------- Index of Articles

NUCLEAR
Witnesses claim massive blast caused by missile
Ireland does have plan for nuclear crisis
The day that changed Tokaimura forever
Japanese Town Holds Nuclear Drill

MILITARY
Pakistan Gears for Biological Threat
Center Is Round-the-Clock Guard for Chemical Threats
Jadugoda tribals live and breathe uranium
US Air Force Plane Refuels in India
Report: Saddam Has Chemical and Germ Research
Pakistanis Seeking Trade-Off on Kashmir
Pakistan shuts down militant group
Pakistan Says No U.S. Troops Are Presently on Its Soil
Ukraine, U.S. Agree on Airspace
Anti-Terrorism Resolution Is Adopted in U.N.
U.S. enters Afghanistan
U.S. 'in hot pursuit' of terrorists, Bush says
Special forces eyed for Afghanistan
Military Grapples With New Role in Homeland Defense
U.S. Sets Out to Scout Afghanistan

OTHER
O'Connor Foresees Limits on Freedom
Detainees Accounts of Investigation
Afghans: Reporter Faces Spy Charges

ACTIVISTS
Protesters gather in Washington
Activists protest war in march on Washington
D.C. Protesters March for Peace
Nevada Desert Experience Response to the Events of September 11



-------- NUCLEAR

-------- france

Witnesses claim massive blast caused by missile

Susan Bell In Paris
Saturday, 29th September 2001
The Scotsman
http://thescotsman.co.uk/world.cfm?id=111914

MYSTERY deepened yesterday around the massive explosion that ripped through a chemical plant on the outskirts of Toulouse last Friday, leaving 29 people dead, over 2,500 injured and thousands more homeless.

The official explanation, that it was an accident is being challenged by witnesses, chemical experts and the media, who lean towards a deliberate attack on the AZF factory, Franceâ€(tm)s largest producer of fertilisers.

Witnesses cited in the daily Le Figaro yesterday say they saw a flash of light moving towards the factory, quickly followed by a small explosion and then the second, devastating, blast.

An 18-year-old hairdresser named only as "Emilie" who lived less than 200yd from the factory was in the garden just before the blast.

"Suddenly, I saw a sort of flash, like a shaft of light, heading towards the factory warehouse in the space of just a few seconds. There was a first explosion. Panic-stricken, I took refuge in my bedroom and put my head under the covers. Almost immediately, there was a massive blast."

Her father, an electrician and fire officer at a neighbouring explosives factory, saw the same thing - "a sort of projectile flying at a good height over the roof-tops". Their accounts were confirmed by Emilieâ€(tm)s brother and other factory employees.

However, Emilie and her family told Le Figaro her fatherâ€(tm)s and brotherâ€(tm)s statements have been ignored. "The police already believed only in the theory of an accident. However, lots of people in Toulouse are thinking it and we saw it: it was a terrorist attack and nothing else," she told the daily.

Experts have also called into question the authoritiesâ€(tm) insistence on accidental causes. Louis MĂ(c)dard, an engineer, has analysed the worldâ€(tm)s ten worst explosions over the last 80 years. He concludes these disasters "have always been the result of an explosive charge in a hardened substance or of a prolonged fire ... in confined conditions". However, as Le Figaro and Le Monde have both pointed out, there was no fire in the warehouse before the blast.

As for an explosive charge, the manager of the AZF factory, Serge Biechlin told Le Figaro: "The remains of all sensitive equipment located near the warehouse were inspected after the blast - not one of them had exploded. If there was a projectile, it could only have come from outside the factory."

Investigators have referred to the "compost effect", saying that heat at the base of the 200 to 300 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the warehouse could have triggered the explosion. The heat could have been generated by decomposing nitrates mixed with impurities which acted as a catalyst. However, temperatures inside the warehouse would have had to reach at least 150C to set off an explosion, and this would have activated the heat detectors.

-------- ireland

Ireland does have plan for nuclear crisis
Can you protect yourself if the worst happens?

The Irish Times
Saturday, September 29, 2001
Dick Ahlstrom reports
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/newsfeatures/2001/0929/nf7.htm

Reassurance is not the word that springs to mind following the Government's limp performance this week on how it plans to protect us against nuclear accidents or terrorist attacks.

Clearly people here are worried after the outrages in New York and Washington but realistically the chances of a terrorist-sponsored second strike in the Republic are remote. Even so, voters do expect the Government to have some coherent response to an attack or - a more likely scenario - a serious accident at the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in Cumbria.

In fact, previous governments have developed and tested a response to a nuclear emergency, despite the impression given by Minister of State Mr Joe Jacob. It was prompted by the Chernobyl accident when there was no system in place to detect radiation and warn the public.

The Radiological Protection Institute of Ireland now operates a network of radiation detectors across the State. These automated devices would warn us if radiation levels rose above normal. The RPII provides 24-hour coverage for this service and the plan includes alerts to the Government, gardaí, army and civil defence who would then warn the public.

It is more likely, however, that we would have some forewarning of a nuclear accident at Sellafield or any of the dozens of nuclear facilities in Britain. This would give us some hours or perhaps days to mount a response.

So what would happen if a nuclear accident occurred and what could we do to protect ourselves?

Accidents at Windscale, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island in the US have shown that areas closest to the incident face the greatest danger, with many types of radioactive material discharged.

Heavy materials quickly fall out of the air, leaving two substances in particular to be distributed on the wind, radioactive caesium and radioactive iodine. These could reach us in hours if the wind were blowing in our direction.

Iodine is an essential element in the thyroid gland, located in the neck and if its radioactive cousin is about it quickly congregates in the thyroid. The radioactive form has caused thousands of paediatric thyroid cancers in all the former Soviet states affected by Chernobyl.

The only response is to take iodine tablets which saturate the thyroid with safe iodine and help block absorption of the radioactive form. These tablets must be taken quickly before the radioactive cloud can reach us, a tall order unless there are effective distribution systems in place.

Chernobyl also deposited radioactive caesium across Ireland, so much so that sheep grazed on some upland areas in the North must still be cleared of radioactivity on the lowlands before they can be sold.

In a human context, the danger would be caesium deposits falling into water or food supplies that are later consumed. This would cause a radioactive build-up inside the body and possible later cancers.

The response is to find and use only protected water supplies. Produce harvested after a plume reached us would have to be cleaned as thoroughly as possible to remove any radioactivity on the surface. This would be of little help some weeks later if large amounts of caesium reached us, however. The radioactivity would be taken up into the plant and could not be washed off.

It is much more difficult to protect against a chemical or germ attack because there would be little or no warning until people became ill or started to die.The chemical gas attacks in Japan a few years ago killed rapidly but then dispersed. Airborne chemicals are diluted quickly so unless the toxin is very powerful or unless there is a method to spread it far and wide, as with a crop sprayer, its effects would be limited. An essential aid to survival in all these cases is the earliest possible warning. It would be up to Government to broadcast the alarm and information.

-------- japan

The day that changed Tokaimura forever

Juliet Rowan,
Daily Yomiuri,
Sat, 29 Sep 2001
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20010929woc1.htm

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of the worst nuclear accident in the nation's history. The accident, which took place at the JCO Co. uranium-processing facility in Tokaimura, Ibaraki Prefecture, occurred after workers poured enriched uranium solution into a steel container not designed to hold such a high density of the substance. Their action triggered a nuclear chain reaction.

During the reaction--termed "a state of criticality"--significant amounts of neutron radiation were emitted into the environment, later causing the death of two of the workers.

In October last year, the government concluded that a total of 667 people, including JCO employees, emergency personnel and local residents, were exposed to higher-than-normal doses of radiation in the accident. At the same time, it maintained that the amount of radiation leaked posed no long-term threat to the health of the victims.

But many continue to have doubts, questioning the reliability of information from a government that promotes nuclear energy and arguably--like the company responsible--has done little to address their concerns.

===

Start of another ordinary day

At 10:35 a.m. on the morning of Sept. 30, 1999, the residents of Tokaimura, a small village 110 kilometers northeast of Tokyo, were quietly going about their business. Shoichi Oizumi and his wife, Keiko, were busy at work in their small car-parts factory, located just 120 meters from JCO. Kyoko Sato had taken her baby daughter, Mei, to visit her parents. Their house, like her own, is situated about one kilometer from the facility. Others, including a retired Hitachi employee who was delivering gifts of fresh salmon to his neighbors, were out on the streets.

Little did they know that at precisely that minute an uncontrolled nuclear reaction had been triggered in their midst.

The fiasco of the next few hours, when authorities wasted precious time before finally issuing an evacuation order at 3 p.m. for people living within 350 meters of JCO, has been well-documented in previous reports. Perhaps lesser known is the impact--physically, psychologically and economically--that the accident has had on the lives of Tokaimura residents over the past two years.

"Our lives were changed forever," says Mitsunari Oizumi, spokesman for the JCO Criticality Accident Victims Group, whose members include about 50 of the 135 local residents the government concluded were exposed to radiation in the accident. The group was established in February last year in reaction to the government proclamations that there would be no adverse health effects of the accident when in fact residents were still experiencing unexplained physical symptoms.

In an independent survey of 946 households within a two-kilometer radius of JCO conducted in the same month by the Citizens Nuclear Information Center (CNIC), a nongovernmental organization set up to promote nuclear awareness, the residents complained of everything from nausea, headaches and rashes, to lethargy, insomnia and loss of appetite.

For some, the symptoms persist. According to Oizumi, his 73-year-old father, Shoichi, has broken out in itchy, pus-filled sores on his arm several times in the past two years. In February, he was admitted to hospital after the irritation left him unable to sleep. Oizumi's mother, Keiko, 61, who suffered chronic diarrhea for five days after the accident, also appears to have been affected by what happened at JCO. After Sept. 30, she fell into a state of deep depression and quit going to work at the car-parts factory, according to her son. In November last year, she was admitted to hospital after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome. She has since returned home, but not to work.

Persisting problems

Oizumi says that of the victims' group members exposed to radiation, 10 are still experiencing physical symptoms such as those cited in the survey. In many cases, there may be very little to distinguish their symptoms from manifestations of stress or other disorders. At the same time, though, little is known about the effects of exposure to either neutron or low-level radiation, making it difficult to assess the impact of the accident on the victims' health, particularly in the long term.

Furthermore, the amount of radiation the victims were exposed to remains a highly contentious issue. The government, which claims no adverse health effects will be experienced by those exposed to less than 50 millisieverts, says no Tokaimura resident was exposed to more than 21 millisieverts. However, a report released last Saturday by a group of medical experts at Hannan Chuo Hospital in Osaka alleges the real figure could be up to six times higher than that of the government.

Unfortunately, the truth may never be known, as JCO had no equipment in place to monitor neutron radiation.

But regardless of whether the residents' symptoms relate to the accident, their deep concerns warrant a response. Kyoko Sato's husband, Minoru, says, "We don't have any physical symptoms now, but we worry that in the future we may have cancer."

It is unlikely he is alone. In reply to a question in the CNIC survey, "What worries you most about the JCO accident now?" more than 30 percent of respondents cited "the effects of radiation on me and my family."

Health effects are not all that concern residents. According to the survey, more than 12 percent also fear declining land prices and other economic damage.

After the accident, JCO paid 50,000 yen in compensation to each resident in the 350-meter radius and 30,000 yen to those outside the area who chose to evacuate to designated sites anyway. The company also received about 7,000 claims for compensation from individuals and businesses in Tokaimura and the surrounding area. In April, it announced that it had settled almost all of the claims after paying out a total of 14.5 billion yen. In addition, it has been named as the defendant in several civil lawsuits and is currently involved in a criminal trial in which the company and six of its officials face charges of professional negligence resulting in death.

Despite the payouts, many local residents say neither JCO nor the government--which more than 90 percent of survey respondents said was "highly responsible" for the accident--have yet to provide them with adequate compensation. "I have never received any compensation," says Sato. "I think JCO and the government should give some compensation to all residents."

In a bid to address the situation, the victims' group has entered negotiations with both the company and the government. It is asking the government to issue the people exposed to radiation with special ID cards, similar to the ones given to victims of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The cards would grant the holders free access to medical care, which the group views as crucial in light of the uncertainty about their long-term health. Furthermore, they say the cards would allow them to consult the doctors of their choice.

Currently, the only option for Tokaimura residents in terms of free health examinations is an annual check, comprising a blood test and a verbal survey, provided by Ibaraki Prefecture. However, the group complains of vastly inadequate treatment at the checks. "The doctors are designated by the (prefectural) government," Oizumi says. "They've found abnormal counts of white blood cells, but what they say is, 'These people need to be treated, but this has nothing to do with the accident.'"

A report by the prefecture on an examination it conducted soon after the accident in October 1999 does in fact state that three people registered low levels of lymphocytes, a type of blood cell. But, as Oizumi says, the prefecture concluded that the lymphocyte levels were not linked to the accident. Asked to explain how this conclusion was reached, a prefectural official said the examination results were passed to a committee of experts, who found that the three people were suffering from "medical conditions such as infections and anemia."

The accident victims' group is also demanding compensation from JCO for actual and perceived economic damages, and health damages. However, it alleges that until recently, JCO refused to even consider paying compensation to anyone it knew to be a member of the group.

JCO denies the allegation while declining to comment on its relations with the group except to say that members have visited the company for talks. "We do not discriminate against anybody who asks for compensation," JCO spokesman Shuji Noguchi says.

Still, the victims' group looks to have a long fight ahead in terms of receiving compensation for health damages.

"We (JCO) acknowledge no cause-and-effect relationship between the accident and health effects, except in the case of the two workers who died," Noguchi says. "Only claims for health damages accompanied by the testimony of experts can be considered."

But the victims' group is not willing to give up its struggle. "We want the government to admit its responsibility for causing the accident (by issuing the victims' ID cards), and from JCO, we want compensation," Oizumi says. "It's hard to put a price on what people have lost, but I hope some things that were lost can be recovered."

Forced to change

The JCO accident not only left a village devastated, it also called into question the entire nuclear industry. In fact, the extent of the ill feeling generated in the aftermath of the accident filtered all the way down to those employed by the industry. In Tokaimura, about one-third of residents work in nuclear-related jobs. But after the accident, 43.3 percent of residents working in the industry said all nuclear facilities in the village should be shut down or their numbers reduced, according to the CNIC survey.

Forced to take drastic measures to clean up the industry's image, the government revised several pieces of legislation governing nuclear plants and related facilities in the wake of the accident.

The effectiveness of the revisions, however, is debatable when one examines the catalogue of incidents that have occurred since the JCO accident. The July-August edition of CNIC's Nuke Info Tokyo magazine lists 32 "significant incidents at nuclear facilities" for the last year alone. They range from steam leaks and damaged pipes to three cases in which reactors had to be manually shut down after radioactivity leaked from fuel rods.

An uncertain future

Despite the dangers, the government continues to promote nuclear power as a clean alternative to fossil fuels. The official stance, as outlined by a spokesman for nuclear-fuel manufacturer Global Nuclear Fuel-Japan Co., is also that, "(Nuclear energy) is extremely important in (terms of) the stable supply of energy."

Opponents, on the other hand, argue that the only way to have total energy security is to have no nuclear energy at all. They promote use of energy-efficient technology and alternative energy sources, such as solar and wind power. In fact, Shoichi Oizumi dreams of one day using his skills in manufacturing car parts to build wind turbines to generate electricity.

But whatever the future of the nuclear industry, it will take nothing short of a miracle to alleviate the concerns of Oizumi and the others who were exposed to radiation that fateful day two years ago.

"The most important thing is (my daughter) Mei," Minoru Sato says. "Mei was 2 months old at that time. Because babies are more greatly affected than adults, (we worry) she may have physical symptoms in the distant future. We worry that she may be discriminated against. Maybe she will be refused a marriage.

"Would you want to get married to a person who comes from Chernobyl?"

--------

Japanese Town Holds Nuclear Drill

September 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Japan-Nuclear-Drill.html?searchpv=aponline

TOKYO (AP) -- Kindergarten and elementary school students donned gauze masks and vacated their classrooms Saturday as part of a nuclear disaster drill staged before the anniversary of Japan's worst atomic energy accident.

About 2,600 people -- including pupils, local officials and soldiers from the Self Defense Forces -- participated in the exercise, which centered on the town of Tokaimura, a rural community 70 miles northeast of Tokyo.

A radiation leak at a fuel-reprocessing plant there on Sept. 30, 1999, killed two workers and affected hundreds of others. The disaster was triggered when two workers tried to save time by mixing excessive amounts of uranium in buckets instead of using special mechanized tanks.

Tokaimura city official Kunihiko Yasu said Saturday's drill was the first to include elementary school and kindergarten pupils. Municipal officials rushed to command posts after receiving a mock report of a dangerous radiation leak, sirens wailed and buses shuttled evacuees to safe areas.

Six former reprocessing plant officials have been charged with negligence in the 1999 radiation leak.


-------- MILITARY

-------- biological weapons

Pakistan Gears for Biological Threat

September 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Pakistan-Biological.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Scientists and doctors in Pakistan are preparing contingency plans to respond to the threat of biological and other unconventional weapons that could emerge as a result of the crisis in Afghanistan, officials said Saturday.

As part of the plans, hospital authorities are arranging for extra beds and medicines and are training doctors and paramedical staff in ways to cope in case terrorists unleash such weapons in Pakistan in response to an expected U.S. attack on neighboring Afghanistan.

``We have made all arrangements to handle the situation that could arise after a U.S. attack'' on Afghanistan, Nisar Ahmad Cheema, an official at Holy Family Hospital here, told The Associated Press.

Col. Abdul Mateen of the National Crisis Management Team said authorities were making all possible arrangements to combat such a threat but would not elaborate.

Prof. Abbas Hayyat, one of the country's most prominent pathologists, said Pakistan's two defense laboratories -- one in Karachi and the other in Islamabad -- were working to prepare enough vaccines to combat anthrax and other biological agents.

He urged the World Health Organization to help Pakistan with technological assistance in preparing a defense against biological weapons.

Pakistan has given full support to the United States in its campaign against terrorism, launched after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The United States believes Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terror organization, based in Afghanistan, were behind the attacks.

That has led to fears worldwide that terrorist networks may be planning to use biological or other unconventional weapons.

Despite Pakistan's plans, international officials here believe this poor country of 140 million people would be severely strained if faced with a biological warfare threat.

Antoine Bealer of the International Committee of the Red Cross office here, said her organization would not be able to provide enough vaccine for the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan in the event anthrax and other biological agents were used.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers said Thursday they have neither the plans nor capability to employ biological weapons.

``The West and America both are afraid without any reason,'' a Taliban spokesman said on condition of anonymity. ``We are not so advanced technologically.''

-------- chemical weapons

CHEMICAL HAZARDS
Center Is Round-the-Clock Guard for Chemical Threats

New York Times
September 29, 2001
By MATTHEW L. WALD
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/national/29TRUC.html

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 - With the nation on edge about whether terrorists' next attack will be chemical, a chemical industry emergency center here is, as always, staffed around the clock. But it is already focused on the chemical hazards at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The Chemical Transportation Emergency Center, set up 30 years ago as a kind of 911 line for chemical questions, has taken two calls on the Sept. 11 attacks.

On Thursday, the New York City Police Hazardous Materials Team called to say that officers had found several large cylinders filled with Freon, which is used in air conditioning systems, in an area that was still smoldering, according to the chemical center, known as Chemtrec. Freon, although it damages the earth's ozone layer, is not toxic and does not burn, but the police were concerned about whether the heat could break it down into something more dangerous.

That was at 11:50 a.m.; by 12:03 p.m., the center had contacted DuPont, which makes Freon, and shortly after, DuPont spoke to the police. DuPont said they were right to worry; Freon breaks down into two poisons, hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid. The center followed up with DuPont 90 minutes later to determine that the company had advised the team on what precautions to take.

A few days earlier, investigators had called seeking the origin of a tank of Halon, used on airplanes and in buildings as a fire suppressant, that they found in the wreckage at the Pentagon; was it from the Boeing 767 that hit the building, or from the Pentagon itself? The center did not answer the question, but found a company to sample the material and determine its origin.

Now, with reports that federal authorities have arrested 20 men who may have fraudulently sought driver's licenses to transport hazardous materials, the center is preparing for calls that might come from a chemical attack.

It is what Carl Reynolds, the managing director of Chemtrec, calls the third leg of the triad of counter- terrorism; not prevention or discovery, but response.

With thousands of chemicals in common use around the country, and with emergency personnel and even managers of industrial plants not knowing their precise composition or characteristics, Chemtrec has emerged as a quick point of contact, matching firefighters with chemists and emergency room doctors with highly specialized toxicologists.

"We run the gamut here," said Tom Flores, a recently retired firefighter and paramedic from Fairfax County, Va., who answers calls. If called upon to determine what the proper remedial step would be in the event of attack, said Mr. Flores, "I'm pretty confident we can handle it."

Two to four "communicators" answer Chemtrec's phones around the clock. Each desk has three phones; black ones, which are normally the only ones to ring; white ones, which connect if the local system that runs the black ones should fail; and red phones that are connected to a different long-distance carrier, in case the carrier serving the red and black ones goes down.

Each workstation is connected to a computer system with data on thousands of chemicals, and that data is updated each workday to a laptop that each communicator takes home at night; the whole set-up is duplicated in backup locations in case of a problem at the main office. Lately, executives have asked that the location of the main office not be precisely described.

Even without the threat of terrorism, Chemtrec has a growing workload. When the American Chemistry Council founded Chemtrec in 1971, partly to stave off government regulation, it took in 8,000 calls a year; last year there were 78,400.

The classic emergency call here is from a police officer or firefighter who is watching an overturned tanker truck burn, its driver dead or unconscious, its shipping manifest missing and its hazardous materials placard, required by the Department of Transportation, burned beyond recognition. If the emergency worker can identify the company that owns the truck, Chemtrec can track down the carrier and then the shipper. If all that is available is the truck's license plate, it will call the state police from that state.

The center was founded by a handful of chemical companies including Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Quaker Oats Chemical Division and Elizabeth Arden; now it has more than 20,000 member companies.

-------- india

Jadugoda tribals live and breathe uranium

ROYDEN D'SOUZA,
Times of India,
September 29, 2001
From: Harsh Kapoor <aiindex@mnet.fr>

YDERABAD/JADUGODA: The adverse fallout of the country's nuclear programme does not just rain down on establishments such the Nuclear Fuel Complex. It fills the air at the uranium mines at Jadugoda, 18 miles from Jamshedpur.

Invisible to the eye, low-dose radiation from the Uranium Corporation of India Ltd (UCIL) mines has been destroying the lives generations of tribals in Jadugoda, Narwapahar and Bhatin. Excavated in 1967 in East Singhbhum, Jharkhand, the mines produce all the uranium for India's pressurised heavy water reactors. Over 35,000 people live within 5 km radius of the Jadugoda complex and are exposed to radiation.

Roughly 200 tonnes of uranium produced here every year, generating more than 360,000 tonnes of tailings (waste), radioactivity from which will last 2,50,000 years. The mines are 1,600-2,000 feet deep and tribals comprise almost the entire work force. All that the miners get to protect themselves against radiation and the highly carcinogenic radon gas (Ra 222) is cotton uniform, a helmet and boots. Dosimeters, protective clothing and gas masks - basic safety standards the world over (and accepted by the DAE) - are unheard of. The miners spend about 2,488 hours a year exposed to unthinkably high levels of radiation and radon gas inside the mines.

Their uniforms are washed once a week when they take them home - thereby exposing their families to radiation. On an average a miner dies within 10 years of working in the mines.

The trail of destruction continues when the ore is transported to UCIL's Jadugoda mill in open trucks, sometimes partially covered with tarpaulin, occasionally carrying workers atop them. Pieces of the ore fall off the trucks and lie scattered, and radioactive dust is carried by the wind.

The tailings are used to refill the mines and get disposed off in tailing ponds. Nearly, 1,80,000 tonnes of tailings are dumped in three such ponds.While two of these are full and abandoned, the third is nearing brimming and efforts are on to acquire land for a fourth.

These ponds are meant to be out of bounds to humans and cattle,and have strong fencing. No human settlements are to be allowed near them. However, villagers cross the ponds daily while children play on the beds.The tribals also pick up the rope used in the mines and make charpoys with it.Villages exist next to the broken-down fencing of two ponds. To top it all, ignorant villagers have used the tailings to construct houses and to build roads.

Radioactive waste from the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad also gets dumped here. However, the latest such consignment from NFC, is learnt to have been returned.

----

US Air Force Plane Refuels in India

September 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-India.html

NEW DELHI, India (AP) -- A U.S. Air Force transport aircraft, often used to airdrop troops and equipment in hostile areas, refueled at a military base here, Indian and American officials said Saturday.

The Hercules C-130 aircraft flew into the Palam Air Force base next to the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday, hours after a request from U.S. officials for refueling, said P.K. Bandopadhyay, the defense ministry spokesman.

It ``left after refueling. It was a normal exercise,'' Bandopadhyay said.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed the plane's refueling, but denied Indian newspaper reports that it left for Tajikistan, Afghanistan's neighbor, to join American troops being deployed there.

``The C-130 did land here, but it did not take off for Tajikistan. It took off for Singapore,'' spokesman Gordon K. Duguid told The Associated Press. ``There was a U.S. military presence on board, but it did not contain any large number of troops.''

An Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman later said the aircraft transported six military personnel to be posted with the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and then left for Singapore.

India has agreed to assist U.S. forces in the search for accused terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, the key suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. Bin Laden is believed to be in Afghanistan.

No American warplane had refueled in India as part of a U.S. military campaign since the Persian Gulf War in 1991.

India's Congress party and the Communist Party of India criticized Friday's refueling, the United News of India news agency reported.

The Congress party's foreign affairs specialist, Natwar Singh, said his party was opposed to the use of Indian soil and airspace by one country to attack another, while Communist party leader D. Raja protested that the refueling was allowed just a day after Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee said that Washington had not asked for any logistic support, UNI reported.

-------- iraq

Report: Saddam Has Chemical and Germ Research

September 29, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-britain-iraq-germ.html

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper quoted what it said was a defecting Iraqi nuclear expert as saying Saddam Hussein has told his top scientists to concentrate on producing chemical and biological weapons.

It quoted the scientist, who it referred to by the pseudonym Dr. al Sabiri, as saying Saddam's researchers were also working on ways to spread germ and chemical weapons.

``I created death in Iraq. I had to get out,'' al Sabiri was quoted as saying in the report from Beirut.

``I was asked to examine hundreds of complicated and dangerous toxins. They were very easy to create using germs. You could put them in water or steam, throw them in the air or use them in the soil,'' he was quoted as saying.

``We developed nerve gas, botulism and anthrax. One day a light green yellow substance, which was crystallized and packed in tins, arrived. Suddenly intelligence men came in and rushed it away. I later found out they were working on some secret project.''

The scientist, who was reported to have worked at the Atomic Energy Organization in Baghdad, was quoted as saying said the toxins were tested on prisoners. He also said that there were attempts to design ways of delivering the deadly substances.

``Ballistic missiles is just one method they want to use to spread the poisons,'' al Sabiri was quoted as saying, adding that Iraq was also trying to adapt pilotless aircraft for the task.

-------- pakistan

Pakistanis Seeking Trade-Off on Kashmir
Leader Aims to Spare Militants From Terror Label

By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 29, 2001; Page A22

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 28 -- When Pakistan's military president explained to the nation last week why he had decided to cooperate with the United States in its anti-terrorism campaign, he said he had done so to protect Pakistan's vital interests. One of them, he said, was "the Kashmir cause."

Implicit in Gen. Pervez Musharraf's statement was what he hoped would be a strategic trade-off. Pakistan agreed to end its support of the Taliban militia in Afghanistan -- a troublesome neighbor that U.S. officials have identified as a launching pad for international terrorism -- partly in return for shielding its domestically popular guerrilla campaign in Kashmir, a Himalayan region divided between Pakistan and its nuclear arch-rival, India. India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir, and Pakistan backs a Muslim separatist insurgency that has been fighting Indian troops for 12 years.

In the past week, however, the U.S. distinction between the two issues has begun to blur. Both Pakistani officials and Kashmiri separatist leaders are now voicing worry that Washington is sweeping the Kashmir conflict, which they view as a "freedom struggle," into a broad attack on what the West views as regional terrorism.

On Monday, the Bush administration froze the assets of 27 organizations and individuals it labeled as supporters of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement. The list included Harkat ul-Mujaheddin, a Pakistani group that has links to Afghanistan and sends guerrilla fighters to Kashmir.

The Taliban shelters Osama bin Laden, the radical Muslim whom U.S. officials call the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Pakistan has sided with Washington in its hunt for bin Laden and its plans to attack Afghanistan militarily if he is not turned over for prosecution.

In the past two weeks, however, India has been lobbying Washington to crack down on a number of Kashmiri militant groups, arguing that they are part of a broader terrorist threat.

Relations between India and the United States, once chilled by Cold War tensions, have been rapidly warming in the past two years. Washington's anti-terrorist alliance with military-ruled Pakistan, in contrast, is brand new and fraught with mistrust.

"We are caught between two unfortunate situations that could backfire on us. We have sacrificed a lot of lives, and we want to make sure that the Kashmir struggle is not sacrificed in the process," said Ayub Thakur, president of the London-based World Kashmir Freedom Movement, who is visiting Pakistan. "Our cause is not terrorist. It is a freedom struggle against Indian state terrorism."

International human rights groups report that both India and guerrilla groups have committed abuses in the Kashmir conflict, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives in the past decade. Indian forces have been accused of torching villages and torturing suspected insurgents, while guerrilla groups have been accused of murdering civilians and using suicide squads to bomb military and government facilities.

Guerrilla violence has surged in Kashmir since the Sept. 11 attacks, with the daily death toll rising into double figures. The surge has played into India's effort to win aggressive U.S. support for its side, but its aim has apparently been to call attention to an issue the Kashmiris fear will be forgotten as the world reels from the attacks on New York and Washington.

So far, the Bush administration has distinguished between Kashmiri groups that use terrorist tactics and those that do not. Harkat ul-Mujaheddin, a radical Islamic group previously known as Harkat ul-Ansar, was labeled a terrorist group by the United States in 1995 after it was linked to the kidnappings and slayings of five Western tourists in Kashmir.

This week, a Harkat spokesman in Pakistan denied the group is involved in terrorism and said there is "no moral justification" for the United States to freeze its assets. "We condemn terrorism because it is part of our faith not to kill the innocent and unarmed people, whatever may be their religion," the spokesman told Pakistani media.

But Pakistani sources said the U.S. actions may have driven Harkat closer to the Taliban. They said that many of its fighters have left Kashmir for Pakistan and that some have entered Afghanistan to assist the Taliban in defending against any U.S. attack.

Members of Hizb ul-Mujaheddin, the largest Kashmiri guerrilla group based in Pakistan, said this week that they have no connection with Harkat.

"We know nothing about the Taliban or Osama bin Laden. If a settlement is reached in Kashmir at 3 p.m., we will put down our weapons and be home by 4 p.m.," said one staff member at Hizb headquarters here. "We are not against America. We accept anyone's help in our struggle, but if America would help Kashmir, we would welcome it as a friend."

Until now, the United States has maintained a neutral stance in the Kashmir conflict, while repeatedly urging both countries to settle their dispute through negotiations. Pakistan has long sought international mediation in Kashmir, but Indian officials have refused to accept outside intervention.

This week, Pakistani analysts said that by suddenly bringing the Kashmiri conflict into its sights, the United States may unwittingly be doing India's bidding and undermining Pakistan's ability to rally domestic support for the Western anti-terrorism campaign.

Although a minority of Pakistani Muslims support the controversial Taliban, Islamic groups here have threatened violence if the United States attacks Afghanistan. Most Pakistanis have accepted Musharraf's support for the U.S. anti-terrorism drive, but they also strongly oppose India, a much larger, largely Hindu neighbor, and they view the Kashmir insurgency as a fundamental national cause.

Many Pakistanis are also wary of the United States, which they feel abandoned their interests after the Cold War and left Pakistan vulnerable to an overflow of violence, religious extremism and refugees from Afghanistan, especially after the Taliban seized control of much of that country in 1996. They worry that Washington will betray them again, destabilizing Pakistan on two fronts at once.

"Musharraf has a majority of popular support now, but he will face enormous internal opposition if going against Afghanistan also means the end of Pakistan's Kashmir policy," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of strategic and defense studies at Quaid-I-Azam University here.

"I don't see the coalition with the U.S. unraveling, but Pakistan is starting to realize that America wants to eliminate all potential sources of terror and that it may not be willing to leave Kashmir out of that campaign," Hussain said. "I think the United States needs to think carefully about what its aims are and what their broader consequences could be."

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Pakistan shuts down militant group

USA TODAY
09/29/2001
The Associated Press
http://usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/09/29/pakistan.htm

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Pakistani authorities on Saturday shut down a militant group declared a terrorist organization by the United States, hours after the U.N. Security Council ordered all member states to crack down on terrorist organizations. Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, or "Movement of the Holy Warriors," said it was closing down its seven offices under government orders. The movement is one of the largest militant organizations fighting Indian soldiers in the disputed Kashmir region and was declared a terrorist organization by United States years ago.

"The government has ordered us to close because of American pressure," said a Harakat commander, Sajjad Shahid.

The group also has strong ties to Afghanistan and several of its members were trained there. Afghanistan is the base of alleged terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, sought by the United States in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Scores of Harakat volunteers are believed to be fighting alongside the Taliban against the northern-based Afghan opposition forces.

Two key leaders of the group, Maulana Fazalur Rehman Khalil and Farooq Kashmiri, went into hiding soon after the Sept. 11 attacks. Both of them fought with Afghan resistance forces against the Soviets in the 1980s.

Harakat's assets were frozen Monday by President Bush along with those of 26 other organizations and individuals in connection with the worldwide campaign against terrorism.

A second Pakistan-based organization, the Al-Rashid Trust, was on Bush's list. Pakistan's State Bank froze its assets here this week, but the trust is technically allowed to continue since it has not been declared a terrorist organization.

On Saturday, several Harakat members were seen removing their belongings from their main office in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-ruled Kashmir.

The government's move to shut down the militant organization is likely to enrage other groups waging an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Attique-ur-Rehman, another commander of the Harakat group, vowed to resist the government order.

"Any Pakistani ruler who will go against us won't stay in power for long," he threatened.

The United States has courted Pakistani support for its campaign against bin Laden, who is protected by Afghanistan's hard-line Islamic Taliban movement.

Pakistan has maintained close ties to Afghanistan and is the only country to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of the country after Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates broke ties.

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THE NEIGHBOR
Pakistan Says No U.S. Troops Are Presently on Its Soil

New York Times
September 29, 2001
By JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/international/asia/29CND-STAN.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 29 - Pakistan denied today that any American troops were in Pakistan, but a carefully-worded foreign ministry statement appeared to leave open the possibility that Pakistan has been used as a staging area for special forces operations inside Afghanistan.

"There are no foreign troops in Pakistan at present," Riaz Mohammed Khan, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a daily briefing instituted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But by referring to troops, and not to intelligence agents and undercover commandos, his statement served only to heighten interest in what American agents may have been doing inside Afghanistan in the course of what President Bush has called its "hot pursuit" of Osama bin Laden.

Two American news organizations, USA Today and the CNN cable news channel, reported on Friday that American special forces units that arrived in Pakistan within 36 hours of the attacks in the United States have been operating inside Afghanistan. American officials would not discuss the reports, but intelligence officials in Pakistan, without disclosing details, confirmed today that American and British special forces teams crossed into Afghanistan within days of the terrorist attacks and have continued their work there.

These officials have identified several Pakistani air bases close to the 1,400-mile border with Afghanistan that have been earmarked for use in American military operations against Mr. bin Laden and the Taliban government of Afghanistan, which the Bush administration has appears to have targeted for military action if it continues to harbor Mr. bin Laden and his Al Qaeda terrorist network. These bases, the Pakistani officials said, will be used for "deep penetration" operations into Afghanistan once President Bush decides that all prospects of having the Taliban hand over Mr. bin Laden peacefully have gone.

What was not clear was whether current special forces operations are being mounted or supplied from Pakistan, or from forward bases that American forces have set up since the terror attacks in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two Central Asian states that lie on Afghanistan's northern borders. Some possible hideouts for Mr. bin Laden and his top Al Qaeda associates, especially those that lie in the plunging valleys and ravines on either side of the Hindu Kush mountains, could be reached by helicopter or by parachute as easily from bases in Central Asia as from Pakistan, on Afghanistan's southern and eastern borders.

What is not in doubt is that a military assessment team headed by an American general that spent this week in Islamabad was not the first, or probably even the most significant, move by the Pentagon to involve Pakistan in the pursuit of Mr. bin Laden since the Sept. 11 attacks. For a week and more, reports in Pakistani newspapers, including those based in the frontier regions abutting Afghanistan, have told of teams of American officials visiting areas where major Pakistani air bases are situated, including Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan in the North-West Frontier Province and Quetta in Baluchistan province.

One of these reports, in today's editions of The Frontier Post, a Peshawar newspaper, the paper's Islamabad correspondent described American moves to build what he called "a support and intelligence network for covert action in Afghanistan." Among these steps, he said, was a move on Thursday by the United States embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, to acquire 300 cellphones linked into Pakistan's mobile phone network. The reports said the embassy, where the numbers of American diplomats have declined in the decade since the end of the Cold War, has also acquired "several residential buildings" in the capital in the past week.

American moves to mount operations against targets in Afghanistan from Pakistan have an acute political sensitivity in Pakistan. The country's military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, has tried to balance a pledge of "full support" to the United States in tracking down the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attack - including opening Pakistani airspace to U.S. forces, providing full access to Pakistan's intelligence files on the Taliban and Mr.bin Laden, and offering "logistical support" to American military operations - with recurrent efforts to soothe the opposition of Islamic militant groups in Pakistan that have close links to the Taliban, and in some cases to Mr. bin Laden, too.

A first sign of how Gen. Musharraf is likely to strike this balance came in the early hours of Sept. 13, 36 hours after the terrorists attacks, when airliners entering Pakistan airspace were abruptly told that Islamabad airport, which combines a civilian terminal with a military airbase, had been closed for "emergency government reasons." One aircraft on a three-hour flight from Dubai in the Persian Gulf was ordered to return to Dubai, and held there for several hours before the Islamabad airport was reopened.

Pakistani officials gave conflicting reasons for the closure, one of them that airport officials were practicing emergency drills.

But airport workers said later that large military transport aircraft had been seen landing at the airport during the night of Sept. 12 to 13, and unloading men and equipment. The aircraft, these workers said, appeared not to be from Pakistan, although they could not confirm that they were American. Pakistan officials would not confirm today that these operations - about 8,000 miles and 16 flying hours from the closest bases in the mainland United States - were the first landfall made by American forces after the attacks in New York and suburban Virginia.

Today, 24 hours after the first published reports of American special forces operations inside Afghanistan appeared in the United States, the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television channel, whose 24-hour news programming makes it the Middle East's Arabic-language equivalent of CNN, reported, apparently erroneously, that Taliban forces had arrested five members of a U.S. special forces team - two of whom were said to have been Afghans with American citizenship - near Afghanistan's border with Iran. The report, from the channel's Islamabad correspondent, said the Americans were found carrying weapons and maps.

The report was immediately denied by the Taliban defense minister, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund. "It is totally wrong, we deny this news that they have come to our areas," he told the Reuters news agency, according to a report from Kabul. But in moving so rapidly to deny what some in the Taliban might have regarded as a coup, the defense minister may also have inadvertently flagged a concern among the more worldly elements of the Taliban not to do anything to further provoke the United States.

The last thing this faction needed, diplomats said, would be for American outrage over the terrorist attacks to be heightened, now, by American troops being held as hostages by the Taliban. As it was, the Taliban, having rejected new overtures for Mr. bin Laden's handover on Friday from a delegation of Islamic clerics who flew to Kandahar to see Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, appeared today to be holding out for some new peace feelers, notwithstanding the fact that President Bush has said, repeatedly, that there will be no negotiation or backing down over the demand for Mr. bin Laden.

Several of the clerics who returned from Kandahar were quoted as saying that the Taliban were keen to "continue" talking about the crisis with Pakistani or other intermediaries, but even the clerics seemed baffled by Mullah Omar's obduracy.

"I don't understand the Taliban's strategy at all," said Mufti Mohammed Jameel, a leader of the clerics' group, who is considered one of the most firebrand, pro-Taliban clerics in Pakistan, told Reuters. "After the talks, one official said the flexibility of the Americans was essential," a position Pakistani appeared to see as illusory, considering Mr. Bush's demands.

The Taliban did announce on Friday that they had arrested one foreigner who entered the Afghanistan illicitly in the past week - Yvonne Ridley, a 41-year-old reporter for the Sunday Express of London. She was said by the Taliban to have been found near the eastern city of Jalalabad wearing a burqa, the head-to-toe, face-covering cloak that is mandatory for all women venturing outside their homes in Taliban-controlled areas. The Taliban said she would held for questioning, because "when someone enters Afghanistan like this we become suspicious that they are spies."

-------- ukraine

Ukraine, U.S. Agree on Airspace

September 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Ukraine.html

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) -- Ukraine and the United States have finalized details on the usage of Ukrainian airspace by American military transport planes, officials said Saturday.

The consultations, which ended Friday, concerned the rules covering the entrance of U.S. aircraft into Ukraine's airspace, accompanying flights by Ukrainian planes, air traffic control and potential emergencies, said Mykola Palchuk, first deputy head of the Ukrainian armed forces' general staff.

If needed, U.S. aircraft will fly over Ukraine at an altitude of no less than 30,030 feet, and may use three military airfields and several air corridors, he said, according to the Interfax news agency.

``The planes might leave us in any direction and use the corridors for return flights,'' Palchuk said.

The officer declined to cite any possible date for such flights. He said only that the planned U.S. retaliatory strike for Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington was a ``complex and unorthodox'' operation.

Officials from Ukraine's aviation control bodies and the Defense Ministry were involved in consultations with the U.S. side, he said.

Earlier in the week, Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council agreed to let U.S. military cargo aircraft fly across the country's airspace. Under Ukrainian law, the U.S. planes are not to carry nuclear, chemical or biological armaments or their components.

The decision does not provide for flights by fighter jets and helicopters, or for the transportation of tanks and large-caliber artillery pieces, which would require special approval by the Ukrainian parliament.

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

Anti-Terrorism Resolution Is Adopted in U.N.
Nations Must Sever All Ties, Deny Safe Haven to Groups

By Colum Lynch Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, September 29, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44042-2001Sep29.html

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 28 -- The U.N. Security Council tonight unanimously adopted a U.S.-authored resolution compelling all U.N. member countries to sever financial, political and military ties with terrorist groups and freeze their assets.

The speedy passage of the resolution, which U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte introduced Wednesday, underscored the large degree of support at the world body for the United States as it embarks on an anti-terrorism campaign.

While the resolution stopped short of authorizing the use of military force, it essentially invested the Security Council with the unprecedented power to determine who is a terrorist and to impose sanctions on countries that refuse to cooperate.

"Most of the time, if something looks like a terrorist and makes noise like a terrorist, it's a terrorist," said Britain's U.N. ambassador, Jeremy Greenstock.

The vote came after President Bush's call on Monday for other countries to support the U.S. effort to crack down financially on suspected terrorists after he announced the freezing of terrorist assets in the United States.

Even countries that traditionally oppose U.N. interventions, including Russia and China, embraced the resolution.

A committee of 15 members, established by the Security Council, will monitor compliance. The Security Council will have to decide how to punish nations that do not comply. The committee will seek the advice of banking and other experts to determine if a country is supporting terrorists.

The measure forces countries to toughen their counterterrorism laws, share intelligence with other U.N. members and freeze the bank accounts of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, who is blamed for this month's attacks on New York and Washington, and other suspected terrorists.

It also would compel states to deny haven to terrorists and their financial backers, refrain from providing political, military or diplomatic support to terrorists, and impose stricter customs regulations to increase the prospects for nabbing terrorists when they cross international borders.

U.N. member countries would be obligated to report every 90 days to a council committee that is to be established to monitor compliance with the resolution. The committee would also draw on the expertise of a broad range of specialists from the bankers to law enforcement officials.

"This is an unprecedented resolution against terrorism," Negroponte told reporters after the vote. "It obliges all member states to deny financing, support and safe harbor for terrorists."

Diplomats who supported the resolution acknowledged they had not considered its full implications, including the impact on U.S. organizations that raise funds for armed elements from Macedonia to Northern Ireland.

Delegates sought to remove U.S. language that would erode long-standing international protections for asylum seekers and refugees. A final deal was struck after the United States agreed to remove a phrase that invited countries to ensure that anyone involved in any terrorist act "receives justice." Some delegations, including Ireland and Britain, expressed concern that it could lend U.N. legitimacy to extrajudicial killings. The phrase was changed to "brought to justice."

Council diplomats conceded that countries challenged by ethnic and religious separatists, including China, Russia and India, would likely invoke the council's resolution to justify crackdowns on their own internal dissidents.

"It's a problem deferred in the interest of getting everyone to do all they can in the clear-cut cases of international terrorism," a council member said. "And al Qaeda is at the top of the list."

Arab diplomats privately expressed concern that the resolution would be used to increase pressure on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to rein in Palestinian suicide bombers who attack Israeli civilians.

Diplomats said the United States is seeking to head off a bitter debate over the implications of the resolution for the Middle East when the 189-nation General Assembly begins a two-day debate on terrorism Monday.

In a move that may deflect charges that it is targeting Muslim countries, the United States today dropped its opposition to lifting a U.N. travel ban on Sudanese diplomats to reward Khartoum for cooperating with U.S. counterterrorism officials. The council voted today 14 to 0, with a U.S. abstention, to lift the ban.

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

U.S. enters Afghanistan

September 29, 2001
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010929-47645808.htm

American special-operations troops have slipped into Afghanistan on a small number of reconnaissance missions, but have not begun their expected mission of hunting down Osama bin Laden or other terrorists, U.S. officials said yesterday.

Officials say they neither know bin Laden's location nor have enough intelligence to conduct combat missions. They described the incursions as routine for commandos as they prepare to attack bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The sources say the first commando strike is still weeks away, unless the Pentagon receives hard evidence of bin Laden's location. Still, President Bush yesterday proclaimed the United States is in "hot pursuit" - a reference to the combined FBI, military and intelligence campaign to find terrorists.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia has refused the president's demand to deliver bin Laden.

The Washington Times reported yesterday that the U.S. military has made contact with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in northern Afghanistan. The United States has given battlefield advice and listened to demands for weapons, and for air cover against Taliban jet fighters, officials said.

The administration has made no secret of plans to rely heavily on covert operations in the first phase of Mr. Bush's war on terrorism - to capture or kill bin Laden, the No. 1 suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America.

The U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, N.C., said last week its troops received deployment orders, but declined to say where they were headed.

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, two former Soviet republics that fear a Taliban-inspired uprising, have granted the United States permission to launch strikes from their soil.

An Army officer, who asked not to be named, said that in the early days of a deployment, special-operations troops adjust to the altitude, weather and local customs. They study maps, establish communication links with support units, contact possible indigenous allies and get briefed on the mission.

After that, small teams go on reconnaissance missions to understand better the terrain and possible threats. Since the Northern Alliance controls areas near Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, the Americans would be able to carry out some of these tasks in friendly territory.

Defense officials said in interviews this week that no strike will be launched until the military has hard intelligence on a terrorist's whereabouts.

The troops also need a thorough threat assessment, especially on whether the terrorists own hand-held anti-aircraft missiles such as the U.S. Stinger.

Army commandos travel in low-flying Black Hawk helicopters. But the heat-seeking Stinger is a deadly foe.

The Afghan mujahideen used the weapon in the 1980s to devastate the Soviet air force and send the occupying Red Army into retreat.

U.S. troops have no intention of occupying land for any length of time, as the Soviets tried unsuccessfully.

Instead, the troops will go in, strike, and scurry back across the border or to a secure launch site.

Said Mr. Bush yesterday, "I am fully aware of the difficulties the Russians had in Afghanistan. Our intelligence people and our State Department people are also fully aware. It is very hard to fight a guerrilla war with conventional forces, and we understand that. That's why I have explained to the American people that the new war on terror is going to be a different war. There have been lessons learned in the past, and our government is very aware of those lessons."

Mr. Bush yesterday continued his policy of not discussing possible military action.

"I will not be discussing any of our military plans," he told reporters at the White House. "It is very important for the American people to know that any public discussions of military or intelligence matters could jeopardize any mission that we may be thinking about."

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said this week that the United States is still collecting intelligence on Afghanistan and possible targets for an armada of warplanes deployed in the region.

"We contemplate that our military will be called on to take action," he said. "But since generating information about targets is a crucial part of it, we don't believe in just demonstrating that our military is capable of bombing things. The whole world knows that. What we want to do is be effective."

The Pentagon will not say which special-operations troops were deployed. The Army has about 24,000 active, Guard and Reserve commandos.

They include Special Forces, or Green Berets, Rangers and Delta Force, the supersecretive anti-terror unit.

Green Berets work in small teams, specializing in sniping, sabotage, demolition and assaults. The airborne 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Benning, Ga., operates in larger units and takes on bigger missions, such as seizing an airport or a building complex.

Defense officials say privately that the evolving plan for infiltrating Afghanistan calls for the insertion of no more than 40 commandos at a time.

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U.S. 'in hot pursuit' of terrorists, Bush says

September 29, 2001
By Bill Sammon
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20010929-74522874.htm

President Bush yesterday said "we're in hot pursuit" of terrorists in what he is now calling a "guerrilla war," which he stipulated for the first time might not include conventional ground forces.

The president also pledged $25 million in aid to Afghan refugees who are fleeing the Taliban regime and worked on an economic stimulus package aimed in part at helping Americans who lost their jobs in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes.

But Mr. Bush spent most of the day assembling his global coalition against terrorism.

He thanked Saudi Arabia for "helping stabilize Pakistan" and allowing the United States to use its air bases. He also secured the unconditional support of Jordan, another moderate Muslim nation in the Middle East.

"I am most pleased with the cooperation we're getting in the Middle East," the president told reporters during an Oval Office meeting with Jordan's King Abdullah. "Clearly, the cooperation with our friend, the Jordanians, is strong and powerful, and we're united.

"But the Saudis, as well," he added. "Not only are they helping stabilize Pakistan, which is a very important part of our diplomatic efforts, they are also cooperating with us in terms of any military planning we might be doing."

King Abdullah placed no strings on his support of the United States.

"We're here to give our full, unequivocal support to you and to the people of America," he told Mr. Bush.

"The majority of Arabs and Muslims will band together with our colleagues all over the world to be able to put an end to this horrible scourge of international terrorism. And you'll see a united front."

While careful not to reveal any operational details of his search for Osama bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Bush indicated bin Laden and other suspected terrorists are on the run.

"Sometimes people will be able to see what we do on the television screens," he said. "Other times the American people won't be able to see what we're doing. But make no mistake about it: We're in hot pursuit."

Asked later to explain what the president meant by "hot pursuit," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said: "I'll leave that to others to guess at."

Although Mr. Fleischer refused to comment on reports that U.S. Special Forces were already searching for bin Laden in Afghanistan, Mr. Bush said he is mindful of the former Soviet Union's failure to conquer that nation with conventional ground forces.

"I am fully aware of the difficulties the Russians had in Afghanistan," the president said. "Our intelligence people and our State Department people are also fully aware.

"It is very hard to fight a guerrilla war with conventional forces," he said. "That's why I have explained to the American people that the new war on terror is going to be a different war."

He added: "There may or may not be a conventional component to it."

Mr. Bush also expressed impatience with the Taliban regime, which reportedly said it has now located bin Laden and has given him an invitation to leave Afghanistan.

"There is no negotiations with the Taliban; they heard what I said and now they can act," he said. "We expect them to not only hear what I say, but to do something about it."

Mr. Bush reiterated his non-negotiable demands on the Taliban, including the apprehension of bin Laden and others in his al Qaeda terrorist network. The president, who earlier demanded the right to inspect terrorist training camps, yesterday called for their obliteration.

"We expect there to be complete destruction of terrorist camps," he said.

Before meeting with the king, Mr. Bush talked by telephone with the leaders of Australia and the Philippines, thanking them for enlisting in his global coalition. Later in the day, he met with his "domestic consequence committee" to weigh various proposals for a stimulus package "to help the economy and to help workers get jobs," according to Mr. Fleischer.

"There are a lot of people in this country who are hurting; who are out of jobs and who need help," Mr. Fleischer said. "The president is very concerned about the rising unemployment that's taken place in the country prior to Sept. 11, but also in the wake of the attacks with all of the layoffs that have hit various communities across the country."

Mr. Bush is spending the weekend at Camp David, where he will hold national security meetings with the help of video-conference technology.

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Special forces eyed for Afghanistan

Washington Times
September 29, 2001
By George Friedman STRATFOR.COM
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20010929-68427996.htm

Though a war on terrorism is fraught with peril for U.S. forces, the best plan appears to be combining small-scale, highly mobile special-operations forces with limited carrier-based air strikes. Such a strategy could be quite effective if the war aim is carefully defined.

The United States must first concentrate on toppling the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, rendering the position of Osama bin Laden untenable in that country.

Afghanistan is critical to American war planning for two reasons.

First, it is the base of bin Laden and his extremist al Qaeda organization.

In responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, killing bin Laden and destroying his facilities in Afghanistan represents a war aim in its own right.

Second, the Taliban regime that governs Afghanistan has provided sanctuary for al Qaeda and possibly operational resources as well. Under the doctrine that any country that provided support for the Sept. 11 attackers shares responsibility, Afghanistan is a hostile power subject to attack.

The most elegant war plan would be to invade Afghanistan, engage and annihilate its armed forces and occupy the country. But for the United States, the most elegant solution and military reality do not coincide.

The geography, topography and geopolitics of Afghanistan and Central Asia make the concentration of sufficient force along Afghanistan's frontier extremely difficult to achieve.

Historically, outside powers have not been able to occupy and pacify Afghanistan.

It is always a sign of danger when military capabilities prohibit the pursuit of the most elegant war plan. Military planners sometimes overreach themselves.

This is especially likely when extreme political pressure is involved; at other times, planners shift from elegant to inelegant objectives.

Great discipline needed

To plan and fight a war under these circumstances requires extraordinary political, strategic and operational discipline.

Aims must be crisply defined, and plans must match forces to aims. Most important, the inherent danger of inelegant war aims - mission creep - must be avoided.

As the clearly defined mission is in the process of completion, the temptation of political leaders and military commanders is to redefine the mission more broadly.

American political leaders have committed the country to military action in Afghanistan.

Therefore, the United States must craft and execute inelegant military plans.

Calibrating war aims is, in this case, heavily dependent on geography. Afghanistan differs fundamentally from all other countries the United States has fought in that it is landlocked.

Any plan for invading Afghanistan on virtually any scale - beyond small sorties staged from carriers operating more than 300 miles from Afghanistan's southern border and more than 700 miles from its capital, Kabul - requires the political cooperation of one or more neighboring countries.

Afghanistan has five neighbors. Iran, to the west, is an enemy of the Taliban regime and recently has shown tendencies toward reconciliation with the United States. Though there is a small possibility that Tehran would permit the United States to stage very small and extremely secret operations from Iranian soil, it is inconceivable, given the history between the two countries, that it would permit a large American army to be deployed there.

Pakistan lies south and east of Afghanistan. The United States and its allies used it as a sanctuary for Afghan fighters and as the logistical support base for Afghan resistance during the country's war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. One of the consequences of this liaison was that the Islamic fundamentalism that drove much of the Afghan resistance reinforced Pakistani tendencies as well. Thus, there is substantial sympathy for the Taliban in Pakistan.

Dangers in Pakistan

For any large-scale deployment to occur, the Pakistani port of Karachi - and smaller ports to the west, such as Ormara - would have to be secured.

The highways from the port to the frontier would also have to be secured while men are moved forward and material built up. Finally, the forward bases would have to be secured.

Regardless of Islamabad's intent, it cannot guarantee the security of U.S. forces.

Given the disasters in Beirut and at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, it is clear that the United States would have to take operational control of its own security.

That would mean, in effect, the occupation and pacification of substantial portions of Pakistan before any operation against Afghanistan.

Resistance to the presence of a large U.S. force in Pakistan could easily involve elements of Pakistan's military and security forces as well as Taliban sympathizers. The United States does not have sufficient forces available to secure Pakistan and stage an invasion of Afghanistan, even against trivial forces.

A similar problem pertains to basing attack aircraft in Pakistan. Security of the air bases would require substantial numbers of American troops. Transport of petroleum, oil and lubricants necessary for air operations would be extremely vulnerable to interdiction by indigenous forces. The air bases could easily become hostage to attackers.

The United States can expect two things from Pakistan: That it will permit the United States to use its air space, and that it will permit the United States and its allies to base small special-operations teams in remote areas of the country. Those teams obviously must provide their own security.

There are serious questions as to whether all elements of Pakistan's armed forces will honor Islamabad's commitments.

There is some possibility that elements of the military might use Pakistani surface-to-air missiles or interceptor aircraft against U.S. aircraft.

U.S. air-refueling tankers would be particularly vulnerable, along with command-and-control aircraft like AWACS.

This factor seriously constrains the use of air power.

Naval air power key

The Indian government has offered the use of several of its bases.

Ground security doubtless would be far superior, but U.S. aircraft would still have to fly through Pakistani air space, assuming that China does not grant overflight privileges.

In our opinion, the use of Indian basing would improve ground security and increase the number of sorties that aircraft could fly, but it would also dramatically increase the risk that elements of the Pakistani military might interdict flights.

Clearly, the U.S. Air Force could manage this risk - but it would represent the type of diffusion of effort that is so dangerous in warfare of this kind.

This means, in our opinion, that naval forces would have to carry out most air operations in this region.

Since an aircraft carrier can, under optimal conditions, launch perhaps 40 strike aircraft plus fighter cover and tankers, a fleet of four to five carriers could sortie between 160 and 200 strike aircraft, at the most generous limits.

A more reasonable number of strike aircraft would be in the range of 100 to 125, adjusting for mission availability and force mix on the carrier.

Assuming two sorties in a 24-hour period, this would allow the United States to carry out strikes on key infrastructure and at bases specified by intelligence.

Such force is not sufficient even in its optimal form to paralyze a country like Afghanistan.

Strike aircraft flying out of Turkey or Persian Gulf bases could join these naval forces.

A mission from Turkey, however, would be nearly 2,000 miles long; one from the Gulf would travel about 1,500 miles.

The mission would be doable, but it would require several refuelings. Moreover, it would not permit the tempo of operations required for substantial, sustained damage to Afghanistan.

Therefore, the naval aviation would be supported primarily by long-range sorties by B-52, B-1 and B-2 bombers - some based in Diego Garcia and other near-theater bases, some operating directly from the United States.

This, plus Tomahawks, would constitute the bulk of the air campaign.

This means that any war conducted primarily from Pakistan would be severely handicapped from the start.

The Northern Option

Three republics of the former Soviet Union line the northern border of Afghanistan: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Now independent, these nations have complex relations with the Afghanis and the Russians.

Each has ethnic ties with elements on the other side of the Afghan border. Each was used as a staging area in the war with the Soviet Union. Each values its independence, yet remains within the Russian sphere of influence.

Russia continues to maintain a covert presence in Afghanistan. A small northeastern portion of Afghanistan remains under the control of a loose coalition called the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan.

Commonly known as the Northern Alliance, it is a confederation of mostly ethnically defined armies that share antipathy toward the Taliban but little else.

The various factions within the Northern Alliance are backed individually or collectively by Russia, Iran, India, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

The military leader of the Northern Alliance was killed in what appeared to be a suicide bombing just days before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

It has been speculated that bin Laden's agents killed Ahmad Shah Masood in anticipation of the Sept. 11 events.

According to this theory, bin Laden - expecting an intense American response - saw the area occupied by the Northern Alliance as particularly dangerous.

Though driven out from more than 90 percent of Afghan territory, opposition forces still hold positions only about 20 miles from Kabul. By killing Mr. Masood, bin Laden hoped to destabilize the Northern Alliance, preventing the United States from using its territory as a base.

It is not clear that the strategy succeeded, since Russia also supports the Northern Alliance with funds and weapons. Russia's support for the group has intensified in recent years.

A Taliban victory over the Northern Alliance could cement Tajikistan to the Taliban.

This was something the Russians could not tolerate - either for their general position in Central Asia or in the context of their war with Muslim Chechens.

Dependency on Russia

Thus, despite the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia continues to maintain a substantial presence in Central Asia.

The region also contains military facilities, particularly air bases, dating back to the war with Afghanistan.

This is a region in which the United States could build up both air and ground forces with greater security than in Pakistan.

As important, this is an area from which it could actually move forces directly into Afghanistan, particularly in the area held by the Northern Alliance.

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan provide the most promising axes of attack. Each has its own reason for welcoming U.S. troops, but there is a common denominator. Each is concerned that Russia is eroding its independence. Each would view a U.S. presence as a potential guarantee against Russia.

Therefore, they already appear to have welcomed some American troops.

The problem with their analysis is that they underestimate the dependency that the United States would have on Russia in such a scenario.

First, the United States would be operating within the Russian sphere of influence, and the Kremlin would force the United States to formally acknowledge that.

Second, it would be using Russian assets within the Northern Alliance.

Finally, the distances involved would require substantial Russian logistical support.

There would be no way for the United States to build up major forces and ship bulk materials into these countries without Russian assistance.

Conventional war impossible

Using Uzbekistan and Tajikistan would create a de facto Russo-American alliance.

Russia's price for its services would be high. It would include substantial financial help, recognition of its sphere of influence within the former Soviet Union, a free hand in Chechnya and the Caucasus and no NATO expansion.

In return, the United States would have a geographical base from which to launch operations within Afghanistan.

But even in this region, a conventional war would be impossible. The time required to build up any force capable of moving directly against the Taliban would be measured in years rather than months.

Just as important, the political complexity involved in large-scale basing in this region is mind-boggling.

The United States would be rapidly drawn not only into controversies between the host country and the Russians, but also into extraordinarily complex political arrangements within the host country.

Rather than concentrating on the Afghan campaign, the United States would become a vulnerable and isolated player in a geopolitical region in which its only substantial interest is waging a war against a third party.

In short, basing in this region would be a massive diffusion of effort coupled with extraordinary dangers of mission creep.

At the same time, the opportunities for covert operations and the deployment and support of special forces out of this region are important and - if maintained on a relatively small scale - can provide another axis of attack into Afghanistan.

The American Strategy

It appears to STRATFOR that the primary mechanisms available to the United States are relatively small-scale, special-operations forces that are highly mobile and have access to the nation's most comprehensive intelligence capabilities.

This force can be coupled with some larger airborne and air-mobile assets, but these must be limited in size for political and logistical reasons.

The available air capability must be carrier-based, with some strategic support from long-range bombers and possibly, in special circumstances, from air forces in Turkey and the Persian Gulf.

This force appears insufficient at first glance. In fact, it might be quite effective if the war aim is carefully defined.

The United States has two goals: One, to topple the Taliban; the other, to destroy al Qaeda and kill bin Laden.

If these goals are treated in sequence rather than in parallel, interesting possibilities emerge.

To be more precise, if the focus was on disrupting and defeating the Taliban, bin Laden's position in Afghanistan would become untenable.

Apart from his personal fate, the ability to base training and other facilities in Afghanistan would decline or disappear.

Therefore, the heart of the matter is to defeat the Taliban. The resources available are special forces and other light but effective units.

There is a unique match between the means needed to defeat the Taliban and the forces that can be made available.

In one sense, this is a low-risk, low-cost operation. Failure will not be disastrous; success could be enormous. In another sense, there are two substantial risks.

The first is the price the Russians and Pakistanis might exact for their services.

The second is Americans' expectation of rapid action against Afghanistan. Time is the key.

The virtue of this strategy is that it is the only one that could possibly bring down the Taliban and destroy bin Laden. We believe this is the option defense planners have selected.

There will be no massive deployment of aircraft or divisions to the region.

This will be a guerrilla war, with the United States orchestrating the guerrillas.

• George Friedman is the founder and chairman of Stratfor, a provider of global intelligence in Austin, Texas, to private companies and subscribers. Its Web site is Stratfor.com.

--------

Military Grapples With New Role in Homeland Defense

By Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 29, 2001; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43317-2001Sep28.html

As the U.S. military moves ships, warplanes and Special Forces units overseas for the looming battle against Osama bin Laden and his allies, the Pentagon is confronting the broader question of how to reorganize the armed forces for the other side of that campaign: defending the continental United States.

Under a proposal sent to the Pentagon leadership yesterday, the Marine Corps would establish a new, brigade-size counterterrorism unit that would be larger than any such unit in the military. It would be able to pour more than 1,000 specially trained troops into missions both overseas and at home, Marine officials said.

The plan is the first stage of what is likely to become a significant restructuring of the armed forces in the aftermath of this month's terrorist attacks as the Pentagon seeks to improve its ability not only to fight terrorists abroad, but also to defend the country against assaults at home.

The Army is considering the creation of a command for homeland defense. The Air Force is mulling whether it will have to permanently provide personnel and airplanes to help the Air National Guard carry out the combat air patrols being flown over New York, Washington and other U.S. cities. The Navy might be asked to occasionally deploy Aegis cruisers to provide antiaircraft defenses along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, as it did immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The campaign against terrorism has inverted the traditional division of labor within the military in which conventional forces focus on fighting wars while smaller, specialized units carry out missions such as fighting terrorists. President Bush alluded to this change yesterday, saying that "it is very hard to fight . . . a guerrilla war with conventional forces." He declined to discuss details but said, "Make no mistake about it -- we're in hot pursuit" of terrorists.

The Pentagon has already deployed troops, including Special Forces units, to Pakistan and the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in central Asia. Special Forces are expected to carry out many of the ground missions in any war against bin Laden, Defense Department officials said.

Pentagon spokesman yesterday refused to comment on reports that Special Forces units were already operating in Afghanistan, and Defense Department officials denied a report in USA Today that they were on the ground actively hunting for bin Laden.

Defense of the homeland, the other front in the counter-terrorism war, has not been a worry for the armed forces since the height of the Cold War, when more than 250 Army batteries of Nike nuclear-tipped guided missiles ringed Washington and other U.S. cities.

The biggest changes are probably in store for the ground forces, officials said. According to one proposal, the Army's new command for homeland defense would report directly to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, one official said.

The Air Force also is going to have to consider whether to commit active-duty forces to helping the Air National Guard execute combat air patrols over the continental United States, an official said.

The change that appears furthest along is the Marines' proposal to create a big, new anti-terrorism unit. "We think we can jump-start this thing right now," a Marine official said yesterday. He said that if Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approves the concept, which the Marines think could happen this weekend, the Corps will immediately begin setting up the unit.

The unit would be headquartered at Camp Lejeune, N.C., and would be built around an existing infantry battalion. It also would include three other existing Marine organizations trained in security-related missions -- the Marine Corps Security Force Battalion, which has two elite companies that provide anti-terrorism security to deployed Navy ships; the Marine Security Guard Battalion, which provides internal security at U.S. embassies; and its small Chemical/Biological Incident Response Force, which was created several years ago in response to worries about terrorism.

To carry out those units' current missions and also take on the new mission of responding quickly to major terrorist attacks, the Marines would have to increase the size of those units, the official said.

Also, he said, the Marine Corps would need to spend about $21 million to supplement the infantry battalion's equipment, buying additional communications gear as well as more night-vision devices. Giving the unit specialized training and maintaining the extra gear would cost about $10 million a year, he said.

Once fully outfitted and trained, the unit would be able to deploy a company within 24 hours, and the full brigade within 72, he said.

The new Marine brigade would not be included in the Pentagon's lengthy review of how to change the military to meet new threats, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, which will be released next week. That report was largely completed before the attacks.

--------

U.S. Sets Out to Scout Afghanistan

September 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Hunting-bin-Laden.html?searchpv=aponline

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's being called a war on terrorism, but so far it's shaping up as a hunt, one where high-tech hounds search for a scent, the hunting grounds are the size of Texas, and the foxes shoot back.

And the search is already under way.

Bush administration officials acknowledge U.S. and British special forces have been in Afghanistan on scouting missions, though they aren't yet searching for Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The main weapons could be super-secret special forces, or Tomahawk cruise missiles, or jet bombers.

The task of finding bin Laden in his hiding places -- falls to a variety of intelligence-gathering people and platforms, from battle-ready commandos to U-2 spy planes to satellites in orbit.

The chase ``will require the best of intelligence'' and unconventional warfare, Bush said Friday. ``We're in hot pursuit.''

U.S. officials won't reveal how precise a fix they have on bin Laden, who has proved elusive for years, instead saying only that he is still in Afghanistan and moves frequently throughout the mountainous country.

The quarry is safest if it doesn't move and stays silent. If bin Laden changes location, or communicates, he runs a risk of being detected, said Michael Vickers, a former officer in both the Special Forces and the CIA. He's now Director of Strategic Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington think tank.

On-the-ground intelligence is essential, Vickers and other experts say. For all the U.S. satellites and surveillance aircraft, nothing beats a human being seeing a target with his own eyes.

Best equipped for the mission are elite U.S. and British special forces, who can identify and follow targets, even designate them with lasers for bombs launched from high above.

The Army's Green Berets and Rangers and British Special Air Service units are good bets to conduct these missions. As the Green Berets did in the Gulf War, these soldiers can infiltrate an area undetected and keep watch on a particular place, calling in strikes when the time is right.

Navy SEALS and the Marine Corps' Force Recon are also trained for such missions, but they usually operate closer to shore, Vickers said. The CIA also has its own paramilitary unit, but Vickers said their specialty is covert action during peacetime.

The commandos may be dropped into dangerous territory by elite Army or Air Force pilots flying stealthy helicopters or C-130 planes that hug the ground to avoid detection.

But that doesn't mean ``human intelligence'' provided by the CIA isn't also a factor. The agency has had a difficult time penetrating terrorist groups, but if its officers have recruited supporters near bin Laden, they may provide his whereabouts to U.S. forces.

The search will also be conducted from the sky. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld acknowledged the United States lost a drone over Afghanistan, probably a Predator or similar unmanned aerial vehicle operated by the military and CIA.

These drones can transmit video and intercept communications, providing tactical intelligence to U.S. forces with no risk to American personnel.

From high above, high-flying U-2s will take photographs and listen for bin Laden to make a phone call. Patrolling Afghanistan's borders will be modified 707s with big noses, called RC-135 ``Rivet Joints,'' tapping military and civilian communications from friendly airspace.

Back in the United States, analysts at the National Security Agency will translate any intercepted communications and poll them for useful information about bin Laden's whereabouts.

Imagery satellites aren't yet good enough to provide real-time tracking of bin Laden or Taliban forces, Vickers said. But they can photograph terrorist camps and Taliban troop concentrations. Other satellites can tap communications.

However, bin Laden's people are believed to be practiced at avoiding many of these efforts to track them, hiding in caves and using couriers, rather than phones, to communicate.

Diplomatic efforts to persuade Afghanistan's neighbors to close their borders and deny bin Laden avenues of escape can limit the scope of their search. They, as well as rebel groups opposed to the Taliban, can guide U.S. and British trackers to their quarry. Longshot efforts remain underway to persuade the Taliban to offer up bin Laden, as well.

If bin Laden is found, the U.S. forces may attack, with the goal of killing him or capturing him. Catching him alive would again be the province of U.S. Special Forces.

The commandos could also kill him in a raid, or call in air or missile strikes, summoning the heavy hitters of the Navy and Air Force that have been moved to the region recently. Several cruisers, destroyers and submarines in the region can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles from the Arabian Sea. Both aircraft carriers and air bases in the region can launch fighters and bombers to conduct air strikes.


------- OTHER

-------- human rights

THE SUPREME COURT
O'Connor Foresees Limits on Freedom

New York Times
September 29, 2001
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/national/29SCOT.html

Describing herself as "still tearful" after viewing the World Trade Center site, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor told a law school audience in Manhattan yesterday that as part of the country's response to terrorism, "we're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country."

Lawyers have a special duty to work to maintain the rule of law in the face of terrorism, Justice O'Connor said, adding in a quotation from Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister: "Where law ends, tyranny begins."

Justice O'Connor, who was on an official visit to India when the terrorist attacks took place on Sept. 11, was the first Supreme Court justice to speak publicly about the events and their possible legal consequences. She was the main speaker at the groundbreaking for a law school building at New York University in Greenwich Village.

Her brief remarks emphasized the need to proceed with care in the aftermath of a national trauma that she said "will cause us to re-examine some of our laws pertaining to criminal surveillance, wiretapping, immigration and so on."

Lawyers would play an important role in striking the right balance, she said, adding, "Lawyers and academics will help define how to maintain a fair and a just society with a strong rule of law at a time when many are more concerned with safety and a measure of vengeance."

Justice O'Connor did not offer an analysis of any particular proposal, instead observing that "no single response is appropriate for every situation."

Referring to the prospect that military deployments overseas rather than domestic prosecutions will be a principal means of bringing terrorists to justice, she said: "It is possible, if not likely, that we will rely more on international rules of war than on our cherished constitutional standards for criminal prosecutions in responding to threats to our national security."

Justice O'Connor posed a series of questions at the ceremony:

"First, can a society that prides itself on equality before the law treat terrorists differently than ordinary criminals? And where do we draw the line between them? Second, at what point does the cost to civil liberties from legislation designed to prevent terrorism outweigh the added security that that legislation provides?"

Without answering the questions herself, she concluded: "These are tough questions, and they're going to require a great deal of study, goodwill and expertise to resolve them. And in the years to come, it will become clear that the need for lawyers does not diminish in times of crisis; it only increases."

Justice O'Connor, who grew up in Arizona, said her visit to New York and the trade center site had changed her image of a city she and her husband, John, had considered "harsh, brash, brassy, tough."

Now, she said, "there is a new spirit here and it's one of warmth, solidarity, humanity and determination that we have not witnessed before."

She added: "It's very noticeable and very moving."

-------- police / prisoners

THE ARRESTS
Detainees Accounts of Investigation Are at Odds With Official Reports

New York Times
September 29, 2001
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/national/29DETA.html

Law enforcement officials around the country are often asking scattered questions in chaotic interrogations of people held as part of the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks - or not asking any questions at all, lawyers, relatives and some of the detained people say.

Attorney General John Ashcroft said yesterday that the authorities had detained more than 480 people since the attacks, and Mr. Ashcroft has suggested that investigators are following leads of possible ties to terrorism organizations.

But as detainees and their lawyers begin to describe their experiences, they are contending that the detentions sometimes appear to be based more on coincidental factors, with a person's appearance and nationality playing a large role, than on something relevant to the investigation.

Denyse Sabagh, a lawyer for a Lebanese man detained in Virginia since Sept. 14, said that apart from a few initial questions mostly dealing with his immigration status, her client, Abdallah Yassine, had not been interrogated.

"Why don't they talk to him?" Ms. Sabagh asked. "My answer is, I don't think they think he has information that is important to them. And it's the same thing with the other cases I'm hearing about from around the country."

Yesterday in Washington, Mr. Ashcroft said officials were sometimes asking detainees general questions, like about their views of the country. "The way they feel about the United States may be related," he said.

The detainees have an interest in portraying themselves as victims of overzealous investigators. But their accounts represent a sharply different view of the investigation than the orderly picture presented in Washington.

"They don't know how painful this is. They're destroying families," said Sandra Abdelall, the American wife of Ossama Abdelall, 33, an Egyptian arrested on charges of immigration violations on Sept. 18 in Minneapolis.

Mr. Abdelall's lawyer, Audrey Carr, said yesterday that law enforcement officials had yet to question her client, an employee on leave from EgyptAir.

In Richmond, Va., an immigration lawyer, Syed I. Hyder, said he represented two men in their 20's who were picked up by the local police on Sept. 13 on a traffic violation and then turned over to immigration officials.

Because they were Moroccans, Mr. Hyder said he had been told, agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation told immigration officials they wanted to interview the men. The Immigration and Naturalization Service held them for violating student visa provisions barring employment because they admitted to working part time at a pizza shop while in school.

"I've been told no one has any evidence against these boys," Mr. Hyder said. "But since the F.B.I. had at one time expressed an interest in them, the I.N.S. had to hold them."

Some of those who have been questioned say the law enforcement officials have acknowledged that they were under pressure to hold people even if there was little reason to suspect them.

Sher JB Singh, a telecommunications consultant in Leesburg, Va., who is an American citizen, said he was removed from an Amtrak train, handcuffed and held for seven hours when the police searched the train on Sept. 12 and noticed him, he said, because he wore a turban. Mr. Singh has lived in the United States for eight years.

Mr. Singh is a Sikh, and he said the police and federal agents who questioned him knew nothing about the religion, the world's fifth largest. But he said that reporters had gathered around the train in Providence because of the lengthy police search, and that the agents told him they could not leave without taking someone into detention.

"They were telling me they would let me go by the next day," he said. After some officers taunted him because of his turban, he said, they asked him general questions about Sikhism and never appeared to think he had any connection to terrorism.

Michael J. Boyle, a lawyer in North Haven, Conn., said it had been difficult to gather information from his client, Ali al-Maqtari, who is from Yemen and is married to an American. Mr. Boyle said he had been told there was no evidence connecting his client to the terrorist plot.

Mr. Maqtari, 26, has been held in a Tennessee jail on an immigration violation since he appeared at Fort Campbell, Ky., with his wife, who reported to basic training on Sept. 18.

Mr. Boyle said the Maqtaris had described questioning that seemed aimless. Mr. Boyle said agents asked Mrs. Maqtari if her husband was abusing her, suggesting that might be the reason she was with him.

Mr. Boyle said his client told him that the agents had some letters from Mr. Maqtari and a friend from a few years ago.

"They were asking, `Is this person your terrorist controller?' " Mr. Boyle said. "He said it was nonsensical because the correspondence was innocuous."

-------- spying

Afghans: Reporter Faces Spy Charges

September 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Attacks-Journalist-Arrested.html

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- A British journalist arrested after sneaking into Afghanistan is under investigation for possible espionage charges, Talibun-run Kabul radio reported Saturday.

Yvonne Ridley, 43, a reporter for the Sunday Express of London, was arrested Friday along with two Afghan companions in Dour Daba district of eastern Afghanistan, the station reported.

Her camera was seized and she was taken to Jalalabad for investigation.

In a broadcast monitored in Pakistan, the Taliban said Ridley ``has been arrested on charges of spying and the investigation is continuing'' by Taliban intelligence authorities in Nangarhar province.

The broadcast gave no indication how long the investigation would take or when she would stand trial.

In London, Ridley's father wept Saturday as he recounted how he heard she had been seized by the Taliban after slipping into Afghanistan.

Alan Ridley, said the reporter's 8-year-old daughter, Daisy, had not yet been told that her mother has been arrested.

Speaking to reporters outside his home near Beamish in northeast England, a tearful Ridley said he heard of his daughter's detention when he went to fetch his granddaughter from her boarding school, which had been informed of the development. He said the only information he has about his daughter comes from newspaper reports.

Asked if he had any message for her, he said she ``knows how much we love her and we just want her home.''

The Afghan Islamic Press said Ridley was wearing traditional Afghan dress and was not carrying any travel documents when she was arrested. She had been in the area since the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

A spokeswoman said the British Foreign Office is ``making inquiries about her well-being and any charges that may be brought against her. If these reports are confirmed we urge those holding her to treat her well and to resolve this situation quickly.''

However, the situation poses problems for diplomats as Britain does not recognize the Taliban regime. Neighboring Pakistan, which may have intervened, has distanced itself from the Taliban and taken a stance more supportive of the United States.

Sunday Express editor Martin Townsend said: ``We are deeply concerned about Yvonne and are co-operating with all agencies to secure her safe release. She is an experienced and courageous journalist and we will do everything we can to bring her home safely.''


-------- activists

Protesters gather in Washington

Washington Times
September 29, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/nobyline-2001929124715.htm

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Capital police on Saturday expected some 10,000 demonstrators to gather in protest of expected U.S. military action against Afghanistan and other causes.

Demonstrators originally planned to protest high-level International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, which were postponed because of terrorist attacks against Washington and New York.

The demonstrators, who had been organizing for months, have now largely taken up an anti-war message in lieu of the anti-globalization themes that marked protests surrounding summits in Genoa, Italy, and Quebec, Canada, in recent months.

Police presence was heavy along the block surrounding the White House, where the Secret Service has only recently reopened streets and parks shut down in the days following the suicide hijackings that destroyed the World Trade Center's twin towers and damaged the Pentagon.

Turnout was weak at the day's first scheduled demonstration, an anti-capitalism rally at the foot of Capitol Hill. A separate demonstration scheduled for noon near the White House was expected to draw between 7,000 and 10,000 people.

--------

Activists protest war in march on Washington

USA TODAY
09/29/2001
The Associated Press
http://www.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/09/29/protest.htm

WASHINGTON (AP) - Activists and anarchists chanted "no war" as they took to the streets Saturday, their anti-globalization cause transformed by the terrorist attacks into a call for peace. The march began peacefully around 10 a.m., but police used pepper spray to control some protesters as they passed the D.C. Convention Center. A Metropolitan Police Department spokeswoman said arrests had been made, but she could not provide further details.

The Anti-Capitalist Convergence, an anarchist group based in the capital, rallied hundreds Saturday morning near Capitol Hill to march to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank headquarters in downtown Washington.

Rachel Ettling, 18, of Grand Forks, N.D., was one of several people holding up two giant paper skeletons labeled "Us" and "Them." A banner hanging between the skeletons read, "Violence does not solve violence."

"We're urging the administration caution before they go to war in our name," Ettling said.

Other banners read: "Arab does not equal terrorist," "Destroy imperialism, not Afghanistan" and "To stop terror, stop terrorizing."

While some protesters arrived in black masks, others marched with their kids. One protester from Pennsylvania, who identified himself only as David, brought his 11-month-old son, Sage. "I brought him to teach him what freedom is like before it's gone," the father said.

While no organized counter-demonstrators met the anarchists, workers at a construction site cursed the marchers as they passed by.

Ken Childers, 38, a pest-control worker from Maryland, said: "This is ridiculous. How can they call themselves Americans? ... I can't believe these people don't want us to defend ourselves."

At an event held in the city to announce a scholarship fund for the children and spouses of victims of the Sept. 11 attack, former President Clinton and his onetime political rival Bob Dole were asked about the anti-war protest.

"This is America," Clinton said. "They are welcome to say whatever they want to say. ... If the future of the world in the Middle East is what Mr. bin Laden wants it to be, they would not be able to speak their mind."

Dole agreed, saying, "I understand there were some urging an immediate response ... but that was declined, fortunately. And I think now we're on a proper path."

The protests were originally planned to oppose policies of the World Bank and the IMF. The global financial organizations called off their annual meetings for this year after the Sept. 11 attacks, and most protesters canceled their events.

A few groups shifted focus to oppose what they call a rush to war by the United States that could kill many innocent people. The protesters also condemned the backlash against Arabs and Muslims and say that the Bush administration has used the attacks as an excuse to curtail civil liberties.

Police have blamed anarchists for much of the violence at anti-globalization protests during the past few years. The Convergence group said in a statement it was toning down its sometimes militant tactics for this march against U.S. foreign and military policies.

"A rally like that at this time is just inappropriate," said Jim Parmelee, the head of a group of Republican activists opposing the message of the protesters. "If I were a family member of one of the folks missing, and I saw this - it's just horrible."

An anti-war coalition led by the New York-based International Action Center had plans for a larger event Saturday that could draw more than 5,000 people, said organizer Richard Becker. Many groups representing American Muslims and Arabs were expected at the rally and to participate in a march that was beginning several blocks from the White House.

The Washington Peace Center and other groups planned another march for Sunday.

--------

D.C. Protesters March for Peace

September 29, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Capital-Protests.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A few thousand anti-war demonstrators marched through the nation's capital Saturday, some dressed as doves of peace and others waving signs with anti-war sentiments such as ``War will not bring our loved ones back.''

Much larger protests had been planned for this weekend to oppose policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. But the financial meetings were canceled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the protesters' anti-globalization cause was transformed into a call for peace.

The protests were mainly peaceful, but police in riot gear used pepper spray on demonstrators at least once during a morning march led by an anarchist group. Police arrested some protesters at the skirmish, said a police spokeswoman, but she couldn't provide more details.

In another incident, District of Columbia Assistant Police Chief Terrance Gainer was sprayed in the face with something that brought him to his knees. Two officers helped him behind police barricades and he later returned to work.

Many protesters had canceled their trip to Washington after the attacks, but some groups just shifted to an anti-war theme.

``The nation's in grief. I'm in grief. But adding more victims to the list is not going to do anyone any good,'' said Gill Smith, a 63-year-old demonstrator from New Jersey.

The protesters also condemned the backlash against Arabs and Muslims and say the Bush administration has used the attacks as an excuse to curtail civil liberties.

Marching protesters chanted ``no war'' and occasionally ran through the streets, forcing scores of police in heavy body armor to keep up.

The turnout on Saturday was smaller than organizers said they expected at the two separate demonstrations. The Washington Peace Center and other groups planned another march for Sunday.

Some protesters were motivated by personal experiences with the attacks.

John Movious, 21, a teacher from Brooklyn, N.Y., volunteered for search and rescue work after the attack on the World Trade Center. At a peace rally a few blocks from the White House, he said he came with other New Yorkers to oppose more violence.

``We have seen enough killing and we have seen enough grief,'' he said. ``An eye for an eye doesn't solve anything.''

A few blocks away, a group of about 70 counter-demonstrators assembled near the Navy Memorial with American flags and signs reading ``Shame For Disturbing a City in Mourning.''

Among them was Chuck Ricca, a 47-year-old businessman from Denville, N.J. who said two of his neighbors worked in the twin towers and are missing.

``I wish these protesters would do something to help their fellow citizens,'' Ricca said. ``It seems like they hate this country.''

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Nevada Desert Experience Response to the Events of September 11

9/29/01
From: Sally Light <sallight1@earthlink.net>

We grieve the deaths of thousands and pray for the families experiencing loss.

As people of Faith, we proclaim the immorality of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. We espouse nonviolence, and we condemn all acts of violence.

We recognize nuclear weapons as the most extreme source of terror in the world, targeting millions of undefended innocent people and threatening the life of the planet.

We invite our supporters, co-citizens, and sister organizations to join us in calling upon the U.S. government to take all steps necessary to comply with international law, including:

1. Reject its official policy of the first use of nuclear weapons; 2. Take its 3,000 strategic nuclear weapons off hair trigger alert; 3. Discontinue the development of new nuclear weapons under the Stockpile Stewardship Program.

As people of Faith, we will continue to reflect and pray for the wisdom and courage to follow God's ways to peace.

Adopted at a meeting of the Nevada Desert Experience Board and signed by the Board members and staff in attendance.

Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton Paul A. Colbert Wendy Kaufmyn Sally Light Chris Montesano Mike Niece Paula Olivares Erik Thompson Louis Vitale, Ofm.

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