------- Index of Articles
NUCLEAR
New Pro-Nuclear Voice Heard in Britain
Judge Denies Canada Torpedo Site
Czech Temelin gets ok to load fuel in 2nd reactor
Nuclear-terrorism hearing - 10 a.m.
Nuclear Officials Describe 'Dirty Bomb' Scenarios
Experts Outline 'Dirty Bombs' Threat
Daybook
Data Show World Awash in Stolen Nuclear Material
Bush admin to spend $333 million on clean energy
US to Speed Up Nuclear Cleanup
lawsuit to prevent Energy Department from abandoning waste
MILITARY
Analysis: Deaths show ordnance dangers
U.S. spots terrorists returning to camps
Germany: 5 Soldiers Killed in Kabul
Intercepted Al Qaeda E-Mail Is Said to Hint at Regrouping
Afghan Peacekeeping Effort May Expand
Disarming Afghans Won't Be Easy
U.S., Taliban Reinforce, Peacekeepers Die in Kabul
U.S. spots terrorists returning to camps
Russian arms merchant denies sales to al Qaeda
Timing Is an Issue In Lockheed Dispute
Lockheed Martin will begin selling iris-recognition security products
China Gives Military Spending Increase
Military spending to widen China's budget gap
Assessing Colombia's Military Needs
France: Osama bin Laden likely dead
Death Toll in Indian Riots Rises Above 600
Iraqis Will Face Blunt Terms in Weapons Talks at the U.N.
Blair Fires New Warning at Iraq, Gets Flak at Home
Syria Chief Backs Saudi Peace Plan as Mideast Boils
7 Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks
Mideast Violence Unchecked as Israel Strikes Gaza
Bush lauds Mubarak Mideast peace plan
N. Korea blames U.S. for lack of dialogue
North Korea accuses US of jeopardizing nuclear accord
Pakistan Border Troops Seize Missiles From Gunmen
A Secret Hub for the U.S. in Afghan War
Tycoon Points to Kremlin in Fatal 1999 Blasts
Probe Sought for Apartment Bombings
U.S. Deports Dozens of Israelis
U.S. Forces Take Dominant Position in Afghan Cave Battles
Women moved away from combat
POLICE / PRISONERS
Interpreters Needed
Ridge Calls Security At Border 'Outdated'
Austria Is Said to Aid Flight Of Suspect
Nonlethal Weapons Pose Own Risks in Air, Report Says
Plan to Have Police In Florida Help INS Stirs Rights Debate
Hawaii speeders outwit cameras
Terrorist threats cost Supreme Court
Alabama Restores Attorney Payments
Baltimore Officer Resigns Over Memo
ENERGY AND OTHER
UK lost early renewable technology lead - minister
Judge: Energy Records Must be Released
FERC Seeks to Limit Critical Energy Data
Some Facts Clear In the War of Spin Over Arctic Refuge
RESEARCHERS TACKLE MOUNTAINS OF USED TIRES
Dozens of human embryos cloned in China
ACTIVISTS
Hindus and Muslims march for peace but fear reigns in Gujarat
Star Wars Steals from Our Future
-------- NUCLEAR
-------- britain
New Pro-Nuclear Voice Heard in Britain
March 7, 2002
ENS
http://www.ens-news.com/ens/mar2002/2002L-03-07-03.html
LONDON, United Kingdom, The British government's chief scientific advisor today called for new nuclear power stations, contradicting a major official UK energy policy review published just weeks ago. This recommended treating nuclear as a fall-back option in case renewables growth or energy efficiency improvements fell short of expectations.
Interviewed on national radio, Professor David King, a chemist at Cambridge University, said, "The key new driver is climate change. We know that we need to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions."
Professor David King (Photo courtesy Cambridge University)
Even if the share of electricity produced by renewables were to reach 20 percent by 2020, as recommended in the official review, he said, carbon dioxide emissions would still be "left in standstill" due to planned closure of most of Britain's existing nuclear capacity.
"So it seems clear to me," he continued, "that our dependence on fossil fuels would be unchanged unless there is a new nuclear build at least to replace existing nuclear power stations."
Currently, nuclear power stations produce 27 percent of the United Kingdom's energy supply.
King said the problem of nuclear waste must be dealt with whether more nuclear plants are built in the UK or not. He referred to "deep ground disposal" as the best way of handling nuclear waste, and said he intends to stimulate public debate "so that we can get the public behind treating the nuclear waste."
Calling it a "difficult balance," King said the crucial thing is mitigating global warming. "If we're going to treat that as a priority, and I have no doubt in my mind that has to be our priority, then we need to continue our dependence on nuclear power at least in the intermediate phase until renewables really come on stream substantially," he said.
Government sources stressed that Professor King was expressing a personal opinion, but his comments will do nothing to damp down a furious ongoing debate between the UK's nuclear and renewable energy sectors.
{Published in cooperation with ENDS Environment Daily, Europe's choice for environmental news. Environmental Data Services Ltd, London. Email: envdaily@ends.co.uk}
-------- canada
Judge Denies Canada Torpedo Site
March 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Canada-US-Torpedo-Dispute.html
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- A federal judge has ruled the Canadian government improperly seized ownership of a unique torpedo testing site off British Columbia used by the Canadian and U.S. navies.
The ruling means the Nanoose Bay range on Vancouver Island reverts to ownership by the provincial government of British Columbia, igniting a dispute over whether nuclear-armed vessels can use it.
Canada's federal government expropriated the base in 1999 due to a dispute with British Columbia linked to the nuclear weapons issue.
In the ruling made public Wednesday, Justice Douglas Campbell said the federal government failed to meet the requirements for expropriation.
``In the end result, I find the expropriation is flawed and cannot stand,'' he wrote.
Canada and the United States have an agreement that lasts until 2009 to share the testing range at Nanoose Bay, 70 miles north of Victoria.
The facility is used to test unarmed weapons systems and acoustic sensors used in military operations. It is operated jointly by the Canadian Forces and U.S. Navy under terms of an agreement reached in 1965 and renewed several times since then.
The range, located in Georgia Strait off the east coast of Vancouver Island, has a flat, muddy seabed uniquely suited to torpedo testing because they can be retrieved.
In the decades before the expropriation, the federal government leased the testing range from the British Columbia government.
The expropriation was opposed by the British Columbia government and environmental groups. They cited a motion approved by the provincial legislature in the early 1990s that declared British Columbia a nuclear-free zone.
The U.S. Navy refuses to confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard its ships, making a pledge of no nuclear weapons at the torpedo range impossible.
Ivan Bulic of the conservation society said the judge's ruling reopens the debate.
-------- europe
Czech Temelin gets ok to load fuel in 2nd reactor
REUTERS CZECH REPUBLIC:
March 6, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14878/newsDate/6-Mar-2002/story.htm
PRAGUE - The controversial Czech nuclear power plant Temelin received the go-ahead from state nuclear safety regulators this week to load fuel into its second 981 megawatt (MW) reactor, officials said.
Temelin's owner, state-owned power utility CEZ , has been testing the plant's first 981 MW reactor since late 2000 amid protests from neighbouring Austria, which fears the plant is unsafe and should be closed.
Temelin spokesman Milan Nebesar said 18 out of 163 fuel units for the second reactor would be installed late this week, just hours after CEZ received permission from the regulators.
He said in a statement that loading was expected to last for about 10 days and would be followed by tests in order to prepare the reactor for a controlled chain fission reaction that would be activated within six weeks.
The Soviet-designed station, which has been upgraded with western control systems, is located 60 km (38 miles) from the border of the fiercely anti-nuclear Austria.
The plant has become a source of unrelenting friction between the two central European neighbours.
Joerg Haider's Austrian Freedom Party has even threatened to block the Czech Republic's attempts to join the European Union from 2004 unless Temelin is completely shut down.
The Czechs have insisted the plant is safe and meets all international safety standards. EU officials have said Temelin is not an issue for membership talks.
During a news conference on 2001 earnings, CEZ's Chief Executive Jaroslav Mil said commercial testing operations at the first reactor - currently undergoing a thorough inspection - would be launched before mid-year.
Temelin's full launch has been delayed a number of times amid construction and testing problems, which have triggered protests against the plant in Austria and Germany.
-------- terrorism
Nuclear-terrorism hearing - 10 a.m.
March 6, 2002
Daybook
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020306-103794.htm
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing to examine the terrorist nuclear threat, focusing on so-called "dirty" bombs and "basement nukes." Location: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3953.
----
Nuclear Officials Describe 'Dirty Bomb' Scenarios
March 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/06/international/06AP-STEM.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- "Dirty bombs" are in many ways an ideal terrorist weapon: they're far easier to come by than a nuclear device, but they use radioactive materials and have the potential to create widespread panic, top nuclear officials told senators on Wednesday.
Such a weapon could contaminate dozens of city blocks with radioactivity, but not kill a soul, the officials told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday. Or it could cause a few more cancers later in life for its victims -- say, four additional cancers in 100,000 people.
"The health consequences are not very great," said Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Richard Meserve. "The concern is a psycho-social one."
A radiological device detonated by terrorists would require the evacuation and decontamination of a downtown area, disrupting the local economy and possibly creating a panic, according to top officials from U.S. nuclear laboratories, who joined Meserve before the committee. Hospitals would be overrun by fearful patients.
If the contamination is bad enough, buildings might have to be razed, officials said. But an orderly evacuation would limit exposure to radioactive materials, and the actual health effects would be minimal.
Still, the officials called for increased controls of industrial radioactive materials, citing fears that such materials could be used by terrorists.
A "dirty bomb" -- also called a radiological weapon -- would use conventional explosives to spread radioactive materials. Officials said isotopes of cesium, cobalt and irridium are likely candidates for such devices, as some remain radioactive for years.
Those material, however, are easily found by detectors of radioactivity -- easier, in fact, than the uranium and plutonium used in actual nuclear weapons.
Officials also described fears of terrorists obtaining an actual nuclear weapon -- either through the purchase of an existing military weapon, or by constructing one on their own.
This is deemed a much more difficult, and thus less likely, prospect, the officials said, although the potential for death and destruction is far worse.
--------
Experts Outline 'Dirty Bombs' Threat
March 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-radioactive.html
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - ``Dirty bombs'' -- radioactive material dispersed via conventional explosives -- pose a real threat to the United States but would create mass panic rather than big death tolls, said nuclear experts on Wednesday.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, fears have mounted over the use of radiological material by terrorists and whether these widely used materials are adequately stored and protected from abuse.
``Today we know that radiological and nuclear attacks on the United States are not only possible, but there are enough screwballs out there willing to risk or even give their lives to use them,'' said Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat who chaired a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the threat.
A broad range of radioactive materials are used in medicine, agriculture, industry and research, from sterilizing food and medical instruments to diagnostic X-rays and self-illuminating exit signs.
In testimony to the committee, experts said casualties from radiological attacks would be minimal in comparison to the hundreds of thousands of deaths that could be caused by crude nuclear weapons.
Richard Meserve, chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the biggest impact would be psychological and economic and that was why the public needed to be educated about the risks.
``The terrorist's greatest weapon is fear,'' said Meserve.
Federation of American Scientists President Henry Kelly referred to a small amount of the radioactive material called cesium which was recently found abandoned in North Carolina and outlined its impact if used by terrorists.
If this small medical gauge of cesium was exploded in Washington D.C., residents over a five city block area would have a one in a 1,000 chance of getting cancer while those over 40 city blocks would have a one in 10,000 chance.
If decontamination were not possible, these areas would have to be abandoned for decades because of health risks, he said.
Giving another example of a cobalt bomb in New York City, he said the contamination would be far more serious and people living for 40 years within a 300-block radius would have a one in 10 risk of death from cancer.
TIGHTER CONTROLS POSSIBLE
Anyone handling radioactive material needs a license from the NRC and Meserve said the commission was doing a ``top to bottom'' analysis of licensing laws and whether they needed to be tightened.
While the misuse of radioactive material posed a threat, experts said the biggest concern was still that terrorists would get their hands on potent, weapons-grade materials such as plutonium and uranium.
Safeguarding nuclear materials, should be a priority, the experts told the panel, particularly in Russia.
Donald Cobb, associate director for threat reduction at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said there were hundreds more tons of weapons-grade material scattered across Russia than actual materials in weapons.
``Of course we can't ignore the security of the weapons but the materials are perhaps the greatest danger,'' Cobb said.
He suggested better technology was needed to detect and intercept smuggled nuclear materials, including radiological sources, concealed in luggage, packages or shipping containers.
Harry Vantine, program leader for counter-terrorism and incident response at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said nuclear explosive devices were the ultimate terrorist weapon and would dwarf the devastation caused by the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
``Dealing with the aftermath would be horrific. Rescue efforts and cleanup would be hazardous and difficult,'' said Vantine, pointing out that rescue workers could work for only short periods before acquiring their ``lifetime'' dose.
--------
Daybook
March 6, 2002
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020306-103794.htm
TODAY'S HEADLINERS Nuclear-terrorism hearing -10 a.m. - The Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing to examine the terrorist nuclear threat, focusing on so-called "dirty" bombs and "basement nukes." Location: 419 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contact: 202/224-3953.
--------
Data Show World Awash in Stolen Nuclear Material
March 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-arms-nuclear-database.html
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - International researchers have compiled what they say is the world's most complete database of lost, stolen and misplaced nuclear material -- depicting a world awash in weapons-grade uranium and plutonium that nobody can account for.
``It truly is frightening,'' Lyudmila Zaitseva, a visiting fellow at Stanford University's Institute for International Studies, said on Wednesday. ``I think this is the tip of the iceberg.''
Stanford announced its database as U.S. senators held a hearing in Washington to assess the threat of ``dirty bombs,'' or radioactive material dispersed by conventional explosives.
The Stanford program, dubbed the Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft and Orphan Radiation Sources, is intended to help governments and international agencies track wayward nuclear material worldwide, supplementing existing national programs that often fail to share information.
The project took on added urgency following the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, which spurred fears that extremists might seek to use nuclear weapons in the future.
``It blows the mind, the lack of information,'' said George Bunn, a veteran arms control negotiator and a member of the database group. ``What we're trying to say is: 'What are the facts?'''
CHILLING FACTS
The facts, even on cursory examination, are chilling.
Zaitseva said that, over the past 10 years, at least 88 pounds (40 kg) of weapons-usable uranium and plutonium had been stolen from poorly protected nuclear facilities in the former Soviet Union. While most of this material subsequently was retrieved, at least 4.4 pounds (2 kg) of highly enriched uranium stolen from a reactor in Georgia remains missing.
Other thefts have included several fuel rods that disappeared from a research reactor in the Congo in the mid-1990s. While one of these fuel rods later resurfaced in Italy -- reportedly in the hands of the Mafia -- the other has not been found.
The Stanford group, led by nuclear physicist and arms control researcher Friedrich Steinhausler, decided to form its database after becoming alarmed over the patchy nature of most of the available information.
Combining data from two existing unclassified databases and adding new information from sources ranging from government agencies to local media reports, the team has evaluated each entry for accuracy and probability.
An expert at the Federation of American Scientists, the oldest U.S. arms control group, welcomed the establishment of the database, saying it could play a crucial role in helping governments ascertain the real level of nuclear threat.
``This is a smart step,'' said Michael Levi, director of the group's Strategic Security Project. ``Knowing what's out there is the first step to bringing it back in.''
'ORPHAN' RADIATION ALSO A THREAT
The database includes illicitly obtained weapons-grade nuclear material as well as ``orphaned'' radiation sources -- scientific or medical material that may have been lost, misplaced or simply thrown away but which still poses a health and security threat.
Steinhausler said the database would be open only to approved researchers, and that the Stanford group was beginning to contact government agencies in the United States and Europe about sharing information to build more effective international supervision of nuclear material.
``We cannot supply the means to improve the situation,'' Steinhausler said in a statement. ``We're pinpointing weaknesses and loopholes and saying, 'Do something about it.'''
Zaitseva, visiting Stanford from the Kazakhstan National Nuclear Center, said the database was helping to build a dim picture of the market for stolen uranium, plutonium, and other dangerous materials.
But she added that while in many cases those behind nuclear thefts can be identified, the ultimate destination of the nuclear material has remained a mystery.
``We haven't found a single occasion in which the actual end users have been caught,'' Zaitseva told Reuters.
``We can only guess by the routes where the material is going. We can't say for sure if it is Iraq, Iran, North Korea, al Qaeda or Hezbollah. We can only make assumptions.''
She added that the dangers of an unsupervised, underground market in nuclear material were likely to grow, noting that a U.S.-sponsored program to secure nuclear components in the former Soviet Union thus far had only locked up about a third of an estimated 600 tons of weapons-usable material.
``It's just not protected,'' she said. ``This is hot stuff. If you steal 20 kilograms of that material, you can build a nuclear weapon.''
-------- u.s. nuc facilities
Bush admin to spend $333 million on clean energy
REUTERS USA:
March 6, 2002
http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14870/newsDate/6-Mar-2002/story.htm
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration earmarked about $333 million in federal funds to encourage utilities to build more nuclear and clean-coal burning plants to meet rising U.S. electricity demand.
The Department of Energy (DOE) released $330 million of $2 billion in funding budgeted over the next 10 years to encourage utilities to develop new clean coal technology.
"Today's solicitation tells industry we are ready to help share the costs and risk of technologies that have emerged in the last 10 years," Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said in a statement.
Coal and nuclear power are both key components of President George W. Bush's national energy policy, which aims to meet rising U.S. demand while reducing dependence on foreign sources like Iraq.
Separately, DOE earmarked $3 million in the 2002 fiscal year to streamline applications to build new nuclear power plants.
The administration hopes to encourage utilities to build plants that are cleaner than their present-day counterparts.
Nuclear plants, which provide about 20 percent of the nation's electricity, generate no harmful air emissions like carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide.
At the same time, new devices could strip noxious substances from smoke spewed by coal-burning plants and open the door for new construction of a source that now accounts for about half of U.S. supply.
The DOE said the coal industry has until August 1, 2002, to design new technology that reduces air emissions and greenhouse gases emitted from older power plants that use high sulfur or "dirty" forms of coal.
"Without our support, those technologies would likely remain in the laboratory," Abraham said.
Bush last month unveiled a plan to reduce carbon emissions from gasoline, coal and other fossil fuels through improved technology while keeping energy costs affordable.
Separately, the DOE unveiled a new plan to match individual utility investments up to $48.5 million over the next two years to license new sites for nuclear power plants with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"This is a critical step in paving the way for deploying more nuclear power in the United States," Abraham said.
The DOE set a deadline of April 15 for industry proposals for U.S. utilities to begin a 30-month early site permitting process.
Two unnamed "major nuclear utilities" are considering sites in Idaho, South Carolina and Ohio to build new nuclear plants, the DOE said.
-------- washington
US to Speed Up Nuclear Cleanup
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 6, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Hanford-Cleanup.html
YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- The Bush administration said Wednesday that the government will spend an additional $450 million as part of a plan to speed the cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation.
Cleaning the nation's most contaminated nuclear site will be accelerated by 35 to 45 years under an agreement reached Tuesday between the state, the Energy Department and federal regulators.
The agreement is the first reached under an Energy Department program aimed at streamlining cleanup of its sites around the country by working more closely with states and regulators. The target date for completing cleanup at Hanford, in south-central Washington, had been 2070.
The Bush administration agreed to restore $300 million it had cut from Hanford's 2003 budget and provide an additional $150 million next year, bringing Hanford's total budget to more than $2 billion in 2003.
The new agreement calls for speeding up retrieval of the more than 53 million gallons of highly radioactive waste stored in 177 underground tanks near the Columbia River.
Over the years, the tanks have leaked more than 1 million gallons into the soil and groundwater.
Construction is expected to begin late this year on a huge plant to turn 10 percent of that waste into glass logs for long-term storage.
The new agreement also calls for faster cleanup of the Hanford corridor along the Columbia River, looking for alternative technology to dispose of less-radioactive waste, speeding up processing of scrap plutonium and speeding up cleanup of basins where lethal, corroding rods of spent nuclear fuel are stored.
``We're going to get Hanford cleaned up faster and better -- and save money, too,'' said Gov. Gary Locke.
Plutonium was made at the 560-square-mile Hanford site for more than 40 years for the nation's nuclear arsenal, including the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki during World War II.
-------- us nuc waste
Environmentalists' lawsuit seeks to prevent Energy Department from abandoning waste
Wednesday, March 06, 2002
By Chuck Oxley,
Associated Press
http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/03/03062002/ap_46601.asp
BOISE, Idaho - Environmentalists have sued the Department of Energy, contending water resources in three states could be threatened if the agency follows through on a proposal to abandon radioactive waste that has been buried in storage tanks.
The tanks, buried at sites in Idaho, Washington, and South Carolina, held millions of gallons (liters) of liquid acid used to reprocess spent fuel rods until the late 1990s. The rods were bathed in the liquid acid, which extracted uranium, plutonium, and other radioactive substances but left behind a highly radioactive stew of other metals.
The waste fluid was stored in the underground tanks. Although much of the fluid has been pumped out and processed into a more solid form, a residual sludge remains, coating the tanks' bottoms and sides.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Boise, asks that the department not be allowed to abandon the tanks.
About 800,000 gallons (3,028,240 liters) of sludge remain in 10 tanks at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. The Energy Department plans to remove all but about 1,000 gallons (3,785 liters) in each tank, leaving a total of about 10,000 gallons (37,850 liters) in place, said department spokesman Brad Bugger.
The other waste is buried at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina. All three sites are near aquifers or rivers that could become contaminated if the containers leak, the lawsuit contends.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has classified the buried material as high-level waste, a designation which would not allow the department to abandon it. The Energy Department wants the waste's rating downgraded so it has the option of leaving the waste at the three sites.
Bugger said there has been no decision to cap the tanks and that other options are also under consideration, including removing them.
Gary Richardson, director of the Snake River Alliance, one of the plaintiffs, said the department was trying to circumvent established rules for handling high-level radioactive material. "We think that is a violation of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act and that they are using regulatory rule-making as a slight-of-hand way to define away the problem," Richardson said.
-------- MILITARY
Analysis: Deaths show ordnance dangers
By Malcolm Visser
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
March 6, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/06032002-035633-7501r.htm
WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- The deaths of two German and three Danish soldiers attempting to dispose of an unexploded anti-aircraft missile or missiles near Kabul on Wednesday highlight the dangers faced by explosive ordnance disposal and humanitarian demining teams operating in one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
"Someone made a mistake, and obviously something very bad happened," said one EOD expert who requested anonymity, citing restrictions set in place by his organization's public affairs office. "The German's tend to be very precise when it comes to this. It's just dangerous work."
The device or devices being disposed of were reportedly one or more SA-3 anti-aircraft missiles. How many were actually involved in the incident was not immediately clear. According to the Military Analysis section of the Federation of American Scientists Web site, this particular missile, officially referred to as the S-125 SA-3 GOA, is Soviet made and of relatively old design.
Gen. Harald Kujat, Germany's top military officer, said that "the detonation went off before time," suggesting the EOD team was attempting to blow the missile or missiles in place rather than actually defuse them.
"There are a couple of different options to destroy this particular type of munition," said U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Larry Cartier, an EOD expert who served as a combat engineer during the Gulf War and who recently returned from a peacekeeping mission in Bosnia.
"If the missile is unserviceable, or damaged in any way, the first option is to blow it in place rather than risk moving it from one place to another," Cartier said.
Blowing in place means leaving a rocket, landmine or piece of unexploded ordnance where it is found and setting off a small demolition charge next to the main charge of the device, causing it to explode where it is, Cartier explained.
"Everyone has these mental images from movies of explosive technicians opening up warheads and cutting wires to 'defuse" a bomb,'" Cartier said. "I've never seen that actually happen. These things are too dangerous to play around with like that."
Cartier said the best approach is to disturb a newly discovered explosive device as little as possible and destroy it with explosives brought to the site by the EOD technicians specifically for that purpose.
"There are obvious considerations to take into account prior to this type of disposal, such as where the missile is located. If it's in a heavily populated area or near a large cache of other munitions, obviously this isn't the best method," he said.
In that case, the best approach would be to move the missiles to a safe location and destroy them there. The same method of placing a charge next to the warhead would be used once the missile or missiles were moved to the new location.
"One of the reports implied the missiles were being moved to a demolition range by the peacekeepers," Cartier said. "If this is what happened, clearly, the EOD personnel had concluded they were stable enough for transport to the demolition range."
Another problem is if the two-stage booster is attached to the warhead.
"The chance the solid rocket booster fuel could ignite, and send the rocket down-range is definitely there," Cartier said.
Cartier indicated this would definitely have been a consideration in the decision to move the missile or missiles to a demolition range for disposal.
"This appears to be an accident to me. One account I read said a controlled detonation was to take place on the missiles," Cartier said. "I would speculate that either time fuze was being used to ignite the controlled demolition, and the calculation on just how much time they had to clear the area was incorrect. Or else they were using an electrical means to ignite the charge, a mistake was made, and the booster charge went off prematurely."
U.S. experts at the Naval EOD Technology Division in Indian Head, Md., and the Joint UXO Coordination office at Fort Belvoir, Va., declined to comment on the incident in Kabul, citing a lack of information.
The first SA-3 surface to air missiles were deployed by the Soviets in 1961. The missile itself is over 20 feet long and weighs nearly 1,000 pounds, with a range of up to 15 miles. The missile is part of an anti-aircraft system that includes radar and launch rails mounted on a 6x6 truck. The missiles also can be fired from fixed emplacements if the launch rails are installed in a permanent or semi-permanent position.
Kujat indicated the incident occurred adjacent to an old ammunition supply point, suggesting the missile or missiles involved had never been launched, versus being unexploded ordnance fired by the Soviets or their Afghan proxies during the 1980s, or by the Taliban against U.S. aircraft at the end of last year.
However, the exact condition and origin of the device or devices was not made clear.
(Malcolm Visser, a West Point graduate and former U.S. Army combat engineer, works for Radian Inc., a defense contractor, on countermine and demining issues, and is a free-lance writer.)
-------- afghanistan
U.S. spots terrorists returning to camps
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
March 6, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020306-24387723.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies identified terrorists moving back into training camps that had been bombed in the war, as allied military forces pressed attacks against al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan yesterday.
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said terrorists had been spotted in some of the more than 20 camps abandoned after military strikes began on Oct. 7.
Renewed allied air strikes on the camps are expected in the coming days. The camps have been used to train al Qaeda terrorists that are part of a network of Islamic extremists working secretly in cells in up to 60 nations.
In the fifth day of Operation Anaconda, heavy bombing by U.S. and French warplanes softened hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban forces entrenched in the mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, near Gardez, said Air Force Brig. Gen. John Rosa, deputy operations director for the Joint Staff.
"I think the biggest thing to change, and not to be flip, is we've killed a lot of people," Gen. Rosa told reporters at the Pentagon. "We've killed people. They're not roaming around freely like they were; they're dug in. They're hunkered in. We've got a simultaneous attack at times with air from the U.S. and coalition forces. But I think it's tougher on them right now, and they're not moving quite as freely."
The battle is "far from over," he said. "There's still a lot of work to be done."
Afghan commander Abdul Matin Hasankhiel said hundreds of Afghan and coalition forces are deployed around the mountain area in the Paktia province, where al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have been surrounded.
"They can't escape. They're surrounded. Slowly, slowly we are pushing in," he told the Associated Press in Gardez.
U.S. Special Forces and Afghan fighters were conducting mine-clearing operations on the mountains as part of the assault, and allied warplanes dropped bombs and fired flares to thwart any surface-to-air missiles during bombing raids that lasted into last night.
One Afghan fighter, identified by the Associated Press as Nawab, said fighting yesterday was less intense. The battle began Friday after U.S. intelligence monitored the massing of al Qaeda and Taliban in the area. "Inshallah [God willing], in three or four days they will be finished," Nawab said.
The Associated Press reported yesterday that the Navy sailor who fell out of an MH-47 helicopter south of Gardez after it came under attack died at the hands of al Qaeda fighters, and not from the fall itself.
The missing serviceman was captured and killed by al Qaeda fighters. "We saw him on the Predator being dragged off by three al Qaeda men," Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck told AP, referring to an unmanned reconnaissance plane mounted with a real-time video camera.
A Pentagon account by Marine Maj. Ralph Mills said Navy Aviation Boatswain's Mate-Handling Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts died of a bullet wound after surviving a fall from the helicopter.
Gen. Rosa told a Pentagon briefing that a U.S. rescue team recovered the man's body.
The Pentagon yesterday also released the names of seven soldiers killed Monday in two incidents.
Those killed in action as part of the operation near Gardez were Army Sgt. Bradley S. Crose, 27, Orange Park, Fla.; Army Sgt. Philip J. Svitak, 31, Joplin, Mo.; Army Spc. Marc A. Anderson, 30, Brandon, Fla.; Army Pfc. Matthew A. Commons, 21, Boulder City, Nev.; Mr. Roberts, 32, Woodland, Calif.; Air Force Tech. Sgt. John A. Chapman, 36, Waco, Texas; and Air Force Senior Airman Jason D. Cunningham, 26, Camarillo, Calif.
Also, Army Chief Warrant Officer Stanley L. Harriman, 34, of Wade, N.C. was killed as the result of enemy fire near Gardez on Saturday.
A second team of two MH-47s came under fire three hours later as it landed some distance from the first landing area while bringing in a team of U.S. Army Special Forces troops.
Seven soldiers were killed in a gunbattle with al Qaeda forces on the ground and at least 11 were wounded before the team was rescued by more helicopters, Gen. Rosa said.
"That was a very successful operation. We got everybody out," the one-star general said.
Gen. Rosa said he did not know why local commanders selected a landing area that was filled with enemy forces. "In combat, you can never be sure that you're risk-free and that the landing zone will be completely free," he said, noting that subsequent missions were successful.
The eight American servicemen killed in Afghanistan in Operation Anaconda were honored in Germany before their caskets were flown back to the United States.
The Pentagon has said that as many as 200 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have been killed in the battle. Four enemy fighters were taken prisoner.
The force of some 2,000 U.S. and allied troops along with Afghan fighters battled on yesterday in what Gen. Rosa described as "a very deliberate attack."
Advancing U.S. troops moved in on cave complexes and one of the caves held stockpiles of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.
"Our focus remains defeating al Qaeda and the former Taliban forces holed up in the Shah-e-Kot region," Gen. Rosa said. "We believe there are still hundreds of fighters there."
Reporters spotted a group of 60 Afghan fighters, wearing U.S.-issued parkas, heading to the front lines of the battle near Jiji, a town northeast of Gardez.
Bright orange strips were attached to the tops of their transport trucks to help identify them to allied bombers and gunships.
The military operations have involved Apache attack helicopters and as many as four AC-130 gunships.
Other combat aircraft involved in the mission include U.S. A-10s, F-15s, B-1s, B-52s, and French Mirage 2000 and Super-Etendard aircraft.
The Pentagon also released video from gun cameras showing bombing strikes on the targets in Gardez.
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Germany: 5 Soldiers Killed in Kabul
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 6, 2002
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Germany-Afghanistan-Military.html
BERLIN (AP) -- Anti-aircraft missiles that peacekeepers in the Afghan capital Kabul were trying to defuse exploded Wednesday, killing two German and three Danish soldiers, the top officer in the Germany military said.
In addition to the five dead, seven soldiers were injured, three of them seriously, Gen. Harald Kujat said.
Kujat said the soldiers were attempting to destroy two Russian-made SA-3 ground-to-air missiles with a controlled explosion at a munitions collection point about 3 miles from the German military's base in the Afghan capital.
``Apparently, the explosion went off early,'' he told a news conference in Berlin. ``The soldiers were still in the area close to the two missiles.''
The origin of the missiles was unclear, and Kujat said he did not know whether one or both exploded in the incident Wednesday afternoon. He gave no details on the dead or injured.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder expressed condolences to the families of the dead soldiers, calling it a tragic accident. He said, however, that the accident should not raise questions about Germany's deployment in the region.
``It was a task that did not have anything to do with military conflict. There is no reason to question the mission,'' Schroeder said.
Sending German troops abroad is a sensitive topic in Germany, where antimilitary sentiment still runs deep more than half a century after World War II. Schroeder had faced strong opposition to his pledge of troops for the war on terrorism, which parliament only barely approved last year.
Kujat, the inspector-general of the German armed forces, said it appeared soldiers were observing safety regulations and there was no evidence of sabotage. ``This was an accident,'' he said.
More than 700 German soldiers are part of the international security force deployed in and around the Afghan capital. About 50 Danish soldiers specialized in mine clearing were sent to Afghanistan in January.
Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping was in Djibouti on Wednesday on a trip to visit German naval forces deployed in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. He cut short his trip to return to Berlin.
The SA-3 has a range of 11 miles and weighs 2,100 pounds. It was designed to destroy aircraft, cruise missiles, assault helicopters and other targets at low or medium altitudes. First introduced in 1961, the missile is comparable to a MIM-23 Hawk in the U.S. arsenal.
Germany has pledged a total of 3,900 troops for the anti-terror campaign, including the naval contingent deployed off the Horn of Africa, troops in Afghanistan and about 100 in neighboring Uzbekistan.
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Intercepted Al Qaeda E-Mail Is Said to Hint at Regrouping
New York Times
March 6, 2002
By JAMES RISEN and DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/06/international/asia/06INQU.html
WASHINGTON, March 5 - Newly detected Internet traffic among Al Qaeda followers, including intercepted e-mail messages, indicates that elements of the terror network may be trying to regroup in remote sanctuaries in Pakistan near the Afghan border, government officials say.
United States officials said they had discovered the existence of new Web sites and Internet communications that appeared to be part of a concerted Al Qaeda effort to reconstitute the group and re-establish communications after the war in Afghanistan.
Senior counterterrorism officials said that Al Qaeda's effort to rebuild itself outside Afghanistan appeared to rely heavily on the Internet for communications among highly mobile operatives, who often check their messages in public Internet cafes around the world, making them difficult to track.
American officials said the new communications traffic was a serious concern because they feared that Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's network, could use its sophisticated Internet ability to launch new terror attacks against the United States.
At least some of the cyberspace activity can be traced back to Pakistan, said a senior law enforcement official.
Some of the activity appeared to come from villages in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, along the Afghan border, a remote and sometimes lawless region.
American officials now believe that some of these villages in Baluchistan, and perhaps others in the disputed Kashmir region, could be serving as new sanctuaries for Al Qaeda members.
United States officials described those areas as difficult for Pakistani authorities to control effectively.
The content of the intercepted cyber traffic has not indicated specific threats, but one official said the purpose of the communications was troubling because it appeared to be focused on Al Qaeda's efforts to regroup.
American officials said they believed that several hundred armed Al Qaeda forces had regrouped in the Gardez region over the last several weeks, joined by non-Afghan Taliban fighters, including both Chechens and Uzbeks. The United States military believes that there are other pockets of Al Qaeda resistance in Afghanistan as well.
But American officials said today that they did not believe that Mr. bin Laden was in the Gardez pocket, and it is unclear how many other Al Qaeda leaders are actually directing the fighting from within the pocket itself, or whether they are doing so remotely by e-mail or other forms of communications from Pakistan.
So while the military focuses on routing surviving Al Qaeda groups in Afghanistan, American intelligence and law enforcement officials are increasingly concerned about Al Qaeda's efforts outside Afghanistan to reform and strike again.
"Al Qaeda is searching all around the world for new sanctuaries," John McLaughlin, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said in a brief interview on Monday.
Officials cautioned today that the full significance of the Internet activity in and out of Pakistan was still not clear, and that it was uncertain whether any senior Al Qaeda leaders were involved.
It is unclear whether the communications represent a central command structure trying to control various elements of the organization or simply Al Qaeda members speaking to each other.
American officials added that they were still not certain, for example, where Mr. bin Laden was, or even whether he was still alive.
Other top Al Qaeda leaders who survived American bombing raids in Afghanistan have also proved elusive.
While Al Qaeda's leaders are seeking a new haven, it is not clear that they have gathered in any one place yet that might serve as a new headquarters.
But American counterterrorism analysts said the recently discovered Internet activity did provide strong evidence of efforts by Al Qaeda to rebuild after its dispersal in Afghanistan. The officials said that they had watched as new Web sites that they believe have real connections to Al Qaeda and are not hoaxes had popped up in recent weeks.
United States intelligence has also tracked e-mail traffic that counterterrorism analysts said they believed showed efforts to re-establish communications between some members of Al Qaeda in Pakistan and operatives around the world. Some of the e-mail can be traced to border regions of Pakistan, where some Al Qaeda members may be operating under the protection of local tribal leaders.
Investigators have been frustrated by their inability to track the Qaeda operatives who are picking up messages around the world. In many cases, they appear to read their e- mail in public places like airports and have thus stayed a step ahead of law enforcement authorities.
In the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks, investigators found that the hijackers communicated with each other in hundreds of e-mail messages often sent from public places like Kinko's or public libraries.
So far, there is no sign of Mr. bin Laden or other top Al Qaeda leaders communicating with their followers.
But Al Qaeda's presence in as many as 60 countries makes it important for the organization to find ways to communicate. Clusters of Al Qaeda followers have recently been active in countries outside of Central Asia, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Spain and Yemen. Some Al Qaeda fighters are also believed to have slipped out of Afghanistan into Iran.
American officials believe that one of the benefits of the war in Afghanistan was to disrupt the terror network's ability to communicate from a central command center.
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Afghan Peacekeeping Effort May Expand
March 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-UN-Afghanistan.html
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- To keep Afghan warlords from disrupting peace efforts, the United States and key allies may double the 4,500-strong international force in Afghanistan and deploy troops outside the nation's capital, diplomats said.
Expanding the peacekeeping operation to trouble spots beyond Kabul would answer a plea from Afghanistan's interim leader, Hamid Karzai, who asked the U.N. Security Council in January to help boost security in other parts of the war-ravaged country. Diplomats speaking on condition of anonymity said Tuesday that peacekeepers could be deployed to Mazar-e-Sharif, Kunduz, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Herat.
While talks about increasing the size and scope of the force have intensified in recent days, they diplomats stressed that no decision is expected for several weeks. But the number of peacekeepers could double to 9,000 troops, the diplomats said.
The United States commands the war effort in Afghanistan, including the British-led peacekeeping operation in Kabul. If the peacekeeping force is expanded, other countries might lead contingents of troops in various cities, with the United States maintaining overall command, the diplomats said.
Javier Solana, the European Union foreign policy chief, confirmed Tuesday that diplomats are discussing ways to improve security outside Kabul, but said talks are in a preliminary stage.
``It's very premature to give any specific recipe or idea how things are going to evolve,'' said Solana, who met Tuesday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
While Karzai has called for an expansion of the international force, he has not specified how many troops he would like to see deployed.
But last month, Afghanistan's foreign minister, Abdullah, told The Associated Press he would like to quadruple the force to about 20,000, with troops deployed to Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, Jalalabad, and Kandahar.
There has been little enthusiasm for such an expansion, however, among the countries committed to contributing troops -- including the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Turkey.
Britain committed to leading the Kabul force for three months, and is expected to turn the operation over to Turkey at the end of March. Turkey has not expressed interest in leading an expanded force, diplomats said.
Training and equipping an Afghan army and police force that could maintain the country's security without assistance remains a focus of the international effort, diplomats agree.
Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke said Tuesday that the establishment of an all-Afghan force remains among the issues still to be worked out with the interim government.
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Disarming Afghans Won't Be Easy
March 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-Guns.html
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- Police and soldiers have collected thousands of assault rifles, grenade launchers and other weapons in this southern province. But it may take rounding up millions to make a difference in the arsenal called Afghanistan.
``We and the army have collected 60,000 weapons since the Taliban fell,'' said Brig. Gen. Mohammad Akram Khakrizewal, provincial police chief.
Across Afghanistan's 29 provinces, however, as many as 10 million weapons were believed to be in the hands of organized fighting units and ordinary people as of 1997, a U.N. study panel reported. That's two weapons for every five Afghans.
Since the U.S.-led war toppled the Taliban's radical Islamist government, Afghans at all levels -- from street peddlers to tribal warlords -- have said ``de-weaponization'' is essential for lasting peace.
``The gun doesn't develop a country,'' a senior Kandahar commander, Haji Habibullah, told a reporter. ``The priority must be to disarm the people.''
A nation of tribes, mountain game and feuding clans, Afghanistan took enthusiastically to guns, symbols of manhood and power, as weapons grew available over the generations. Now, after 23 years of war against Russian occupiers and among themselves, millions of Afghans also view small arms as essentials for basic security.
Afghan and international officials have only begun to plan how to separate Afghans from their weapons. Collection efforts thus far have been erratic. In Helmand province, for example, Kandahar's western neighbor, officials have not even begun rounding up guns.
Police and military in Kandahar, the Taliban's former stronghold, first collected guns that the populace gave up voluntarily after public appeals. In January, police set up roadblocks in Kandahar city and checked vehicles for weapons. More recently, they've relied on informants to tip them to weapons caches, or even single guns.
The vast majority of confiscated weapons are AK-47s, Russian-designed assault rifles. But weapons seized also included mortars and even anti-aircraft missiles. ``More than five or six'' Stinger missiles have been seized, said provincial government spokesman Yusuf Pashtun. Stingers are shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons that the United States supplied to anti-Soviet Afghan fighters in the 1980s.
After the Taliban were routed in the fall, unidentified gunmen roamed Kandahar's streets. These days, by contrast, almost the only armed men seen in this teeming city are uniformed police or military -- that is, soldiers of local militias being integrated in the new national army.
``At the beginning, there was a lot of crime,'' said Akram, the police chief. ``But crime has decreased. It's mostly traffic incidents now.''
Akram said authorities had confiscated 90 percent of the city's arms and 70 percent of those elsewhere in the province listed on records of weapons distributed by the Taliban.
Those figures would not include countless guns held clandestinely in homes, however. In addition, the Taliban fled from Kandahar with many of their weapons, and unknown numbers of Taliban fighters may be holed up in the mountains 60 to 100 miles north of here, like the holdouts currently sought in U.S.-Afghan combat operations in eastern Afghanistan.
Afghan and U.S. military forces swept through a Kandahar province town on the Pakistani border in January and seized dozens of truckloads of weapons. But such sweeps are not likely to become routine.
``If we need to, we'll do home searches. But that's a sensitive issue in Afghanistan,'' said Pashtun, the provincial government spokesman.
Methods and resources for large-scale disarmament are being debated among Afghan officials and international specialists.
The interior minister in the interim Afghan government, Yunus Qanooni, suggests that the international community buy up all weapons -- at a cost he estimated at $200 million.
Others say the reward should not be cash, but support for development projects in communities that surrender arms.
``Afghanistan presents a model for a disarmament program, a guns-for-goods program, instead of guns for cash,'' said Rachel Stohl of Washington's Center for Defense Information. Stohl is chairman of the Small Arms Working Group, a coalition of advocacy groups working for control of small-arms proliferation worldwide.
The Japanese government is reported planning such a program, offering to build a school, for example, in a town that collected a specified number of weapons.
``You can't just ignore guns in Afghanistan,'' Stohl said. ``Something must be done.''
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U.S., Taliban Reinforce, Peacekeepers Die in Kabul
March 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-afghan.html
GARDEZ/BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The U.S. army and their Taliban-al Qaeda foes reinforced their positions amid fierce fighting in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, while in Kabul two German and three Danish peacekeepers died in a munitions accident.
Hundreds of U.S. troops were flown to the battlefield to counter the al Qaeda-Taliban fighters, who were believed to be bolstering their positions as infiltrators slip into the mountain frontline to join besieged comrades.
In what has developed into the biggest battle of the war, the U.S. military said 500 of 1,000 rebels, including some high ranking leaders, had already died in six days of fighting.
But General F.L. Buster Hagenbeck, commander of ``Operation Anaconda,'' said more fundamentalist followers in the area were rushing to join in a holy war against the United States.
``We have intelligence from a variety of sources...that the local fundamentalists have called a jihad (holy war) against the Americans and their coalition partners,'' he told reporters at Bagram air base, 30 miles north of the capital.
He said local leaders had been ``funneling, infiltrating fighters into this area.''
``In our estimation, in the last 24 to 48 hours, the number of enemy that we've fought over time is somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 to 700.''
Afghan commanders said the battle was twisting along a six-mile frontline of bunkers and caves up to the 3,000-yard peaks around the village of Shahi Kot.
Hagenbeck said that only around 150-200 enemy fighters had been in the area when the U.S.-led attack began on Saturday east of Gardez, capital of Pakita province, about 95 miles south of Kabul.
At least eight U.S. and seven Afghan soldiers have died in the operation with about 40 Americans and 30 Afghans wounded.
There were five other Western casualties on Wednesday, when two German and three Danish peacekeepers died in an accident at a munitions site.
``There have been five deaths, of which two were German and three were Danish,'' German army chief Harald Kujat told a news conference.
Kujat said three other military were seriously injured in the accident, at a demolition range about 1.5 miles from the German military base on the outskirts of Kabul.
``They (the dead and injured) were setting up charges to blow up a surface-to-air missile,'' a German officer who asked not to be identified told Reuters in Kabul.
U.S. CLAIMS INITIATIVE
Despite their battlefield casualties, American commander Hagenbeck said his forces had the initiative and had suffered no casualties in the last two days.
He said that the Gardez fighting was unlikely to be the last battle of the war, given that thousands of Taliban fighters were still at large in Afghanistan.
In his first remarks on the latest fighting, interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said the offensive was succeeding.
Asked by Reuters on the fifth day of the air and ground campaign how ``Operation Anaconda'' was going, he said: ''Successful, successful.''
It was his only comment after meeting Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim and other military officials in Kabul for an update on the fighting.
Afghan soldiers returning to Gardez from the front line said the rebels were making hit-and-run attacks on the combined U.S.-Afghan force of 1,500 besieging their caves and bunkers.
``They are fighting a guerrilla war,'' Mohammad Yunis told Reuters. ``They have divided into groups of four or five. They jump out of a cave, open fire on us and then dart back into the cave or move to another one. They know the area very well.''
The rebels were firing rockets of their own, mortar bombs and heavy machineguns. But the soldiers said the Taliban appeared to be running short of ammunition and alliance forces were closer to the hideouts, sometimes as near as 100 meters.
Afghan commander Abdul Muteen said the rebels were determined to fight to the death.
``No one is even thinking of them surrendering. They have already chosen to die for their ideology,'' he told Reuters.
The region's governor warned that it could take weeks before the al Qaeda and Taliban forces were wiped out.
There are thousands of caves in the area and bunkers built to defend the area against Soviet forces in the 1980s.
The United States launched strikes on Afghanistan in October to flush out Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on American cities, and punish his Taliban protectors.
Afghan officials believe neither bin Laden, the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader, nor Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar are in the battle area.
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U.S. spots terrorists returning to camps
March 6, 2002
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20020306-24387723.htm
U.S. intelligence agencies identified terrorists moving back into training camps that had been bombed in the war, as allied military forces pressed attacks against al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan yesterday.
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said terrorists had been spotted in some of the more than 20 camps abandoned after military strikes began on Oct. 7.
Renewed allied air strikes on the camps are expected in the coming days. The camps have been used to train al Qaeda terrorists that are part of a network of Islamic extremists working secretly in cells in up to 60 nations.
In the fifth day of Operation Anaconda, heavy bombing by U.S. and French warplanes softened hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban forces entrenched in the mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, near Gardez, said Air Force Brig. Gen. John Rosa, deputy operations director for the Joint Staff.
"I think the biggest thing to change, and not to be flip, is we've killed a lot of people," Gen. Rosa told reporters at the Pentagon. "We've killed people. They're not roaming around freely like they were; they're dug in. They're hunkered in. We've got a simultaneous attack at times with air from the U.S. and coalition forces. But I think it's tougher on them right now, and they're not moving quite as freely."
The battle is "far from over," he said. "There's still a lot of work to be done."
Afghan commander Abdul Matin Hasankhiel said hundreds of Afghan and coalition forces are deployed around the mountain area in the Paktia province, where al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have been surrounded.
"They can't escape. They're surrounded. Slowly, slowly we are pushing in," he told the Associated Press in Gardez.
U.S. Special Forces and Afghan fighters were conducting mine-clearing operations on the mountains as part of the assault, and allied warplanes dropped bombs and fired flares to thwart any surface-to-air missiles during bombing raids that lasted into last night.
One Afghan fighter, identified by the Associated Press as Nawab, said fighting yesterday was less intense. The battle began Friday after U.S. intelligence monitored the massing of al Qaeda and Taliban in the area. "Inshallah [God willing], in three or four days they will be finished," Nawab said.
The Associated Press reported yesterday that the Navy sailor who fell out of an MH-47 helicopter south of Gardez after it came under attack died at the hands of al Qaeda fighters, and not from the fall itself.
The missing serviceman was captured and killed by al Qaeda fighters. "We saw him on the Predator being dragged off by three al Qaeda men," Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck told AP, referring to an unmanned reconnaissance plane mounted with a real-time video camera.
A Pentagon account by Marine Maj. Ralph Mills said Navy Aviation Boatswain's Mate-Handling Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts died of a bullet wound after surviving a fall from the helicopter.
Gen. Rosa told a Pentagon briefing that a U.S. rescue team recovered the man's body. The Pentagon yesterday also released the names of seven soldiers killed Monday in two incidents.
Those killed in action as part of the operation near Gardez were Army Sgt. Bradley S. Crose, 27, Orange Park, Fla.; Army Sgt. Philip J. Svitak, 31, Joplin, Mo.; Army Spc. Marc A. Anderson, 30, Brandon, Fla.; Army Pfc. Matthew A. Commons, 21, Boulder City, Nev.; Mr. Roberts, 32, Woodland, Calif.; Air Force Tech. Sgt. John A. Chapman, 36, Waco, Texas; and Air Force Senior Airman Jason D. Cunningham, 26, Camarillo, Calif.
Also, Army Chief Warrant Officer Stanley L. Harriman, 34, of Wade, N.C. was killed as the result of enemy fire near Gardez on Saturday.
A second team of two MH-47s came under fire three hours later as it landed some distance from the first landing area while bringing in a team of U.S. Army Special Forces troops.
Seven soldiers were killed in a gunbattle with al Qaeda forces on the ground and at least 11 were wounded before the team was rescued by more helicopters, Gen. Rosa said.
"That was a very successful operation. We got everybody out," the one-star general said.
Gen. Rosa said he did not know why local commanders selected a landing area that was filled with enemy forces. "In combat, you can never be sure that you're risk-free and that the landing zone will be completely free," he said, noting that subsequent missions were successful.
The eight American servicemen killed in Afghanistan in Operation Anaconda were honored in Germany before their caskets were flown back to the United States.
The Pentagon has said that as many as 200 al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have been killed in the battle. Four enemy fighters were taken prisoner.
The force of some 2,000 U.S. and allied troops along with Afghan fighters battled on yesterday in what Gen. Rosa described as "a very deliberate attack."
Advancing U.S. troops moved in on cave complexes and one of the caves held stockpiles of mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and small arms.
"Our focus remains defeating al Qaeda and the former Taliban forces holed up in the Shah-e-Kot region," Gen. Rosa said. "We believe there are still hundreds of fighters there."
Reporters spotted a group of 60 Afghan fighters, wearing U.S.-issued parkas, heading to the front lines of the battle near Jiji, a town northeast of Gardez.
Bright orange strips were attached to the tops of their transport trucks to help identify them to allied bombers and gunships.
The military operations have involved Apache attack helicopters and as many as four AC-130 gunships.
Other combat aircraft involved in the mission include U.S. A-10s, F-15s, B-1s, B-52s, and French Mirage 2000 and Super-Etendard aircraft.
The Pentagon also released video from gun cameras showing bombing strikes on the targets in Gardez.
-------- arms sales
Russian arms merchant denies sales to al Qaeda
World Scene
March 6, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020306-14802985.htm
MOSCOW - Victor Bout, a Russian air cargo magnate who has been accused of running guns to al Qaeda and the Taliban, said in an interview published yesterday that the charges were "nonsense."
U.N. officials and others have also said Mr. Bout used a fleet of planes and contacts from his days in the Soviet air force - and possibly the KGB - to buy weapons in formerly communist Eastern Europe and deliver them to rebel groups in Africa.
Peter Hain, Britain's minister for European affairs and a leader in international efforts to halt gunrunning to Africa, has called Mr. Bout a "merchant of death" for helping fuel wars in Sierra Leone, Congo, Angola and Rwanda, and said he supplied al Qaeda and the Taliban with arms.
-------- business
Timing Is an Issue In Lockheed Dispute
By Kirstin Downey Grimsley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 6, 2002; Page E04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A44424-2002Mar5?language=printer
It's job security, not national security, that's heavy on the mind of David Edwards, 45, a tool grinder at a Lockheed Martin Corp. defense plant in Marietta, Ga., that makes fighter jets and transport planes.
But critics say the workers' priorities are misplaced. Some question the workers' patriotism in threatening to strike during the war in Afghanistan. Contract talks between the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the largest U.S. defense firm failed last week, and 6,000 workers at three primary plants have voted overwhelmingly to strike Monday if there is no agreement.
Company and union officials are scheduled to meet today with federal mediators in Atlanta and in California.
Lockheed Martin spokesman Jim Fetig said he doubted that any serious problems would develop as a result of the impasse. "Traditionally in this industry, negotiations go down to the wire," he said. The two parties could settle their disagreements quickly in a single long evening of intense deliberations, he noted.
Analyst Paul Nisbet of JSA Research Inc. in Newport, R.I., said the threatened job action would pose "no problem for war efforts" because the affected plants are not building aircraft that are needed for immediate delivery.
But U.S. Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) told the Chamber of Commerce of Cobb County, Ga., that he considered it a "bad time for a strike," since the United States has "troops in the field, and they are under attack," the Marietta Daily Journal reported.
Unionized workers in Marietta say that despite winning a series of lucrative military contracts in recent years, Lockheed Martin has whittled away at its workforce by outsourcing to nonunion firms or moving jobs overseas.
"We've got people with over 20 years on the job losing their jobs every day," said Edwards, of Powder Springs, Ga., who has worked at the Marietta plant for 23 years. "It brings up a lot of concern about what our futures are. Do I have any security?"
At the Marietta plant, union officials said, the number of unionized workers in the bargaining unit has dropped from 7,000 in 1990, to 5,500 in 1995, to 4,000 in 2000 and now to 2,700.
Lockheed Martin said it offers a competitive pay and benefits package and had offered workers 3 percent annual raises, pension enhancements and $600 in cost-of-living supplements. But the workers, who average about 50 years of age, said they want job-security guarantees, given that the company has received long-term contracts from the federal government.
"All the money in the world you can get doesn't mean anything if you don't have a job," Edwards said.
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Lockheed Martin will begin selling iris-recognition security products
IN BRIEF
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45875-2002Mar6?language=printer
• Lockheed Martin, the largest U.S. defense contractor, will begin selling iris-recognition security products built by privately owned Iridian Technologies. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. The systems identify people by the patterns of the iris, the colored ring around the pupil of the eye, Iridian said. The company's security products can be used to control access to buildings and computer systems. Lockheed Martin, based in Bethesda, makes aircraft such as the F-16 fighter, the Titan rocket and Thaad anti-missile system.
-------- china
China Gives Military Spending Increase
March 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-China-Defense-Budget.html
BEIJING (AP) -- Chinese military officers said a 17.6 percent rise in defense spending announced Wednesday wasn't enough, grumbling that poorly paid soldiers are shivering in unheated barracks and lack modern equipment.
Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng, in a budget report to China's legislature, announced the 14th straight year of double-digit increases in military spending. He said the People's Liberation Army must modernize weapons and raise salaries.
The modernization of the 2.5-million-member PLA, the world's biggest military, has unnerved some Asian countries that have territorial disputes with Beijing.
Yet military delegates to the National People's Congress said the increase still isn't enough.
It ``doesn't satisfy the military's needs,'' said Gen. Song Qingwei, one of more than 250 legislators representing the PLA. ``Many barracks in cold areas don't have heating.''
``Troops and officers have to eat, live, repair equipment,'' he said. ``We have to appropriately increase our military spending.''
The $20 billion budget is a $3 billion increase over last year, according to Xiang. It is slightly below last year's 17.7 percent rise, a record in real terms when inflation is taken into account.
The money is needed ``to utilize modern technology, especially high technology, to raise our army's defense and combat capabilities,'' Xiang told delegates.
The ruling Communist Party needs the PLA both to defend China's sprawling territory and to cement its control as leaders in their 70s prepare to hand power to a younger generation over the next year.
Another officer, Deng Hongmo, said finances are still tight.
``Our military budget is very small compared to other major countries,'' he said. ``Our equipment is still backward.''
China is spending heavily on warplanes, submarines and other weapons from Russia -- purchases thought not to be included in the publicly announced budget.
But with soldiers' wages as low as $100 a month, the military is having trouble attracting qualified personnel.
``The PLA has to compete much more vigorously to attract and retain the skilled personnel increasingly required as a result of its acquisition of more and more advanced systems,'' said Robert Karniol, Asia-Pacific editor for Jane's Defense Weekly.
Western experts say China's true military spending is 2 1/2 to five times the official figure. But China insists that its spending is low compared to other major countries. It says its military modernization does not threaten its Asian neighbors.
It's all purely for defense, said a civilian legislator from the eastern province of Shandong. He gave only his surname, Sun.
--------
Military spending to widen China's budget gap
March 6, 2002
By Elaine Kurtenbach
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020306-73662668.htm
BEIJING - China is projecting a record budget deficit this year as it gives its military another double-digit spending increase and spends heavily to prop economic growth.
The budget to be announced today to China's legislature by Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng totals $170 billion, according to a copy of Mr. Xiang's report viewed in advance by the Associated Press.
The $37.5 billion deficit, a 19.2 percent increase over last year, is the "price we have to pay" to keep economic growth robust at 7 percent a year, Mr. Xiang says in the report.
Military spending is to grow by 17.6 percent to $20 billion - the 13th straight year of double-digit increases for the 2.5 million-member People's Liberation Army. The increase is slightly below last year's record 17.7 percent rise in defense outlays.
Experts say China's true military spending is much higher than publicly reported - as much as five times the official figure.
According to the report, some of the military spending increase will go to raising salaries for the poorly trained and equipped army. Beijing also is spending heavily on upgrading antiquated weapons technology.
The size of China's budget deficit has nearly tripled since 1999 as it pumped money into the slowing economy by spending heavily on public building projects. The government also boosted farm subsidies and support to workers laid off in the restructuring of state industry.
-------- colombia
Assessing Colombia's Military Needs
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45847-2002Mar6?language=printer
As the Bush administration weighs expanding military aid to Colombia, a senior U.S. Army commander said yesterday that Colombia's military lacks resources to defeat rebel forces and stem the drug trade.
"My assessment is that the current level of support to the Colombia military is insufficient for the Colombian security forces to reestablish a safe and secure environment," Major Gen. Gary Speer, acting commander-in-chief of the U.S. Southern Command, which covers Latin America, told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
U.S. military aid to Colombia has been restricted to helping it fight the illegal narcotics trade that yields most of the cocaine sold in the United States and has helped finance decades of civil war. The Bush administration is evaluating loosening the strings on the aid to give Colombian President Andres Pastrana more leeway to fight the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
-------- france
France: Osama bin Laden likely dead
By Elizabeth Bryant
United Press International
March 7, 2002
http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/07032002-094521-3013r.htm
PARIS, March 7 (UPI) -- Saudi terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden may well be dead and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is likely alive, French Defense Minister Alain Richard said Thursday.
"As for bin Laden, there haven't been traces for quite a while," Richard said during an interview on Europe-1 radio.
His comments echoed what other foreign leaders and defense experts have said. Asked whether bin Laden might be dead, Richard answered, "There's a serious chance. Yes."
"There are three hypotheses: Either he's hiding in an Afghan zone near his fighters -- that's not the one we're leaning on," Richard said. "Or he escaped via Pakistan. Or he's dead."
The defense minister offered no basis for his statements or for his estimations between 1,500 and 2,000 al Qaida and Taliban forces had regrouped south of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Previous estimates of the remaining forces have ranged from several hundred to several thousand.
A U.S. commander said Wednesday recent allied attacks had killed at least half of the al Qaida and Taliban forces now fighting in the eastern part of the country. Richard said, however, Omar may be alive.
"Mullah Omar is located in another section, more in the south of Afghanistan," from where U.S. and allied forces are fighting Taliban and al Qaida forces, Richard said. "[Omar] is protected by tribal groups. He's very mobile." Richard also described a major policy change in the Bush administration's approach toward Afghanistan, from simply routing out the Taliban and al Qaida and then leaving the country, to a more long-term presence.
He suggested European calls -- "that Afghanistan's stabilization is also a guarantee for them" -- had been registered in Washington.
"We've been able to make the United States understand the international political realities they hadn't taken into account at the beginning," he said.
Thursday's wide-ranging interview also touched on the cycle of violence in the Middle East and Washington's more aggressive stance on Iraq.
"President Bush has indicated he classed Iraq as an enemy country," Richard said. "He's fixed himself...a sort of moral obligation. So now he has the problem of taking a strategic initiative toward Iraq."
Nonetheless, the defense minister said, the best course remained working through the U.N. Security Council.
Richard also denied widespread criticism the French military was under-funded and under-equipped, and facing serious problems of morale. France is among half a dozen Western nations recently tapped by Washington to take an active role in the war in Afghanistan.
-------- india
Death Toll in Indian Riots Rises Above 600
March 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-india.html
AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - The death toll in the western Indian state of Gujarat from the worst Hindu-Muslim bloodshed in a decade climbed above 600 after more bodies were discovered, police said Wednesday.
But they said the state was mostly peaceful apart from a few isolated incidents.
Authorities scouring the burned out wrecks of homes and shops recovered 29 bodies overnight, taking the official toll to 602.
That included 58 people burned to death after a Muslim mob attacked a train carrying Hindu pilgrims last Wednesday, sparking a wave of reprisal killings of Muslims.
``These are all bodies which are being recovered from earlier incidents, some from urban areas and some from rural areas,'' senior state government official Ashok Narayan told Reuters.
``The state is in fact quite peaceful except for some tension in select pockets.''
A mass burial of about 200 bodies is planned for Wednesday.
As authorities brace for a future backlash, the national government is locked in talks with its hard-line Hindu affiliate, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), over divisive plans to build a temple on a contested site sacred to Hindus and Muslims.
Muslim leaders have warned the campaign to build a temple on what the VHP regards as the birthplace of the god king Ram in the town of Ayodhya could trigger more communal violence.
Courts have banned construction on the site until a decades-long legal battle decides the issue.
Hindu extremists destroyed a 400-year-old mosque on the site in December, 1992, sparking nationwide riots which killed more than 3,000 people -- the worst religious upheaval since a million died when the subcontinent was split into mainly Hindu India and Islamic Pakistan in 1947.
The victims of last week's train massacre were returning from a religious vigil in Ayodhya blessing the temple project.
Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, reeling from a severe setback in key state elections and juggling an explosive military standoff with nuclear rival Pakistan, has been accused of failing to do enough to rein in Hindu radicals.
-------- iraq
Iraqis Will Face Blunt Terms in Weapons Talks at the U.N.
New York Times
March 6, 2002
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/06/international/middleeast/06IRAQ.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 5 - After three years of refusing to deal with United Nations arms inspectors, a high-level Iraqi delegation is about to come face to face for the first time with the leader of the inspection commission, Hans Blix.
That the Iraqis have agreed to this meeting, set for Thursday, after asking to see only Secretary General Kofi Annan, is indicative of the concern they have that the threat of an American attack is real, if not imminent, diplomats and United Nations officials said in interviews this week.
While no one expects a quick resumption of arms inspections in Iraq, diplomats said the Iraqis appear more conciliatory. They also said the five permanent Security Council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - are more unified than in recent years at least on the demand that until inspectors return on the Council's terms, no relief from sanctions can be permitted.
Dr. Blix, a Swedish disarmament expert and international lawyer, said in an interview on Monday that the Council's terms meant unrestricted access and no Iraqi veto over the nationality of inspectors. "I am not giving any discounts on Security Council resolutions," he said. "There are no sanctuaries. The resolutions make it quite clear that there should be access that is unconditional, immediate and unrestricted."
The Iraqis sought this week's meeting after a year of cold-shouldering the United Nations and another two years of playing Council members off one another. When Mr. Annan agreed to the talks, he decided to include Dr. Blix, executive chairman of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, created in December 1999 to replace an earlier body, the United Nations Special Commission. A senior United Nations legal counsel will also be present.
The Iraqi delegation to what is expected to be only the first round of talks will be led by a new foreign minister, Naji Sabri, who is considered more amenable than his blustering predecessor, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf.
Weapons experts will be included in the Iraqi group, the first to venture out on this issue since a reshuffle in the Iraqi foreign affairs hierarchy that may have reduced the influence of Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, diplomats said. Mr. Aziz recently visited Moscow and Beijing but received little in the way of support from the Russians or Chinese for continued defiance of the Security Council.
At the International Peace Academy, a research organization in New York that works closely with the United Nations, David Malone, the organization's president, said American threats to hit Iraq may have influenced thinking in countries like Russia and France, which have large commercial interests there. If the government of Iraq were to be dislodged or toppled by United States action, what would happen to those interests - to the debt of up to $8 billion Iraq owes the Russians?
"Saddam Hussein may have played his cards wrong," Mr. Malone, a Canadian diplomat, said in an interview. "Overall, patience with Iraq has pretty much run out."
Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the United Nations, said today that Iraq's team looked promising.
"The fact that they are coming with a senior and quite serious delegation is a good sign that they want to have discussions with the secretary general about - as they would see it - the options open to them," he said. "As the Security Council, and I'm sure the secretary general, see it, the options open to them are compliance."
Britain and other Security Council members have met with Mr. Annan to encourage him not to allow the Iraqis to shift talks away from their immediate obligations. Iraq, seeking control over revenue from oil sales, wants a timetable for the lifting of penalties. Money now goes into escrow accounts, with some earmarked to assist the Kurds in northern Iraq, to pay reparations for the 1990 occupation of Kuwait and to support arms inspection.
Dr. Blix has used some of that money to turn the commission he has headed since early 2000 into a much more technically professional body than its predecessor. A vast data base with sophisticated search engines for cross-referencing archival material on Iraq has been created, he said.
Satellite imagery of Iraqi buildings, roads, power lines or other objects of interest to inspectors has been purchased from commercial suppliers. A blowup of the streets of Baghdad hangs on his office wall.
About 230 inspectors from dozens of countries have been trained or are now in training to work in Iraq, Dr. Blix said.
The Monterey Institute of International Studies in California has produced a media file of 3,000 to 4,000 articles or other material published on Iraqi weapons, including testimony from defectors and intelligence leaks. Technology has been upgraded. "They have acquainted themselves with a lot of new techniques," Dr. Blix said of his inspectors. "Sensors, tagging, cameras, etc. - all this moves very fast."
The question hanging over the United Nations now is whether the United States really wants arms inspectors to return, based on public comments made by Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld questioning their value. Some diplomats say the United States would not want inspectors on the ground if a military attack were being planned; the last inspectors to work in Iraq had to be pulled out ahead of American bombing in 1998.
Other diplomats say they think that Washington fears that inspectors could be used to give the appearance of Iraqi compliance while continuing to stonewall inspectors and hide weapons programs. Publicly, however, Bush administration officials call for the return of inspectors in line with Security Council demands.
As the Council approaches several critical months of work on the Iraq issue, European diplomats see the most unity on an agreement on a new list of what Iraq can buy freely with its oil money and of which items will be open to scrutiny because they look like civilian goods but could have military uses. That agreement is expected to be completed by mid- May.
--------
Blair Fires New Warning at Iraq, Gets Flak at Home
March 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-britain-iraq.html
LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a stark warning to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on Wednesday that he could face the wrath of the West but quickly ran into fire from members of his own Labour Party.
``(Saddam) should not underestimate the determination of the international community to prevent him developing and using weapons of mass destruction,'' Blair wrote in the Daily Express.
But he faces stiff opposition, not just from European allies, but his own rank-and-file. A parliamentary debate on Wednesday was suspended after politicians traded bitter accusations over Iraq with a Foreign Office minister.
President Bush dismayed countries around the world in January by branding Iraq, Iran and North Korea an ``axis of evil.''
Hawkish members of Bush's team have suggested some sort of military action against Saddam was on the cards given Iraq's refusal to allow U.N. weapons inspectors back into the country.
In Britain too, the language has hardened in the past month.
``If we fail to continue to restrain Saddam Hussein, what is already a volatile situation in the region could easily become a world crisis,'' Blair wrote. ``Saddam is continuing his chemical and biological weapons programs and is developing the long-range missiles to deliver them.''
PARLIAMENT BUST-UP
A clutch of European countries have expressed their fears about attacking Iraq and dozens of Labour MPs are aghast at the prospect of widening military action beyond Afghanistan.
Feelings ran so high in a debate in parliament that the sitting was suspended.
``This is a premier league war,'' Labour MP George Galloway said. Weeks of carpet bombing, a full-scale invasion and years propping up a successor regime would be required, he said.
His doubts were echoed by several others.
``Who can sanely contemplate such a course of action. This is not a Labour policy, this is a policy of a right-wing Republican American administration,'' Galloway argued.
Junior foreign minister Ben Bradshaw retorted that Galloway's anger would carry more weight if he had not acted as an ``apologist'' and ``mouthpiece'' for the Iraqi regime for years.
``You're a liar,'' a furious Galloway shouted -- a serious breach of parliamentary protocol -- and the session was halted.
Fifty-two members of parliament have signed a motion expressing ``deep unease'' at the prospect of Britain supporting military action in Iraq.
Blair, who noted international weapons inspectors found anthrax and other biological weapons in Iraq after the Gulf War, said the Iraqi leader would have no compunction in using them.
But he said no decision on a military strike against Iraq had yet been taken and Bush was consulting widely with allies.
``Though Iraq seems far away and Saddam, for the moment, is on the defensive, it is in the interests of us all to face up to these threats with determination and resolve,'' Blair wrote.
``President Bush will consult widely with his allies. Saddam Hussein would be wise not to mistake this for weakness.''
-------- israel / palestine
Syria Chief Backs Saudi Peace Plan as Mideast Boils
New York Times
March 6, 2002
By SERGE SCHMEMANN
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/06/international/middleeast/06ISRA.html
JERUSALEM, March 5 - Syria expressed its support today for a Saudi peace effort for the Middle East, while a bomb planted in an Arab schoolyard and crude rockets fired at an Israeli town fed the rapidly expanding blood feud between Israelis and Palestinians.
In its first statement on the plan proposed last month by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, which pledges Arab countries to a full normalization of relations with Israel in return for full Israeli withdrawal from land occupied in the 1967 war, Syria expressed its "satisfaction with the position of Saudi Arabia."
The statement followed a meeting between Prince Abdullah and President Bashar al-Assad of Syria in Riyadh. It said a comprehensive peace "cannot be achieved except with Israeli withdrawal from all occupied Arab land, including the Syrian Golan." The statement also called for the right of return for Palestinian refugees, a matter critical to Lebanon, where many of them live.
A Syrian endorsement of the Saudi idea was regarded as critical if it was to have a chance of adoption later this month at a summit meeting of the Arab League, as Syria and Syrian-controlled Lebanon are the last of Israel's immediate neighbors that have not made peace with the Jewish state.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel has been skeptical of the Saudi effort, and is rigidly opposed to returning Israel to the 1967 borders. Israel has also declared it will never let all the refugees return. But Saudi Arabia has said it regards its initiative as a broad vision for the Arabs and Israelis to work toward, and not a detailed plan for a settlement.
The Middle East was also the topic of a meeting today in Washington between President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and President Bush.
Mr. Bush, whose administration has kept a distance from the Middle East despite the rising violence there, offered no specific commitments beyond saying that he was ready to explore "how we can build on the vision for peace recently advanced by Crown Prince Abdullah."
But Mr. Mubarak urged greater American involvement in seeking solutions and called for an immediate meeting between Mr. Sharon and the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat, "whether they like it or not."
Greater violence was largely avoided today when the headmaster and teachers at an Arab boys' school on the outskirts of Jerusalem spotted a suspicious device in the yard and ushered the boys indoors before the bomb exploded.
Before it went off, an Israeli radio reporter received a message saying it was the work of a previously unknown Jewish group calling itself the "Revenge of the Infants." There were no immediate arrests, and no confirmation of whether such a group existed. Two dozen students and two staff members were treated for wounds from shrapnel and glass.
The message, on the reporter's beeper, said the attack was intended to avenge the killing of Israeli children by Palestinians. Six Israeli children were killed on Saturday when a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated his charge among ultra-Orthodox Jews returning from prayers.
Despite the claim in the message that the bomb at the school was the work of a Jewish group, some senior Israeli officials suggested it could be the work of Palestinians. The mayor of Jerusalem, Ehud Olmert, said: "I can raise other possibilities. It could be, for example, done as a provocation by Palestinian elements."
Jewish vigilantes have struck in the past, including one called the Shalhevet-Gilad Brigade, after two babies killed by Palestinians. That group took responsibility for the killing of three Palestinians last year. No members have been arrested.
In southern Israel, another first was recorded in the conflict when two Qassam-2 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into the Israeli city of Sderot. One landed in an open field and another struck a building, wounding three people.
The attack was the first use of the crude rocket, which Israel says is made by the militant Hamas organization, against a city.
Israel has warned in the past that there would be repercussions if the Qassam was fired at a city.
[Early on Wednesday, doctors in northern Gaza said two Palestinians were killed by Israeli tank fire, apparently in retaliation for the rocket attack in Sderot, The Associated Press reported.
[In the village of Abassan near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security officials said Israeli troops killed three relatives of an activist from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine during an unsuccessful search for him and arrested five others, Reuters reported. Israeli military officials said two Israeli soldiers were killed during that fighting, Agence France-Presse said.]
Today's violence began at 2:30 a.m., when a Palestinian armed with an M-16 assault rifle, two grenades and a knife attacked a popular night spot in Tel Aviv, killing three people and wounding at least two dozen before he was killed. The Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
What followed was typical of a struggle that has deepened to a virtual war over the last 17 months, and has assumed particular intensity in the last few weeks. A Palestinian suicide bomber detonated his charge on a bus in Afula, killing one Israeli. An Israeli woman was ambushed and killed driving in the West Bank, and Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian in a gun battle there.
Israeli forces also continued shelling various Palestinian police facilities in Gaza, Nablus, Ramallah and Tulkarm. The army said it had also shelled a parking lot outside Mr. Arafat's compound in Ramallah, apparently to harass him.
Palestinians said two leaders of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a militia linked to Mr. Arafat's Fatah movement, were killed by a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter near Ramallah. Marwan Barghouti, the militia leader, said the dead were Muhammad Abu Halaweh and Fawzi Murrar, and he vowed retribution.
The continuing violence has placed ever greater pressures on Israel's coalition government. After a weekend in which 22 Israelis were killed, the mood in a Cabinet meeting on Monday was bitter and contentious, according to Israeli news reports.
Mr. Sharon issued some of his most aggressive statements to date. "We have to deal them very painful blows, continuously, until they understand that they won't achieve anything with terror," he told a parliamentary committee.
But while most ministers echoed the martial calls, there was a growing sense in and out of the government that it had no real plan beyond meeting violence with more violence.
Mr. Sharon has reportedly begun to debate several issues with Defense Minister Binyamin Ben- Eliezer and other ministers, including whether to bring tanks back to Mr. Arafat's door, and whether to allow Mr. Arafat to attend the Arab League summit, scheduled for Beirut on March 27. If Mr. Arafat is blocked from going, the effort would probably founder.
The newspaper Yediot Ahronot reported one idea laid out by Infrastructures Minister Avigdor Lieberman, a head of a small party of Russian immigrants.
"I propose informing the Palestinians, if you don't stop the terrorist activity within 24 hours, we will do the following things," Mr. Lieberman said. "At 8 in the morning we will bomb all the commercial centers in Judea, Samaria and Gaza. Of course, we will tell them in advance so everyone can run home. At 12, we'll bomb their gas stations. We'll tell them in advance, of course. At 2, we'll bomb all the banks."
"At 6," interjected Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, "you'll receive an invitation to the international tribunal in The Hague." Mr. Lieberman replied that Mr. Peres was thinking only of himself, not Israel's security.
----
7 Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks
March 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Palestinians.html
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israel shelled Palestinian targets by land, air and sea Wednesday in retaliation for a Palestinian rocket attack on an Israeli town. Seven Palestinians, including three civilians, and two Israeli soldiers were killed in one of the most intense Israeli assaults on the Gaza Strip in 17 months of fighting.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's home in Gaza City and a U.N.-run school for the blind were severely damaged in an air strike on a nearby security compound. The blasts blew out windows and collapsed a back wall at Arafat's home. Arafat's wife and daughter live abroad and were not at the home.
Also Wednesday, an activist in the Islamic militant group Hamas was killed by an explosion in his Gaza City home. An announcement over mosque loudspeakers said the man was killed by an Israeli missile, but the claim could not be confirmed.
In a West Bank village, three Palestinian school students were wounded when Israeli soldiers fired toward villagers throwing stones at an Israeli convoy, the principal said. Two students, ages 12 and 16, were seriously wounded, he said. The army said the Israeli convoy came under fire.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the military would be relentless in trying to crush Palestinian militants. ``This will be an aggressive and continuous campaign, without letup, and when the other side understands that it can't achieve anything through terror, it will be easier to enter negotiations,'' Sharon said.
In the past week, one of the bloodiest since violence erupted in September 2000, 67 people have died on the Palestinian side and 31 on the Israeli side.
In Washington, the State Department called on Arafat to stop terrorism and on Israel to show maximum restraint.
In other developments, Syria declared its support for the Saudi-proposed peace plan to end the Middle East conflict. The proposal offers Israel peace, trade and security with the Arab world in return for Israeli withdrawal from Arab territories it seized during the 1967 Mideast war, including the strategic Golan Heights which Israel won from Syria.
The Israeli strike against Gaza came several hours after Palestinians fired two unguided Qassam rockets late Tuesday, hitting an Israeli town for the first time.
One missile struck an apartment building in the Israeli town of Sderot near Gaza. An infant was moderately wounded and another child lightly hurt.
``Nothing is the same as it was before,'' Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal told Israel Radio. ``Now children cannot play peacefully in their yards here.''
In the assault on Gaza, one of the most extensive in recent months, navy boats, helicopters and tanks shelled Palestinian targets in several locations. Troops also commandeered three apartment buildings in a refugee camp, demolished two Palestinian police stations and destroyed the home of a fugitive militia leader.
Two Israeli soldiers were killed by Palestinian fire, the military said.
The heaviest fighting was reported in the villages of Abassan and Karrara in the southern strip. Witnesses said 12 tanks moved into the area, drawing intense Palestinian fire. Helicopter gunships fired machine guns toward the gunmen, sending civilians scrambling for cover.
A 40-year-old Palestinian woman was killed by a shot in the back, and two other civilians were critically wounded, Palestinian doctors said. Israeli troops barred ambulances from reaching the two wounded men, who died after being left untreated for about three hours, doctors said. There was no comment by the army.
In one of the villages, Israeli troops demolished the home of Issam Abu Daka, fugitive leader of the military wing of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and arrested 14 relatives. Abu Daka is suspected of having masterminded a deadly assault on an Israeli outpost several months ago.
The Israeli military said troops searched for militants and destroyed a total of three homes of suspects.
After daybreak Wednesday, Israeli F-16 warplanes flattened a two-story office building used by the Palestinian police chief in Gaza, Brig. Gen. Abdel Razek Majaidie. Tanks also moved toward the northern Gaza towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, digging up the main road and building barriers.
Israeli navy gunboats fired at a Palestinian base on the coast north of Gaza City, killing four members of the Palestinian naval police. One officer died after a shell hit his jeep, and the bodies of three of his colleagues were discovered later Wednesday in the rubble of the base.
In the West Bank, Israeli missiles hit offices of Fatah in the town of Dahariya, near Hebron. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
On Tuesday, five Israelis were killed in a shooting attack on a restaurant, a suicide bombing on a bus and a West Bank road ambush. On the Palestinian side, six people were killed, including two assailants and three Palestinian militiamen whose car was hit by an Israeli missile.
One of those killed was Muhannad Abu Halaweh, a top aide to Marwan Barghouti, a leader of Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank. Israel said Abu Halaweh was responsible for several attacks on Israeli motorists.
----
Mideast Violence Unchecked as Israel Strikes Gaza
March 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-mideast.html
GAZA (Reuters) - Israeli forces swept through the Gaza Strip in a hunt for militants and faced Palestinian accusations they tried to wipe out a dozen security chiefs in a missile strike on Wednesday in a burst of deadly reprisals.
The dizzying cycle of violence, which added 10 Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers to the death toll, raged on after the United States and Egypt pledged to work harder to end the fighting but offered no new initiatives.
Alarmed at the deteriorating situation, European soccer body UEFA said it had suspended all European competition matches in Israel and switched a March 14 UEFA Cup tie between Hapoel Tel Aviv and AC Milan to a neutral venue.
The Israeli government barred world-renowned Israeli pianist Daniel Barenboim from going to the Palestinian-ruled West Bank city of Ramallah to perform on Wednesday, saying it could not guarantee his safety.
Responding to Palestinian shooting attacks and suicide bombings that have left Israelis reeling, Israeli forces, using tanks, bulldozers and gunboats, struck overnight in the Gaza Strip against what the army called a ``terror network.''
Palestinian officials said seven Palestinians were killed and 14 wounded. The army said one soldier was killed and three wounded in an ambush by militants, and an army officer was killed near the Khan Younis refugee camp.
The military wing of the Palestinian Islamic group Hamas said one of its members, Abdel-Rahman Ghazal, died in a blast at his home in Gaza City and accused Israel of killing him. An army spokeswoman said: ``We have no knowledge of any such operation.''
Later on Wednesday, an Israeli warplane fired a missile at a Palestinian security forces building in Gaza City.
Palestinian General Intelligence chief Amin al-Hindi, who was driving up to the compound when the missile hit, accused Israel of trying to kill a dozen senior security officials who were about to hold a meeting in the building.
``It seems the Israelis had received information about the meeting somehow,'' Hindi told Reuters. ``It is part of their continuous attempts to liquidate Palestinian leaders,'' he said.
Hospital officials said a woman and two children were slightly hurt by flying debris.
ARMY CALLS IT ``FIGHT AGAINST TERROR''
When asked whether the security chiefs had been targeted, the army said only that ``as part of the fight against terror, a number of targets known to be terror centers were bombed.''
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon holds President Yasser Arafat and his Palestinian Authority responsible for militants' attacks on Israelis and has vowed to ``beat'' them until they beg for a cease-fire. The Palestinians, in turn, have pledged no let-up in their uprising against Israeli occupation.
Israeli forces have killed prominent militants in the course of 17 months of conflict, but have not killed senior officials of the Palestinian Authority though they have been accused of making attempts on several officials' lives.
Sharon said Israel's actions were fully justified.
``This operation has the required steps in order to harm terror groups and the Palestinian Authority organizations that are assisting them so that we can reach a situation where we can enter a diplomatic process,'' he told reporters.
But the Palestinian Authority accused Israel of the ''indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians.''
Israeli aircraft carried out a second air strike on an office of Arafat's Fatah movement in Dahariya, south of the West Bank city of Hebron. Witnesses said one missile destroyed the office, which was empty at the time.
On Tuesday, home-made Qassam rockets in the arsenal of Palestinian militants were launched from the Gaza Strip and slammed into the southern Israeli town of Sderot. One rocket hit an apartment building and wounded three people, police said.
The attack, the first time the relatively crude rockets had hit a built-up area, was just one among a succession of strikes and counter-strikes on Tuesday which took the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a new level of intensity.
Commentators on both sides have responded to the escalation with a mixture of resignation and despair at the absence of any sign of an end to violence which has killed more than 1,200 people, three-quarters of them Palestinians, in 17 months.
The spiraling violence continued to unnerve Israeli financial markets on Wednesday. Major stock indices sank two percent for the second straight session, while the shekel weakened against the dollar.
WIDESPREAD VIOLENCE
In the West Bank, soldiers shot dead one Palestinian and wounded another at a checkpoint near Nablus.
The army said soldiers opened fire when the men approached them and ignored orders to stop. It said they carried bags that were found to contain several bombs. Palestinians said they were shot without warning by an undercover army unit.
Another Palestinian died at an Israeli checkpoint outside the northern West Bank town of Qalqilya, where the army said he had been blown up by his own hand grenade. No one else was hurt.
Troops also wounded four Palestinian youths at a school in the village of Silet al-Daher on Wednesday, Palestinian officials said. The army said soldiers and Jewish settlers had come under fire from buildings in the area and shot back.
In Washington, President Bush said he and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak viewed the situation with ``great alarm'' and would step up efforts to end the violence, but offered no new plans for U.S. intervention sought by Mubarak.
A Saudi proposal for Arab-Israeli peace appeared to gain momentum after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. The official Saudi Press Agency said Assad expressed support for the land-for-peace initiative.
At least 958 Palestinians and 313 Israelis have been killed since the Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation began.
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Bush lauds Mubarak Mideast peace plan
March 6, 2002
By Bill Sammon and Ben Barber
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20020306-4335400.htm
President Bush yesterday praised a new Middle East peace proposal by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, but cautioned that the violence must end before peace negotiations can begin in earnest.
"There has got to be a vision for peace in order for us to head toward peace," Mr. Bush said in a joint appearance with Mr. Mubarak at the White House. "But I want to remind everybody that it's going to be difficult to achieve any kind of peace, so long as there is a cycle of violence."
Israel had already rejected Mr. Mubarak's overture by the time the Egyptian leader met with Mr. Bush in the White House late yesterday. Mr. Mubarak had suggested Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hold talks in Sharm el Sheik, Egypt.
Still, Mr. Bush praised the Egyptian proposal, as well as another peace initiative suggested last week by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
"The president of Egypt has made an offer for dialogue that will help lead to peace, hopefully," Mr. Bush said. "Crown Prince Abdullah has as well."
Mr. Mubarak said he will continue pushing for peace when Vice President Richard B. Cheney visits Egypt and other Mideast nations later this month.
"Egypt took many pioneering steps toward peace in the Middle East," Mr. Mubarak said. "Our partnership has an indispensable role to play in helping the parties directly involved in the conflict find a just and comprehensive solution."
Before meeting with Mr. Bush, the Egyptian president gave a speech urging the United States to act swiftly against the Palestinian-Israeli violence exploding in the Middle East.
"There are losses of life from both sides - Israelis and Palestinians - every single day, which is terrible," Mr. Mubarak told the Council on Foreign Relations and the Middle East Institute.
"So this complicated situation, which has lasted now about 18 months without any interval, is terrible and needs some effort to break the cycle of violence," he added. "Otherwise more escalation, more losses, and I am afraid the whole area will be in trouble."
Mr. Bush said he is willing to send his Mideast peace envoy, retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, back to the region "when appropriate." The president also said he wants to work with both sides to implement a security plan devised by CIA Director George J. Tenet.
The president said his administration is "determined to redouble our efforts to work for peace." But his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, cautioned that Mr. Arafat must rein in the violence and Mr. Sharon must refrain from provoking Palestinians.
Mr. Mubarak implored the administration to plunge into the peace process with a new sense of urgency.
"We have to do whatever we can with the administration here to bring the two parties together," he said. "[Palestinians and Israelis] should sit, whether they like it or not."
"We have to find the solution," he added. "There is no other way out."
Mr. Mubarak said the Arab-Israel conflict threatened the stability of the entire region.
"A land was acquired by force," he said. "This occupation, with its settlements and its grief for all involved has denied an entire people its right to a nation, to an identity, and to a future to call its own."
"Occupation must end," he added. "Palestinians must have their viable state. Coexistence and security for all countries in the region must be guaranteed."
Mr. Bush went out of his way to reiterate his desire for an independent Palestinian state. Mr. Fleischer suggested this goal was particularly notable coming from "a Republican president."
Despite Israel's rejection of Egypt's offer, Mr. Mubarak said yesterday it remains "on the table."
He also said he supported the Saudi peace plan, which offers Israel normalization of relations with all Arab states if it gives up all land captured in the 1967 war.
Although the Bush and Sharon governments refuse to meet with Mr. Arafat, Mr. Mubarak said the Palestinian leader was "the only figure" who could negotiate peace on behalf of his people.
-------- korea
N. Korea blames U.S. for lack of dialogue
World Scene
March 6, 2002
Combined dispatches and staff reports
Washington Times
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020306-14802985.htm
SEOUL - North Korea said yesterday that the United States was blocking prospects for dialogue by plotting to dismantle its communist system.
"North Korea's stand on dialogue is to get its political system recognized by the U.S., not to allow itself to be disarmed or abandon its system," said the North's state news agency, Korean Central News Agency.
During a visit to South Korea last month, President Bush offered to resume talks with North Korea, but he also criticized the North as a "despotic regime" that builds weapons of mass destruction while starving its people.
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North Korea accuses US of jeopardizing nuclear accord
Wednesday March 6, 4:44 PM
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/020306/1/2kdxm.html
North Korea has threatened to end a 1994 aggreement to freeze its suspected nuclear weapons program, slamming what it called an "antagonistic" US attitide.
The Stalinist state also rejected US President George W. Bush's demand for a full inspection of North Korean nuclear facilities at its Yongbyon research base.
"The agreed framework is now at risk owing to the US unilateral and antagonistic attitude and stand," the North's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Wednesday.
Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, the North froze nuclear development suspected of underpinning an atomic weapons program in exchange for receiving two nuclear energy reactors that produce less weapons-grade plutonium.
The International Atomic Energy Agency wants full inspections of the Yongbyon site north of Pyongyang. The North, however, has refused full access, citing the delayed construction of the new reactors.
The 4.6-billion-dollar reactor project was due to be completed by 2003, but delays have pushed back the finish until at least 2008.
US officials have warned that the construction of the reactors might suffer further delays if the North refuses to allow checks on its nuclear activities.
"Under this situation, the DPRK (North Korea) can no longer underline the significance of the framework now gathering dust but will go its own way, not unilaterally bound to the framework," the North said.
"The historical process of implementing the agreed framework and the present reality prove that the US side had no political will to sincerely implement it from the outset."
There have been calls from some conservative politicians in Washington for the deal to be scrapped, and that position was bolstered last month when US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton called on North Korea to live up to international non-proliferation commitments.
But General Thomas Schwartz, chief commander of 37,000 US troops in South Korea, has praised the 1994 accord, as a "stepping stone" for future US-North Korean relations.
"It's the roadmap to the future in my opinion. It is serving us well at this time. It stopped their nuke development, there is no doubt about it," he told the Senate Armed Services committee in Washington on Tuesday.
Schwartz, however, said North Korea had stepped up its global exports of missile technology.
"They are the number one proliferator of missiles and they are also of conventional weapons," he said. "That's where they get their money, that's how they have kept their economy alive."
"Just as of late, the last couple of months, it has increased."
Schwartz said North Korea was exporting various types of missile technology as well as artillery and tanks.
US officials say North Korea's exports of missile and other weapons technology endangers US security, a concern that has multiplied since the September 11 terror attacks.
-------- pakistan
Pakistan Border Troops Seize Missiles From Gunmen
March 6, 2002
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-afghan-missiles.html
PARACHINAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani border forces clashed with gunmen carrying guided missiles and rockets out of eastern Afghanistan, close to where al Qaeda and Taliban forces are fighting Western troops, an official said Wednesday.
Col. Hameed Iqbal Khattak, commander of a paramilitary force guarding the border, told Reuters one of his men was wounded in Tuesday night's gun battle.
The fighting occurred near Kharlachi Fort in the tribal Kurram Agency of North-Western Frontier Province and directly opposite Afghanistan's Paktia province, where U.S.-led forces are waging the largest ground offensive of the Afghan war.
``We have seized three guided missiles, rockets and other ammunition from smugglers who slipped into Pakistan from Afghanistan,'' Khattak said.
``This is the first time they have attempted to bring in guided missiles,'' he said of the smugglers, who succeeded in running away. ``Since the removal of Taliban, they have become active once again.''
Pakistan, an ally of the U.S.-led war on terrorism, has stepped up patrols along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to stop Taliban and al Qaeda fighters from entering the country.
Khattak said his paramilitary force had foiled numerous attempts to smuggle arms and ammunition into Pakistan.
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A Secret Hub for the U.S. in Afghan War
By RICHARD T. COOPER,
Los Angeles Times
March 6, 2002
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-000016766mar06.story
WASHINGTON -- In October, when U.S. military personnel were first spotted at Pakistan's sprawling Shahbaz air base a short flying distance from the Afghan border, the Pakistani government hastened to assure militant Islamic protesters that the Americans were there for purely logistical and defensive purposes--not for combat.
In reality, however, the U.S. installation at Shahbaz has become the secret hub for Special Forces commando raids, covert CIA operations and a host of other activities aimed at rooting out Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan and developing intelligence to thwart future terrorist attacks against the United States, according to military and other sources familiar with the operation.
Behind its screen of secrecy, the base appears to have played a central role in the air war in Afghanistan. Its proximity to the Afghan border has enabled U.S. commanders to react faster and keep planes in the air over targets longer than would otherwise be possible. "Nothing beats turnaround time. Even planes flying off of aircraft carriers have hours of flying time before they are over targets in Afghanistan," said William M. Arkin, a military analyst at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies who has been studying the Shahbaz operation.
The Pentagon would neither confirm nor deny the use of Shahbaz as a base for offensive operations. "We can't discuss specifics of our ongoing operation," Navy Cmdr. Daniel Keesee, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., said Sunday.
In the current assault on Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in eastern Afghanistan, combat search-and-rescue units based at Shahbaz have apparently played a key role. They are the only such teams stationed close enough to aid downed helicopters and crews in the area, a source familiar with U.S. deployments in the region said.
The Air Force's MC-130 Combat Talon planes from Shahbaz also have taken part in the current fighting.
Although media attention has focused on the U.S. use of bases in Uzbekistan, which also borders Afghanistan, the Shahbaz facilities are much better equipped to handle modern warplanes.
A tent city has sprung up at the base, near the southeastern city of Jacobabad, to house about 1,500 elite troops, according to Defense Department sources. Army, Air Force, Marine and CIA aircraft swarm the runways and crowd scores of fortified revetments.
Among them are the Air Force's AC-130 gunships; the Army's MH-60L Direct Action Penetrator helicopter, which is specially armed to support ground assaults day or night, in all wea