., Russia, and elsewhere, and fund initiatives to de-alert nuclear weapons within the next year.

To find your Senators' Washington telephone numbers, either call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or use the Legislative Action Center on FCNL's web site. Just click on the link below, select your state and click on <Go>, then select your member and click on <Go>. Here is the link: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/

BACKGROUND

The Bush administration requested $5.30 billion for the nuclear weapons activities budget at the Energy Department for fiscal year 2002, which begins October 1. The budget funds the work of the Los Alamos (NM), Sandia (NM), and Lawrence Livermore (CA) nuclear weapons labs. It also funds a half dozen nuclear weapons production sites scattered across the country and the Nevada Test Site. These facilities are used to maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal. None of these funds are for non-proliferation programs.

Earlier this year, the Senate Armed Services Committee recommended spending $5.45 billion for the nuclear weapons account, higher than the Bush administration's request. Sens. Domenici, Reid and Bingaman are now seeking to boost that by $339 million.

Some Senators have been suggesting that the U.S. should develop new nuclear weapons, especially a "mini-nuke." While this amendment does not specifically authorize development of a new nuclear weapon, it is a significant increase for the nuclear weapons budget.

David Culp, Legislative Representative Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers) 245 Second Street, N.E. Washington, D.C. 20002-5795 Tel: (202) 547-6000, ext. 146 Toll free: (800) 630-1330, ext. 146 Fax: (202) 547-6019 E-mail: david@fcnl.org Web site: www.fcnl.org

-------- us nuc waste

Ban on Shipping Nuclear Waste Is Lifted

New York Times
September 27, 2001
By MICHAEL JANOFSKY
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/27/national/27WAST.html

DENVER, Sept. 26 - The Energy Department said today that the moratorium on the shipment of low-level nuclear waste, put in place on the day of the terrorist attacks, was lifted earlier this week, sending truckloads of material to disposal and storage sites around the country.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham had suspended the transport in an effort to ensure that terrorists would not attack the nuclear material. Typically, shipments move along highways to storage plants in Utah, New Mexico, Nevada and elsewhere.

Joe Davis, a department spokesman, said Mr. Abraham lifted the suspension on Monday. But Mr. Davis declined to comment on whether any high-level nuclear material, like spent fuel rods, was also in transit again. He said the department did not comment on the transportation of classified material.

When the shipments were suspended, tons of nuclear waste and other materials were left in place.

That includes nine tons of plutonium metals and oxides at the former Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant outside Denver, which is now being cleaned and turned into a nature preserve. The material is slated to go to a disposal site on the Savannah River in South Carolina once the Energy Department and South Carolina officials agree on the terms of disposal.

Other former weapons plants are also waiting to ship material to the Savannah River site.

Mr. Davis said he did not know how many shipments had been cleared to travel this week. But one, he said, contains contaminated material from the Energy Department's facilities in Oak Ridge, Tenn., another cleanup site that has been producing about 1.5 million pounds of scrap every week for disposal.

Much of it, Mr. Davis said, is transuranic waste - metal and materials that were contaminated by uranium during years of weapons production. That material, he said, is heading for the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.


-------- MILITARY

-------- afghanistan

Afghan protesters hit symbols of U.S.

By Amir Shah
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010927-5026.htm

KABUL, Afghanistan - Protesters shouting "Long live Osama" and "Death to America" burned President Bush in effigy and then stormed the abandoned U.S. Embassy, torching old cars and a guardhouse and tearing down the U.S. seal above the entrance.

In northern Afghanistan, where an opposition alliance is fighting troops of the hard-line Taliban government, heavy new fighting was reported.

Radio Kabul quoted government officials as saying Taliban forces pushed back opposition troops in the Razi district of Badghis province in northwestern Afghanistan.

The officials said opposition fighters were killed, without providing an exact number, and weapons were confiscated. An opposition commander, Abdul Rashid Dostum, confirmed the report.

The Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, appealed to Afghans who have fled the capital, Kabul, to come home. Even if the city is attacked, they will be safe, he said in a statement faxed to news organizations in neighboring Pakistan.

The demonstration by thousands at the U.S. Embassy, organized by students at Kabul University, was the largest anti-American protest in Kabul since the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The United States suspects Saudi exile Osama bin Laden orchestrated the attacks and has ordered the Taliban - which has been sheltering him for five years - to turn him over or face punishment.

The old embassy compound was guarded by a few Afghan security guards who were no match for the crowd. The last U.S. diplomats left the embassy in 1989 just ahead of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Smoke billowed into the sky after about five vehicles were set afire in the embassy compound, and several men used hammers to remove the large circular U.S. seal above the front entrance. Taliban authorities eventually dispersed the protesters and extinguished the fires.

"It's just another sign of the fact that this is serious," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said of the attack on the former embassy. "It doesn't change anything about what the president has said or what the mission of the United States will be."

In Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, senior Pakistani officials said Pakistani and U.S. defense and intelligence officials had reached general agreement on an anti-terror program that included some provisions for possible attacks on terrorist bases in Afghanistan, but that some sticking points remained.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the officials said both sides want to minimize the use of ground forces in any strike. They said some differences emerged during the talks between high-ranking Pakistani officials and an American delegation that includes senior defense and intelligence representatives.

The points of disagreement include whether the United States or other outside parties should lend support to the opposition alliance, something Pakistan - the only country that still has diplomatic ties with the Taliban - has expressed strong misgivings over.

Other points of contention: What action is warranted against Pakistan-based militant groups, and whether the United Nations should approve any operation against Afghanistan.

Some differences were resolved Tuesday, when some U.S. delegation members met Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the officials said.

Pakistan was clearly uncomfortable with public discussion of its role in any U.S. strike. A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Riaz Mohammed Khan, said yesterday that "no joint operation or specific contingency plans have been placed before the Pakistan government."

He added that the fight was not against Afghanistan or its people, but against terrorism.

"Pakistan cannot and can never join in any hostile action against Afghanistan or the Afghan people - we are deeply conscious that the destinies of the two people are intertwined," said Mr. Khan.

Anti-government protests have been held in cities across Pakistan since Gen. Musharraf pledged to support U.S. military action in Afghanistan.

Attackers yesterday threw a grenade and opened fire on hundreds of people gathering in Karachi for what would have been the first public meeting supporting Gen. Musharraf. At least 12 persons were injured, police and witnesses said. The assailants fled.

In northern Afghanistan, new battles broke out between Taliban and opposition fighters in the provinces of Samangan and Balkh. Mohammed Ashraf Nadeem, a spokesman for the opposition's Northern Alliance, said both sides used artillery, rocket launchers, tanks and machine guns, but that neither managed to take new territory.

Mr. Nadeem, reached by telephone from Kabul, said the Taliban had rushed 3,000 new troops to the region from Kandahar, the southern city where Taliban fighters are based.

No casualty toll was immediately available, and his account of the fighting could not be independently confirmed.

--------

Afghanistan's Atmosphere Of Mistrust
U.S. Looks for Partners In a Region of Rivals

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32169-2001Sep26.html

JABAL SARAJ, Afghanistan, Sept. 26 -- Inside the compound that houses his rebel regiment, Gen. Mohammad Aref readies for what could be the final act of a long civil war with the ruling Taliban. He is prepared for a tough battle. He is prepared to fight alongside the United States. But he is not prepared to trust America's ally over the border.

"To trust Pakistan is difficult," Aref explained today, "because Taliban means Pakistan."

Here in rebel-controlled northeastern Afghanistan, the suspicion and even hatred of Pakistan runs deep because of its role as prime patron of the radical Taliban, which has ruled most of Afghanistan for five years. The feeling is mutual in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, where the Pakistani foreign minister this week warned the United States not to team up with the Afghan rebels, known as the Northern Alliance.

The enmity is a challenge for the Bush administration as it assembles a coalition to retaliate against the Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The United States wants to use bases in Pakistan for possible strikes against Afghanistan, and it may support the Northern Alliance's ground troops in their fight against the Taliban. But those two most important potential U.S. partners regard each other as blood enemies.

Even if the hostility is finessed in the short term, it promises delicate problems down the road. If the Taliban is dislodged, as President Bush has suggested is a U.S. aim, the formation of any new government in Kabul under the Northern Alliance is bound to foster tension and possibly destabilization in an already troubled region.

Pakistan worries that an unfriendly Afghan government dominated by the rebels would threaten its security as it faces a politically hostile India on its other flank. Some analysts believe that victory by the Northern Alliance could even trigger a backlash among Islamic militants in Pakistan that could threaten the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Because both India and Pakistan possess nuclear weapons, turmoil in the region could become a global crisis.

Nearly every country in Central Asia claims important stakes in the fortunes of the Northern Alliance. India, which contests the Kashmir region with Pakistan, has provided money and weapons to the northern fighters. Shiite Muslim Iran, which despises the Sunni Muslim Taliban, also has supported the Northern Alliance, providing arms and training.

Russia, fearful of the spread of the Taliban's brand of Islam into former Soviet republics on its border, has provided financial, military and logistical support to the Northern Alliance -- all of whose primary commanders fought Soviet forces that occupied Afghanistan in the 1980s. However, most Central Asian states have been wary of direct support to the rebels. In recent years, several have made diplomatic overtures to the Taliban in efforts to seek a peace settlement.

It is uncertain how closely the United States will work with the Northern Alliance. Abdullah, a top alliance official who like many Afghans uses just one name, said today that contacts with U.S. officials had increased in recent days. He hinted that the rebels had given Washington a list of potential bombing targets that presumably includes air bases and other military installations.

But suggesting that Washington has so far withheld any commitment, Abdullah solicited U.S. assistance: "We deserve this, and we have the right to get this support."

The Northern Alliance represents a coalition of ethnic and political factions that banded together to resist the Taliban, which has imposed its rigid interpretation of Islam on most of the country. A major component of the alliance is the former Afghan government that the Taliban drove from Kabul, the capital, in 1996.

The rebels control 10 percent or less of Afghanistan but say they have 15,000 armed fighters and an intimate knowledge of the territory that could be invaluable for the U.S. military.

By themselves, the guerrillas might never defeat the Taliban. Despite a new push to recapture the strategic northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, and reports today of taking a nearby district, they have failed over five years to seriously threaten Kabul. But the prospect of a U.S. military operation has changed that equation.

The alliance still considers itself the rightful government of Afghanistan -- Abdullah, for instance, holds the title of foreign minister -- but the group has moved in recent days to ease concerns that it expects to simply take over if the Taliban is ousted by the United States.

A rebel delegation was heading to Rome today to meet with former Afghan king Mohammed Zahir Shah and overseas Afghan interest groups to begin discussing a post-Taliban government. Zahir Shah, the last of the Durrani dynasty that ruled Afghanistan for more than 200 years, was on the throne for 40 years. He was deposed in 1973 by his brother-in-law, who established a republic and exiled the monarch to Rome.

If the Taliban is brought down, the rebels said, they plan to establish an interim government that would include various political blocs to establish order, draft a constitution and schedule elections. "We will be a major factor" in this temporary government, said Abdullah. But "all other groups that share these values should participate.

"What we want to see is a moderate Islamic country where democracy would be the rule of the game," he added. "The will of the people should be accepted, and the rights of the people, women and men," protected. "The people should decide who to go with and who not."

His comments came a day after Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar told reporters in Islamabad that the United States should not choose sides between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. "We must not make the blunder of trying to foist a government on the people of Afghanistan," he said. "We fear that any such decision on the part of foreign powers to give assistance to one side or the other in Afghanistan is a recipe for great disaster for the people of Afghanistan."

The relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been complicated for years. The United States used Pakistan to manage its proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. After five years of chaos following the Russians' withdrawal, Islamabad intervened on behalf of the Taliban.

In recent years, Pakistan has given the Taliban tens of millions of dollars in aid, from wheat and fuel to funds for the salaries of its government officials; on behalf of the Taliban, Pakistan set up a telephone network, repaired roads, provided electricity, overhauled aircraft and helped establish a national radio station in Afghanistan. In exchange, Pakistan used Afghanistan for its own purposes, such as training militants there for the conflict with India in Kashmir.

But the Taliban resisted subservience and began manipulating its patron. It established a trade scheme that cost Pakistan millions of dollars in customs fees while allegedly enriching Afghan bandits. The Taliban has used Pakistani intelligence and military in the ongoing civil war, according to rebel generals. The rebels say 500 of the 2,500 Taliban defenders on the Kabul front are Pakistanis. Pakistan has refused to cut diplomatic ties to the Taliban, and now it is the only country that still recognizes the Afghan government.

Here in Jabal Saraj, 45 miles north of Kabul, Abdullah scoffed at Sattar's invocation against foreign involvement, noting that Pakistan had interfered in Afghan affairs for years.

He accused Pakistan of deceiving the United States by targeting only enough terrorist elements to satisfy Washington. "My fear is Pakistan will decide which terrorists are its 'good terrorists' and 'bad terrorists' and keep some terrorists for the future. This would be a disaster. Pakistan is trying to keep its influence by keeping a part of the Taliban force in place in Afghanistan."

The close ties make the Taliban and Pakistani governments indistinguishable to many in the Afghan opposition. From regimental commanders to everyday residents, Afghans living in rebel-held territory often volunteer harsher recriminations toward Pakistan than toward the Taliban.

Nasser Bakhshi, a rebel official in the town of Khoja Bahauddin, subscribes to a simple formula for victory in the civil war. "If Pakistan stops helping, we would win," he said.

Mirakhman, a rebel commander at the front lines north of Kabul, offered a similar assessment when asked the prospects for retaking the capital if the United States bombs Afghanistan.

"You have to destroy Pakistan," he said. "Then we'll go to Kabul."

--------

Afghanistan asks bin Laden to leave

USA TODAY
09/27/2001 -
The Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Officials of the ruling Taliban have advised Osama bin Laden of the Afghan clerics' decision that he should leave Afghanistan voluntarily, the Taliban ambassador in Pakistan said Thursday. The Taliban had initially asserted they could not find bin Laden to inform him of the recommendation, made Sept. 20 by a council of clerics, or the Ulema. U.S. officials had dismissed the claims he was missing.

Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef said the clerics' decision had been "endorsed" by the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Bin Laden is the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist bombings in the United States, and Bush has demanded that the Taliban hand over him and his lieutenants, among other demands, or face retaliation.

"Osama has now received the Ulema council's recommendations and their endorsement" he said. "We have not lost Osama, but he is out of sight of the people."

Zaeef did not say how the message was conveyed nor where bin Laden was hiding. He also did not indicate bin Laden's reaction to the message.

The clerics did not set a deadline for bin Laden to leave when they made the recommendation during a meeting in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

"The Ulema wants the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan to encourage Osama to leave Afghanistan in the proper time and of his own free will," ... Taliban-run Bakhtar news agency reporting on the council decision.

It was the first time since the attacks in the United States that the Taliban have indicated that they know where bin Laden is located or how to communicate with him.

-------- balkans

Ethnic Albanian rebel group disbands

09/27/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/world/2001/09/27/ethnic-albanians.htm

SIPKOVICA, Macedonia (AP) - The leader of Macedonia's ethnic Albanian rebels declared Thursday that his group had formally disbanded, just hours after NATO wrapped up its mission collecting arms from the guerrillas in the troubled Balkan country.

The rebel move came as NATO promised that a new 1,000 strong force would deploy quickly to help provide security in still tense Macedonia. "The operation is being organized with the speed of light," alliance spokesman, Mark Laity, said after an activation order was issued for the new mission overnight.

Rebel leader Ali Ahmeti told reporters attending a news conference in the rebel stronghold of Sipkovica that he was dissolving the National Liberation Army and that it was time for ethnic reconciliation.

"Last night at midnight, the NLA formally disbanded and as of last night, all the former fighters became regular citizens," Ahmeti said.

Macedonian and ethnic Albanian leaders signed a peace deal Aug 13, suspending six months of warfare between ethnic Albanian rebels and government forces. Under the peace plan, the rebels were to hand over weapons while the Macedonian-dominated parliament reciprocated by amending the country's constitution to grant broader rights for the minority.

The rebels handed over the final batch of a total of 3,875 rifles, mortars, howitzers and a tank by the end of the day Wednesday.

The Macedonians, however, have not completed promised legal reforms, and have not pledged to grant amnesty to the rebels - key action urged by NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson.

Ahmeti's decision, however, should add to pressure on the Macedonians to comply with key aspects of the agreement.

"We are interested in the well-being of all citizens ... of both communities, Macedonians and ethnic Albanians," he said.

The end of the NATO arms collecting mission and the departure of its troops has led to fears of a security vacuum that could tempt hard-liners on both sides to take up arms again. But the alliance Thursday sought to make clear that it would keep up its presence.

Some 700 soldiers would join the already 300 already in the country for the new mission, named Operation Amber Fox, Laity said. "We have created an opportunity and now everybody must seize it," he said. "As part of that, NATO is willing to remain and assist."

He spoke as 125 Spanish members and other units from Operation Essential Harvest, the disarmament mission, left the country.

More than 20 armored personnel carriers transporting the troops rumbled southeast, down the main highway leading from Skopje, the capital, toward the border with Greece. A group of British paratroopers was slated to leave by air later in the day, along with Canadian units who had served in the 4,500-member mission.

On Thursday, the Macedonian government formally approved the NATO mission after it and NATO resolved disagreements over its size and duration that had held up final approval.

NATO had wanted a larger force with a longer mandate than the government was willing to accept. The Macedonian government said Thursday that the mission was last three months, but could be extended "depending on the situation in the country."

Laity also said the mission had a three-month mandate, "with the possibility of extension."

The new mission will be German-led. Preparing for that role, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's Cabinet on Thursday approved deploying about 700 soldiers to Macedonia, and parliament was to vote on the issue later in the day.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously endorsed efforts to establish a follow-up mission.

A council resolution also called on Macedonia and ethnic Albanian insurgents to strictly observe a July 5 cease-fire, fully implement the peace deal they signed in August and reject "the use of violence in pursuit of political aims."

-------- biological weapons

Al Qaeda May Have Crude Chemical, Germ Capabilities

By Vernon Loeb and John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32100-2001Sep26.html

Osama bin Laden's global terrorist network has been trying for some time to acquire materials necessary for chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons and may possess the capability to conduct a crude attack with chemical or biological agents, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

But the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies acknowledge that they have little hard evidence that bin Laden's network, al Qaeda, has acquired or developed chemical or biological agents or successfully created weapons from the materials that could kill large numbers of people.

One intelligence official, however, said this week that bin Laden "has the capability to conduct a crude chemical or biological weapon attack. I don't know what the lethality of his agent would be, but he would know how to get it together." Another intelligence official said this assessment is based on "intelligence that shows they have tried to obtain information and material that would be useful in that kind of attack."

Testimony from the trial of four bin Laden operatives convicted earlier this year in the August 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa leaves little doubt that bin Laden has been serious about acquiring chemical weapons and nuclear material, officials said.

At the trial, the government's star witness, Jamal Ahmed Fadl, a former al Qaeda member, testified that he received a $10,000 bonus for negotiating with a Sudanese military officer who offered to sell uranium to al Qaeda for $ 1.5 million. Fadl said he did not know whether the deal was consummated.

He also testified that a fellow al Qaeda member told him the group was trying to help Sudan's ruling National Islamic Front manufacture chemical weapons for use in a civil war against Christian forces in the country's south.

CIA Director George J. Tenet has warned repeatedly about the threat of a terrorist attack involving chemical or biological weapons. He has testified before Congress over the past two years that bin Laden has declared the acquisition of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons a "religious duty" and trained his operatives to conduct attacks with toxic chemicals and biological toxins.

Gordon C. Oehler, former director of the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, called the chemical and biological threat "a grave concern." But he said that any such attack by al Qaeda would probably be no more effective than the crude sarin gas attack staged by Aum Shinrikyo, an apocalyptic Japanese cult, that killed a dozen commuters on the Tokyo subway in 1995.

"You don't have to cause a lot of damage to create a lot of panic," Oehler said. "I used to get reports about this country or that country was getting hold of [nuclear] material. Your first tendency is to dismiss it, but you can't. And the same thing is true of what's going on now."

Other experts on chemical and biological weapons, while hardly dismissive of the threat, said this week in interviews that they remain skeptical about al Qaeda's chemical and biological capabilities, given the enormous technical and scientific hurdles that must be cleared to "weaponize" chemical or biological agents.

Those hurdles, the experts said, would have made it very difficult for the terrorist hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to have carried out chemical or biological attacks using crop-dusting airplanes.

Federal officials have discovered that some of the hijackers had studied crop-dusting and downloaded a significant amount of information on the topic from the Internet. They have also charged 20 people with fraudulently obtaining licenses to haul hazardous materials, including some who may have had links to the hijackers.

Raymond A. Zilinskas, a microbiologist and senior scientist at the Monterrey Institute of International Studies, questioned whether al Qaeda or other terrorist possess the scientific capability to produce virulent pathogens or nerve gas in sufficient quantities to kill large numbers of people.

Even if they could, he said, they would still need to possess formidable engineering capability to modify a crop duster's spray nozzles and air pressure equipment to produce a mist fine enough to be lethal.

Zilinskas said that al Qaeda conceivably could recruit scientists capable of producing a small quantity of a nerve agent such as Sarin or VX. It could also conceivably obtain a virulent strain of anthrax from Iraq, which is known to possess the biological agent, or somehow steal or acquire it from one of 400 cell culture collections known to exist outside the United States, he said.

But if anything, Zilinskas and other experts said, the Aum Shinrikyo experience in Tokyo shows just how difficult it would be for al Qaeda to do either -- even before it took on the challenge of weaponizing chemical or biological substances.

In a recent report, "Ataxia: The Chemical and Biological Terrorism Threat and the U.S. Response," Amy E. Smithson, who directs the Chemical and Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project at the Henry L. Stimson Center, writes that Aum Shinrikyo was by almost any standard "a terrorist nightmare." It recruited graduate students and scientists and spent $30 million on its chemical weapons program, she writes, but despite its efforts, the group never succeeded in mastering spraying technology and ended up dispersing the impure sarin that it finally did create by poking holes in plastic bags.

In his recent book, "Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy," Paul R. Pillar, former deputy chief of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center, writes that the chemical and biological capabilities of bin Laden and other terrorists are "impossible to gauge with anything approaching precision." He concludes that they have most likely been overstated, given the inherent difficulties in producing so-called weapons of mass destruction.

But Pillar, now the CIA's national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia region, calls the threat real and dangerous, partly because information about how to construct such weapons is "exponentially expanding" on the Internet.

-------- india

Pakistan's New Role Riles Indian Leaders
Actions in Kashmir Called 'Terrorist'

By Rama Lakshmi
The Washington Post
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32419-2001Sep26.html

NEW DELHI, Sept. 26 -- As Pakistan's pledge to help the United States fight terrorism brings the two Cold War allies closer than they have been in a decade, India's leaders are reminding anyone who will listen that their South Asian rival has long supported Muslim guerrillas in the disputed Kashmir region.

"Our fight against terrorism did not start on Sept. 11," Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh said at a recent news conference. "We have been fighting this battle alone for years now. Pakistan has spawned, encouraged and sustained terrorist activities in Kashmir."

Referring to Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said in an interview last week with the Times of India: "How can he be concerned about terrorism? He has promoted it."

Like Pakistan, India has endorsed Washington's campaign against international terrorism, offering its "full moral and diplomatic" support. But Pakistan's proximity to Afghanistan, where alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden is believed to be, has made it a particular focus of U.S. diplomacy. Musharraf has agreed to U.S. requests to open Pakistani airspace to U.S. military aircraft, share military intelligence and allow troops to stage operations in Afghanistan from Pakistani military bases.

India has praised Pakistan's promised assistance, but its leaders have been asking with increasing frequency whether Pakistan will be the subject of scrutiny or special treatment as the United States takes on countries that support or harbor terrorists.

As with so many disputes between India and Pakistan, the controversy arises from their conflicting claims to Kashmir. Since gaining independence in 1947, the two countries have fought two wars and countless skirmishes over the mostly Muslim region. The Indian government considers all of Kashmir to be an integral part of India, but Pakistan controls the northern portion of the region and supports Muslim guerrillas trying to end Indian control in the south.

Pakistan maintains that it provides the guerrillas with only logistical and moral support in their 12-year-old insurgency, which the Pakistani government describes as a "freedom struggle."

But India accuses Pakistan of arming and supplying the rebels and providing them with bases inside the Pakistani-controlled section of Kashmir and Pakistan, from which they stage cross-border raids. In at least one sustained period of fighting, the 1999 conflict in Kashmir's Kargil region, firm evidence emerged that Pakistani troops had taken up positions on India's side of the line dividing Kashmir.

Indian officials appear unsure of how much pressure the United States will exert on Pakistan. The two countries were closely aligned during the Cold War, particularly when they supported the Afghan resistance to Soviet occupation in the 1980s, working largely out of bases in Pakistan. The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 sharply lessened Washington's interest in Pakistan, and relations grew strained when Pakistan imported missile technology from China and tested a nuclear device.

But the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent focus on Afghanistan have brought Washington and Islamabad together again, and what India fears most is that Washington will crack down on terrorism around the world but turn a blind eye to Kashmir.

"If America is serious about the war on terrorism, it should also ensure that all terrorist training camps in Pakistan are permanently wound up and Pakistan's proxy war against India is stopped forever," said Vijay Kumar Malhotra, a member of Parliament from India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party. "Only then the war is over for India. Otherwise America's double standards would be exposed."

Since the attacks in Washington and New York, India has given the United States intelligence about terrorist training camps it says are located in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, in the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Baluchistan, and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. The Indians received what they considered an encouraging sign Monday, when Washington listed 27 entities whose assets would be frozen for alleged links to terrorism. One was Harkat ul-Mujaheddin, one of Pakistan's most militant religious groups; another, Al-Rashid Trust, was tied to Lashkar-i-Taiba, one of the most active Pakistani organizations involved in the fighting in Kashmir.

"We hope we will see more of such organizations included in the list," said Nirupama Rao, spokeswoman for India's Foreign Ministry. "We would like to see this list expanded."

Today, India's national security adviser, Brajesh Mishra, met in Washington with his U.S. counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage. Afterward in New Delhi, Rao said, "The United States has assured us there will be no change in U.S.-Indo relations in terms of the level of understanding and interaction between the two countries."

"You can rest assured that our concerns [about militant activities] were conveyed to American officials," Rao said.

-------- iran

Iran Rejects Role in U.S. Anti-Terror Coalition
Khamenei's Remarks Dim Hopes for Mending Ties

By John Ward Anderson and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A15
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32086-2001Sep26.html

ISTANBUL, Sept. 26 -- Iran's top political and religious leader said today his country would not join a U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, dousing hopes that Iran's recent condemnations of terrorist attacks in the United States might lead to warming relations between the longtime antagonists.

Sincere messages of sympathy and denunciations of terrorism from Iranian officials following the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington led some analysts to suggest that there was potential for repairing relations that have been hostile since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

But in a speech excerpted on national television, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that the United States was "not sincere enough to lead an international move against terrorism" because of its continued support for Israel. "Iran will provide no help to America and its allies . . . in an attack on suffering, neighboring, Muslim Afghanistan," he said. Immediately after the attacks on Sept. 11, Khamenei had condemned them.

The United States is attempting to build a broad international coalition that would support strikes against an alleged terrorist organization headed by fugitive Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden, the leading suspect in the terrorist attacks. Bin Laden is being sheltered in Afghanistan by the Taliban, a radical Islamic militia that controls most of the country.

Thousands of demonstrators in Kabul, the Afghan capital, sacked the long-abandoned U.S. Embassy today, setting five cars ablaze, ripping down the U.S. seal above the front entrance and burning American flags and an effigy of President Bush while chanting "Long Live Osama!" the Associated Press reported from the city. The embassy compound, protected by a few Afghan security guards, has been abandoned since 1989.

Reflecting heightened concerns about security, the United States today closed its consulate in Pakistan's second-largest city, Lahore. Families of U.S. diplomats posted in Pakistan have already left the country.

In Pakistan's business capital and largest city, Karachi, a demonstration by about 15,000 people in favor of joining a U.S.-led anti-terrorism coalition was disrupted by a grenade attack that injured at least 12 people. Most recent demonstrations in Pakistan have been called by Islamic groups to protest the country's decision to help the United States track down bin Laden and persuade the Taliban to hand him over for prosecution.

In Islamabad, Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan reflected the country's sensitive political balancing act, telling reporters that while Pakistan supported the drive against terrorism, it would never participate in any hostile action against Afghanistan. "We are deeply conscious that the destinies of the two people and two countries are intertwined," he said.

The statement today by Iran's supreme leader added to the conflicting signals being sent by that country's government about its position concerning an international anti-terrorism coalition and any retaliation against bin Laden or Afghanistan led by the United States, which has branded Iran as a supporter of terrorism.

Reformists in Iran's elected government, led by moderate reformist President Mohammad Khatami, would like the international respectability and financial assistance that better relations with the United States would bring. But the appointed religious hierarchy, led by Khamenei and dominated by hard-liners who take their cue from him, still bristle at the thought of cooperating on anything with the United States, which they see as leading attacks against Islam around the globe.

While Khamenei seemed to be issuing a preemptive criticism of any U.S. actions against Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters that if the United States could prove who was behind the Sept. 11 attacks, it had the right to respond.

"If it becomes clear which particular group carried out these attacks in the United States, naturally the United States, based in the [U.N.] charter, can take action," he said, according to the official state news agency, IRNA.

Khamenei, however, is the highest-ranking official in Iran, and under the country's constitution his pronouncements and decisions are final. Just as important, his conservative, religious side of the government controls Iran's military and its intelligence agencies, which would be integral to any cooperation with the West.

His speech, delivered to a group of war veterans and their families, was punctuated by chants from the crowd of "Death to America!" and "Death to Israel!" the traditional rallying cries of hard-liners in Iran.

Khamenei seemed to answer a challenge made by Bush in his nationally televised address to Congress last Thursday, when the U.S. president said, "Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

"It is not that anyone who is with you is against terrorism and those who are against you are for it," Khamenei said. "We are neither with you nor with the terrorists."

"They expect the entire world to help them because their interests demand it. Do you ever care about others' interests?" Khamenei said. "These are the characteristics that make America so hated in the world."

Khamenei's remarks came a day after an upbeat visit to Iran by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, the highest-ranking British official to visit Iran in 22 years. Today, a delegation of top diplomats from the European Union also visited Tehran to press for support in the fight against terrorism.

Straw told reporters that Iran and Britain were in "absolute agreement" in their opposition to terrorism, according to IRNA. He said he told his Iranian counterpart, Kharrazi, that Britain was prepared to confidentially share any evidence it has proving who was behind the attacks. Another reason for visiting Iran, he said, was that it is "an important source of advice in Afghanistan."

Western officials would particularly value Iran's understanding of neighboring Afghanistan, where Iran supports the Northern Alliance, the main anti-Taliban opposition group. Western officials would also like Iran to end its support for anti-Israel Palestinian groups that the United States considers terrorist organizations.

But a more limited goal now appears likely: While Iran may not support the United States or coalition action against its neighbor, perhaps it can be persuaded to not actively oppose it. But if it concludes that any military action eventually taken is unjustified, Iran also seems to be laying the groundwork to condemn it.

Khan reported from Karachi, Pakistan.

-------- iraq

Allied Warplanes Hit Iraqi Artillery

September 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Iraq-US.html

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) -- U.S. and British warplanes struck two artillery sites Thursday that were a threat to aircraft patrolling Iraq's southern ``no-fly'' zone, a U.S. Air Force spokesman said.

Meanwhile, in Baghdad, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz denied his country had been involved in the Sept. 11 terror attacks against the United States, but warned that Washington may use the strikes as an excuse for an eventual assault on Iraq.

``Iraq has been a target of the American and British aggression for the past 11 years. It would not be a surprise for us if they do'' attack, Aziz told CNN.

An Iraqi military spokesman told the official Iraqi News Agency that one civilian had been injured in the allied airstrikes Thursday.

The anti-aircraft sites had posed danger for the planes monitoring Iraq's no-fly zone , Maj. Brett Morris said.

All aircraft returned to bases safely after the attacks on the two surface-to-air artillery posts, Morris said. He said the sites were in An-Nasiriyah and Shahban, about 170 miles and 225 miles south of Baghdad, respectively.

Britain's Defense Ministry said later that the allied attacks had targeted a radar installation and an anti-aircraft artillery site. There was no indication of civilian casualties, the British said.

U.S. and British aircraft patrol southern and northern Iraq to prevent Iraqi forces from attacking Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south and to provide early warning of any Iraqi troop movements toward Kuwait.

Iraq considers the ``no-fly'' zones -- installed after Baghdad's 1990 invasion of Kuwait -- illegal and has vowed to shoot down any coalition planes.

-------- israel

Peres, Arafat agree on peace effort

September 27, 2001
By Dan Ephron
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010927-16056412.htm

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat met yesterday and agreed on steps toward a new peace effort even as a gunbattle raged less than two miles away.

The understandings, tenuous and fraught with pitfalls, were nonetheless welcomed in Washington, where officials fear that Israeli-Palestinian fighting will hinder efforts to recruit Arab countries for a coalition against terrorism.

The United States had been pressing for the meeting - the first between Mr. Peres and Mr. Arafat in three months - since the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The shooting took the life of a 16-year-old boy in the Rafah refugee camp.

Just before midnight, four Israeli tanks and a bulldozer advanced toward the camp, Palestinian security officials said. The camp was shelled and hit by heavy machine-gun fire, and the bulldozer began demolishing a house, the officials said.

Palestinian gunmen returned fire. In the exchange, a 23-year-old Palestinian was killed and 11 others wounded, doctors said.

In a sign of tension stirred by the morning shooting at Rafah, the two top negotiators called off a joint news conference that was to have followed their talks.

Instead, a lower-level Palestinian negotiator read out to reporters the text of their agreement and answered no questions.

Palestinian militant groups quickly rejected the statement - which includes provisions for ending the violence and lifting a crippling Israeli siege on Palestinian territories - and said they would continue attacks on the Jewish state. Many Israelis voiced skepticism about the cease-fire's chances of holding up.

"The United States calls on both sides to seize the moment and exercise maximum efforts to follow up these positive developments with immediate concrete actions," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

He said President Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell would "remain engaged to help make that happen."

Israelis and Palestinians have reached several cease-fire agreements during more than a year of heavy fighting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but none has lasted more than a few weeks.

In yesterday's meeting, the sides merely restated their commitment to agreements they already accepted - a security memorandum brokered by CIA chief George J. Tenet in June and a broader report issued by former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell in May that suggests a way back to their long-defunct peace process.

But with Washington leaning heavily on both sides since the attacks in the United States, Israelis and Palestinians now have more incentive to make it work.

Mr. Bush has already asked for backing from Arab and Muslim countries in what will probably be a war against exiled Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden and other Islamic militants.

Some Middle East leaders have complained that Israeli-Palestinian fighting and Washington's support of Israel complicate American coalition-building with the Arabs.

Under the agreement, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will order troops tomorrow to begin pulling out of Palestinian-controlled areas seized during the past year, and Palestinian police will make sure gunmen stop shooting at Israelis, officials said.

"The two sides will resume full security cooperation and exert maximum efforts to sustain the declared ceasefire," said the joint statement, read by Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat.

"In accordance with the parties' commitments, they will carry out all their security obligations emanating from previous agreements, and the government of Israel will begin to lift closures and redeploy its forces," it said.

Wording of the statement had been agreed on in advance meetings between lower-level officials.

After several weeks of quiet, the two sides would begin political concessions spelled out in the Mitchell report, including an Israeli settlement freeze in the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel has kept the West Bank and Gaza sealed off during much of the past year and has also restricted Palestinian movement inside these areas, choking commerce and seriously disrupting daily life for many Palestinians.

But while many Israelis acknowledge the severity of the measures, they say they're aimed at preventing suicide bombers and other militants from entering the country. Palestinians have killed scores of Israelis in suicide attacks in restaurants and other public places.

Israeli officials said easing of the closure in the aftermath of yesterday's meeting would only go forward if the violence ceases.

"We will go back to our previous posture if Israelis are getting killed," said one government aide who refused to be named.

Mr. Sharon, who prevented Mr. Peres from meeting Mr. Arafat during the past month, insists that any violence in the coming weeks would derail the process of getting Israelis and Palestinians back to peace talks.

But some Israeli officials, including Mr. Peres himself, say that formula gives extremist groups virtual veto power over any agreement.

One such group, the Islamic Hamas, said after yesterday's talks that its men would continue targeting Israelis in the West Bank, Gaza and Israel.

"There is no change to Hamas policy regarding resisting the occupation or acts of martyrdom," Ismail Abu Shanab, a leading Hamas figure, told Reuters.

Hamas was believed to be behind the bombing yesterday morning of an Israeli military base on the border between Gaza and Egypt.

That attack sparked clashes in Rafah, less than two miles from the airport at Dahaniya, where Mr. Peres and Mr. Arafat met.

Palestinians placed a large bomb in a tunnel underneath the base. When it exploded at 3 a.m. yesterday, at least one wall collapsed, wounding three soldiers.

Israel responded with fire and the gunfight persisted through the morning.

Reporters at Dahaniya could see Israeli tanks in the distance and hear the occasional blast of a shell. At one point during the 21/2-hour meeting, word reached Mr. Arafat that Israeli soldiers had killed a 16-year-old in the clashes.

Palestinian officials said the news hampered the talks, which ran an hour longer than expected.

Nearly 600 Palestinians and 170 Israelis have been killed in Israeli-Palestinian fighting that erupted a year ago this week.

Mr. Arafat and Mr. Peres agreed that top security officials would resume regular meetings beginning tomorrow, accompanied by CIA officials.

They also agreed to hold their own talks next week.

--------

THE MIDEAST
Israelis Fire on Refugee Camp in Response to a Bomb Blast

New York Times
September 27, 2001
By JAMES BENNET
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/27/international/27CND-MIDE.html

JERUSALEM, Sept. 27 - Israeli tanks and troops opened fire early today on the Rafah refugee camp, killing 3, wounding at least 22 and destroying buildings that Israel said Palestinian fighters were using as bases.

The raid, in Gaza, was in reprisal for a bomb blast Wednesday morning at an Israeli Army post on the edge of the refugee camp, and the exchange of violence threw into doubt the tentative progress toward peace reached earlier at talks in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.

Three Israeli soldiers were wounded in the blast, for which Hamas claimed responsibility.

At the Rafah talks Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and Shimon Peres, the Israeli foreign minister, jointly pledged a renewed drive for peace.

Israel said last week that it would refrain from military strikes and the Palestinians said they would restrain their gunmen.

The two sides agreed Wednesday to resume cooperation between their security forces, beginning with a meeting on Friday. Mr. Arafat said he would fulfill commitments to police militant Palestinians. Mr. Peres said the Israelis would begin to relax restrictions on the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The two leaders plan to meet again in a week or 10 days.

Every care was taken to avoid a jarring note after pleas from Washington to resume talks and a year of fighting. Mr. Arafat and Mr. Peres walked out of the V.I.P. terminal of the Gaza International Airport, whose runways the Israelis have closed because of the Palestinian uprising, without a word to the waiting press.

A joint communiqué, prepared days ago, was read by Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official. It substituted the language of process for hope-inflating sentiments about peace. Mr. Erekat said that the two men had "reiterated their full commitment" to previous accords and that both sides would "exert maximum efforts to sustain the declared cease-fire."

The meeting was conceived and executed not to achieve a breakthrough, but to restart an American-brokered process of communication and hard compromise. "We do not want to overload our wagon," Mr. Erekat said in an interview tonight. "We did not want to put too many expectations on our first meeting."

He said the terror attacks on the United States had a prominent role. "The main seat in the meeting was occupied by Sept. 11," Mr. Erekat said. "We realize what's going on around us. We realize the extent of the changes around us, and I believe Peres and Arafat want to give us every possible chance."

Since the attacks, President Bush has put new emphasis on the peace effort here, to encourage Arab states to back an international effort against terrorism.

Mr. Erekat said tough decisions were needed to sustain the cease-fire and would show whether Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel was serious about peace. Israeli officials said the same of Mr. Arafat.

"One suicide bomber, and it's all over," regardless of the events of Sept. 11, an official in the Foreign Ministry said.

A senior Israeli official said Palestinian security forces had known of the Rafah bomb attack in advance and had done nothing to prevent it. "What's the conclusion we should draw?" the official asked. "Arafat has not changed his strategy of terror." Palestinians rejected that accusation.

In an interview on Tuesday evening in Gaza City, a leader of Hamas, Ismael Abu Shanals, dismissed the Arafat-Peres meeting as public relations and said his organization had urged Mr. Arafat not to go.

Mr. Shanals said about Mr. Arafat: "He wants to convince at least President Bush that he is a peacemaker. But from his heart he understands nothing will come of this meeting."

Mr. Shanals made clear that Hamas did not feel bound by any cease-fire. As long as the Israeli military refrained from activity in Palestinian-controlled territory, he said, Palestinians would not attack Israeli citizens on the other side of the boundaries erased when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 war. But, he said, Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to be targets.

The Israelis and Palestinians agreed today to create a new "joint committee of senior representatives" to deal with disputes that arose over enforcing the measures recommended in May by a commission led by former United States Senator George J. Mitchell.

In a slip that revealed the orchestration of the meeting, Mr. Erekat's version of the communiqué said the two men "met on Sept. 23." As he read it aloud, he said they met on Sept. 22.

-------- nato

Bin Laden's Culpability 'Clearer,'
NATO Chief Says Military Action Is Not Requested As U.S. Shares More Evidence

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32465-2001Sep26.html

BRUSSELS, Sept. 26 -- NATO Secretary General George Robertson said the United States today laid out more of its evidence linking fugitive Osama bin Laden to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, but he said it did not ask NATO to undertake any specific retaliatory military actions.

"It becomes clearer and clearer that all of the roads being pursued lead towards Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network," Robertson told reporters after a meeting of NATO defense ministers. "The United States has not yet made any definitive conclusion, but the bulk of the evidence that has been collected seems to be clearly pointing in that direction."

While declining to offer specifics to reporters, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said, "I think the evidence is there for the whole world to see." Pointing to earlier attacks linked to bin Laden's organization, such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, he said, "It's absolutely clear that terrorism against Americans is at the top of their agenda."

One U.S. diplomat said that in laying out the case against bin Laden, Wolfowitz went beyond what Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told NATO ambassadors last week. "I didn't really hear anybody saying that we need more proof," the diplomat said.

Wolfowitz said he did not ask the 18 other NATO members to take any concrete actions beyond the statement of support issued the day after the terrorist attacks, when for the first time NATO invoked Article 5 of its charter, declaring the attacks on the United States to be an attack on the alliance. Wolfowitz said he told the allies they could assist now by providing intelligence information and helping to trace the terrorists' financial assets. "If we need collective action, we'll ask for it," he said.

Wolfowitz said he saw the development of "shifting coalitions," in which some countries might help with certain operations and others could be called upon in a different capacity. "There will be some countries that may be willing to help us privately and secretly," he said.

Wolfowitz also used today's meeting to repeat a long-standing U.S. concern -- that the United States's European allies should elevate counterterrorism to the top of their agenda. In the closed-door session, he also urged the allies to take seriously the threat that terrorists might use biological or chemical weapons.

"I think we all agree now that counterterrorism has to be a major alliance priority," Wolfowitz told reporters. "If it's a matter of spending money to forestall the kind of terrible surprise we saw on Sept. 11, we should think about the thousands of people who died and the hundreds of billions, if not trillions of dollars, of economic losses."

Wolfowitz also warned that the new focus on fighting terrorism worldwide could mean the United States would have to scale back some of its contributions to NATO operations in the Balkans. U.S. officials specifically mentioned reconnaissance and search-and-rescue units as possibly having to be redeployed from the region. "It's a fact of life that when we start to deploy forces around the world as we do today, we start to strain assets," he said. "We told the allies that we need to plan on the possibility that some of these [assets] will be less available."

Wolfowitz's warning came as NATO approved a new mission to replace the arms-collection mission in Macedonia that expired today. The new mission, which Germany will lead, will be aimed at protecting unarmed European observers overseeing Macedonia's fragile power-sharing agreement.

One telling sign of how the Sept. 11 attacks are forging new alliances and reordering priorities came when Robertson offered words of understanding for Russia's campaign in the breakaway region of Chechnya.

With Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov at his side, Robertson said, "Russia has got every right to defend its territorial integrity and to deal with assaults on the state which clearly have come from that part of the world." Robertson said any response to terrorism had to be proportionate, appropriate and within international law.

The West formerly offered only harsh criticism of Russia's Chechnya policy, and the new, softer tone reflected President Vladimir Putin's success in characterizing the Russian military actions against Chechen rebels as a front in the evolving anti-terrorism coalition.

Today's NATO meeting was scheduled to take place in Naples but was moved to Brussels -- and reduced from two days to one -- after the Sept. 11 attacks. Robertson said the shift was purely for logistical reasons, given the difficulties of dispatching NATO staff to a new city at a time of heightened security. But Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had let it be known that he was not keen on hosting the meeting after violence between police and protesters marred a meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries in Genoa in July.

Wolfowitz came to Brussels in place of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who remained in Washington to work on the military aspect of the U.S. response to the terrorist attacks. But Wolfowitz suggested today that no military response was imminent.

"I think it can't be stressed enough that anybody who's waiting for military action needs to rethink this thing," Wolfowitz said. "We don't believe in just demonstrating that our military is capable of bombing. The whole world knows that."

"This is a broad campaign," he added. "We've taken action already," he said, referring to the administration's move to freeze the assets of groups linked to bin Laden's terrorist network.

-------- pakistan

Pakistan Pledges to Use 'All Resources' in Defense

September 27, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-pakistan-foreign.html?searchpv=reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) - Pakistan pledged on Thursday to use all its resources to respond to any assault on its territory during the current crisis over the September 11 attacks on the United States.

``Pakistan will not stand idly by and will reply with all its resources in case anybody attacks or invades us,'' foreign minister Abdul Sattar told the Gulf Arab al-Jazeera satellite television channel.

``We have made it clear that we will do everything necessary to defend ourselves.''

He did not name any potential adversary.

He was asked by Jazeera whether Pakistan's nuclear facilities were threatened in the current crisis, in which the United States is hunting what it calls its prime suspect, Afghan-based Islamic militant Osama bin Laden.

The station had also asked him to comment on the prospect of U.S. planes using Pakistani airspace to attack a neighboring country.

``It is not necessary to say who is our enemy at this moment but those who threatened us in the past know that they have threatened us and this is why President Musharraf was clear and direct,'' Sattar said.

Sattar said Musharraf had declared in recent pronouncements that those who had threatened Pakistan should not try to use the situation for their narrow objectives or to express their anger against Pakistan.

He appeared to be referring to a speech by Musharraf a week ago in which he called on nuclear rival India to ``lay off,'' accusing New Delhi of using the crisis to harm Pakistan and its interests.

Indian officials lambasted Musharraf's comments as an anti-India tirade.

India and Pakistan have struggled for control of Kashmir since their foundation in 1947. India accuses Pakistan of sponsoring terrorism there.

``Pakistan was clear and direct: 'Keep out, and don't try to use the current situation for your narrow interests','' Sattar said in an apparent paraphrase of Musharraf's comments.

-------- russia

Chechnya linked to terrorists

September 27, 2001
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010927-84263080.htm

The White House yesterday accused Chechnya of harboring terrorists and thanked Russia for joining the hunt for Osama bin Laden, but denied the two developments amounted to a quid pro quo.

"There is no question that there is an international terrorist presence in Chechnya that has links to Osama bin Laden," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters. He demanded that Chechen leaders "immediately" cut all contacts with terrorists.

Moments earlier, Mr. Fleischer said President Bush "wants to thank" Russian President Vladimir Putin for "permission for humanitarian overflights, information about the situation on the ground, as well as search-and-rescue operations, if necessary."

Mr. Fleischer was repeatedly asked if the White House had struck a "deal" with Mr. Putin to denounce Chechnya, which has been struggling for independence from Russia, in exchange for Moscow's support of Mr. Bush's global coalition against terrorism. Previously, the United States has been critical of Russia's often-bloody crackdowns against Chechnya.

"No such conclusion should be reached," the presidential spokesman said.

"The only solution in Chechnya is a political solution," he added. "Respect for human rights and accountability for violations on all sides is crucial to a durable peace there."

His comments echoed statements made earlier in the day by Alexi Arbatov, a member of the Russian State Duma and deputy chairman of that body's defense committee.

"If I were in place of ambassador or secretary of state, for instance, I would say that we are concerned about the violations of human rights which happen in Chechnya, but we also understand that the Chechens are also very clearly connected to the Taliban," Mr. Arbatov told a meeting of American businessmen in Moscow. "And we certainly would cooperate in Russia in order to suppress militant opposition and to achieve a political solution to this issue."

Late yesterday afternoon, Mr. Bush himself made similar statements.

"To the extent that there are terrorists in Chechnya, Arab terrorists, you know, associated with the al Qaeda organization, I believe they ought to be brought to justice," he told reporters in the Roosevelt Room. "Our initial phase of the war on terrorism is against the al Qaeda organization, and we do believe there's some al Qaeda folks in Chechnya.

"However, I do believe it's very important for President Putin to deal with the Chechnya minority in his country with respect - respect of human rights and respect of difference of opinion about religion, for example," Mr. Bush added. "And so I would hope that the Russian president, while dealing with the al Qaeda organization, also respects minority rights within his country."

Also yesterday, Mr. Bush met with leaders of the U.S. Sikh community and with the Egyptian foreign minister. The president expressed his sympathy for a Sikh store owner in Arizona who was slain by a man shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Sikhs are a religious group from India who wear traditional turbans.

The president is not the only Western leader to recalibrate his public statements on Chechnya since the catastrophic terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11. During a visit by Mr. Putin to Berlin on Tuesday, German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder said: "Regarding Chechnya, there will be and must be a more differentiated evaluation in world opinion."

Mr. Arbatov appeared to agree.

"It's not the time now to stick to the old position," he said. "And you could always refine your position without compromising your principles, but in such a way that it does not preclude resolving more important, more up-to-date problems."

During a nationally televised address to Russia on Monday, Mr. Putin gave Chechen rebels 72 hours to lay down their weapons and begin peace talks. Yesterday, Mr. Fleischer emphasized the "importance of the speech that President Putin made."

"Leaders of Chechnya have now indicated they are willing to engage in such discussions. That's a positive development," he said. "The president welcomes the sincere steps that have been taken by Russia to engage the Chechen leadership."

Such praise contrasted sharply with the reaction of the United States less than two years ago, when Russia vowed to kill all Chechens who did not flee Grozny within a matter of days.

"I don't think the strategy will work, and therefore it will be expensive, costly and politically damaging internally to them," President Clinton said at the time. "It will affect the attitude of the international community and that is a very heavy price to pay, because it works better when everybody's pulling for Russia."

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

U.S. Introduces Counterterrorism Measure at U.N.

September 27, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attacks-un-usa.html

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Taking its war on terrorism to the United Nations, the United States introduced a resolution on Thursday demanding all countries freeze finances and crack down on the movements of terrorist suspects and their backers.

The draft, circulated to 15 Security Council members, also says that border controls, immigration and refugee flows should be tightened and calls for the prosecution of suspects, as well as a greater exchange of information between states, according to the text obtained by Reuters.

Many of the measures are contained in treaties some countries have ratified or are expected to. But the new resolution would invoke Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which makes its provisions mandatory on all countries immediately.

``It is important in enlisting the operational cooperation of all the other U.N. member states in the world ... in addressing the question of financial and other forms of support for international terrorism,'' the new U.S. ambassador, John Negroponte, said.

Enforcing the resolution may prove difficult. The council will set up a committee of its 15 members to monitor its implementation and ``take all necessary steps,'' still undefined, to see this is done. Banking and other technical experts will be recruited, diplomats said.

President Bush on Monday froze the assets of 27 individuals and organizations and threatened similar action against foreign banks. But his list is not included in the resolution which also does not define what a terrorist is.

``The initial aim is to get every country to do what they are able and there is agreement'' on the obvious suspects, such as Saudi-born millionaire Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, a council diplomat said.

But envoys said it was inevitable that U.S. officials would try to get other groups mentioned.

After hesitating to take its war on terrorism to the United Nations, Washington drew up a four-page resolution to help find the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

Negroponte wants the measure to be adopted before the 189-member U.N. General Assembly begins a debate on counterterrorism on Monday.

The initial reaction, he said, was positive after a meeting the United States called late on Wednesday with the other four permanent members of the council with veto power: Russia, China, Britain and France.

FOCUS ON FINANCING

The main thrust is on the financing of clandestine terrorist networks. The scope is wide, covering anyone who has participated in the ``financing, planning, preparation or perpetration of terrorist acts.''

Specifically, the draft resolution would ``freeze without delay funds and other financial assets or economic resources of persons who have committed, or attempted to commit, terrorist acts'' or participated in ``entities'' owned or controlled directly or indirectly by such people.

It would also criminalize ``the provision or collection by any means, directly or indirectly,'' of funds intended to be used to carry out terrorist acts. The resolution demands that countries ``deny safe haven'' to those who finance, plan, support or commit terrorist acts and ensure their prosecution.

The U.S. move in drafting a resolution marks a reversal of its coolness last week to any further measures by the 15-member council. Washington was apprehensive that this might interfere with American use of force against the perpetrators of the carnage at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

But given the widespread support the United States has received after the hijack attacks, diplomats said Washington wanted to move sooner rather than later.

No one expects the United States to seek U.N. approval for a military response to the attacks by hijacked planes that left nearly 7,000 people dead or missing.

Washington, as well as European Union members, regards a Sept. 12 Security Council resolution that expresses ``readiness to take all necessary steps'' to respond to the attacks as a mandate for military force, although it falls a step short of direct authorization. The United States can also invoke Article 51 of the U.N. Charter on self-defense.

-------- u.s.

U.S. can strike without U.N. nod

September 27, 2001
By Nicholas Kralev
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010927-49226.htm

The United States said yesterday that it has the authority to respond to recent terrorist attacks with military force and other measures without first seeking approval of the United Nations.

"At the moment, notwithstanding all of the coalition building we have been doing, President Bush retains the authority to take whatever actions he believes are appropriate in accordance with the needs for self-defense of the United States and of the American people," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters.

That authority, he said, is based on Article 51 of the U.N. Charter, which gives member states the right to self-defense.

At the same time, Mr. Powell said, the Bush administration plans to work with the United Nations in its battle against global terrorism.

Should U.N. authorization be needed, Mr. Bush will be the one to make that "judgment," Mr. Powell said after a meeting with Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen.

Mr. Cowen said Ireland, which assumes the presidency of the U.N. Security Council Monday, will work to ensure that U.N. resolutions are "respected and implemented."

Both the Security Council and the General Assembly adopted resolutions on Sept. 12 demanding that the organizers of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon be brought to justice.

In a separate resolution last week, the 15-member council called on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban to hand over suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden "immediately and unconditionally." The Taliban regime has sheltered bin Laden for years as a "guest."

The State Department also announced yesterday that the United States would introduce another Security Council resolution aimed at cutting off terrorist funding.

"The resolution would impose an obligation on states to cooperate in the fight against terrorism on the financial side," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said at a press briefing.

The resolution, circulated among U.N. Security Council members in New York, is unlikely to include references to sanctions or other punishments, council sources said.

The measure might be brought to a vote early next week.

The proposed resolution would not have any bearing on the deployment of U.S. troops or Washington's right to retaliate against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, diplomats said.

However, the measure comes as a direct result of the terrorist attacks, which have been condemned by every nation except Iraq.

The resolution is expected to urge governments not to sponsor terrorism, and to prosecute those who harbor or finance terrorists.

It also calls on all nations to better share intelligence and coordinate law-enforcement efforts to prevent terrorist attacks.

The United Nations already has a dozen anti-terrorism conventions, or treaties, in addition to regional agreements.

Many address airline security while others prohibit support for terrorist groups. The agreements also prohibit hostage taking, assaults on diplomatic staff, theft of nuclear materials and similar crimes.

But many of these treaties have not been ratified by enough nations to take effect.

Council members and U.N. officials stressed that the council would not usurp the legislative function of the General Assembly.

But they said the existing conventions are not providing a sufficient framework for the global fight against terrorism.

"In the meantime, we have to plug the loopholes," said one council diplomat. "Better information sharing depends on common understandings and trust. And post-Sept. 11, there should be more cooperation."

The new resolution, in effect, would accelerate anti-terrorism efforts inside the international organization. This is especially true if the council agrees to authorize it under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which is binding upon nations to fight threats to international peace and security.

Washington has been working with its council allies, France and Britain, on the wording of the draft. Diplomats said the remaining permanent members, China and Russia, were consulted formally yesterday afternoon.

It is unlikely that the proposed anti-terrorism resolution will mention explicitly bin Laden, the millionaire Saudi exile who has been named as the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Washington said it had conclusive evidence that bin Laden's al Qaeda organization planned and executed the attacks.

Italian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero, who stopped by the United Nations after a visit to Washington yesterday, welcomed the U.N. anti-terrorism efforts, including a proposed comprehensive convention that would combine and clarify elements of the dozen other agreements.

"We need a world coalition under the aegis of the United Nations," Mr. Ruggiero told reporters yesterday.

"What we need is not just a military answer to the problem of the international terrorism," he said.

--------

Military Strike Not Imminent,
Officials Say Need for Allies And Intelligence Slows Response

By Alan Sipress and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32178-2001Sep26.html

Bush administration officials said yesterday that a military strike against Osama bin Laden and his supporters in Afghanistan is not imminent, citing the need to gain better intelligence about their whereabouts.

"I think it can't be stressed enough that everybody who is waiting for military action . . . needs to rethink this thing," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told reporters after briefing NATO in Brussels.

These comments and similar remarks by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld at a briefing on Capitol Hill on Tuesday are the clearest indication yet that the administration will be taking a more deliberate approach in launching a military campaign against bin Laden and the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan that protects him.

"They're headed in a direction that will require time and a coalition," said Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, after receiving the classified briefing from Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

This go-slow approach comes after officials had said during the past week that they would delay other stages of President Bush's war on terrorism -- including possible attacks against state sponsors of terrorism such as Iraq -- in order to move aggressively against bin Laden. The administration charges that bin Laden was behind the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Though dozens of U.S. warplanes have arrived in the Middle East and Central Asia, Wolfowitz appealed to NATO ministers for help with intelligence about bin Laden and his followers.

"In this campaign, it's worth emphasizing one of the most important things is to acquire more information about an enemy, one of whose principal means of operation is to hide and conceal," Wolfowitz said. "That is one of the reasons why it is not so easy to lay out a specific campaign plan and lots of specific actions and why many of the most important things that we are asking for are being done in the intelligence channels."

U.S. officials also said the administration has adopted a methodical approach because it wants to avoid an action that badly misfires, such as the botched attempt to rescue American hostages held by Iran in 1980.

A senior Defense official emphasized while traveling to Brussels that the military won't play the most important part of the campaign against terrorism. "It isn't exclusively military," he said of that campaign. "It isn't even primarily military."

Even when military action is taken, he added, "one of the major objectives of that action will be to get more information" -- that is, to gather additional intelligence.

Meantime, the administration continued to work on assembling a coalition of countries to share intelligence and support an eventual military thrust. The results yesterday were mixed.

During a hastily arranged visit to Washington, Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher of Egypt, a key U.S. ally, said his country could back an American effort to punish those behind the attacks on New York and Washington. But he said Egypt still wants proof of bin Laden's role.

In meetings with Bush and Powell, Maher sought to dispel concerns raised by earlier Egyptian statements that Cairo might object to a military campaign against bin Laden before a global conference on terrorism had been convened. But Maher said Egypt was still waiting for hard evidence from the Bush administration of bin Laden's involvement in the terrorist attacks.

"We believe in any move to punish those who are responsible, any move will be based on a solid case," Maher said in an interview. "I believe it is the intention of the United States government at the right moment to share whatever information they have with its close friends."

Egyptian officials said they continue to share intelligence with the United States about Islamic militants, who were locked in brutal battle with Egypt's security forces for much of the 1990s.

U.S. efforts to win cooperation from Iran and gain access to its rich intelligence about bin Laden and his Taliban protectors suffered a public setback yesterday. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme religious and political leader, rejected participation in an U.S.-led coalition against terrorism, calling the United States insincere.

Wolfowitz's trip to Brussels was aimed at cultivating cooperation with traditional U.S. allies in NATO, and he told them they were in for "a very broad campaign over a very long period of time."

Though Wolfowitz's comments could be little more than strategic deception meant to cloak an imminent strike, a senior military officer said all indications from Cabinet members are that the administration is girding for an extended fight.

Besides concerns about rushing into action against an uncertain target, there could be other reasons for the signals from the administration, including purely military ones. A veteran military planner said any Special Forces raid against terrorist sites in Afghanistan would require a variety of support personnel.

The measured approach could also reflect the need to consider possible retaliation within the United States. The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, probably will need to be brought into deliberations so it can have a plan to bolster security the day after any major military action, officials said.

U.S. officials also sounded a cautious note yesterday about plans to bolster opposition forces battling the Taliban because of the extreme sensitivities of Pakistan, a crucial U.S. ally in any campaign inside Afghanistan.

Attention has focused on the opposition Northern Alliance, the only movement controlling substantial Afghan territory beyond the Taliban's reach and actively battling the Kabul government. But Pakistan considers the Northern Alliance to be hostile largely because it receives support from Russia, Iran and most notably India, long Pakistan's fiercest adversary.

U.S. officials acknowledged the seriousness of Islamabad's concerns a day after Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar and a former corps commander, Lt. Gen. Salahuddin Tirmizi, warned the United States against imposing a new government in Kabul. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency played a crucial role in creating the Taliban and has long sponsored the movement as a way of ensuring a friendly government in Afghanistan.

A State Department official and other U.S. officials said the administration hopes to foster an Afghan opposition front far broader than the Northern Alliance that would also include dissident commanders within the Taliban movement.

"It's a new world for us and the Pakistanis, the Indians and the Afghans. It will require some new thinking, which is still developing," the official said.

As the administration weighed covert assistance and operations, CIA Director George J. Tenet came under fire yesterday from Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Shelby urged that someone of greater "stature" be given the job. Shelby told NBC's "Today" show that the "job is getting away" from Tenet.

Bush backed up Tenet during a speech to CIA employees. "I've got a lot of confidence in him, and I've got a lot of confidence in the CIA," he said.

Meantime, Jesse Jackson said he was weighing an invitation from Taliban representatives to visit Pakistan and discuss U.S. demands that the Afghan regime turn over bin Laden and his followers.

---------

Key U.S. Computer Systems Called Vulnerable to Attack
Defense, FAA Among Agencies Lacking Security, Experts Say

By Robert O'Harrow Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A06
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32105-2001Sep26.html

As the Bush administration prepares to fight terrorism abroad, it faces a long-standing vulnerability at home: a persistent lack of security for computer systems at the Defense Department, the Federal Aviation Administration and other key government offices.

Despite repeated warnings about the threat foreign governments, terrorists and hackers pose, at least 24 federal agencies have failed to adopt effective security to protect their computers and networks from attacks over the Internet, according to government reports, computer experts and former intelligence officials.

Many agencies still do not use passwords properly, some cannot detect intruders, and government systems overall are so porous, specialists say, that hackers can use even an innocuous agency's network to breach other, more sensitive systems via the Internet.

Chinese hackers, angered by the death of a Chinese pilot in a collision with an American spy plane, were able to deface several government Web sites in April. In a case last year, a computer virus breached Defense Department security, damaging some computers and infecting some classified systems.

With the number and sophistication of computer attacks rising, "a clear risk exists that terrorists or hostile foreign states could launch computer-based attacks on systems supporting critical infrastructures to severely damage or disrupt national defense or vital public operations or steal sensitive data," the General Accounting Office concluded this spring.

Robert Dacey, director of information security issues at the GAO, told Congress in April that major agencies' systems "are riddled with weaknesses" that "place a broad array of federal operations and assets at risk of fraud, misuse and disruptions."

The National Security Agency, the supersecret electronic spy agency that also protects U.S. codes, has warned that foreign governments have already developed ways to attack U.S. computer systems.

Officials worry about attacks involving computer viruses that might disrupt communications, destroy sensitive information or disable such sensitive operations as the FAA flight control system or those that support Pentagon war efforts.

Bush administration officials said they recognize the exposure and plan to issue an executive order in the next few weeks to create an office of cyber-security in the National Security Council office in the White House to deal with it. Yesterday, an FBI official told a House subcommittee that the bureau and other agencies are working on the problem.

The problem extends beyond the government. Many businesses also have failed to make security a priority in recent years and have suffered the same sorts of disruptions. Security specialists warn that power grids, banking networks and other key private computer systems could be targeted.

Previous initiatives to defend government computers have foundered, in some cases because of budget troubles or bureaucratic squabbling.

The National Infrastructure Protection Center, set up at the FBI in 1998 to detect and help prevent cyber-threats, didn't have enough specialists to staff a 24-hour unit to monitor the Internet, in part because of FBI budget restraints, another GAO report found. And the CIA and National Security Agency left key posts at the center vacant for more than a year.

A Defense Department plan to protect its sprawling global computer systems, promised after audits found glaring security weaknesses, missed its own deadlines because the agency didn't hire enough managers to run the initiative, the GAO found.

"It leaves us all very vulnerable, and nobody has been paying attention," said Sallie McDonald, the assistant commissioner of the Office of Information Assurance and Critical Infrastructure Protection at the General Services Administration. "It's not just hackers that we have to be worried about. It's nation states."

A senior FBI official said that "while government systems have vulnerabilities which are being exploited, the agencies are working extremely hard to formulate and implement policies to reduce those risks."

The number of attacks has soared in recent years. Three years ago, the Federal Computer Incident Response Center counted 376 incidentsaffecting 2,732 federal systems and 86 military systems. Last year, the number of incidents reported was 586, involving 575,568 federal systems and 148 military systems.

In July, for example, the "Code Red" computer worm infected thousands of government computers. The White House had to change its Web site address to avoid the worm and the Pentagon temporarily blocked access to some areas of its public Web site while it installed protective software.

A few months earlier, the Chinese hackers invaded government and business Web sites -- including those run by the Navy and the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services. Last year, an attack program called "ILOVEYOU" penetrated systems at the Defense Department, the CIA and at least a dozen other agencies, as well as an array of private companies such as AT&T and Ford.

The vast majority of incidents are never reported, however, in part because some agencies sometimes cannot detect when a hacker has gained access to their files, officials said.

Last year, Congress mandated better security procedures, including a requirement that agencies give the Office of Management and Budget reports detailing assessments of computer security, starting this fall.

Frank Cilluffo, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,a policy think tank, said security will not improve until the government better coordinates and funds its efforts.

"There's been a whole lot of talk and not a lot of action. . . . There's no accountability," he said, adding that policymakers have never had to confront a security breach even close to the severity of the attacks on Sept. 11. "There's no one pulling all these pieces together."

He added: "This is an issue that hasn't been in the mainstream. Now it's something that decision-makers, policymakers and others have to act upon."

Among the 24 agencies cited by inspectors general and the GAO for serious security gaps are the departments of Justice, State and the Treasury and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Problems include:

• U.S. Army Corps of Engineers systems had "serious vulnerabilities" that would allow both hackers and numerous legitimate users "to improperly modify, inappropriately disclose and/or destroy sensitive and financial data," according to a GAO report in October. The weaknesses increase the vulnerability of other Defense Department networks and systems to which the Corps's network is linked, it added.

• The FAA has routinely failed to secure physical access to its computer systems in recent years, and in several cases it failed to conduct background checks on auditors who have access to sensitive information. "FAA's efforts to prevent unauthorized access to data are inadequate in all critical areas we reviewed -- personnel security, facility physical security, system access security," the GAO reported last September.

"Until FAA addresses the pervasive weaknesses in its computer security program, its critical information systems will remain at increased risk of intrusion and attack, and its aviation operations will remain at risk," Joel C. Willemssen of the GAO told the House Committee on Science.

• The Environmental Protection Agency continues to have "pervasive problems that essentially rendered EPA's agency-wide information security program ineffective," according to a July 2000 GAO report. About the same time, hackers used an EPA site as a chat room to conduct electronic conversations. Officials said the EPA has been making efforts to bolster security, but problems remain.

• Auditors examining seven Commerce Department systems broke through security using the Internet and were in a position to "read, copy, modify, and delete sensitive economic, financial, personnel, and confidential business data."

One of the problems, investigators said, was that network users could gain extraordinary access to certain department databases simply by logging on as a systems administrator. No password was necessary.

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Cost of Raising Japanese Ship Skyrocketing
Navy Behind Schedule in Bid to Salvage Vessel Sunk by Nuclear Submarine

By Sally Apgar
The Washington Post
Thursday, September 27, 2001; Page A24
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32372-2001Sep26.html

HONOLULU -- The Navy, already $20 million over its estimated budget for raising the Japanese fishing vessel that was accidentally sunk by a U.S. nuclear submarine, has nagging doubts about whether it is technically possible to raise the wreck at all.

The 830-ton Ehime Maru still lies 2,000 feet below the ocean surface, its bow buried in the mud nine miles off Diamond Head. Since mid-August a salvage crew of Navy, civilian and Japanese experts has worked to raise the ship. The Navy initially estimated it would spend $40 million and that the ship would be raised by mid-September. But rigging failures and heavy seas have delayed the operation and driven up its costs.

On Tuesday, a Pacific Fleet official who declined to be identified said that "by the end of next week we should have a clearer picture of our ability to lift the Ehime Maru and move it." Once the wreck is lifted, the Navy plans to tow it underwater for 16 miles to shallow water, where divers will attempt to retrieve the remains and personal belongings of four teenage boys and five crewmen who were entombed when the ship sank Feb. 9.

The official stressed that recent setbacks are not the first or last "make or break" engineering challenges the salvage team has faced. He said, "We remain committed to completing this operation."

No one is willing to put a limit on the amount the government is willing to spend in the diplomatic face-saving exercise. "The initial $40 million was an estimate made prior to the start of the operation with an understanding the estimate would be subject to change given the engineering and environmental factors," said Lt. Victor Lopez, a fleet spokesman. Costs have increased, he said, because of "weather delays caused by heavy seas, and we have had some engineering challenges."

Navy officials nervously admit that the ship could break apart during salvage.

The United States is under intense pressure from the Japanese government to raise the Ehime Maru, a government-owned vessel used for research and to train high school students in commercial fishing. The USS Greeneville, a fast-attack nuclear submarine that was once the shining star of the Pacific fleet, rammed the fishing trawler during an emergency surfacing drill. The ship sank in less than five minutes and 26 people were rescued.

Families of the victims want to recover any remains or personal belongings so that they may honor them in keeping with tradition.

When recovery attempts began last month, the Rockwater 2, a civilian-owned ship contracted for the lift, was positioned over the wreck. Since then the salvage team has been using remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) to place a series of cables and steel lifting plates under the bow and stern. The plan is that the cables would then be attached to a lifting frame and computerized winches would hoist the ship at a level angle. Then the ship would be towed underwater to water 115 feet deep off Honolulu International Airport.

American divers would be sent to retrieve any remains or personal belongings and help remove an estimated 10,000 gallons of fuel. When they finish, a team of Japanese divers would be able to go down. Eventually, the wreck would be towed back out to sea.

But the salvage team aboard the Rockwater 2 has run into snags, caused in part by equipment that has either broken or not worked as anticipated. The first setback occurred in August when the ROVs were unsuccessful in repeated attempts to drill beneath the ship to place lifting cables and steel plates under the Ehime Maru.

Unable to raise the whole ship, the team's next plan was to raise the stern. Those initial attempts failed, and on Aug. 31 a cable that hoisted the stern 24 feet off the ocean floor snapped. By early this month, the salvage team had raised the stern, but found that the bow had been driven deeper in the mud.

The next contingency plan was to dredge through the mud to the holes used for the anchors, remove the anchors and their chains and attach lifting cable to the holes. This created delays in part because the dredging equipment had to be flown in from the mainland.

To date, all that has been removed are the ship's two anchors, which eventually will be given to the Japanese government for use in a planned memorial.


-------- OTHER

-------- death penalty

Some See Execution in New Light

September 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Death-Vigil.html

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- Jeff Hood says he's not political, not a protester nor a marcher.

``But September 11 got my attention,'' said Hood, 51, who on Wednesday plunked down his folding chair in front of the state Capitol to fast and reflect for 12 hours.

Hood was the first of 41 people who will take turns holding daylong vigils leading up to the scheduled execution of child killer Terry Clark on Nov. 6.

Clark, convicted in the July 1986 murder of 9-year-old Dena Lynn Gore, has ended his appeals, saying he wants to die. His lethal injection would be New Mexico's first execution since 1960.

Dr. Victor LaCerva, who organized the vigils, hopes they will allow people to ponder how the nation could respond to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington without perpetuating violence.

``We sit to contemplate these things, to find a better course of action for ourselves, our state and our country,'' said LaCerva.

But Gov. Gary Johnson has said he has no intention of sparing Clark's life and Dena Lynn's parents, Jeff and Colleen Gore, say they'll be present at the execution.

``This is what we've been waiting for for 15 years, what we've been fighting for 15 years,'' her mother said. Her father said that when Clark's life ends, his daughter's soul ``can be put to rest and her spirit can cross over.''

Opponents of the death penalty have called for rational thought.

``This isn't about Terry Clark,'' said Bill Stanton of the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the Death Penalty. Rather, he said, it's about the resumption of a ``misguided practice'' that the state has done without for years.

``We've just been victimized by violence,'' said Merida Blanco, whose brother was murdered 17 years ago. ``Are we going to pass it on, or are we going to rise above it and work for a better world?''

Counting Clark, only four men are on the state's death row. One reason there are so few is that in November 1986, a few weeks before he left office, then-Gov. Toney Anaya commuted the death sentences of all five men then on death row. Clark's lawyers tried to get a commutation for him, too, but he was not formally sentenced before Anaya left office.

The commutations caused a furor, and the state Legislature has defeated a couple of efforts to repeal the death penalty in the past decade.

The Santa Fe County Commission rejected a proposal this summer to declare the county an ``execution-free zone.'' Commissioner Javier Gonzales said the death penalty was ``part of American society'' and something he supported.

Still a strong death penalty opponent on religious grounds, Anaya worries that Clark's execution would begin a process of desensitizing New Mexicans to killing criminals.

``I think once the first one starts, the next one becomes easier,'' said the ex-governor. ``The dominoes start falling.''

-------- human rights

Ambassador for religious liberty named

September 27, 2001
By Larry Witham
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010927-23388181.htm

The White House yesterday nominated John V. Hanford, a longtime foreign affairs aide to Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, to be U.S. ambassador at large for international religious liberty.

"I'm tremendously honored by the president's intention to nominate me," Mr. Hanford said in an interview.

"I look forward to the confirmation process."

If confirmed, Mr. Hanford will fill a post left vacant for a year. He said he is eager to work "on the vital issue of human rights."

The announcement comes a week after Mr. Bush appointed three new members to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. That filled all the commission's nine slots and allowed it on Monday to elect a chairman.

"We're now ready to carry out our work, and the recent [terrorist] events will only make religious liberty more important in foreign policy," commission spokesman Lawrence J. Goodrich said.

The commission elected Michael K. Young, dean of the George Washington University Law School, as chairman. The nine-member panel serves through May 2003.

Under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, which established the commission and the ambassador's post, Mr. Hanford's confirmation would give him the 10th vote on commission policies.

The White House yesterday said Mr. Hanford was the "lead architect" of the 1998 law and noted his work since 1987 with Mr. Lugar, who has been chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Mr. Hanford is a graduate of the University of North Carolina and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Boston.

The post of ambassador at large was held in its first two years by Robert Seiple, former head of the World Vision relief agency, but has been vacant for a year.

The ambassador oversees an annual report on religious liberty abroad - the most recent of which soon will be released - and recommends to the secretary of state possible sanctions against nations that are the worst offenders against religious freedom.

The nine-member commission also issues a report and, being independent, can be critical of both administration policy and foreign countries with horrific human rights records.

The new Bush appointments to the religious freedom commission are Leila Nadya Sadat, a Muslim law professor; the Rev. Richard Land, head of religious liberty for the Southern Baptist Convention; and New York Catholic Bishop William F. Murphy.

-------- police / prisoners

Police sweep Europe in search of terrorists

USA TODAY
09/27/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/27/europe-terror.htm

MADRID, Spain (AP) - Violent videos showing Taliban attacks in Afghanistan and a diary of a would-be suicide bomber were among the material confiscated when police arrested six Algerians suspected of forming a terrorist cell financed by Osama bin Laden. The material, displayed for reporters Thursday by Madrid police chief Juan Cotino also included three sets of night vision glasses, forged identity papers and credit cards, a knife and a computer.

Cotino described the six as "sleeper activists," and said that one of them wrote in the diary that he wished to be a suicide bomber.

The men were arrested in six different places in Spain on Wednesday and brought to Madrid following a request from a Belgian judge.

They have not been charged with anything and authorities have not linked them to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States.

But Cotino said the six had direct links with others arrested in Europe who were planning suicide attacks against U.S. targets on the continent.

He said the six are suspected of forming part of a group financed by bin Laden, who is believed to be behind the U.S. terror attacks. Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said Wednesday that the men had been in contact with two other individuals detained elsewhere in Europe for allegedly planning suicide attacks against U.S. targets on the continent.

"It's an important arrest and the United States embassy has already been informed. It marks ... the collaboration against terrorism between all countries, particularly in this case between the countries of the European Union," Rajoy said.

Meanwhile in London, Home Secretary David Blunkett told the British Broadcasting Corp. that as many as 11 of the 19 hijackers involved in the U.S. attacks may have been in Britain in the months leading up to the attacks.

"Some of them will have passed through, some will have stayed over," he said. "What we do now know is, having identified these people - because we do actually now have the line back to where they were - we can track not only their movements, but those who associated with them. That is the crucial issue," Blunkett said.

British police say they have received more than 100 requests from the FBI in the United States to trace suspects, witnesses and other people connected with the case.

Blunkett also admitted that it was possible that those who helped the hijackers could still be operating in Britain.

British anti-terrorist police continued to question six Iraqi men and one German man found hiding Wednesday in a truck parked outside a Royal Air Force base used by U.S. fighter jets.

Two other men arrested last week in connection with the terrorist attacks were still being interrogated and separately, police in central England were still holding three men detained Tuesday under the Terrorism Act linked to previous arrests in France and Belgium.

One of the men is a French national who was allegedly involved in a plot to attack U.S. interests in Europe. France has already placed seven other suspects in the case under formal investigation, a step before being charged.

French authorities said the eight are believed to have ties to bin Laden.

Those arrested in Spain were to obtain optical, electronic, computer and communications equipment and send it to colleagues in Algeria, according to Rajoy, the interior minister.

Rajoy said the six belonged to the Salafista Group for Preaching and Combat, believed to be a bin Laden-backed dissident faction of the Armed Islamic Group, Algeria's most hardline insurgency movement.

The Algerians were "directly related" to Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian arrested in Belgium on Sept. 13, and Jerome Courtailler, a Frenchmen arrested in the Netherlands the same day, Rajoy said. Both belonged to a group planning suicide attacks against U.S. targets in Europe, Rajoy said without giving details. Police had been on their trail for several months but lacked sufficient evidence to move in on them, Rajoy added.

All six men were in Spain legally, some for up to two years. People who had come to know them said they had never roused any suspicion.

-------- spying

Bush confident in Tennet

September 27, 2001
By Bill Sammon and Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010927-83984413.htm

President Bush yesterday brushed aside criticism of CIA Director George J. Tenet in the wake of harsh criticism by the top Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The president said he counted himself among many Americans asking "how could this have happened," but drew laughter from 500 CIA employees at the spy agency's headquarters with his wry observation that "George and I have been spending a lot of quality time together."

"There's a reason," Mr. Bush said. "I've got a lot of confidence in him, and I've got a lot of confidence in the CIA."

The president, on another subject, accused Chechnya of harboring terrorists, and thanked Russia for joining the hunt for terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. The White House said the two statements did not represent an acceptance of a quid pro quo.

Mr. Bush also met with Sikhs and Muslims at the White House, and urged Americans not to discriminate against religious groups in the wake of the terrorist attacks, which the administration says were carried out by Islamic fundamentalists.

Sen. Richard C. Shelby, Alabama Republican, told a TV interviewer that the CIA director's job was "getting away" from Mr. Tenet. Others have blamed the spy agency for failing to detect the plot to hijack at least four jetliners and turn them into weapons of mass destruction.

Although the president stood by the spymaster, he spoke warmly of Mr. Shelby, the vice chairman of the Senate intelligence panel. "He's a concerned American," Mr. Bush said. "I'm sure other Americans are asking how could this have happened, including the president. But what Americans need to know is that I'm receiving excellent intelligence. The CIA is doing a fine job."

A member of a special congressional commission on terrorism said that CIA efforts to find terrorists have been hampered by weak human spying capabilities and rules limiting the recruitment of unsavory agents.

Paul Bremer, chairman of the National Commission on Terrorism, told the House Select Committee on Intelligence that the commission had called for the restrictions to be lifted, but the CIA ignored the recommendation. "It's my view that the United States for 25 years has seen a significant run-down of its overseas intelligence capabilities, and in particular, its capabilities against human targets," said Mr. Bremer, a former ambassador at large for counterterrorism.

"That progressive degeneration was accelerated by a decision in 1995 to impose restrictive guidelines on the overseas recruitment of terrorist informants."

Mr. Bremer said his commission heard testimony from numerous CIA officers that was "unambiguous, unanimous and conclusive" that the rules had discouraged "people in the field from recruiting terrorist spies." The rules had a "chilling effect" on recruitment efforts, he said. The rules in effect before 1995, which included some consultation with the CIA's Langley headquarters, should be reinstated.

The CIA has denied the guidelines have hampered its spying efforts. The guidelines were imposed under pressure from Congress following reports that CIA officers had recruited Latin American government officials with violent pasts.

Mr. Bremer said it was "astonishing" that 15 months after the commission recommended lifting the restrictions "nothing has been done on this, the most important recommendation our commission made." Lifting the curbs would be "one of the most important steps that could be taken by this country to stop terrorism, because the objective of counterterrorist policy is to prevent attacks. It's to keep Americans from getting killed in the first place.

"When you scrub it all down, if you are going to get good intelligence on terrorist groups, it is going to come from somebody who by definition is a terrorist. If we are not prepared as a nation to do that, then we are not going to get this intelligence. This kind of intelligence is not going to come by wandering down to the League of Women Voters and seeing what you find there."

Mr. Bremer said the guidelines are self-imposed and could be lifted easily by Mr. Tenet.

Bruce Hoffman, president of the Rand Corp., faulted the CIA for not producing regular strategic assessments of the terrorist threat. The last national intelligence estimate on terrorism was conducted in 1997, he said. A newer assessment begun in May was in its final stages but was weeks too late, Mr. Hoffman told the committee.

Lee Hamilton, a former Democratic representative from Indiana, told the committee that the guidelines require CIA officers to obtain direct approval from headquarters if they plan to recruit an informant who is a terrorist, criminal or human rights violator.

"On paper, that restraint appears to be appropriate," Mr. Hamilton said, noting that inexperienced CIA officers should not be allowed to decide whether to recruit such people.

Mr. Hamilton said he did not know whether the policy was appropriate or not and urged the committee to examine it further.

Mr. Shelby has criticized U.S. intelligence agencies for an inability to transform themselves to suit the post-Cold War world. "We need new thinking and new people looking at this problem," Mr. Shelby said.

"We need our country's most talented and capable people leading the effort. The old ways have failed us time and again in this new threat environment."

He noted several intelligence failures, including the Sept. 11 attack and 1993 attacks on the World Trade Center, the 1996 bombing of a U.S. military residence in Saudi Arabia and the October attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Yemen. "We have shed enough blood and squandered enough treasure," he said. "We need a rapid response. And, I'm afraid that the calcified bureaucracies of our national security institutions are not capable of rapid change."

--------

Ex - Colonel Gets Life for Espionage

September 27, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Military-Espionage.html

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- The highest-ranking military man ever accused of spying was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday, 50 years to the day after he declared his allegiance to United States as a new citizen.

George Trofimoff, a retired Army Reserve colonel born in Germany, continued to profess his innocence -- declaring, ``I am not a traitor'' -- as U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew handed down the sentence.

Trofimoff had faced at least 27 years in prison. Assistant Secretary of Defense John P. Stenbit told the judge in a letter on behalf of President Bush that anything less than a life term would be neither adequate punishment for him nor a deterrent to others.

Prosecutors say it is the first time such a letter has been written for a federal inmate.

``Mr. Trofimoff has conducted espionage longer than anyone else we have known of in this country,'' said Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Furr. ``This is not someone who made a mistake, or who got greedy momentarily. What happened here was someone who set out to live his life as a spy.''

Throughout the Cold War, Trofimoff led the Army section at the Nuremberg Joint Interrogation Center in Germany. There, secret intelligence documents were stored and defectors and refugees were interviewed about life, especially military operations, behind the Iron Curtain.

Trofimoff was convicted in June of taking secret documents out of the center, photographing them and selling the film to the KGB for $250,000 over more than 20 years.

He worked through a childhood friend, a Russian Orthodox priest, in a spying career that was noted in KGB archives smuggled out of the Soviet Union as it collapsed.

Trofimoff repeated to Bucklew the claim he presented to his jurors: He only told the undercover FBI agent he was a spy because he needed money to pay debts.

``I am guilty of trying to make a foolish claim,'' he said. ``What it did is really convince me and my friends of my old-age senility. You are condemning an old man who served his country honorably for 46 years.''

Trofimoff's attorney, Daniel Hernandez, said he intended to appeal. Trofimoff's wife, Jutta, who has been left bankrupt, did not speak on his behalf and declined to comment following his sentencing.

The judge said she was not swayed by Trofimoff's tale.

``By attempting to explain it away, you lied and lied and lied,'' Bucklew told him. ``Obviously the jury didn't believe it. I don't believe it either.''

Trofimoff was convicted after a monthlong trial in which jurors heard testimony from an extraordinary lineup of former KGB agents, spies and intelligence officers. They also watched hours of a videotaped meeting between Trofimoff and the undercover FBI agent in which the retiree detailed his spying career.

Jurors laughed when Trofimoff testified that it was a coincidence that he could name several Soviet spies shown to him by the undercover agent.

Among other things, Trofimoff is believed to have given the KGB details of what the United States knew of the Soviet military capabilities.

Hernandez said none of the information Trofimoff is convicted of leaking was shown to have caused the deaths of U.S. sources, as was shown in the spy cases of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. They also received life in prison.

Hernandez also argued that Trofimoff is longer a threat to national security and called the life sentence unnecessary

Ingersoll, though, said Trofimoff's case illustrate how ``fragile'' national security is, particularly in light of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

She noted it is the first case in which the sentence has been lengthened under a law that allows such a request by the president or an authorized designee, such as Stenbit.

Trofimoff's military career ended when he was arrested on spying charges in 1994 in Germany along with the man he considered his brother, Igor Susemihl, a metropolitan in the Russian Orthodox Church.

Charges against the two were dropped when Germany's five-year statute of limitations expired and Susemihl died in 1999. U.S. authorities continued to pursue Trofimoff after he retired to Florida, living among military retirees on a street named Patriot Drive.

He was working as a grocery bagger at a supermarket when arrested on the spy charge.

--------

FBI going after college students' files

By TERRI HARDY
Sacramento Bee
September 27, 2001
http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=SIEGE-COLLEGES-09-27-01&cat=AN

- Federal agents have been targeting college campuses as part of their investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, gathering lists of foreign nationals and combing through files.

The scope of the inquiries has raised concerns that the investigation is proceeding at the expense of individual freedoms.

At least three California State University campuses have turned over information about students to the FBI. The University of California's Office of the President said it has not received official reports from the schools, but believes federal officials have asked for details on students at all of its campuses.

Schools across the country have received similar requests.

Investigators began looking at college campuses after learning some of the alleged hijackers or their accomplices were in the country on student visas. Because of the emergency nature of the situation, schools waived normal privacy concerns.

The U.S. Department of Education has told campuses they can release data without a subpoena or student consent when there is a health or safety emergency, said Lindsey Kozberg, an agency spokeswoman.

Neither the FBI nor the Department of Justice would comment.

Student and education groups say they understand the need for intensive investigation but are uneasy that some requests are too far-reaching. And, they worry that anti-terrorism legislation under discussion could provide investigators with almost unlimited authority and tread on students' civil rights.

Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers, said his group fielded several calls for guidance from members. He said it is clear that federal officials are not limiting their requests to international students.

"Some requests were not about foreign students, they were students with foreign names or with a foreign origin," Nassirian said. "We believe there was some knee-jerk reaction in the wake of something so horrendous."

Corye Barbour, legislative director for the United States Student Association, a national organization representing student governments at more than 150 colleges and universities, said she was troubled that authorities have had carte blanche with student information in the aftermath of the attacks.

"On top of that, the administration wants blanket access to student records with no time limit attached," Barbour said. "Will it be OK to get information on all international students, all students with Muslim-sounding names? There is no discussion about where the line is drawn."

Omar Moheyeldin, an international student attending California State University, Sacramento, said there should be restrictions.

"It shouldn't be personal information," he said. "And it shouldn't be only for Muslims or for Arabs - that would be discrimination."

The Bush administration has requested sweeping anti-terrorism authority, including expanded power to wiretap terrorist suspects, indefinitely detain legal immigrants and a provision that would compel universities to provide information about students without a subpoena.

Campuses have had to grapple with a desire to cooperate with the investigation and a responsibility to protect student privacy.

More than 20 officials from colleges or university systems have called the Education Department in the last two weeks asking for guidance on what information they can provide, Kozberg said. The department chose not to issue a written position, but told callers there were exceptions to the privacy law and they would have to evaluate requests on a case-by-case basis.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service has asked for information about at least one student at UC Berkeley, said Chuck McFadden, a spokesman for the University of California's office of the president.

After discussions with other campus officials, McFadden said his office is confident that "in some way, shape or form" all campuses had been contacted by federal officials. He would not provide details about the information being requested other than to say authorities wanted information about specific students.

(Terri Hardy can be reached at thardy(at)sacbee.com )

-------- terrorism

LEARNING THE LINGO
Jihad vs. Crusade A historian's guide to the new war.

BY BERNARD LEWIS
Thursday, September 27, 2001
Wall Street Journal
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001224

President Bush's use of the term "crusade" in calling for a powerful joint effort against terrorism was unfortunate, but excusable. In Western usage, this word has long since lost its original meaning of "a war for the cross," and many are probably unaware that this is the derivation of the name. At present, "crusade" almost always means simply a vigorous campaign for a good cause. This cause may be political or military, though this is rare; more commonly, it is social, moral or environmental. In modern Western usage it is rarely if ever religious.

Yet "crusade" still touches a raw nerve in the Middle East, where the Crusades are seen and presented as early medieval precursors of European imperialism--aggressive, expansionist and predatory. I have no wish to defend or excuse the often atrocious behavior of the crusaders, both in their countries of origin and in the countries they invaded, but the imperialist parallel is highly misleading. The Crusades could more accurately be described as a limited, belated and, in the last analysis, ineffectual response to the jihad--a failed attempt to recover by a Christian holy war what had been lost to a Muslim holy war.

At the time of the Crusades, when the Holy Land and some adjoining regions in Syria were conquered and for a while ruled by invaders from Europe, there seems to have been little awareness among Muslims of the nature of the movement that had brought the Europeans to the region. The crusaders established principalities in the Levant, which soon fitted into the pattern of Levantine regional politics. Even the crusader capture of Jerusalem aroused little attention at the time, and appeals for help to various Muslim capitals brought no response.

The real counter-crusade began when the crusaders--very foolishly--began to harry and attack the Muslim holy lands, namely the Hijaz in Arabia, containing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina where Mohammed was born, carried out his mission, and died. In the vast Arabic historiography of the Crusades period, there is frequent reference to these invaders, who are always called "Franks" or "infidels." The words "Crusade" and "crusader" simply do not occur.

They begin to occur with increasing frequency in the 19th century, among modernized Arabic writers, as they became aware of Western historiography in Western languages. By now they are in common use. It is surely significant that Osama bin Laden, in his declaration of jihad against the United States, refers to the Americans as "crusaders" and lists their presence in Arabia as their first and primary offense. Their second offense is their use of Arabia as a base for their attack on Iraq. The issue of Jerusalem and support for "the petty state of the Jews" come third.

The literal meaning of the Arabic word "jihad" is striving, and its common use derives from the Koranic phrase "striving in the path of God." Some Muslims, particularly in modern times, have interpreted the duty of jihad in a spiritual and moral sense. The more common interpretation, and that of the overwhelming majority of the classical jurists and commentators, presents jihad as armed struggle for Islam against infidels and apostates. Unlike "crusade," it has retained its religious and military connotation into modern times.

Being a religious obligation, jihad is elaborately regulated in sharia law, which discusses in minute detail such matters as the opening, conduct, interruption and cessation of hostilities, the treatment of prisoners and non-combatants, the use of weapons, etc. In an offensive war, jihad is a collective obligation of the entire community, and may therefore be discharged by volunteers and professionals. In a defensive war, it is an individual obligation of every able-bodied Muslim.

In his declaration of 1998, Osama bin Laden specifically invokes this rule: "For more than seven years the United States is occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of its territories, Arabia, plundering its riches, overwhelming its rulers, humiliating its people, threatening its neighbors, and using its bases in the peninsula as a spearhead to fight against the neighboring Islamic peoples." In view of this, "to kill Americans and their allies, both civil and military, is an individual duty of every Muslim who can, in any country where this is possible, until the Aqsa mosque and the Haram mosque are freed from their grip, and until their armies, shattered and broken-winged, depart from all the lands of Islam, incapable of threatening any Muslim."

Mohammed himself led the first jihad, in the wars of the Muslims against the pagans in Arabia. The jihad continued under his successors, with a series of wars that brought the Middle East, including the Holy Land, under Arab Muslim rule and then continued eastward into Asia, westward into Africa, and three times into Europe--the Moors in Spain, the Tatars in Russia, the Turks in the Balkans. The Crusade was part of the European counterattack. The Christian re-conquest succeeded in Spain, Russia and eventually the Balkans; it failed to recover the Holy Land of Christendom.

In Islamic usage the term martyrdom is normally interpreted to mean death in a jihad, and the reward is eternal bliss, described in some detail in early religious texts. Suicide is another matter.

Classical Islam in all its different forms and versions has never permitted suicide. This is seen as a mortal sin, and brings eternal punishment in the form of the unending repetition of the act by which the suicide killed himself. The classical jurists, in discussing the laws of war, distinguish clearly between a soldier who faces certain death at the hands of the enemy, and one who kills himself by his own hand. The first goes to heaven, the other to hell. In recent years, some jurists and scholars have blurred this distinction, and promised the joys of paradise to the suicide bomber. Others retain the more traditional view that suicide in any form is totally forbidden.

Similarly, the laws of jihad categorically preclude wanton and indiscriminate slaughter. The warriors in the holy war are urged not to harm non-combatants, women and children, "unless they attack you first." Even such questions as missile and chemical warfare are addressed, the first in relation to mangonels and catapults, the other to the use of poison-tipped arrows and poisoning enemy water supplies. Here the jurists differ--some permit, some restrict, some forbid these forms of warfare. A point on which they insist is the need for a clear declaration of war before beginning hostilities, and for proper warning before resuming hostilities after a truce.

What the classical jurists of Islam never remotely considered is the kind of unprovoked, unannounced mass slaughter of uninvolved civil populations that we saw in New York two weeks ago. For this there is no precedent and no authority in Islam. Indeed it is difficult to find precedents even in the rich annals of human wickedness.

Mr. Lewis is professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. His most recent book is "A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History" (Random House, 2000).

----

Document outlines suspects' goals, 'mindset'

September 27, 2001
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/27/inv.rules.engagement/index.html

WASHINGTON -- A document tied to at least two of the suspected hijackers contains reminders and "rules of engagement" for carrying out a strike against the enemy, a law enforcement source said.

"It seemed like it was written to put them into a zone ... a certain mindset ... to carry out the mission," said the source.

The document was found in a car left behind at the airport in Portland, Maine, where two of the suspected hijackers -- identified by U.S. investigators as Abdul Aziz al-Omari and Mohamed Atta -- boarded a flight to Boston September 11. In Boston, law enforcement sources believe, the two got on board American Airlines Flight 11, which later slammed into the World Trade Center.

The photocopied document was originally handwritten in Arabic, the source said. It includes the instruction "to strike your enemy above his neck" and appears to be a sort of self-reminder to the hijackers.

The document, several pages long, also includes rules, such as "be very punctual, how to handle yourself at a taxi stand, how to dress," as well as "how to act in certain situations," the source said.

It ended with a common Muslim prayer or greeting repeated more than once, something along the lines of "praise to Allah," the source said.

The source said that a translator helped decipher the document, but some of it "was unintelligible."

-- From CNN Correspondent Susan Candiotti

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