NUCLEAR
Brazil orders studies into third nuclear reactor
Chinese nuclear 'event'
Waste conversion rumors swirling
Russia Says It Foiled Illegal Sale of Weapons-Grade Uranium
Vattenfall mull swapping Barseback n-plant for gas
A Civil Defense Corps
Congress Urged to Safeguard Nuclear Reactors Against Terrorism
Uranium theft raises nuclear fears
Fallout Shelters Rise in Popularity
DOE proposes vitrification cuts
Weldon's savvy luring attention
Pentagon Presses for a Radiation Drug
MILITARY
Russian raids provide U.S. intelligence
Taliban surrenders stronghold
Kandahar, refuge of misery
Marines Attack Taliban Convoy
Taliban gone, Omar, bin Laden at large
Military campaign to press on after Kandahar's fall
Afghan Leader Says Mullah Omar Will Be Arrested if Found
Zimbabwe Rights Abuses Condemned
Ashcroft Blocks FBI Access to Gun Records
Ford Library documents record role in East Timor
Anthrax Found in Fed's Mail
Navy warnings
U.S. Forces Suspension of Germ War Pact, EU Angry
Bomb-Detector Maker Waits for Orders
Analysis: Turks cool to attacking Iraq
Gaza Stone-Throwers Resist
Israeli F-16s attack Gaza police
Fatah-Hamas Truce Seen
Israeli Helicopters Hit Palestinian Compound
Kyrgyzstan to allow use of airbases
NATO to include Russia on joint council
NATO, Russia To Create New Council
Ashcroft Defends Anti-Terrorism Steps
U.S. apologizes to media
Pentagon Still Scapegoats Pearl Harbor Fall Guys
Vieques moves
Wen Ho Lee Testifies in Lawsuit
UN Rights Head Backs Afghan Probe, Criticizes U.S.
December 7, 1941: A Setup from the Beginning
America Gamely Stumbled Off to War
POLICE / PRISONERS
Constitutional concerns at home
U.S. puts 39 groups on new 'terrorist' list
Ashcroft Defends Antiterror Plan and Says Criticism May Aid Foes
Closed Immigration Hearings Criticized as Prejudicial
Terrorist movements
ENERGY AND OTHER
More renewable fuel use will help US economy - study
Suspected Ebola virus strikes again in Congo
IMF to Lend Pakistan $1.3 Billion Aid for Poverty Reduction
Argentina, Near Default, Seeks IMF Help
ACTIVISTS
Alternative fuels forum in Germany
Greetings from South Africa!
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- brazil
Brazil orders studies into third nuclear reactor
Reuters:
7/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13622
BRASILIA, Brazil - A Brazilian state energy council ordered this week the elaboration of an economic study into a project to build a third nuclear reactor, possibly setting the ball rolling again on the much-delayed expansion of Brazil's only atomic power complex.
The National Energy Council said it authorized state utility Eletrobras and its subsidiary Eletronuclear to carry out budgetary studies on the project to build Angra III at the two-reactor plant Angra, 80 miles (130 km) west of Rio de Janeiro.
Plans to build Angra III have run into tough opposition from environmentalists who argue that Angra, surrounded by tropical forest and beach resorts, has a dangerously high level of shutdowns and insufficient space to store nuclear waste.
The project was taken off the council's agenda in August, signaling that it could be axed. Now the council will decide definitively whether to authorize the reactor's construction once the financial studies are completed, expected for the second half of next year.
Brazil will hold presidential elections in October 2002.
The council also ruled that the controversial project would only go ahead if studies find a long-term solution to store radioactive waste. Analysts say Angra III, if it goes ahead, could cost between $1.7 billion and $2.4 billion to build.
The Brazilian Association of Nuclear Energy, which favors the project, applauded the council's decision this week.
"This was what we wanted," the association's director Everton Carvalho told Reuters.
The construction of alternative power sources took on fresh urgency this year after Brazil ran into an energy shortage following a severe drought that dried up reservoirs that feed hydro-electric plants. Water-driven plants provide about 90 percent of Brazil's energy.
-------- china
Chinese nuclear 'event'
December 7, 2001
Inside the Ring Notes from the Pentagon.
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011207-18997295.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies have detected new efforts by China on strategic nuclear weapons. The latest evidence comes in intelligence reports that China conducted a nuclear weapons-related experiment at the remote Lop Nur test facility in western Xinjiang province.
The latest nuclear weapons test was an "event" last month that produced no detectable nuclear yield or blast, officials said. It followed several similar tests that were reported in classified intelligence reports in July.
The Chinese conducted three nuclear weapons-related tests at Lop Nur in June and July. Preparations were spotted by U.S. intelligence imagery.
The tests are part of China's aggressive strategic nuclear weapons buildup that includes two new road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles, the DF-31 and the DF-41, and a new class of ballistic missile submarines outfitted with JL-2 missiles - a naval version of the DF-31.
-------- depleted uranium
Waste conversion rumors swirling
The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky
Friday, December 07, 2001
http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/news2001/nn11510.htm
Rumors recently surfaced that funding the conversion of hazardous waste into safer materials is no longer a priority.
By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--270.575.8650
A long-awaited, job-producing project to convert about 14 billion pounds of hazardous waste at the Paducah uranium enrichment plant into safer material may face another round of federal funding scrutiny as well as environmental and safety concerns.
Rumors recently surfaced within the nuclear industry that the Office of Management and Budget, Congress' financial arm, has told the Department of Energy that the conversion project is not a funding priority. That is despite a 1998 federal law calling for the work and earmarking about $373 million.
DOE officials, who held an environmental public meeting Thursday night regarding the project, said they were not aware of OMB concerns.
"It's news to me," said Kevin Shaw, program manager for DOE's depleted uranium hexafluoride (UF6) program in Washington, D.C. "I'll look into it when I get back."
The rumors reportedly have concerned some, if not all, of the three groups of firms that are finalists for the work, which would build facilities at Paducah and its closed sister plant near Portsmouth, Ohio, to convert the UF6 into a safer material. The Energy Department is expected to name a winner this month, perhaps within days.
Ken Wheeler, chairman of a local task force promoting the Paducah plant's resources, said the rumor persists.
"I have not talked with anybody in the administration to confirm it, but I have the same report from two or three sources," he said. "It's frankly not clear to me how that could happen when the law of the land requires the process to move forward. But I guess the OMB is entitled to express a position."
Asked about the rumor, staffers for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Louisville, were checking its validity Thursday evening, but could not immediately respond. McConnell wrote legislation for the project, which could create about 150 jobs in each community. DOE hopes some parts of the material, particularly fluorine compounds, can be used commercially to generate about $200 million in revenue during the roughly 25 years of conversion work.
If the OMB has reservations, it would not be the first time. Labor leaders, civic officials and the congressional delegation have repeatedly criticized the OMB and Energy Department for foot-dragging on the cylinder project over budgetary issues. DOE delayed bidding for more than a year before resuming the process in late 2000.
Thursday night's meeting reflected continued concerns by some plant neighbors and watchdog groups about the safety of converting the material, stored in nearly 60,000 cylinders, some of which are rusty and have leaked. About two-thirds are at the Paducah plant, and the rest are at the Ohio plant and another closed enrichment facility at Oak Ridge, Tenn.
Some spoke out about the potential for chemical or radiation releases from the cylinders in the event of a large plane crash.
"I live right there by the plant, and I was watching TV and saw what happened there in New York," said Ray English, part of a citizens' group worried about the cylinders. "I was sitting there waiting to hear the big boom at the plant."
DOE officials responded the material in the cylinders is too mildly radioactive for a nuclear criticality accident, but is a chemical threat because it emits hydrofluoric acid when it mixes with moisture in the air.
Gene Hoffman, a retired DOE metals expert from Oak Ridge, asked Shaw to include a large aircraft crash scenario in an environmental impact study for the cylinder project. He said previous studies have only addressed the crash of a small, private plane. Although the risk of a large plane crash is low, it would seriously threaten workers and the public if it happened, Hoffman said.
"My point is, if you don't ever consider it, how can you mitigate the damage?" he said.
Chamber of commerce, economic development and county government officials endorsed the conversion project because of its economic potential and the public safety risk of continuing to store the cylinders. Shaw said the 12-foot-long steel canisters cover about 42 acres at the three sites and, containing dense uranium, have a total weight about a tenth as much as the Great Pyramid in Egypt.
DOE's preferred option of converting the material into uranium dioxide is expected to cost $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion and create several hundred construction jobs. Construction must start by Jan. 31, 2004.
The environmental study will assess worker and public health and environmental impacts of the conversion project. It also will gauge the facilities' construction and effect on local employment, income, population, housing and public services.
A draft environmental impact statement is expected to be issued in June, followed by a 45-day public comment period.
A final statement, preceding a record of decision, is slated for January 2003.
-------- russia
Russia Says It Foiled Illegal Sale of Weapons-Grade Uranium
December 7, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/international/europe/07RUSS.html
MOSCOW, Dec. 6 - The police have arrested seven men accused of trying to sell more than two pounds of highly enriched weapons- grade uranium, Russian television reported today.
The seven, arrested in the town of Balashikha, just southeast of Moscow, were trying to sell a capsule containing uranium 235 for $30,000, NTV television reported. The suspects were charged with illegal handling of nuclear materials, it said.
If confirmed, the seizure would be the first acknowledged case of theft of weapons-grade material in Russia.
In the economic turmoil after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian police have regularly seized nuclear materials stolen by people who tried to sell them for profit. But all involved low-active uranium unfit for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.
Russian officials have repeatedly said that no weapons-grade nuclear materials have been stolen.
The report said the suspects were believed to belong to the Balashikha criminal gang.
The police arrested some of the suspects as they were trying to sell the material at a roadside cafe, and they said those suspects led them to another suspect who kept the uranium in his house. The police report did not give the date of the arrest or provide other details.
A duty officer at the Balashikha police station said he was aware of the case, but gave no details, saying the Federal Security Service - the domestic successor to the Soviet K.G.B. - was handling the investigation.
A spokesman at the Interior Ministry in Moscow, which is in charge of the Russian police force, also referred questions to the security service, where a duty officer refused to comment on the case.
The NTV report featured videotape of the roadside cafe where several of the suspects were arrested, and a local police headquarters. It did not show any officials who could confirm the arrest.
NTV also interviewed Nikolai Shingarev, a spokesman for the Nuclear Power Ministry, who said there were several plants in and around Moscow where such material could be obtained. Weapons-grade uranium is sometimes used in research reactors.
Alexander Koldobsky, a senior researcher at the Moscow Engineering and Physical Institute, told NTV that the quantity of uranium reportedly seized would be insufficient to make a nuclear weapon.
-------- sweden
Vattenfall mull swapping Barseback n-plant for gas
Story by Erik Brynhildsbakken
Reuters:
7/12/2001
http://www.planetark.org/avantgo/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=13616
OSLO - Swedish state utility Vattenfall, struggling to find alternatives after a parliamentary vote to shut its Barseback nuclear reactor, said yesterday a natural gas plant at the same site was the only realistic solution.
"It is difficult to see any proper alternatives to natural gas once Barseback is shut down," Vattenfall information chief Karl Erik Olsson told Reuters.
"The only realistic alternative that has been up for discussion is natural gas."
Sweden, aiming to phase out nuclear power and replace it with renewable sources such as wind and biofuel, has hinted it might delay the planned shut down of the Barseback reactor in 2003 as it has failed to come up with alternative power sources.
The 600-megawatt Barseback facility produces some 3-4 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity a year, and Olsson said a natural gas plant could make use of the infrastructure at the site and be hooked on to the grid without much extra costs.
Sweden's total annual production is about 145 TWh.
Olsson said natural gas, despite its emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), was the most environmentally friendly alternative as an increase in imports would likely come from even more polluting coal-based generation.
"One could make a considerable increase in imports, but the power at hand is Danish, German and Polish coal power," he said.
Sweden decided in 1997 to phase out its nuclear power industry on the condition that electricity prices remained stable and that lost power would be replaced by renewables.
One reactor at Barseback has already been shut down according to plan in 1999, but the government said this autumn that the remaining reactor might continue beyond its 2003 deadline as it saw no other options.
SWEDEN IN KYOTO SQUEEZE
Sweden aims under the Kyoto climate pact to to cut its CO2 emissions by at least two percent from 1990 levels by 2010, but a giant natural gas plant at Barseback would make that a difficult target to reach as nuclear generation is CO2-free.
"One has to remember that natural gas according to the Kyoto deal is dubious because one would go from zero emissions (at Barseback) to at least some emissions," Olsson said. "That might not be very popular."
Barseback is situated at Sweden's southern tip, only some 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) away from the Danish capital Copenhagen.
The Danes, which claim they can see Barseback across the Oresund strait on a clear day, regard the plant as a safety risk and has repeatedly called for it to be shut down.
Barseback was formerly owned by Swedish rival Sydkraft , but Vattenfall took over the plant as part of a deal between Sydkraft, Vattenfall and the state when the first reactor was taken off line.
-------- terrorism
A Civil Defense Corps
Friday, December 7, 2001; Page A40
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5979-2001Dec6?language=printer
David Broder's Nov. 21 op-ed column, "Old Idea for a New Era," raised the possibility of reinstating the draft for homeland defense. That reminded me of another "old idea," which might be considered as well: the Civilian Defense Corps.
Back in the early days of the Cold War, the Civilian Defense Corps was established to help in the event of nuclear attack.
Although I was in junior high school then and so I didn't know much about the organization, I remember being part of a cadre of civilian volunteers under the leadership of professionals (firefighters, police, etc.) with the emphasis on recovery in the aftermath of nuclear attack. I held perhaps the lowest-level job of "messenger" (this was before cell phones and the like).
Thousands of civilians, especially retirees like me, would volunteer for homeland security assignments. Isn't it worth considering?
LAWRENCE D. POWERS
Reston
--------
Congress Urged to Safeguard Nuclear Reactors Against Terrorism
December 7, 2001
ENS
http://ens-news.com/ens/dec2001/2001L-12-07-04.html
WASHINGTON, DC, A House subcommittee reviewing security issues at the America's nuclear facilities was warned Wednesday that there are "unresolved vulnerabilities."
Legislation has been introduced which would federalize security at nuclear power generators and fuel processing plants by directing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to establish a security force for "sensitive" facilities, including the nation's 103 operating nuclear power plants.
The Commission "strongly opposes" the enactment of such legislation, but the head of a concerned citizens' group says immediate anti-aircraft protection at each reactor site is needed to deal with possible attacks by aircraft in terrorist hands.
"Put simply," said Paul Leventhal, founding president of the Nuclear Control Institute, "the nation's nuclear power reactors are vulnerable to attack by terrorists, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and other government entities have failed to move decisively to impose the further security measures that are needed to prevent a successful attack and avert catastrophic radiological consequences."
Missouri's Callaway Nuclear Plant operated by the Union Electric Company (Photos courtesy NRC)
The Nuclear Control Institute, a non-profit organization based in Washington and concerned with security against nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism, Leventhal was invited by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce" Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to give testimony concerning the security of these power plants.
He spoke also on behalf of the Los Angeles based nuclear policy organization, the Committee to Bridge the Gap. For 17 years, the two organizations have been warning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) "to act responsibly and to protect these facilities adequately," Leventhal said. "We submitted petitions for rulemaking, met with Commissioners and their staffs, submitted scholarly studies. With one partial exception, a truck bomb rule of insufficient effectiveness, our efforts have been repeatedly frustrated."
But now the time has come to act, Leventhal urged. "The horrendous attacks of September 11 have now made NRC foot dragging intolerable. The new threat should now be evident to all, and the country can afford to wait no longer," he said. "The vulnerabilities at these plants can and must be closed, now."
He said the American people "have a right to know the dangers and to demand the prompt corrective actions that we propose to protect nuclear power plants from terrorist attacks and the unthinkable consequences that could follow."
"It is prudent to assume that the terrorist adversary knows that the plants are vulnerable," Leventhal testified. He cited recent trial testimony confirming that Osama bin Laden's terrorist training camps "were offering instruction in 'urban warfare' against 'enemies' installations' including power plants."
But under current regulations reactor operators are not required to protect against attacks by an "enemy of the United States," be it a nation or a person, Leventhal pointed out. "In the absence of the federal government taking responsibility for security of these nuclear sites against attacks by 'enemies,' it is clear that protection of the public in this regard is falling through the cracks."
Twenty-five years ago, Congress split the Atomic Energy Commission into two separate agencies in order to end the inherent conflict between promotion and regulation of nuclear energy, Leventhal explained. As a member of the staff of the Senate Government Operations Committee, he was "intimately involved" in preparing the law that created the Nuclear Regulatory Committee and the present day Department of Energy.
Leventhal says the two sides - promotion and regulation of nuclear power - have once again become too close and the regulatory side is too close to the nuclear industry for effective regulation.
The subcommittee heard from NRC Chairman Richard Meserve that since September 11 the commission has maintained a round the clock operation of NRC's Emergency Operations Center. A safeguards team receives "a substantial and steady flow of information from the intelligence community, law enforcement, and licensees that requires prompt evaluation to determine whether to advise licensees about any changes in the threat environment in general or for a particular plant."
Meserve gave the lawmakers an example of threat readiness. "The NRC received information in the early evening in mid-October about an impending air attack on the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant that could not be discounted by the law enforcement and intelligence communities," the chairman said.
"This resulted in immediate notification of the licensee for Three Mile Island, the establishment of a no-fly zone by the Federal Aviation Administration, and the deployment of military assets. Although by early the next morning a determination was made that this threat was not credible, NRC, other federal agencies, and the licensee were obliged to act quickly because no one was able initially to discredit the threat," he said.
Ft. Calhoun nuclear power plant in Nebraska
That level of readiness is not enough for Leventhal who called for anti-aircraft protection at each reactor site to deal with possible attacks by aircraft. "We note the French government has deployed anti-aircraft measures at sensitive nuclear facilities in France. Why has this not been done here, when we are the country that was attacked on September 11?" he asked the subcommittee.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it is clear that a greater threat exists than provided for in the current Design Basis Threat regulations for nuclear power plants.
"The new 'design basis threat,' made manifest by September 11," said Leventhal, "is at least 19 sophisticated and suicidal terrorists attacking from at least four different directions. Mr. Chairman, we ask that this Subcommittee inquire of the Chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission whether any nuclear power plant today is capable of repelling an attack of that magnitude. If the answer is no, as we suspect it will be, he should be asked why he has not promptly ordered an immediately effective upgrade of the NRC security rules to meet such a threat, and why, in the meantime, he has not advised the President that military protection of these plants is needed to deter and defeat such an attack."
Each the power plants should be protected with at least 30 National Guard personnel to provide a visible show of force and a credible deterrent to attack, Leventhal said. He called for a thorough re-evaluation of all nuclear power plant personnel, including the "hundreds of outside contractors who are onsite during refueling outages and for routine maintenance," for potential security risks and establish "an immediate strict two-person rule to reduce risks of insider attack."
The NRC's Meserve has somewhat different proposals for Congressional action. He says federalizing the security at nuclear facilities could cost over $1 billion a year, and is not needed. In the Commission's view, "the qualified, trained, and tightly regulated private guard forces at nuclear plants should not be replaced by a new federal security force."
The commission is asking Congress to make federal prohibitions on sabotage apply to the operation and construction of nuclear reactors, enrichment and fuel fabrication facilities.
It should be a federal crime to bring unauthorized weapons and explosives into NRC licensed facilities, Meserve said. Some state laws currently preclude private guard forces at facilities regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from utilizing a wide range of weapons, so the commission is asking Congress to authorize NRC guards to carry and use firearms.
Ralph Beedle, chief nuclear officer at the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear industry association, told the subcommittee that the nation's nuclear plants are secure right now. "Nuclear plants are the most secure commercial facilities in the United States, even exceeding the protection found at most military installations," he said. "Reactor fuel is protected by a combination of 12 feet of concrete and steel between the exterior of the building and the fuel itself."
"Nuclear power plants assumed the highest level of readiness immediately after the events of September 11," Beedle assured the subcommittee. "Our plants continue to maintain the highest level of security. This heightened state of alert means that the industry has added security posts and expanded the physical barriers where needed, increased patrols of our grounds and perimeters, and restricted access by the general public, among other things."
But this level of increased security is not enough, Leventhal warned, "We must move quickly to prevent attacks on nuclear power plants that could release immense amounts of cancer causing, radioactive contamination over large, densely populated areas. We all would have trouble living with ourselves if the worst happened and we had we not taken every possible step to prevent it. We must act now."
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Uranium theft raises nuclear fears
Friday, 7 December, 2001
BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1697000/1697907.stm
Russia retains a vast nuclear arsenal Russian police have arrested seven men trying to sell more than one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of suspected weapons-grade uranium.
If the material is established to be the high-level enriched variety of uranium-235, this will be the first confirmed case of a theft of this kind in Russia itself.
Russian Interior Ministry spokesman Oleg Yelnikov said the amount of uranium was too small to make a nuclear device, and that it seemed that the men had got their hands on it by chance.
However the incident is likely to increase international concern over the possibility that nuclear material could fall into the hands of militant groups.
"It looks like they accidentally got their hands on the uranium and were trying to sell it," Mr Yelnikov told the Associated Press news agency.
"It's not like they were trying to sell the material to some Afghan terrorists," he added.
Mr Yelnikov said that most of the suspects, arrested outside Moscow overnight on Tuesday, allegedly belonged to the well-known Balashikha criminal gang.
They apparently tried to sell the uranium for $30,000 to another gang, but as yet there is no clear indication of how they had obtained the uranium in the first place.
Russian nuclear experts are examining the capsule containing the uranium to determine its place of origin and assess it potency.
It is thought it could have come from a nuclear research centre or a production plant.
Nuclear risk
The UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned recently that the security and regulation of nuclear material in the former Soviet Union was deficient, and called for greater international efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear smuggling.
David Kyd of the IAEA told BBC News Online there had been 175 known cases of attempts to smuggle nuclear material out of former Soviet Republics.
The largest confirmed disappearance of weapons-grade uranium from the former Soviet Union was in Georgia, where in July police arrested three men attempting to sell 1.7 kilograms (3.75lbs) of uranium-235 to buyers in Turkey.
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Fallout Shelters Rise in Popularity
December 7, 2001
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Attacks-Fallout-Shelters.html?searchpv=aponline
Fearing nuclear terrorism, Americans are building home fallout shelters in numbers unseen since the peak of the Cold War, sometimes even mortgaging homes to cover costs, say shelter makers and designers.
Some corporations are giving the shelters to top executives as a perk, one dealer said.
Gone are the days when defense experts scoffed and neighbors shook their heads and chuckled.
``They're treating me less like a crazy woman than they did before,'' says Dr. Jane Orient, of Tucson, Ariz., who promotes home shelters as head of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness.
Walton McCarthy, president of shelter builder Radius Defense and Engineering in Northwood, N.H., says he is making almost four times as many of his egg-shaped, fiberglass underground shelters since Sept. 11 -- roughly one a day. He is planning a bigger factory.
Nuclear engineer Sharon Packer says sales have also quadrupled -- to more than four a month -- at her company, Utah Shelter Systems in Heber, Utah.
``People start calling at 5:30 a.m., and I don't go to bed until 11:30 at night,'' she said.
The idea of family fallout shelters is not new or uniquely American. Switzerland has mandated them in new housing.
In the early Cold War, thousands of Americans built fallout shelters in backyards and basements. The federal government even put out designs.
By the late 1960s, though, a new mindset began taking hold. Elaborate civil defenses, the thinking went, could aggravate tensions by stoking Soviet fears of an American first strike. Besides, how could a personal shelter protect against the apocalypse of nuclear war between superpowers? Shelter builders began to seem like eccentrics, and shelters seemed even more superfluous with the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Then came the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Even if countries are rational enough to keep a finger off the nuclear trigger, how about terrorists?
``What has happened in the current atmosphere is that our opponent is fanatical. He's not rational,'' said Ed York, of Kent, Wash., an authority on home shelter design who specialized in hardening targets against attack for Boeing Co.
Analysts have warned that terrorists would not need to master the complex technology of a nuclear explosion or intercontinental missile guidance. They could pack radioactive material around a core of conventional explosives for a lesser bang -- but lots of contamination.
Such a ``dirty bomb'' attack might well be more survivable with a fallout shelter.
``When you had civil defense in the 1960s, that was ridiculous,'' says physicist Edwin Lyman, who is scientific director at the Nuclear Control Institute, a research group in Washington, D.C. ``Now, in the context of the risks associated with a terrorist who might have a small number of ... radiological weapons, it's not necessarily a bad idea to think if there are procedures that would avert casualties.''
Home shelters vary widely in size, degree of protection, and cost.
Nearly everyone agrees they should provide a radiation barrier of 3-to-4 feet of dirt or at least two of concrete.
Some dealers supply plans for basement shelters that cost as little as several thousand dollars. For maximum protection against biological, nuclear and chemical threats, prices balloon to $40,000 and higher. Such shelters are equipped with air filtration systems and hand-pump toilets, allowing people to hold out from 30 days to several months.
Bill Eckhoff, president of Kleen Air Technologies, in Frisco, Colo., sells a home shelter that comes complete with blast-proof doors, backup diesel generator and decontamination area. The roomy 800-square-foot model can cost more than $300,000.
``We believe if you have to sit through a transition period, why not maintain a quality of life?'' he says.
Sound pricey? He says inquiries have doubled to about 30 a day since Sept. 11.
Many analysts believe that other terrorist threats are more likely than a nuclear attack.
``I would be more concerned about chemical, biological or gas, because they're more in the range of what these groups can do,'' said Milton Copulos, a retired Army intelligence officer who is president of the National Defense Council Foundation, a think tank in Alexandria, Va.
He keeps a supply of bottled water at home. If someone is still nervous, he suggests not a fallout shelter, but a few emergency provisions for a chemical attack -- plastic sheeting, duct tape and bottled oxygen.
State and federal authorities are prepared to shelter emergency personnel and government leaders. However, they downplay the value of home shelters.
``Maybe there are better ways to protect your family,'' says Peter Judge, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
``Evacuation is still the primary protective measure in the event of a nuclear incident,'' adds Don Jacks, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The new federal Office of Homeland Security is not promoting home fallout shelters either, according to spokesman Gordon Johndroe.
Most Americans also remain unconverted. Physicist Marcel Barbier of Herndon, Va., who has consulted with government laboratories on radiation safety, put in his own home shelter in 1985 but says neighbors aren't taking his cue. ``The people here need to receive a nuclear bomb on their head before they understand it can happen -- and I hope it doesn't happen,'' he said.
-------- washington
DOE proposes vitrification cuts
Fri, Dec 7, 2001
By John Stang and Annette Cary Herald staff writers
http://www.hanfordnews.com/2001/1207-1.html
PORTLAND -- The Department of Energy wants to avoid converting 75 percent of Hanford's radioactive tank wastes into glass.
That concept was broached in a Nov. 19 memo from DOE cleanup czar Jesse Roberson to DOE's budget office. Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, who obtained a copy of the memo, distributed it Thursday at a board meeting in Portland.
The memo shocked board members.
Such a move would drastically change Hanford's plan for dealing with its worst environmental problem, 53 million gallons of highly radioactive wastes in 177 underground tanks.
Hanford has more tank wastes than all other DOE sites combined and is also the only site without a glassification plant.
Roberson's memo addressed DOE efforts to trim its estimate that 70 years and $300 billion are needed to clean up all wastes at nuclear weapons production sites.
The memo lists nine top priorities, including cutting $100 billion and 30 years from current cost and schedule estimates.
Another priority notes, "High-level waste processing is the single largest cost ... in the environmental management program today. Eliminate the need to vitrify at least 75 percent of the waste scheduled for vitrification today. Develop at least two proven, cost-effective solutions to every high-level waste stream ... "
Vitrification means converting the radioactive waste into glass.
The other priorities include shrinking DOE cleanup areas by 40 percent in four years, opening Hanford and the Nevada Test Site to receive mixed low-level radioactive and chemical wastes from other DOE sites, and to "deinventory nuclear materials" at Hanford and three other sites by 2004. The memo did not elaborate on what that would mean.
But it was the proposal to not glassify 75 percent of the wastes that stunned HAB members. State officials learned of the proposal last week and are also disturbed.
"It's clear that the Department of Energy is saying, 'To hell with the Tri-Party Agreement,' " said HAB member Gerald Pollet, representing Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group. The agreement governs Hanford cleanup.
HAB member Greg DeBruler, representing Columbia Riverkeeper, said: "I don't think we have (a DOE) that is reflective of the wishes of the Northwest. We have an agency reflective of the Washington, D.C., Beltway."
Mike Wilson, nuclear waste program manager for the state Department of Ecology, said: "That memo is one of the most troubling things we've seen in a long time."
"It's somewhat disconcerting that this just kind of shows up without folks getting advance notice of a significant shift in policy," said Joe Shorin, an assistant state attorney general for Hanford matters.
In subsequent statements, Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both D-Wash., said they also found the proposal troubling.
"It is time for the administration to understand that we will not let them renege on the promise made to clean up Hanford," Murray said.
The administration appears to want to sacrifice the people living near Hanford, which is "morally reprehensible," she said.
Roberson and Bob Card, the undersecretary of Energy, recently confirmed their commitment to completing construction of the first vitrification plant at Hanford and the first phase of vitrification during a meeting with Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said Hastings spokesman Todd Young.
The proposal would not affect plans for the next decade, he said, which would handle 10 percent of the waste.
Looking far to the future, Roberson wants to see if there are less expensive ways to clean up the waste, Young said.
State officials and HAB members cautioned that they don't know the overall context of Roberson's memo.
For example, since it is an internal DOE memo, HAB members and state officials said they don't know whether the 75 percent reduction is a trial balloon or a serious concept.
Also, the Northwest needs to find out whether the number is arbitrary or is backed up by appropriate studies, said Dennis Faulk of the Environmental Protection Agency.
The memo needs to be probed in the context of Hanford's initial and subsequent glassification projects, which run through 2018, Shorin said.
Consequently, HAB members are preparing to send a letter to Roberson to ask for clarification.
The letter also is to address other board concerns, including:
n Roberson recently has taken some decision-making authority from DOE field offices.
That reverses a trend of the late 1990s, when Hastings pushed for more authority for field offices, which are closer to the actual cleanup.
n Signals from DOE Washington, D.C., that top officials may be reassigned. The board wants to keep Keith Klein and Harry Boston as DOE's top Hanford managers because they know the site and its issues well.
-------- us politics
Weldon's savvy luring attention
Friday, December 7, 2001
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://dailynews.philly.com/content/daily_news/2001/12/07/local/BAER07C.htm?template=aprint.htm
WASHINGTON - The ebb and flow of politics is a wonder to behold.
Take Curt Weldon.
The veteran 54-year-old Delaware County congressman, who lives (at best) in peripheral vision of the public eye, is quickly emerging as someone to watch.
He's suddenly in the swift mainstream of America's hot issues; in fact, he's right on the crest of the wave.
For 15 years, Weldon used a personal pit-bull style to push national security, anti-terrorism and emergency preparedness.
Some said he pushed too hard. A troublemaker. An alarmist.
He went to Russia 27 times. He argued that lax arms-treaty management was sending weapons technology, including nuclear, chemical and biological know-how, to America's Middle East enemies.
He went to disasters, earthquakes, the Oklahoma bombing, and argued that local emergency personnel are ill-prepared to deal with catastrophe.
Three years ago, he pushed for a new system, the National Operations Analysis Hub, to coordinate federal agencies dealing with threats of terrorism.
"People laughed at me," says Weldon. "They said I was just trying to scare people."
Few are laughing now.
On Sept. 11, he says, "the American government let the American people down." He blames the first Bush administration, the Clinton administration and Congress.
Weldon contends unenforced nonproliferation treaties, scaled back "politically correct" intelligence-gathering and poor coordination in communications and info-sharing contributed to the attacks.
"Our agencies don't want to have their data shared," he says. If they did, "that may have been able to impact September 11."
He says that Special Forces a year ago wanted to "eliminate" Osama bin Laden's terrorist cells, but the effort was put off "because in an election year, you don't want a major military operation."
Weldon has war stories: CIA and FBI agents coming to him seeking briefings on info he got from the Army; a former Russian two-star general telling him Moscow has "no idea" where 90 "suitcase nukes" - small atomic devices capable of blowing up a football stadium and radiating a city - are now; clear evidence Russia sent or sold missile technology and more to Iraq, in "gross violation" of arms pacts.
"People don't like to talk about our shortcomings," Weldon told me in his Capitol Hill office; "people like to talk about how great we are."
But these days he gets an audience.
He's third-ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee (missed being elected chairman last year by one vote); he chairs the Armed Services Procurement Subcommittee overseeing $83 billion in military spending; he founded the Congressional Fire Services Caucus.
This week, he met with homeland security chief Tom Ridge (rare for a rank-and-file member of the House) to push for closer work with Russia, improved data-sharing, upgraded local emergency services.
"He needs to do all this," Weldon says.
As a former teacher and volunteer Marcus Hook firefighter, Weldon says he wants to use his background, his years of issue work, his "unique position. . .to basically help the country."
The way things are flowing, he could get the chance.
--------
BIOTERRORISM
Pentagon Presses for a Radiation Drug
New York Times
December 7, 2001
By ANDREW POLLACK
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/business/07RADI.html
Amid concerns that Middle Eastern terrorists might have procured radioactive weapons, the Defense Department is pressing for approval of a novel drug that could help protect people from radiation.
As fears of terrorism grow, the drug, known as 5-androstenediol, is receiving increased scrutiny along with other experimental treatments and drugs already on the market. The National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy have invited leading radiation experts to a workshop in Bethesda, Md., on Dec. 17 and 18 to review approaches for protecting people from radiation.
The drug is a steroid hormone that appears to strengthen the immune system. It was developed by Dr. Roger M. Loria, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, and rights to it are held by Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals of San Diego.
"This is an area that hasn't gotten a whole lot of attention," said Dr. John E. Moulder, professor of radiation oncology at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "Working on trying to cure patients of cancer gets you more headlines than working on treating people for nuclear accidents that you hope will never occur."
So far, the Hollis-Eden drug has been tested as a radiation protectant only in mice. In one test, an injection protected 70 percent of mice from a level of radiation that killed all the mice in the control group.
Dr. Thomas M. Seed, leader for radiation casualty management at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in Bethesda, said the drug was his institute's leading candidate for something to give to soldiers in advance of possible radiation exposure. Such a drug would also be useful for civilians, including people responding to an accident at a nuclear power plant, he said.
Since it would be unethical to expose people to large doses of radiation to test the drug's effectiveness, Dr. Seed said he hoped the Food and Drug Administration would approve it under a new rule allowing tests on monkeys or other animals.
American officials have said there is little evidence that Osama bin Laden has obtained nuclear weapons. But some experts have said terrorists might try to make a so-called radiological bomb by combining conventional explosives with radioactive material like spent nuclear fuel.
Hollis-Eden has been testing a drug similar to androstenediol as a treatment for AIDS, the idea being to stimulate the patient's own immune system to fight the virus.
For defense use, the drug is aimed mainly at preventing death from intense radiation in the short term by restoring various kinds of infection- fighting immune system cells. Radiation can kill the immune system, leaving victims vulnerable to potentially fatal infections.
Some radiation experts were cautious, saying the Pentagon, hoping to have soldiers function in a nuclear war, had tried many such compounds without success. In some cases the protection afforded was not enough, and some drugs seemed to protect animals but caused bad side effects in people.
The Hollis-Eden drug could have other problems, too. It needs to be injected, which can take time in an emergency. And it would probably not be possible to know of exposure in advance of a terrorist attack.
In addition, Dr. Fred Mettler, chairman of radiology at the University of New Mexico, said that just solving the immune system problems might not be enough because people could still die months later from other types of radiation-induced damage, such as to the lungs.
Dr. David J. Grdina, professor of radiation oncology at the University of Chicago, said it was more important to develop drugs that protect people against cancer from radiation than against the immediate lethal effects. More people are likely to be exposed to sublethal doses of radiation while cleaning up or standing guard at the site of a radioactive attack than might be exposed to lethal doses in the attack itself, he said.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is moving toward stockpiling millions of potassium iodide pills to prevent thyroid cancer in those exposed to radioactive iodide if a nuclear power plant was attacked.
Dr. Grdina is trying to use a drug called amifostine to prevent cancer from radiation. The drug, sold as Ethyol by MedImmune Inc. (news/quote ) of Gaithersburg, Md., is already approved to protect the salivary glands from radiation therapy used to treat head and neck cancer.
Dr. Moulder has found that two drugs for high blood pressure, ACE inhibitors and A2 blockers, protect animals from the kidney failure and lung damage that can occur months after radiation.
-------- MILITARY
-------- afghanistan
Russian raids provide U.S. intelligence
By RICHARD SALE
UPI Terrorism Correspondent
December 7, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/07122001-063245-5633r.htm
The U.S. search for Osama bin Laden, the No. 1 suspect behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, received help from an unexpected quarter -- the Russian military -- U.S. intelligence officials said Friday.
Russian soldiers fighting with the Northern Alliance conducted raids on Taliban compounds and collected documents and other intelligence that shed light on bin Laden's whereabouts, according to intelligence sources.
Earlier reports said the Saudi-born millionaire who heads al Qaida had taken refuge in the cave-riddled hills near Tora Bora near Afghanistan's eastern border with Pakistan.
"The Russians have given the United States the best intelligence we've had on the Taliban and bin Laden since military operations began on Oct. 7," an administration official said. "They have provided the most comprehensive intelligence picture."
Administration officials said Russian troops and military experts fighting alongside the Northern Alliance were a major factor in the opposition force's defeat of the Tailban.
But the Russians also had their own objectives in the Afghan offensive. The officials said the Russians sought out and raided Chechen terrorists with links to bin Laden. Intelligence sources said bin Laden's mujahedin were an elite strike force in Chechnya, the Russian republic where rebels have waged a separatist war against Russia.
"This is not some rogue military effort," said Michael McFaul, research fellow and Russian expert at the Hoover Institution, who says the Russians "changed the combat competence" of the Northern Alliance overnight. "This is coming straight from Russian boss (Vladimir) Putin."
According to Tom Henriksen, a Hoover Institution senior fellow who is another Russian expert, Moscow "accumulated an unmatched storehouse of intelligence on the country" in the years before and during its occupation of Afghanistan.
One U.S. intelligence official told United Press International that the former Soviet intelligence services "had saturated" the population of Afghanistan, including tribes and Islamic resistance movements, often using refugees and sleeper agents to infiltrate groups and gain access to crucial information.
"The Soviets may have been defeated, but they always held the military initiative, and they achieved a tremendous penetration of the Afghan resistance," said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
He said the Russians were able to exploit "traditionalists, nationalists, feuds and mistrust between Afghan resistance leaders, and they also managed deep intelligence penetration and manipulation of the hostile population."
This intelligence, along with intimate and detailed knowledge of "the character and background of chieftains, tribes, routes, paths, even sources of water" has all been placed at U.S. disposal, he said.
Meanwhile, the Russian presence on the ground in the current campaign "is continuing to increase," Henriksen said.
But other experts and administration officials said another motive might lay behind the vigor of Russian assistance: "I think the Russians want to play a major international role in this conflict," said Henriksen.
Still, McFaul believed that the recent unannounced arrival of 12 Il-76 Russian transport planes in Kabul last week deeply surprised the Bush administration. "The Russians stole quite a march. I think it startled people."
"You just don't arrive like that without telling anyone," said Henriksen.
According to U.S. officials, the aircraft carried two specific groups: one whose mission was to establish Russian diplomatic representation, and the other was sent to put in place humanitarian aid efforts directed at central Afghanistan. Russian special forces were included to provide security, they said. The Russian Defense Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have publicly declined to provide details on the number of troops involved.
Speaking at a recent meeting of Russia's Security Council in Moscow, Putin said he ordered the mission at the request of Afghan president and Northern Alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani, a former professor of the Afghan State Faculty of Islam, and a Tajik, according to U.S. officials.
"Russia has always recognized the Northern Alliance and Rabbani as president, and it has in no way abandoned that position," said McFaul. No other leader in the coalition "had gone to these lengths," he said.
McFaul said Russia wants to play an influential role in setting up a post-Taliban government for Afghanistan, but realizes "that its hand is weak." He said Russia wanted to avoid "simply being summoned in to sign papers after a post-Taliban government has been formed."
But while some U.S. officials speculated that perhaps what Russia asked of President George W. Bush in exchange for its help was that the United States turn a blind eye to Russian attempts to suppress Chechen rebels, McFaul strongly disagreed: "That's nonsense. This is not the kind of cooperation where Russia said, if I give you this, you have to give me that. This was saying to us: we're getting on board, and we want to be considered a mayor player."
What Russia hopes for "is to demonstrate to Bush that it wants to be part of the West -- a member of NATO, a member of the World Trade Organization. It's a new relation at a strategic level," said McFaul.
--------
Taliban surrenders stronghold
By Willis Witter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 7, 2001
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20011207-25037900.htm
QUETTA, Pakistan - Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar yesterday gave in to daily U.S. air strikes and the armed rebellion by local tribes and agreed to surrender his last stronghold of Kandahar in exchange for amnesty, a deal the United States quickly disapproved.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in Washington that the Bush administration would not accept any deal that allowed Mullah Omar to remain free and "live in dignity" anywhere in the region.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the surrender agreement was not "sufficiently mature" to lead to a permanent halt in U.S. bombing on Kandahar. The U.S. goal for Kandahar remains to "see that people who ought not to escape do not escape and to encourage surrender," he said.
"We have as our principal objectives seeing that we deal effectively with the senior al Qaeda leadership and the Taliban leadership and that the remaining al Qaeda fighters do not leave the country and go off to conduct additional terrorist attacks on other nations, including the United States, and that Afghanistan not be a nation that harbors terrorists," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
Hamid Karzai, chosen at a U.N. conference on Wednesday to head Afghanistan's first post-Taliban government, negotiated the deal yesterday with a delegation of Taliban leaders and military commanders, who traveled 10 miles north of Kandahar to a site occupied by Mr. Karzai and 4,000 anti-Taliban fighters.
"The Taliban have decided to surrender Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul [provinces] to me and, in exchange, we have offered them amnesty and they can go to their homes without trouble," Mr. Karzai told CNN by satellite telephone.
The handover of power - slated to begin today - would achieve a major objective of the U.S.-led war on terrorism by wiping out the last big pocket of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, a country that Mullah Omar turned into a haven for international terrorists, who went on to kill more than 3,000 people in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Mr. Karzai said Mullah Omar would have to renounce international terrorism as one condition to receiving amnesty.
However, the agreement appeared to get off to a shaky start. By late last night, an expected surrender announcement by the Taliban had not materialized. And in Washington, Bush administration officials ruled as unacceptable any amnesty offer for Mullah Omar.
Throughout the two-month air campaign, U.S. officials, including President Bush, equated Mullah Omar with his guest, Osama bin Laden.
"The president believes very strongly that those who harbor terrorists must be brought to justice," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. Asked whether Mr. Bush believed that category included Mullah Omar, Mr. Fleischer said, "Yes."
The former Taliban ambassador in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad confirmed that a deal had been struck in which Mullah Omar would be allowed a dignified exit.
"This was the decision of the Amir-ul Momineen, to stop the blood[shed] of people in the city and save the lives of the people from the cruel, criminal bombing," said ex-Ambassador Abdul Salem Zaeef, using the mullah's official title, which translates as "leader of the faithful."
Yesterday's announcement marked a reversal for Mullah Omar, who a week ago vowed to defend Kandahar to the death.
U.S. planes have pounded the city, which is revered by militant Islamists worldwide as the birthplace of the Taliban.
Yesterday, bombs stopped falling on Kandahar, and one local opposition commander, former Kandahar Gov. Gul Aga, claimed control of the airport 10 miles southeast of the city.
Other reports from the region suggested that control of Helmand province had already been turned over to local anti-Taliban groups. Helmand, located to the west of Kandahar city and province, is a rich agricultural region where the runoff from snow-capped mountains makes the desert bloom with fruit and vegetables.
Zabul, the third province to be handed over by the Taliban, lies northeast of Kandahar.
The agreement did not touch on the fate of either bin Laden or the Arabs. But Mr. Karzai has said he wants to rid Afghanistan of foreign fighters, especially the Arabs, many reputed to be religious fanatics obsessed with killing Westerners.
"Give me a gun, and I will kill him," one wounded Yemeni Arab said yesterday when asked to meet with a visiting reporter at the municipal hospital in Quetta.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported yesterday that the Taliban had refused to hand over Kandahar to Mr. Karzai directly.
Instead, it is to be entrusted to Mullah Naqeebullah, a former commander from the anti-Soviet campaign in the 1980s who lives in Kandahar but was not part of the Taliban government, AIP said.
Mr. Karzai's younger brother, Ahmad, told reporters in Quetta that Mullah Naqeebullah had been part of yesterday's surrender talks, but no further details were provided.
Despite difficulties in implementing the accord, Ahmad Karzai said both he and his brother were optimistic that the Taliban would keep its word.
The surrender negotiations began yesterday morning when a delegation of five senior Taliban leaders and several Taliban commanders crossed the front lines to meet Hamid Karzai.
As a show of good faith, they brought along three commanders loyal to Mr. Karzai, who had spent the past two years in Taliban jails, and set them free.
The amnesty offered by Mr. Karzai to Mullah Omar and senior Taliban officials reportedly required that they first hand over their weapons. Mr. Karzai is chief of the influential Popalzai clan, one of the few in Afghanistan that never surrendered to the Taliban.
On Tuesday night, just hours before being selected to lead Afghanistan in a six-month transitional government, he was slightly wounded by an errant U.S. bomb that killed three members of the U.S. Special Forces.
----
Kandahar, refuge of misery
December 7, 2001
By Willis Witter
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011207-69476544.htm
CHAMAN, Pakistan - Two months of pounding by American jets and a siege by local tribal forces had turned the Taliban's final refuge, Kandahar, into a scene of acute misery in the days before the hard-line militia's decision yesterday to surrender.
Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai, the man chosen to lead the first post-Taliban government in Afghanistan, says he looks forward to rebuilding Afghanistan, but that optimism is lost on the refugees living in camps near the Pakistani border city of Chaman.
Many here spoke of the sleepless nights and empty stomachs that helped persuade Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to give up his spiritual capital without a fight.
"Six or seven times a day, planes came and bombs fell. There were even more bombs at night. People were terrified," said Akhtar Mohammed, 30, a scrap metal dealer.
Others told of growing hunger in the city, especially as fighting around the airport to the east frequently closed the main road from Chaman to trucks filled with international relief supplies.
"Conditions have gotten so severe that most civilians have fled. There just isn't enough food to go around. The Taliban came and unloaded all the relief trucks," said Abdul Ali, 35, a cabdriver who arrived in Chaman after driving the 75-mile route littered with the burned-out shells of cars and trucks hit by U.S. bombs.
Taliban defenses swiftly receded after the fall of the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Nov. 9, when the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance took over most of northern Afghanistan and the Taliban surrendered most of the mountainous eastern region to local tribal leaders.
But the Taliban maintained control of Kandahar, the city where Mullah Omar's militant Islamist movement first gained a foothold in the early 1990s before proceeding to assume control of more than 90 percent of Afghanistan.
The tomb of Ahmad Shah, the founder of a Pashtun tribal dynasty that ruled Afghanistan until the 1973 coup against the former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, still dominates the central bazaar in Kandahar, an oasis city of apple and apricot orchards on the edge of the nation's vast southern desert.
Next to the tomb lies a shrine that contains a cloak said to have been worn by the Prophet Muhammad himself. In 1996, Mullah Omar wrapped the cloak around himself in front of a large crowd and proclaimed himself the "Amir-ul Momineen," or "leader of the faithful."
Refugees from Kandahar were surprised to learn that the mullah had decided to hand over the city.
"I saw Mullah Omar about 13 days ago. He was wandering through the city with his companions," said Mr. Mohammed, the scrap metal dealer. "He can't leave Kandahar because it is his city."
At Chaman, hundreds of families camp in the open, in a no-man's land 300 yards wide between Afghanistan and Pakistan, waiting with empty stomachs to be registered by the United Nations and moved to nearby tent cities where food rations are passed out.
Zalmay, a laborer from Kandahar who like many Afghans uses just one name, brought his four children, mother and father to Chaman two days after an air strike killed his wife of 10 years.
"They've had nothing to eat for the past 45 hours," said Mr. Zalmay, a slight man with sunken cheeks and a scraggly beard.
"When night comes and it's time to eat, the children start crying because there's no milk, no food to eat, only water."
Just a few feet away, other recent refugees sit on the floor of a giant white tent, waiting to be registered by officials of the U.N. World Food Program so that they can receive shelter and food rations.
Inside, a little boy clings to his mother quietly, his dust-caked cheeks bearing the trail of recent tears.
U.N. officials say it takes up to three days to register new refugees, with nearly 2,000 arriving daily.
Pakistani officials send those too sick or too injured to wait for the United Nations on to the hospital. Mr. Zalmay's father is being treated for shrapnel wounds there, and is not expected to survive.
----
Marines Attack Taliban Convoy
DECEMBER 07, 06:23 ET
By DAVID MARTIN
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/?SLUG=AFGHANISTAN%2dMARINES
SOUTHERN AFGHANISTAN (AP) - U.S. Marines attacked a Taliban convoy near Kandahar on Friday, killing seven fighters in their first offensive ground action since setting up base in southern Afghanistan, a Marines spokesman said. No Marines were injured.
Three Taliban vehicles approached a ``hunter-killer'' team of Marines on heavily armed Humvees at 4 a.m., and the Marines attacked from the ground and from the air, said the spokesman, Capt. David Romley.
``The enemy were shot dead,'' Romley said. ``The forces killed were believed to be al-Qaida and Taliban forces.''
Some of the Taliban and al-Qaida forces jumped out of their vehicles, he said. The Marines on the ground destroyed one of the vehicles, and called for air support that destroyed the other two, he said. It was unclear whether the aircraft came from the Marine airstrip or were based elsewhere.
Romley said it was unclear whether the Marines came under enemy fire. He said the bodies of the seven dead had not been recovered.
The specific location of the confrontation wasn't revealed, but Romley said it occurred ``near Kandahar,'' the last city under Taliban control. The city began to surrender to opposition forces on Friday.
Romley said the attack was the Marines' first offensive ground operation since seizing a desert airstrip as Forward Operating Base Rhino on Nov. 25.
Since the Marines seized the desert airstrip, their only combat operation came on their second day, when Cobra helicopter gunships from the base helped warplanes from elsewhere attack a suspected hostile convoy that passed nearby.
But the Marines had announced Wednesday - before the surrender agreement in Kandahar - that they would become more aggressive to prevent the Taliban from escaping or bringing reinforcements into the city.
The Marines also reported enemy forces around the base itself, which went on alert Thursday night after lookouts spotted people both in vehicles and on the ground ``probing the perimeter of the base'' in several locations, Romley said.
The people fired flares in the general direction of the Marines base, and the Marines responded by shooting illumination rounds into the night sky and firing mortars and an automatic grenade launcher into the desert, Romley said.
Small arms fire reverberated through the desert base along with the crisp blast of outgoing mortar rounds. Flares lit up the flat, dusty desert around Camp Rhino. Journalists crouched in trenches could see no incoming fire. However, they heard shouting outside the camp and the sound of gunfire. Helicopters made sweeps overhead in the clear night sky.
Romley said the probing lasted several hours, adding that ``hunter-killer teams'' were sent to search for the enemy. No Marines were hurt in the incident, and it was unclear whether there were casualties among the enemy forces.
Several hours later, the base went back on alert when an unidentified aircraft flew nearby, Romley said. The aircraft was never identified and the base went off alert about 30 minutes later.
Also Thursday, a UH-1N Huey helicopter also crashed near the airstrip, but Romley said it did not appear to be due to enemy action. He said it could have been due to dust, a major problem for the Marines in the desert here.
The crash sent smoke billowing over the base, and the fire gave the night sky a red glow. Two servicemen suffered minor injuries, Romley said, but they were both back at work shortly after the incident.
In all, the base went on alert three times overnight.
``The good thing is everyone is alive this morning,'' Romley said.
On Friday, Base Rhino returned to normal activity. Navy Seabees built up defensive positions around the base, and Marines conducted live-firing exercises several miles away.
The Marines, which U.S. officials have said number about 1,300, include the 15th and the 26th Marine Expeditionary Units, equipped with heavily armored vehicles and anti-tank weapons.
Defense Department rules governing the journalists' presence in the camp forbid reporting on exact operational measures.
-------
Taliban gone, Omar, bin Laden at large
December 7, 2001
By SHAHID IQBAL
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/07122001-052456-1831r.htm
QUETTA, Pakistan, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- In a day of swift developments, Taliban fighters pulled out of their last stronghold of Kandahar Friday while a tribal army entered Osama bin Laden's suspected hideout in eastern Afghanistan.
But the two main targets of the U.S. campaign against terrorism -- bin Laden and Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar -- are still at large.
At another front in southern Afghanistan, U.S. Marines killed seven Taliban troops in the first ground attacks since they seized a base near Kandahar almost two weeks ago.
A U.S. helicopter also caught fire while landing at this base, injuring two soldiers.
Reports from Kandahar say that almost all Taliban forces have left their former base in southern Afghanistan, causing widespread looting and chaos.
U.S. defense officials in Afghanistan have expressed concern at this haphazard surrender, saying that many Taliban fighters had disappeared with their weapons.
Pashtun tribal forces have reportedly entered Kandahar from two directions. Mullah Naquibullah, a former commander of the Afghan forces who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s, was first to enter the city with his forces.
Witnesses reported machinegun and rocket fires from some parts of the city as forces of another anti-Taliban commander, Gul Agha, entered Kandahar from the airport.
Anti-Taliban forces were also seen firing in the air to disperse those looting U.N. warehouses and private property.
Agha blamed Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun from southern Afghanistan who negotiated the deal with the Taliban, for "failing to coordinate the surrender with anti-Taliban forces and prevent the looting." Karzai was appointed the country's first post-Taliban leader at a U.N.-sponsored meeting in Bonn, Germany, on Wednesday.
Earlier reports from Kandahar said thousands of Taliban soldiers were leaving the city, taking advantage of a general amnesty Karzai offered on Thursday.
But the militia's reclusive leader, Omar, cannot benefit from this offer.
A strong opposition from Washington to plans for pardoning the one-eyed Taliban leader appears to have excluded him from the amnesty.
The surrender follows an agreement with Afghanistan's new interim administration which hopes to gain support of mostly Pashtun Taliban soldiers by offering them a free passage home.
Leaders of the new administration told journalists in the bordering Pakistani city of Quetta that there is no pardon for the Taliban leader.
Afghanistan's new leader, Hamid Karzai, had earlier asked Omar to "give up terrorism and lay down arms" by Thursday if he wanted to be forgiven. "Since he did not surrender, he cannot be pardoned," Karzai said.
Afghan officials said that retreating Taliban troops were asked to hand over their weapons to Pashtun tribal leaders at two points: the corps headquarters and Kandahar airport.
"Naquibullah and Agha are collecting weapons from the retreating Taliban fighters," an official said.
Talking to journalists in Quetta by telephone, Karzai said the Taliban defectors were "free to go home after giving up their weapons."
Naquibullah is a former commander of the Afghan mujahedin who fought against the Soviet occupation army in the 1980s. Agha is the former governor of Kandahar who was ousted by the Taliban in 1995.
Karzai's brother, Ahmad Karzai, told journalists in Quetta earlier Friday that the interim Afghan administration had advised Naquibullah and Agha to "enter Kandahar as soon as possible."
"We have heard reports of widespread looting and extreme chaos from Kandahar. We need the troops there to control the situation," he said.
He said his brother would not enter Kandahar until the tribal army secures the place and restores peace. "After that he may visit the city briefly on his way to Kabul."
Hamid Karzai, who is still inside Afghanistan, has emphasized that the new Afghan administration had offered no amnesty to foreign Taliban fighters and members of bin Laden's al Qaida network. "They will be accounted for the crimes they have committed against the Afghans, the United States and the international community," said Karzai while referring to the Sept. 11 terror attacks in New York and Washington.
Bin Laden is the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks that killed more than 3,500 people. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has warned that there will be no amnesty for these foreign fighters and their Taliban patrons.
On hearing the news that the new Afghan administration might have offered an amnesty to Omar, he told journalists in Washington Thursday that the United States would not recognize such a deal. He said Washington's relations with the new dispensation would "head south" if such a deal came about.
In eastern Afghanistan, anti-Taliban forces captured bin Laden's main base of Tora Bora in the country's White Mountains range. But they failed to find the Saudi-born militant.
Reports from Tora Bora said that anti-Taliban troops had already entered bin Laden's hideout, "searching every cave and every tunnel on the way for Osama and his associates," said Zaman Khan.
A commander of the Eastern Alliance forces, Khan said in some of the caves they faced stiff resistance. He said bin Laden and his men were keeping their families with them and had made elaborate arrangement for a long stay.
"We found heavy weapons, electric generators and other equipment while searching the caves," he said.
Anti-Taliban forces are being helped by U.S. warplanes that pounded the caves throughout Thursday night to take out heavy equipment and blunt al Qaida's resistance.
B-52 bombers were seen targeting al Qaida positions on Friday as well.
In another development, U.S. Marines killed seven Taliban fighters near Kandahar. This was the Marines' first ground offensive against the Taliban since they seized the Camp Rhino base from the Taliban almost two weeks ago.
Some 1,300 Marines are operating in this area, supporting the anti-Taliban forces attacking Kandahar and blocking possible escape routes of al Qaida and Taliban leaders.
"Last evening, we successfully engaged enemy forces near Kandahar, killing seven and destroying three vehicles," said Capt. David T. Romley.
Two U.S. soldiers were injured when a helicopter caught fire while landing at the base. U.S. officials described the fire as "an accident" and said it was "not caused by enemy fire."
----
Military campaign to press on after Kandahar's fall
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
December 7, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011207-57746488.htm
The impending fall of Kandahar by no means ends the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, military officials said yesterday, warning that weeks of gritty ground fighting lie ahead to uproot the foreign terrorists in the country.
Kandahar, whose surrender could come as early as today, is the last Afghan city held by the Taliban militia. But even with its fall, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist army remain at large.
"We still have hundreds, if not thousands, of targets in Afghanistan. If we leave now, those Afghan al Qaeda that remain who have filtered back into society will begin their havoc again," said a Pentagon official. "The Arab al Qaeda will find it harder to operate without Taliban protection, but if we leave they might be able to slip to other countries more easily. We still have a lot of work to do."
An Army officer said that in any ground offensive, such as the opposition effort to take Kabul in the north and Kandahar in the south, advancing forces bypass "residual forces" that must be mopped up later.
"In Afghanistan, they've got caves and protected terrain they can go to," said the officer. "There are pockets scattered all around the country. As the weather gets colder, we have sensors that can find these folks, use intelligence sources and find these guys."
One fear of the Bush administration is that, in the chaotic post-Taliban Afghanistan, the foreign al Qaeda fighters - mostly Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis - will escape across the country's porous borders.
They then could re-emerge in other al Qaeda-friendly countries. Officials say Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are three nations where bin Laden's men could blend into society and help form new terrorist cells.
"With respect to al Qaeda of all levels, you don't want them milling around the country and you don't want them leaving the country because they're just going to go out and kill people in some other country, so they need to be stopped," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday. "It would be premature to suggest that once Kandahar surrenders that, therefore, we kind of relax and say, 'Well, that takes care of that,' because it doesn't."
When the war began, the Pentagon estimated the Taliban militia had at least 4,000 al Qaeda fighters, who were assigned to protect bin Laden and his top people. U.S. officials say they believe at least half that number have been killed by bombing raids and by anti-Taliban opposition forces. Perhaps 700 alone were killed in late November during a prison uprising near the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
The largest pocket of terrorist fighters lies in the mountainous area known as Tora Bora, on the northeastern border with Pakistan south of Jalalabad. Opposition leaders say about 1,000 warriors are in the hills and cave complexes first dug in the 1980s to help the mujihadeen defeat the occupying Soviet army.
Senior U.S. officials say they are convinced Tora Bora is where bin Laden is hiding. The administration has accused the Saudi exile of masterminding the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Officials declined to say exactly what types of intelligence reports led them to conclude bin Laden was moving among cave hide-outs there.
But the CIA and the Pentagon had gained access to more intelligence sources since the northern half of the country fell to the Northern Alliance early in November. CIA field officers and special operations forces had interviewed al Qaeda prisoners.
The officers also were working with Eastern Alliance tribes, who claimed bin Laden was seen in the area less than a week ago.
Small pockets of al Qaeda soldiers are scattered around the north. Officials said several of them also left Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and were presumed to be planning a guerrilla war against the new government.
The Pentagon said yesterday warplanes continued recently stepped-up bombing of cave entrances in Tora Bora in an effort to deny hiding places to al Qaeda forces.
Scores of Army special-operations troops have descended on the area to try to find the enemy and direct the strikes. Some Pentagon officials believe bin Laden will be found soon.
"They're able to see the caves that are active," said Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "They can see the caves that are not, and we're able to provide much more direct support to them."
-------
Afghan Leader Says Mullah Omar Will Be Arrested if Found
December 7, 2001
By MICHAEL R. GORDON with NORIMITSU ONISHI
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/07/international/07CND-AFGH.html
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 7 - Taliban forces abandoned Kandahar today, having backed out of a deal to hand in their weapons and leaving chaos in their wake, Afghanistan's new interim leader said.
He was also quoted as saying that Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, was missing and would be arrested if he was found.
"The Taliban rule is finished," the new leader, Hamid Karzai, told The Associated Press. "As of today they are no longer a part of Afghanistan."
Mr. Karzai said there was no fighting between rival forces, although some gunfire in the city could be heard. He said that as the Taliban forces fled they ransacked shops, home and businesses, causing chaos among frightened residents.
[The A.P. later quoted witnesses as saying Friday that overjoyed residents ran into the streets pulling down the white Taliban flag and waving pictures of Afghanistan's deposed king.]
Mr. Karzai, speaking to the agency over a satellite telephone from a desert base outside Kandahar, the southern city that was the Taliban's political and spiritual headquarters, said:
"The Taliban ran away with their weapons. Basically they have just run away."
But the Afghan Islamic Press, a private agency based in Pakistan that is close to the Taliban, said Taliban fighters had surrendered their weapons to the new council that took over the city today.
A member of the council, Basheer Ahmed, was quoted by the agency as saying that there had been no resistance and that the transfer of power had been carried out peacefully.
"The Taliban rule has ended in Kandahar," Mr. Ahmed was quoted as saying.
Mr. Karzai told the A.P.: "All of last night they were fleeing the city. I thought they were coming to attack us. But they weren't. They were running away."
Mr. Karzai said Mullah Omar's whereabouts were unknown, adding: "I have given him every chance to denounce terrorism and now the time has run out. He is an absconder, a fugitive from justice."
The surrender of Kandahar, which virtually completes the rout of the Taliban, leaves one essential American war aim unfulfilled: the capture or killing of Osama bin Laden, long the Taliban's honored "guest" and the man accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attack on the United States.
In an interview on Thursday, the defense minister of the newly formed Afghan administration that will take office later this month in Kabul said that he had reliable intelligence that Mr. bin Laden was in the rugged eastern Tora Bora region of the country but warned that he might escape.
"We have sources in the area," Gen. Muhammad Fahim said. "Bin Laden is in Tora Bora."
General Fahim added that Mr. bin Laden had decided to retreat to the area not only because there were many hiding places among the caves, tunnels and mountains in Tora Bora but because he would be able to flee across the porous frontier into Pakistan if the American military pressure became too intense. He suggested that Mr. bin Laden still had significant support in Pakistan.
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, said in Islamabad on Thursday that Mr. Karzai had made "guarantees" toward Mullah Omar's safety. But Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense, insisted that Mullah Omar should not be allowed to go free.
Mr. Karzai had seemed caught between the demands of his American backers, who want Mullah Omar and other top Taliban officials arrested, and the need to win over fellow Pashtuns, who remain angry over American bombing and might regard a handover of Mullah Omar as evidence of Mr. Karzai's excessive indebtedness to the United States.
"I do not think there will be a negotiated end to the situation that's unacceptable to the United States," Mr. Rumsfeld said in Washington. But his stance appeared to stop short of an absolute demand that Mullah Omar be handed over to the United States. "We would prefer to have Omar," he said, adding that there was a lot of confusion about the terms of the surrender.
The goal of the United States is to bring the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership to justice, he said, but he added, "There are a variety of different ways that can occur, and it will depend on the individual and it will depend on whether or not we get them." He did not elaborate.
The Kandahar agreement to surrender the city followed two days of intense negotiations between Mr. Karzai, who was appointed leader of the interim government on Wednesday at the conclusion of an international conference in Bonn, and senior aides to Mullah Omar.
It allowed Mullah Omar to hand over power to Mullah Naqib Ullah, a former Pashtun warlord with friendly relations with the Taliban, instead of directly to Mr. Karzai, a longtime opponent of the Taliban and a favorite of the Bush administration.
"We have agreed to surrender weapons not to Hamid Karzai but to tribal elders," Mullah Zaeef said at a news conference in Islamabad. "Mullah Omar has taken the decision for the welfare of the people, to avoid casualties and to save the life and dignity of Afghans."
The situation around Kandahar remained tense Thursday, and American forces fired mortars around their forward base near the city to repel what they called an attempt by the Taliban to test their defense. In an unrelated incident, an American helicopter crashed near the base, slightly wounding two marines.
The Taliban's surrender in the north was similarly negotiated, but resulted in widespread confusion and violence, including an uprising at a fort converted to a prison in Mazar-i-Sharif, where more than 180 prisoners were killed.
In Kabul, General Fahim, the military leader of the Northern Alliance, a movement that has been hostile to Pakistan, expressed hope that the United States would capture Mr. bin Laden, but stressed that a significant number of Arab fighters were in the Tora Bora region and determined to resist.
"The problem is big," he said. "They are resisting and are powerful. It will not be easy to capture them."
But anti-Taliban forces in the eastern area appeared to be advancing, claiming to have taken some of the caves lower in the mountains and to have pushed the Arab forces loyal to Mr. bin Laden back onto higher ground. Fighting was fierce today.
At the Pentagon, senior military officials said Thursday for the first time that a small number of Special Operations forces had moved into the Tora Bora area as advisers to the anti-Taliban forces. Those advisers will be assessing which caves are active, guiding bombs and missiles onto cave entrances, and funneling supplies and weapons to the opposition troops.
"There are Special Forces working with the opposition who are working the cave complex," Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the Pentagon Thursday. "We're able to provide much more direct support for them."
General Fahim said that the United States would need Pakistan's assistance to corner Mr. bin Laden. But he insisted that Pakistan was doing little to control the frontier and charged that Pakistani officials were even aiding the leader of Al Qaeda.
His remarks seemed certain to worsen the already strained relations between the new authorities in Kabul and Islamabad. They are likely to be rejected by the Pakistani government as an effort to discourage Washington from building too close a relationship with the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
"The door to Pakistan is open to Osama bin Laden, General Fahim said. "I can say 100 per cent that Pakistan is close to bin Laden."
General Fahim dismissed suggestions that the winter snows would prevent Mr. bin Laden's escape to Pakistan, saying that local Pashtun tribes in the region recognized no international boundary and have long been making their way through the rough terrain.
-------- africa
Zimbabwe Rights Abuses Condemned
DECEMBER 07, 20:54 ET
By MAYTAAL ANGEL
Associated Press Writer
http://wire.ap.org/APnews/center_story.html?FRONTID=AFRICA&STORYID=APIS7G8N5H80
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - Amnesty International said Friday police and security forces in Zimbabwe are waging a campaign of violence and intimidation against judges, journalists and opposition leaders in the run-up to presidential elections early next year.
Casey Kelso, of Amnesty International in Zimbabwe, told journalists in Johannesburg that President Robert Mugabe's government had created a climate of intimidation and political violence that could prevent free and fair voting in the presidential elections.
``I observed a level of fear that I have not seen before,'' said Kelso, speaking of meetings he held with aid workers and supporters of the political opposition in Zimbabwe. ``Everybody was looking desperately for the outside world to come in and help.''
Kelso accused the government of waging a ``war by proxy'' against its own people and said Amnesty International was appealing to the 14-nation Southern African Development Community to apply pressure on ruling party officials.
Political violence has convulsed Zimbabwe since March 2000 when ruling party militants, encouraged by the government of President Robert Mugabe, began the often violent occupation of white-owned farms. About 60 people have been killed in the political violence.
Mugabe's government ignored court orders to end the occupations and restore the rule of law. It also refused to protect judges, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, when they were threatened and harassed into resigning. The government has appointed new judges that consistently rule in favor of the government.
The government accused foreign media organizations of being terrorist collaborators for reporting on violence in Bulawayo that also was confirmed by Western diplomats.
The crackdown on the opposition and the press in Zimbabwe is increasing as the country moves closer to presidential elections. Mugabe, 77, who has ruled since independence in 1980, wants another six-year term. He is facing the toughest electoral challenge of his rule.
-------- arms sales
Ashcroft Blocks FBI Access to Gun Records
Critics Call Attorney General's Decision Contradictory in Light of Terror Probe Tactics
By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 7, 2001; Page A26
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5676-2001Dec6?language=printer
The FBI will not be permitted to compare the names of suspected terrorists against federal gun purchase records, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told the Senate yesterday, offering no encouragement to senators willing to guarantee the FBI the authority to do so.
Defending his decision to block the FBI from using gun documents in its terror probe, Ashcroft said the law does not allow investigators to review the federal records created when a buyer applies to purchase a weapon at a gun store.
Some critics charged that Ashcroft's strong opposition to gun control is interfering with his role as the government's top cop. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusing him of "handcuffing" the FBI, pressed him unsuccessfully to say why he did not seek access to gun records when he claimed expanded investigatory powers after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
When Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) asked Ashcroft whether he wants the power to review gun records in the fight against terrorism, Ashcroft replied that he would not comment on a "hypothetical."
Bush administration officials said information collected by gun stores for use in background checks was not intended for other law enforcement purposes. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said the administration is following a regulation signed in January by Attorney General Janet Reno, who ruled that records can be used only to audit the background check system.
Such regulations are easily changed, countered Clinton administration officials and other critics. They pointed out that Ashcroft has issued an order permitting federal investigators to listen to attorney-client conversations and sought to lengthen the time illegal immigrants can be held before being charged. At his request, Congress has granted many other powers in recent months.
"If their point is just that there's a regulation that prohibits this, there is no doubt whatsoever that the attorney general could, on a moment's notice, issue a revised regulation," said Randolph G. Moss, an assistant attorney general under Reno.
The attorney general's decision to block the FBI's access to the records runs counter to a Justice Department policy advisory issued in 1996. When the FBI asked about access to the gun files, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Richard L. Shiffrin wrote that the records could be used by law enforcement agencies conducting investigations.
"This document underscores the Justice Department's authority to use the [records] as a tool to combat terror," said former Justice lawyer Mathew Nosanchuk, now at the Violence Policy Center, a Washington-based gun control group. "Instead, they are rejecting their own authority and acting as lawyers for the gun lobby. Their arguments are predictable gun lobby arguments, but they are unfathomable law enforcement arguments."
Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Ashcroft was criticized by Democrats for overstepping his authority and infringing civil liberties. Then, when some of the same senators said he had not gone far enough in using the gun records, Ashcroft balked.
"I don't want to hear two messages from this committee . . . that you want me to enforce some laws and not other laws . . . or respect some rights and not other rights," Ashcroft said.
Ashcroft is a strong supporter of the National Rifle Association who once voted as a Missouri senator for the "immediate destruction" of the purchase records of people who had been permitted to buy a gun. This year, he proposed reducing the required time for preserving the records to 24 hours from 90 days.
Justice spokeswoman Mindy Tucker said law enforcement authorities may consult the records of buyers who have been disqualified from purchasing a gun. She said the department believes that other customers' records, which include addresses and gun store locations, are off-limits.
The FBI wants access to all records. An agent said yesterday that a record of a gun purchase could give a time and place where a person had been, as well as the prospective purchaser's possible address.
"This is a sticky one for us," the agent said. "The Justice Department sees things differently than we do."
On Sept. 16, the FBI began checking a list of 186 people against the gun records, an FBI spokesman said. The search yielded two matches, or "hits," meaning that the individuals had been approved to buy guns.
But the next day, Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh ruled that continued use of the records was prohibited by law. In October, the FBI sought to check a smaller list of names against the gun purchase documents and was again refused, the spokesman said.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Ashcroft's position was contradictory and left him feeling "a little befuddled." Ashcroft had been "looking for tools in every direction," Schumer said. But regarding questions about illegal immigrants buying guns, "this administration becomes as weak as a wet noodle."
A senior Justice official said neither the FBI nor criminal prosecutors requested a specific change in the Brady gun control law or its underlying regulations to allow the use of the purchase records.
"Nobody even suggested that this was a critical thing," the official said. "There was no suggestion, no indication and no request that we pursue a regulatory or legislative fix on this. There was no cry of hampering the investigation."
Staff writer Dan Eggen and researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
-------- asia
Ford Library documents record role in East Timor
World Scene
December 7, 2001
Combined dispatches and staff reports
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20011207-996856.htm
President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gave the late Indonesian strongman Suharto the green light for the 1975 invasion of East Timor that left perhaps 200,000 dead, according to previously secret documents made available yesterday.
Mr. Kissinger had maintained that he learned of the plan at the airport as he and Mr. Ford prepared to fly home after meeting Suharto in Jakarta on the eve of the Dec. 7 thrust into East Timor, a former Portuguese colony.
Mr. Kissinger also has argued that any U.S. nod for the action should be seen in its Cold War context - on the heels of the communist victory in Vietnam and amid U.S. fears that other "dominoes" might fall in Southeast Asia..
-------- biological weapons
Anthrax Found in Fed's Mail
Screeners Made Discovery in Trailer Outside Headquarters
By John M. Berry
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 7, 2001; Page A25
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6649-2001Dec7?language=printer
A batch of mail delivered to the Federal Reserve Board's Washington headquarters yesterday was found to be contaminated with anthrax spores, Fed officials said last night.
The mail, delivered in a small bin containing approximately 100 to 150 letters, tested positive for anthrax bacteria during a check conducted in a trailer in a courtyard of the Federal Reserve building on Constitution Avenue NW. The trailer is being used as a temporary mail-processing facility as part of the enhanced security put in place after anthrax spores were found in mail sent to Capitol Hill and elsewhere. At the request of the FBI, the Fed will resume testing the bin this morning to determine the extent of the contamination and isolate individual pieces of contaminated mail. As of last night, it was not known whether the bin contained a new letter containing anthrax spores or letters that might have been cross-contaminated with spores while moving through the postal system.
Three Fed employees and three contract employees, all wearing protective suits and using respirators, were in the trailer processing and testing mail when the contamination was discovered, Fed spokeswoman Michelle Smith said.
"We're very confident of the protection provided by the suits and the respirators," Smith said. She added, however, that the six workers will consult their physicians about whether they should take antibiotics.
"Since the public reports of anthrax-contaminated mail surfaced, the board has processed all mail through this secure mail-handling facility, and it is not distributed inside Federal Reserve buildings until it has been cleared," so the buildings remained open after the discovery, Smith said.
Pending further testing, all mail delivery to the Fed has been halted, she said.
The two board buildings, which are both entered from C Street NW between 20th and 21st streets, will be open for business today. "However, while the investigation is underway, the board has decided to postpone public events for security reasons," Smith said. "A public board meeting scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday will be rescheduled as soon as possible."
Smith said there is no plan to postpone Tuesday's scheduled meeting of the Fed's top policymaking group, the Federal Open Market Committee, which will decide whether to cut short-term interest rates for the 11th time this year.
Mark Brown, a certified industrial hygienist with Applied Environmental Inc. of Reston, which is working for the Federal Reserve Board under a long-term contract, said all incoming Fed mail was swabbed and tested using field DNA analysis. While it is possible to get a false positive, he said, in this case six tests were conducted and all showed evidence of anthrax contamination.
Most of the mail had some dust on it but "we haven't seen anything interesting or unusual," such as white powder on the mail or in the bin, Brown said.
Until further testing is completed, there is no way to know what strain of the anthrax bacterium is involved or its potency, Smith said. Any individual pieces of mail found to be contaminated will be sent to a military facility for analysis by the FBI, she said.
----
Navy warnings
December 7, 2001
Inside the Ring
Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011207-18997295.htm
The Navy Criminal Investigative Service has sent a memo to commanders with advice on how to recognize anthrax-tainted letters and other dangerous mail.
Among the warning signs: "protruding wires, aluminum foil, oil stains or a peculiar odor unprofessional wrapping with several combinations of tape special endorsements such as 'fragile-handle with care' or 'rush-do not delay' fictitious or non-existent return addresses."
The NCIS recommends that mail handlers wear rubber gloves and keep plastic bags nearby to collect suspicious mail.
--------
U.S. Forces Suspension of Germ War Pact, EU Angry
December 7, 2001
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-biological.html?searchpv=reuters
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States forced an international conference on germ warfare to break up in disarray on Friday, angering even its European allies.
In a bid to save face, the review conference of the 1972 Biological and Toxic Weapons Convention agreed to suspend work for a year until November 2002 after Washington tabled what one European delegate called a ``conference breaker.''
In a last-minute proposal, Washington formally demanded the winding up of a committee that had spent years trying to negotiate a deal to give teeth to a 1972 pact outlawing biological weapons.
The U.S. move, which caught even European Union states by surprise, came just an hour before the formal end of the three-week-long meeting aimed at finding ways to strengthen the 30-year-old pact.
``They have fired a missile at the conference. We are deeply disappointed,'' said one senior European diplomat.
-------- business
Bomb-Detector Maker Waits for Orders
Market Leader InVision Expects Big Business From the FAA
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 7, 2001; Page E01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5626-2001Dec6?language=printer
The Transportation Department hasn't yet ordered $2 billion worth of bomb-detection machines. But when it does, InVision Technologies Inc., a company that has 90 percent of the U.S. market for the devices, is likely to reap much of the benefit.
As one of only two companies certified by the Federal Aviation Administration to sell machines that scan checked luggage for explosives, little-known InVision, based in Newark, Calif., is attracting attention from investors and competitors for its longtime dominance of the baggage-scanning market.
Congress mandated in a recently enacted aviation security bill that all checked luggage must be screened by such devices by the end of 2002.
InVision's stock price has risen from around $3 a share before Sept. 11 to $25.45 yesterday.
Today, the House subcommittee on aviation will discuss the technology and deployment of bomb-detection machines.
InVision was the first company to be certified by the FAA, in 1994, and for several years it was the only company that could sell the explosive detectors used at U.S. airports.
Douglas Boyd, formerly a scientist at the University of California at San Francisco, started the company in 1990 as a spinoff of his firm Imatron Inc., which builds scanners to detect heart disease. Like most other bomb-scanning equipment that uses computed tomography, InVision's device adapts CAT-scan technology used in the medical field to scan luggage for explosives.
Boyd said he was interested in selling the scanners to the U.S. Postal Service and airports, but the Postal Service turned him down.
To separate InVision from Imatron, of which he is chairman, Boyd needed investors. He found Italimprese Group, an Italian public works conglomerate controlled by Eugenio Rendo, to provide $6 million as a venture investment.
Boyd said he met Rendo a few times and that Rendo was encouraged to invest in InVision by Giovanni Lanzara, president of the transportation and engineering department at University of Aquila. Lanzara was on Imatron's board at the time and is now InVision's chairman and a major investor, owning 3 percent of InVision's shares. According to press reports, in 1993 Rendo was arrested and charged with bribing Italian public officials in order to obtain public-sector contracts.
Rendo denied the charges and was not tried, according to documents InVision filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1997.
Rendo could not be reached for comment.
Rendo's company, Harax Holdings SA, was the majority shareholder of InVision when it went public in April 1996. By 1997, when InVision merged with Quantum Magnetics, a company that owned patents for magnetic resonance technology, Harax owned 23 percent of InVision's shares, making it by far the largest shareholder.
In 1998, Rendo sold Harax and now has no connection to InVision, said Boyd and InVision chief executive Sergio Magistri.
There was "upheaval in the Italian business world," Boyd said. "The government decided to freeze assets of many big companies. During this period of introspection," Rendo sold Harax, said Boyd.
With an 18 percent stake, or $61 million, Harax is still InVision's largest shareholder. But little is known about it, according to InVision officials and a search of public records.
Filings with the SEC state that Harax is a privately held holding company based in Luxembourg and controlled by Arsene Kronshagen. A man reached by telephone yesterday in Luxembourg who identified himself as Kronshagen said he was a lawyer and declined to comment on Harax or InVision.
Boyd and Magistri said they do not know much about Harax. Boyd described Harax as a "passive investor." Both said they do not talk to Harax officials much.
Since the aviation security act became law, several security equipment companies have asserted that they make better bomb detectors than those used in U.S. airports. But the FAA has not certified any of the equipment.
Ralph S. Sheridan, chief executive of American Science and Engineering Inc., a Billerica, Mass., firm that produces bomb scanners for the U.S. Customs Service, claims that InVision and L-3 Communications Holdings Inc., the other FAA-certified company, have machines with very high false-positive rates -- about 20 percent.
A false positive means that while the machine is scanning a bag, it will alert the machine operator to investigate further.
Sheridan said his technology, which scans for organic material, is also needed. "Even our equipment is not a silver bullet. Ultimately, you have to go to a multilayer" system of security, he said.
InVision's Magistri said criticism from competitors is unwarranted because his company has met FAA standards and others have not.
"People somehow forget that we thought about this and worked in the highest level with agency specialists for four years before getting to the standards," he said. "Are the standards perfect? Nothing in this world is perfect."
Magistri said his firm is talking to 20 companies about subcontracting manufacturing of the equipment to meet the deadline in the aviation security law. But it is still waiting for the FAA to place its orders.
Staff researcher Richard Drezen contributed to this report.
-------- iraq
Analysis: Turks cool to attacking Iraq
December 7, 2001
By DERK KINNANE ROELOFSMA
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/06122001-114954-7605r.htm
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- Depending on who you listen to Secretary of State Colin Powell's visit to Ankara this week a) a calming effect on Turkey's political leadership or b) disappointed Powell in his quest for support in taking the war on terrorism to Iraq and angered the Turks so much they threatened to end U.S. use of a key airbase on their territory.
The base is at Incirlik in southern Turkey from where U.S. and British air patrols take off to protect the Kurdish safe haven in Northern Iraq.
The 'a' version is what Powell and Foreign Minister Ismail Cem gave out at a joint press conference Wednesday. The 'b' account comes from a well-informed diplomatic source in a Western capital who spoke on condition of anonymity.
According to what was said at the press conference, Powell told the Turks President Bush had not made up his mind about what to do with Saddam Hussein. So no U.S. military intervention in Iraq is imminent. This was reassuring to the Turkish government.
Still, hints of the brushed out tension could be detected in Cem's answer to a question from a journalist. Terrorism is an enemy wherever it is, he said, adding, "But of course, nobody would like to see trouble in his own neighborhood."
Trouble in the Turks' neighborhood is what they fear Washington has in mind. It became apparent some weeks ago that the Bush administration might well be contemplating Iraq as the object of Phase Two of the war on terrorism. The Turks quickly made it clear U.S. military intervention there would bring them serious problems.
Most of all, Ankara worries that the 3.5 million Iraqi Kurds, who at present have a de facto autonomous zone in Northern Iraq, would take advantage of a power vacuum to establish an independent Kurdish state. This, they fear would stimulate separatist movements among their own 12 million Kurds.
The strength of Turkish feelings, as reported by the anonymous diplomat, is all the more striking, as ties between Washington and Ankara are historically strong.
For Washington, Ankara's cooperation in a military intervention in Iraq would be highly valuable, as it was during the Gulf War, when Turkey was a launching pad for allied action against Saddam.
However, if the anonymous diplomatic source is to be believed, the Turkish government wants nothing to do at any time with possible U.S. military action against Saddam.
In Washington, the belief is that Bush has decided to do something about Iraq, but not decided what it will be. Some administration appointees, lead by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, are calling for military intervention -- a replay of the Afghanistan offensive -- to topple Saddam: U.S. airstrikes, employment of special forces but the bulk of ground operations carried out by local insurgents.
Other administration insiders favor the air strikes and the use of special forces to seek and eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction rather than change regime.
The United States at first sought to justify action against Iraq on the basis of the regime's terrorist links with Osama bin Laden and his Qaida organization. According to a recent reliable report there were the talks between a member of al-Qaida and Iraqi diplomats in Prague about blowing up the headquarters there of Radio Free Europe.
Then there is the camp near Baghdad where the fuselage of a Boeing 707 is used to train Islamist militants in how to hijack planes. But opponents of U.S. intervention have dismissed the evidence as insufficient and merely circumstantial.
Another reason to go after Saddam emerged as the U.N. Security Council took up, as it does every six months, renewal of sanctions imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Under U.N. resolutions, Saddam should admit inspectors to check that he is not developing weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical or biological. Iraq expelled the last inspectors in 1998. Last week, Bush called for the inspectors to be readmitted and, as expected, Saddam promptly refused.
A U.S. 'public diplomacy' campaign might arouse international concern over the danger of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and make continued Iraqi refusal into a trigger for American action. But that, the Turks have said, won't wash.
A senior Ankara official told the Turkish Daily News, "We will be looking for a United Nations resolution on terrorism and the enhancement of the majority of the coalition for such a strike (on Iraq)." The News inferred that this meant Ankara would not consider the arms inspection issue a sufficient reason to support U.S. intervention.
There are things that can be done to overcome opposition to America bringing down Saddam. One is to provide assurance that the countries of the region will not unduly suffer economically.
Saddam has circumvented the restrictions imposed under the U.N. 'food for oil' program sufficiently for Iraq to once again be an economic magnate.
According to Shaikh Muhammad Muhammad Ali, a Shiite Iraqi member of the leadership council of the Iraqi National Congress, the umbrella organization for Iraqi opposition groups, Syria has increased trade with Iraq from $200 million annually to currently $3.5 billion. Egypt has a $4 billion annual turnover with Baghdad. Jordan receives oil at prices below the world market level. Yemen and Iran also benefit from doing business with Saddam, not to mention Turkey with hundreds of tankers a day bringing in cheap petroleum products from Iraq.
Iraq's neighbors are asking themselves what will happen to their U.N. food for oil contracts and deals outside U.N. control if Saddam goes and sanctions end.
Shaikh Muhammad told United Press International by telephone from London that while it is evident the Bush administration is preparing to do something about Saddam, it will be a matter of weeks or months before it will be clear just what it is Bush intends to do.
The vagaries and uncertainties in the meantime feed doubts in the minds of concerned governments.
A highly regarded Washington specialist in the area, who asked not to be identified, said that doubts about American determination are at the heart of the Turkish, and Egyptian, refusal to go along with U.S. intervention. Other, politically savvy individuals from the Middle East say much the same thing.
The people of the region remember what happened in 1991 after Operation Desert Storm ended and a ceasefire was signed; how the best Iraqi troops, the Republican Guard, were left in tact by the allied forces; how Saddam was allowed to retain his helicopter gunships and use them to suppress risings by the Kurds and Shi'ite Arabs. The risings were in response to President George Bush Sr's calls to Iraqis to rise against Saddam Hussein.
Operation Desert Storm didn't only leave Saddam Hussein in power. It left a huge credibility gap about U.S. reliability. As one Iraqi defector told The Observer of London recently: "If the Iraqi people realize that this time the West is seriously targeting the regime, even the supposedly most loyal security and military units will run away. No one wants a rerun of 1991. Just drop some bombs on his palaces so we know you mean business."
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Gaza Stone-Throwers Resist
Arafat's Police Forces Pull Back From House of Sheik
By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, December 7, 2001; Page A46
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5737-2001Dec6?language=printer
GAZA CITY, Dec. 7 (Friday) -- The Palestinian boys lined up to throw stones at armed authorities. There was nothing strange about that -- stone-throwing has been a trademark of Palestinian protest for 15 years.
But the targets were unusual. They were Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's police and not the customary Israeli soldiers.
Thursday was tense and strange in Gaza, the biggest city in the suffocating, sandy, coastal Gaza Strip that is home to more than 1 million Palestinians. Late Wednesday and early Thursday, Palestinian police had tried but failed to put under house arrest Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the infirm and nearly deaf spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, known by its Arabic acronym Hamas. One of Yassin's defenders died when police exchanged gunfire with young men in the crowds outside the spiritual leader's home; two other Hamas supporters were wounded.
Arafat ordered Yassin's arrest under pressure from Israel -- backed by the Bush administration -- to lock up members of Hamas and other groups that carry out terrorist attacks in Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that if Arafat fails to round up everyone to his satisfaction, Israeli troops and planes will attack Palestinian territory.
Early this morning, Israel resumed military operations that had been suspended since Wednesday. Fighter jets dropped at least two bombs on Palestinian security offices in Gaza, injuring 18 people. The Israeli army said the attack targeted the "Palestinian security apparatus that supports and aids terrorist operations. The army will continue its operations in order to defend the safety of Israeli citizens and soldiers."
Thursday's scenes showed the difficulties that Arafat faces in deciding how far to go to meet Sharon's demands. They also demonstrated Arafat's decline in stature among Palestinians unlike any other recent event. Police eventually retreated from Yassin's home, but clashes continued. Thursday morning, the boys threw stones, and the police threw a few back and beat some of the demonstrators with long wooden batons. Thursday afternoon, defenders lounged around Yassin's house and pledged to protect their leader. Police and plainclothes agents kept a respectful distance a few blocks away.
Yassin was back in his house Thursday morning, after being removed temporarily by his bodyguards, but he was neither receiving visitors nor venturing out of his house.
"It is wrong to arrest our fighter, our leader, our symbol, Sheik Yassin," said a man who hesitated to give his name, then identified himself as Abdullah Ibn Islam. "The Palestinian people favor attacking Israel, because Israel started this battle. We must hit, because if we just take it, we will disappear."
Palestinian officials said Arafat's security forces have detained 120 militants from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Hamas claimed responsibility for three suicide bombings last weekend, which killed 25 Israelis in Jerusalem and Haifa, and said it was avenging the assassination of one of its leaders by Israel.
Palestinians have resisted arrests in several places. Frequently, enraged neighbors simply pour into the street to stop the police from arresting others. Here in Gaza, several top Hamas militants are in hiding.
Yassin is a special case. By all accounts, he is as popular as Arafat in the Gaza Strip. Hamas has made gains throughout Palestinian-controlled areas at the expense of Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. But at 65 and unable to walk, Yassin is an unlikely candidate to challenge Arafat's leadership.
In the mid-1990s, when Israel withdrew troops from major Palestinian cities, Hamas's following shrunk to the point of insignificance. Many Palestinians were outraged in 1996 and 1997 when Hamas militants killed scores of civilians in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Hamas officials could not appear on the streets of the West Bank and Gaza without fear of verbal, if not physical, assault.
Then, Israeli withdrawals ended under former prime ministers Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak. Construction of Jewish settlements soared. Support for Hamas grew.
The current 14-month-old uprising has brought Hamas a new wave of support. Palestinians complain that when Palestinian civilians die at the hands of Israeli troops, there is little pressure on Sharon to desist, much less make arrests. Hamas's "armed operations" inside Israel appear to provide macabre comfort to thousands of Palestinians.
Hamas's aid to poor Palestinians also underpins its popularity. The organization receives money largely from charities based in Saudi Arabia. The Bush administration has frozen accounts of a U.S.-based organization it alleges funnels money to Hamas.
"We are ready to defend Sheik Yassin to the death. We boys are ready. We are unhappy at the arrests. Not just this one, but all of them," said a young man nicknamed Abu Yahya, who stood in an alleyway outside Yassin's house.
The mini-uprising evidently alarmed Arafat, who is currently lodged in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Fatah, the PLO's main faction, organized a demonstration at his seaside offices here. If the demonstration was meant to show that Arafat was still highly esteemed, it failed. No more than 3,000 people showed up, most of them university professors, students in the Fatah Youth Organization and street urchins.
Even the pro-Arafat marchers expressed reservations about the roundups. "We are against the arrests," said Ghassan Jabala, a Fatah Youth member and vice president of Gaza University's student council. "I believe it is just a temporary measure by Arafat, who is accused on all sides."
Ghassan Abu Karsh, a political science professor, said Arafat "was forced to do a job to defend the whole people. In any case, it is better for the people arrested. They will be safe from the Israelis."
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Israeli F-16s attack Gaza police
By Saud Abu Ramadan
United Press International
December 6, 2001
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/06122001-050151-7283r.htm
Despite promises to the contrary, Israeli F-16 warplanes Friday shelled Palestinian Authority civil police headquarters causing severe damage to several buildings in the city.
Palestinian sources said that three Israeli army F-16 warplanes flew over the city in the predawn hours and fired two rockets at the police training section at the PA civil police headquarters in Remal neighborhood in western Gaza City.
Eyewitnesses said that Palestinian ambulances and fire engines rushed to the site, put of fire and rescued four Palestinian police officers and six children who were slightly injured.
Many windows of nearby houses were smashed and shrapnel flew into houses. The two nearby Islamic and Al Zahar universities were also damaged.
A Palestinian television report said that despite Israeli promises to the Palestinian Authority that Israel would halt air strikes on Palestinian security installations, the F-16 warplanes shelled the police training section.
The area hit by two rockets is the section for the anti-riot police force that has been arresting Palestinian militants.
Meanwhile, Palestinian security sources reported that four Israeli army tanks earlier entered the village of Abasan east of the Khan Younis town in southern Gaza Strip.
Sources said that the tanks used heavy fire and Israeli troops broke into several houses in the village looking for Palestinian suspects.
The sources also said that in the western side of Khan Younis, Israeli troops opened up on Palestinian houses causing severe damage, although no injuries.
The new Israeli assaults came just hours after a trilateral Palestinian-Israeli-U.S. security meeting was scheduled for Friday morning to try to stem the recent outbreak of violence in the region, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told reporters in Ramallah following meetings on Thursday with U.S. special envoy Anthony Zinni and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher that Zinni had succeeded in getting the parties to resume security talks.
An aide to Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer confirmed the planned meeting to United Press International later Thursday. No details of the venue were made available by either side.
The so-called Higher Security Committee has been the main channel for arranging "on the ground" co-operation between Israeli and Palestinian security forces. Representatives of the U.S. CIA attend its deliberations.
Palestinian West Bank security chief Jibril Rajoub told reporters that the Palestinian side will have only one subject on its agenda for the trilateral security meeting and that will be "to lift the siege imposed (by Israel) on the Palestinian areas" -- a series of security closures and restrictions on movement that the Israelis say are designed to prevent terrorist attacks.
Arafat and Zinni met in Ramallah earlier Thursday and the two discussed security issues in light of the recent wave of violence.
The same outburst of violence prompted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to send his foreign minister Ahmed Maher to Jerusalem and Ramallah for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
A series of suicide bombings claimed 25 lives in Israel last weekend. The Israelis struck b