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(08/25/05 5:12am)
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has ordered 1,500 paratroopers to Iraq to provide security in advance of two upcoming national votes, the military announced Wednesday.\nTwo infantry battalions from the 82nd Airborne Division will deploy to Iraq before the scheduled Oct. 15 referendum on the proposed constitution, and remain through the December national elections, the Pentagon said in a statement.\nThey are expected to depart the United States in mid-September and will remain in Iraq for 120 days, officials said.\nThe battalions will be the 2nd Battalion of the 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment, the "White Falcons," and the 3rd Battalion of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, the "Blue Devils," according to a draft of an 82nd Airborne press release provided to The Associated Press.\nBoth units have already been to Iraq. They will join the 138,000 U.S. troops already in the country.\nThe military anticipates an increase in violence in Iraq in advance of the elections, with insurgents opposed to the U.S.-backed government trying to disrupt the process.\nThe Pentagon has temporarily increased the size of the force in Iraq twice before political milestones -- the June 2004 transfer of sovereignty and the January elections. Lt. Col. Barry Venable, a Pentagon spokesman, said those deployments helped limit the effectiveness of the insurgent campaign.\n"This deployment is in support of continued progress," he said. "We are reinforcing success."\nThe troops are being sent at the request of Gen. George Casey, commander of the multinational forces in Iraq. His request was approved Tuesday by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Pentagon said.\nThe Pentagon has already sent a third battalion from the 82nd Airborne to Afghanistan to bolster security for September elections there.\nA fourth battalion from the 82nd is deploying to Iraq to assist with detention operations, the military recently announced.\nThe 82nd Airborne Division is based at Fort Bragg, N.C. The unit does not have many heavy vehicles and can be sent quickly to conflicts anywhere in the world.
(04/27/05 5:27am)
WASHINGTON -- U.S. forces in Iraq believe they just missed capturing most-wanted terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a February raid that netted two of his associates, a senior U.S. military official said Tuesday.\nThe official, who discussed the operation on the condition of anonymity, could provide no details regarding how Zarqawi escaped. U.S. forces recovered a computer belonging to Zarqawi, the official said, although he did not say how it was obtained.\nIraqi officials announced the Feb. 20 raid at the time but did not say Zarqawi was the target.\nAt a Pentagon news conference, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would only say, "We were close," but he declined to elaborate, citing concerns about disclosing operational details.\n"I think in general the intelligence is getting better. Having said that, we still don't have Zarqawi," Myers said.\nQuestioned about the level of insurgency in Iraq compared with last year, Myers said, "In terms of incidents, it's right about where it was a year ago."\nZarqawi, who has a $25 million bounty on his head, is believed to have orchestrated a relentless wave of car bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and beheadings across the country.\nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said of Zarqawi, "In terms of lethality, I would rank him quite high," but he added, "I think he is on the run. Life for a terrorist-extremist is hard."\nTroops with a covert military unit were reportedly in place to arrest him as he was on his way to Ramadi, but he caught wind of them, ABC News reported late Monday, citing an unidentified senior military official.\nThe official said just before the meeting was scheduled, a car was pulled over as it approached a checkpoint. A pickup truck trailing the car then turned and headed in the opposite direction.\nOfficials believe Zarqawi was in the fleeing truck, but when U.S. teams pulled the vehicle over several miles later, he was not inside, ABC reported. The official told the network Zarqawi apparently jumped out of the vehicle when it passed beneath an overpass and hid there before escaping.\nInside the truck, the official told ABC, U.S. troops found Zarqawi's computer and about $104,000.\nNBC, quoting U.S. military sources, reported Tuesday that among the items seized with the laptop were several small plug-in hard drives. Numerous pictures of Zarqawi were found in the computer's "My Pictures" file, the network said.\nCaptured in the Feb. 20 operation was Talib Mikhlif Arsan Walman al-Dulaymi, also known as Abu Qutaybah, an Iraqi government announcement said at the time.\nQutaybah "filled the role of key lieutenant for the Zarqawi network, arranging safe houses and transportation as well as passing packages and funds" to Zarqawi, the government said.\nIt said Qutaybah was a known associate of other Zarqawi lieutenants already held by coalition forces, including Abu Ahmed, an al-Qaida-linked insurgent leader in the northern city of Mosul who was detained Dec. 22.\nDuring the same raid, Iraqi forces captured another Zarqawi aide who "occasionally acted as his driver," the government said. He was identified as Ahmad Khalid Marad Ismail al-Rawi, who also helped arrange meetings for al-Zarqawi. He is also known as Abu Uthman.
(12/11/04 5:33am)
WASHINGTON -- Military officials said Thursday they were working hard to upgrade the armor on Army vehicles in Iraq, a day after a soldier had pressed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on the subject. President Bush said, "The concerns expressed are being addressed."\nClose to three-quarters of the Humvees in the Iraq war theater now have upgraded armor protection, but many larger trucks and tractor-trailer rigs do not, according to congressional figures.\nMilitary officials said that armoring Humvees has been the top priority because they are used to patrol areas where attacks are likely. The heavy haulers, meanwhile, usually travel convoy routes that are more frequently swept for guerillas and bombs.\nThe issue of whether the military is providing enough protection to soldiers is receiving new attention after a National Guardsman on his way to Iraq questioned Rumsfeld on Wednesday as to why he and his comrades had to scrounge through scrap piles to protect their vehicles.\nLt. Gen. Steven R. Whitcomb, commander of the 3rd Army, was questioned about that by Pentagon reporters Thursday in a teleconference from Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.\n"If I can add another plate or another inch or more to the vehicle I'm riding in that gives me protection, it's better," he said. "So I think that's a prudent thing to do, if the soldier has the capability. ... In my opinion, it's not being done in mass numbers or mass quantities."\nHe said vehicles with upgraded armor were being added every day.\n"Our goal, and what we're working toward, is that no wheeled vehicle that leaves Kuwait going into Iraq is driven by a soldier that does not have some level of armor protection on it," he said.\nAt the White House in Washington, Bush, too, was asked about the situation.\n"The concerns expressed are being addressed and that is -- we expect our troops to have the best possible equipment," Bush said. "If I were a soldier overseas wanting to defend my country, I'd want to ask the secretary of defense the same question. And that is, 'Are we getting the best we can get us?' And they deserve the best."\nQuestions have been raised about why the military had not started armoring its vehicles sooner than August 2003, when insurgents turned to bombs to attack U.S. forces. Some critics point to the lack of light armored vehicles as further evidence the Bush administration was unprepared for the kind of insurgency it has faced in Iraq.\nIt's the big trucks that do much of the heavy hauling around Iraq, ferrying supplies, troops and even other vehicles through rough stretches of highway. The better-known Humvee serves as a light troop carrier, weapons platform and all-purpose jeep.\nBut the big trucks, like the five-ton M939 medium truck and the tank-hauling Heavy Equipment Transporter, face some of the same threats as the Humvees, including roadside bombs and gun and rocket ambushes.\nSome have weapons on board, but very few have armor, and of those that do, the armor offers less protection than is carried by many Humvees.As to the issue arises of soldiers turning to scrap piles to better protect their vehicles, senior military officials have offered a few explanations. One is that units heading into Iraq are allowed to scavenge outgoing and damaged vehicles for spare armor plates.\nIn addition, officials acknowledge, soldiers will sometimes come up with ways to better protect themselves, and perform extra modifications to their vehicles. This may be a spare armor plate or sandbags on the floor. or some other fix.\nOf more than 9,100 heavy military haulers in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries, just over 1,100 have received upgraded protection, according to figures provided by the House Armed Services Committee in Washington. Armor add-on kits are in production for many of the rest of these vehicles.\nBy comparison, the military has decided it needs almost 22,000 armored Humvees in the war area. It has 15,334; an additional 4,400 await armor add-ons and the rest have not been delivered to the region.\nThose Humvees are being built at the rate of 450 a month. The company outfitting them with armor, Armor Holdings Inc., said Thursday it could increase production by 50 to 100 vehicles a month.\nHumvees are armored in two ways: at the factory or in the field. The factory-armored vehicles are considered the best-protected, and the military says it needs 8,105 in Iraq, Afghanistan and nearby countries. It has 5,910. About 120 have been destroyed, Whitcomb said. The rest are protected with add-on kits of armor that can be bolted to a regular unarmored Humvee.\nManufacturers are making these kits at a rate of 800 a month. Some 4,300 Humvees remain unarmored.\nPentagon officials say the unarmored vehicles are kept further from harm's way and that new military units heading into Iraq are driving only armored Humvees. Unarmored ones are being carried in the cargo beds of trucks.\nThe armored vehicles that rely on the add-on kits are suffering from increased wear, as engines and frames haul around tons of extra weight they weren't built to handle, Whitcomb said.\nRumsfeld, on a visit to the Indian capital of New Delhi, said it was good that ordinary soldiers are given a chance to express their concerns to the secretary of defense and senior military commanders.\nThe Guardsman's complaint about armor was aired Wednesday when Rumsfeld held a town-hall style meeting with about 2,300 soldiers at Camp Buehring in northern Kuwait, a transit camp for troops heading into Iraq.
(02/27/03 7:36pm)
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration on Thursday lowered the national terror alert from orange to yellow, suggesting the threat of an imminent terrorist attack on U.S. soil has eased somewhat.\nThe conclusion of the Muslim hajj holiday period played a role in the decision to lower the threat level from orange, the second-highest level on the five-part scale, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a joint statement. President Bush concurred with the decision to lower the alert status, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.\nCounterterrorism officials had said a significant amount of intelligence pointed toward an attack during the early February holiday.\nNevertheless, officials warned that al-Qaida still has the capability to strike in the United States.\n"The lowering of the threat level is not a signal to government, law enforcement or citizens that the danger of a terrorist attack is passed," Ashcroft and Ridge said. They said that lowering the alert status "is only an indication that some of the extra protective measures enacted by government and the private sector may be reduced at this time."\nOther, unspecified intelligence suggested that an attack was somewhat less imminent, officials said.\nA yellow, elevated alert is the third-highest alert on a five-step scale. It means the intelligence suggests a significant risk of terrorist attacks. The orange alert is a step higher and means there's a high risk of an attack. The highest alert level is red.\nThe level was raised to orange on Feb. 7, prompting the government and businesses to impose extra security measures at buildings, utilities and other key infrastructure sites.\nBut no attack occurred, and it is possible the intelligence was incorrect or misinterpreted.\nIt is also possible that enhanced security measures or other factors caused the terrorists to change their plans.\nLaw enforcement, intelligence and homeland security officials debated for days about the proper time to lower the alert status as chatter among suspected terrorist waned and some leads on possible threats were discredited.\nThe discussions were held in the shadow of a potential war with Iraq, which is expected to increase the risk of terror attacks against Americans.\nAs recently as Monday, Attorney General John Ashcroft said there were no plans to lower the national alert level.\nHomeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge has said that any decision to lower the alert level would be based on an evaluation of intelligence over several days.\nNearly three weeks of orange alert rattled a nation that has been subject to repeated, dire warnings of imminent al-Qaida terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks. While al-Qaida has since orchestrated some successful attacks overseas, the group has not struck inside the United States.\nIn some cities, anxious Americans stocked up on water, food and other materials, as recommended by the Department of Homeland Security.\nThe move marks the second time the nation has gone from yellow to orange and back since the color-coded terror alert system was instituted last year. The alert level has never been below yellow since the warnings were first issued.\nThe previous change in status came in September, when a high-level al-Qaida prisoner suggested attacks were imminent on U.S. embassies in southeast Asia. The alert went to orange and several embassies were temporarily closed. No attack took place, and the alert status returned to yellow later in the month.\nThe lowest level is green, followed by blue, yellow, orange and red.
(02/13/03 4:49am)
WASHINGTON -- North Korea has an untested ballistic missile capable of reaching the western United States, intelligence officials said Wednesday.\nThe North Korean missile is a three-stage version of the Taepo Dong 2, said Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.\nIt has not been flight-tested, Jacoby said, leaving some questions about North Korea's capability to successfully launch the missile.\nCIA Director George J. Tenet, who joined Jacoby in briefing the Senate Armed Services Committee, also acknowledged that North Koreans have the capability to reach the western United States with a long-range missile.\nPrevious U.S. intelligence reports have said such a missile probably could carry a nuclear weapon-sized payload across the Pacific Ocean.\nWhite House spokesman Ari Fleischer said he was unfamiliar with the testimony but said: "Technology and time means regimes like North Korea will increasingly have the ability to strike at the United States."\nHe said that is why President Bush supports building an anti-missile shield.\n"We do have concerns ... about North Korea's missile development programs," Fleischer told reporters.\nThe revelation was certain to raise questions about Bush's priorities -- and whether North Korea or Iraq pose a greater threat to the United States. Baghdad does not possess weapons that can strike America, officials have said.\n"They are both important priorities," Fleischer said. "The question is, what are the means best used to deal with each priority."\nHe said diplomacy has failed to curb Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction program for more than a decade, thus Bush made military action a front-and-center option. "That's not the case with North Korea," Fleischer said, saying Bush believes diplomatic pressure can contain North Korea.\nTenet said North Korea probably has one or two nuclear weapons.\nAn unclassified U.S. intelligence estimate, released by CIA officials in December 2001, said the three-stage Taepo Dong 2 missile was probably close to being ready for flight testing.\nBut North Korea has held to a voluntary moratorium on flight tests of its long-range missiles, although officials in Pyongyang likely will conduct new tests.\nThe 2001 U.S. government report said a three-stage Taepo Dong could deliver a several-hundred-pound payload from North Korea to targets about 9,300 miles distant -- sufficient to strike all of North America.\nA two-stage Taepo Dong 2, which would be easier to use successfully, may be able to reach Alaska or Hawaii, it said.\nIn 1998, the North Koreans attempted to put a satellite into orbit with the launch of a three-stage version of the earlier model of the Taepo Dong. It failed when the third stage did not ignite.\nSecretary of State Colin Powell, appearing before the House International Relations Committee, said the United States is pressing China to use its leverage with North Korea to persuade it to end its nuclear program. China is the main supplier of foreign assistance and energy aid to North Korea.\n"We are doing everything we can to persuade the Chinese that the problem in North Korea is not just a problem between North Korea and the United States. It is between North Korea and the region and North Korea and the world," he said.
(11/22/02 5:27am)
WASHINGTON -- Al Qaeda leader Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the network's chief of operations in the Persian Gulf, has been captured, senior U.S. government officials said Thursday.\nAl-Nashiri, a suspected mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in October 2000, was taken in an undisclosed foreign country earlier this month and is now in U.S. custody, officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.\nHe is the highest-ranking al Qaeda operative captured since the CIA, FBI and Pakistani authorities captured Osama bin Laden's operations chief, Abu Zubaydah, in Faisalabad, Pakistan, in March.\nU.S. officials had recently said a senior al Qaeda leader had been caught, but they had declined to identify him. On Sunday, Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the leader was providing information to his interrogators.\nAl-Nashiri is suspected in a number of other al Qaeda terrorist plots, including the 1998 East Africa embassy bombings. He is believed to have recruited his cousin, Azzam, to train in Afghanistan and serve as one of the suicide bombers in the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. Al-Nashiri, born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, is believed to be in his mid-30s and a longtime associate of bin Laden.\nU.S. intelligence believes he was behind the Oct. 6 attack on the French tanker off the coast of Yemen that left one crewman dead, said a U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.\nAl-Nashiri oversaw the purchase and transport of explosives, the leasing of safe houses and the planning and financing of attacks, the official said.\nHe has also traveled under a number of other names, including Umar Mohammed al-Harazi and Abu Bilal al-Makki. U.S. officials believe he was in Ghazni, Afghanistan, around the time the war began there in October 2001. He is thought to have moved to Pakistan when the Taliban fell, and he may have gone to Yemen in recent months. Some tribesmen in Yemen, however, said he had gone to Malaysia.\nIn the Cole attack, U.S. officials have said al-Nashiri gave telephone orders to the bombers from the United Arab Emirates. He then fled to Afghanistan.\nIn addition to the Cole attack, officials say he has been involved with a number of plots targeting the U.S. Navy in the past three years.\nHe is thought to be behind a nearly identical attempt to bomb another destroyer, the USS The Sullivans, nine months before the Cole attack, at Aden. That attack failed when the suicide boat, overloaded with explosives, sank.\nMost recently, he has been tied to a failed al Qaeda plot to bomb U.S. and British warships crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, U.S. officials have said. In June, three Saudis were arrested in Morocco in connection with that plot.\nHe is also suspected of being behind plans to bomb the 5th Fleet Headquarters in Bahrain, a plot revealed in January by another top al Qaeda operative captured by Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan.\nThe 5th Fleet has responsibility for the Persian Gulf and provides ships for the operations of U.S. Central Command, which is running the war effort in Afghanistan. It also supports the enforcement of the no-fly zone over southern Iraq, the U.N. economic embargo against Iraq and the monitoring of sea traffic from the Arabian Sea to the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf.\nThe capture of al-Nashiri is the latest reported success in the U.S. effort to capture or kill top al Qaeda chiefs. On Nov. 3, a CIA Predator drone fired a missile at a car carrying several suspected al Qaeda operatives, killing six, including al Qaeda's top Yemen operative, Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, who is also suspected of involvement in the Cole plot.
(11/19/02 4:46am)
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence have concluded that a new audiotape of Osama bin Laden is an authentic, unaltered and recent recording of the al Qaeda leader, U.S. officials said Monday\n"Intelligence experts do believe that the tape is genuine," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "And it is clear that the tape was made in the last several weeks as well."\nThe technical analysis of the tape furnished the first proof in almost a year that bin Laden is alive.\nThe audiotape, broadcast on the al-Jazeera Arab language television network, is what it sounds like: bin Laden himself, reading a prepared statement promising new terrorism against the United States and its allies, a U.S. intelligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said earlier Monday.\nThe analysis of the tape was performed by technical experts, linguists and translators at the CIA and National Security Agency, who compared the message to previous recordings of bin Laden. While no analysis is 100-percent certain, the experts are as certain as they can be that it is genuine, the official said.\nBecause it mentions recent terrorist attacks, officials concluded the tape was made in the last few weeks, the official said. It had been a year since U.S. intelligence received any definitive evidence that bin Laden had survived the U.S. attacks on Afghanistan in the months after Sept. 11.\nAsked about the tape at the a White House briefing, McClellan said that while "it cannot be stated with 100 percent certainty," intelligence experts were still certain bin Laden's voice on the tape.\n"They do believe it is. It's a reminder that we need to continue doing everything we can to go after these terrorist networks and their leaders wherever they are, and we will," McClellan said.\nThe tape gives little clue to bin Laden's location or his health, officials said. Although his whereabouts are unknown, U.S. officials believe he is probably hiding in a remote mountainous region in the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.\nAmerican officials have never confirmed rumors that bin Laden was wounded or suffering some kind of kidney ailment.\nThe message also was a determining factor in a new spate of terror alerts in the United States and elsewhere last week. Previous public statements from bin Laden have served as preludes to terrorist attacks, officials said.\nThe speaker on the tape appears to refer to the killing of a U.S. diplomat in Amman, Jordan, on Oct. 28, the most recent event noted in the transcript. Whether bin Laden or al Qaeda had a direct hand in the attack is unknown, U.S. officials said.\nThe speaker also praises several more terrorist attacks by suspected Islamic militants between April and October, including the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, on Oct. 12, that left close to 200 people dead, and the Chechen takeover of a theater in Moscow, in late October.\nPreviously, the last certain evidence bin Laden was alive was recorded on Nov. 9, 2001, when he had dinner with his chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, his spokesman and others. A videotape of the meal was recovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and later aired internationally.\nLate in December, another tape of bin Laden giving a statement aired. He appeared gaunt and possibly wounded. The references in the tape suggested it was filmed in late November or early December, but officials could not be certain.\nOn Dec. 10, in the Tora Bora area of Afghanistan where bin Laden was believed to be hiding, U.S. personnel intercepted a radio transmission that was believed to have come from the al Qaeda leader. It was not recorded and never matched against his voiceprint, U.S. officials have said.\nU.S. intelligence has confirmed several tapes released earlier in 2002 to have come from bin Laden, who is believed to have led the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that left some 3,000 dead. Those tapes gave no reference to recent events, and provided no confirmation of whether al-Qaida's leader was still alive.
(11/15/02 4:57am)
WASHINGTON -- The Senate's top Democrat said Thursday that the failure of U.S. authorities to capture Osama bin Laden raises questions about "whether or not we are winning the war on terror."\nSen. Tom Daschle's remarks came as intelligence analysts concluded that a new audiotape almost certainly contained bin Laden's voice and is proof that he is alive.\n"We can't find bin Laden, we haven't made real progress" in finding key elements of al Qaeda," the South Dakotan said. "They continue to be as great a threat today as they were one and a half years ago. So by what measure can we claim to be successful so far?"\nPresident Bush bristled Wednesday when asked if bin Laden, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, should have been captured sooner by U.S. and coalition forces. "We're making great progress in the war on terror. Slowly, but surely, we are dismantling the terrorist network," he said.\nDaschle, meeting with reporters, said authorities should do a better job of finding where bin Laden's message came from.\n"It seems he has the ability to move at will," Daschle said. "It's been a long time. 9-11 was more than year ago, and we have yet to find him."\nA technical analysis of the tape was still under way Thursday, and officials said they still think that it was bin Laden's voice but they have not confirmed that.\nLawmakers and the Bush administration are worried that the new tape is a signal that more terror strikes are imminent.\n"He's alive. We have to work on that assumption, and we are," said a senior law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity Wednesday.\nOther U.S. officials were more conservative, saying they believe it probably came from bin Laden. They left open the possibility, however slight, that it is a hoax.\nBut all said they were treating the tape as a real message from al Qaeda's missing leader, even as the CIA and National Security Agency conducted a technical analysis of the tape aimed at further authenticating it.\n"They can't get to 100 percent certainty, but they're sure," the official said. The official, who participated in a high-level briefing by CIA and NSA officials, said analysts were trying to determine whether bin Laden placed cryptic messages in the recording to order followers into action.\nHomeland security director Tom Ridge, during an appearance before a State Department gathering Thursday, referred to "bin Laden's remarks over the past 24 to 48 hours." It was an offhanded remark, and it was not clear whether he was speaking on the basis of information not yet made public.\nBush said he was taking the taped message "very seriously."\n"Whoever put the tape out has put the world on notice yet again that we're at war," the president said Wednesday after a Cabinet meeting at the White House.\nThe tape appears to be the first confirmation in a year that bin Laden is alive.\nThe speaker on the tape sounds undeterred by the loss of bin Laden's home in what was Taliban-ruled Afghanistan or by the death and capture of several of his closest lieutenants.\nAttorney General John Ashcroft said special attention is being paid to "what might be signaled" on the tape, while FBI Director Robert Mueller said the existence of the tape "does and should put us on greater alert."\n"There may be individuals in the United States we do not know about who could commit attacks," Mueller said.\nCounterterrorism officials have said that if bin Laden is alive, they believe he is probably in a remote, mountainous area of Pakistan along the country's border with Afghanistan. American officials have never confirmed rumors that bin Laden was wounded or suffering some kind of kidney ailment.
(11/14/02 4:11am)
WASHINGTON -- U.S. counterterrorism officials believe a new audiotape attributed to Osama bin Laden is probably authentic and are treating it as evidence the long-absent terrorist leader is still alive, a U.S. official familiar with the tape said Wednesday.\nPresident Bush said he was taking the tape "very seriously," though he was awaiting official word from advisers on its authenticity.\n"Whoever put the tape out has put the world on notice yet again that we're at war," the president told reporters after a Cabinet meeting at the White House.\nThe president bristled when asked if bin Laden should have been captured sooner by U.S. and coalition forces. "We're making great progress in the war on terror. Slowly, but surely we are dismantling the terrorist network," he said.\n"Slowly but surely," the president said again, "we're achieving our objectives."\nTechnical analysis thus far by the CIA and National Security Agency shows bin Laden likely recording the tape, but officials said the full analysis to match bin Laden's voice to previous recordings of him continues.\n"Assuming it is in fact authentic, it is an effort to boost morale among the rank and file," one U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It is an effort to show members of al Qaeda that top leadership is still around. It could also signal future attacks."\nThere was no change by midday Wednesday in the national threat alert status, which remains at code yellow--the midway point on a scale of five threat levels.\nIn the audiotape, aired Tuesday on Al-Jazeera, an Arabic television network, the speaker refers to recent terrorist strikes U.S. officials believe are connected to bin Laden's al Qaeda network. If verified, it would provide the first evidence in a year that bin Laden survived U.S. bombing in Afghanistan.\n"I think there's a message here," Sen. Richard Shelby said on CBS' "The Early Show." The Alabama Republican said, "The message is, we better be looking closely now for more terrorist attacks."\nBush earlier Wednesday told congressional leaders the audiotape was "timely," suggesting that bin Laden is alive, said House Speaker Dennis Hastert.\nThough bin Laden tops the Pentagon's wanted list in the war on terror, officials there tried to play down the tape's importance, saying it won't change how they operate.\n"We've always said that if bin Laden were dead today it would not change what we do, likewise if he is alive it does not change what we do because our goal is to find and destroy terrorists and their network," said Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Defense Department spokesman.\nBut other officials acknowledged that military and intelligence officials are eager to find out where the tape came from. They hope backtracking the tape's trail will lead to new information about bin Laden's whereabouts, two defense officials said.\nBush himself said: "The contents of the tape ... should remind all of Americans and remind our friends and allies that there is an active enemy that continues to hate, is willing to use murder as a way to achieve their goals," he said.\nThe audiotape was played alongside an old photograph of the al Qaeda leader, but there was no new video of him. Al-Jazeera said it received the tape on the day it was broadcast.\nOfficials believe bin Laden would release an audio recording, instead of a video, because they are easier to make and limit his public exposure, the U.S. official said. An audio tape also hides an appearance of illness, and anything bin Laden might have done to disguise himself in the last year.\nMilitary officials, who have led the yearlong hunt for the al Qaeda chief in Afghanistan and elsewhere, said they view the tape as the first independent proof in nearly a year that bin Laden is alive.\nSecretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has said repeatedly over recent months that there was no conclusive proof that bin Laden was dead, as well as no conclusive proof he was alive.\n"This indicates he is alive," one official said Wednesday.\nThe speaker on the tape also threatened new terrorism against the United States and its allies, and he castigated U.S. policy toward Iraq.\nConfirmation that bin Laden is alive could pose problems for Bush, underscoring to an anxious public that the war on terrorism is far from over.\nThe tape is addressed to "peoples of the countries allied with the tyrannical U.S. government" and specifically mentions Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany, Australia and Israel, according to a U.S. government translation provided to The Associated Press.\n"What business do your governments have to ally themselves with the gang of criminality in the White House against Muslims? Don't your governments know that the White House gang is the biggest serial killers in this age?" the speaker says.\nRecent statements from al Qaeda leaders have led U.S. and European leaders to warn of possible new attacks, particularly against railroads and oil and gas interests. A law enforcement official said Tuesday that "chatter" among suspected terrorists has reached the level seen before the Sept. 11 attacks.\nThe last hard evidence bin Laden was alive surfaced late last year. A videotape recovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan showed him having dinner with some of his deputies on Nov. 9, 2001.\nLate in December, another tape of bin Laden giving a statement aired. He appeared gaunt and possibly wounded. The references in the tape suggested it was filmed in late November or early December, but officials could not be certain.
(01/07/02 4:03am)
WASHINGTON -- About 1,500 soldiers are heading to the U.S. Navy base in Cuba to prepare for the arrival of al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. The biggest prize -- Osama bin Laden -- remains uncaptured, though there's a growing belief he's gone to Pakistan, two U.S. senators said Sunday.\nAbout 1,000 troops -- many of them military police -- from bases all over the United States have received orders to go to the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the prisoners will be held under maximum security, Lt. Cmdr. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said Sunday. Another 500 U.S. troops will go to the base in the coming weeks.\n"This is our part, and we are going down to take care of business," said Col. Terry Carrico, commander of the 89th Military Police Brigade at Fort Hood, Texas, just before boarding a plane to Cuba to prepare for the troops' arrival.\nSome of the troops are being sent to transport the prisoners from Asia to the island, officials said.\nOthers will quickly prepare a section of the base to hold an initial first group of fewer than 100 prisoners, though up to 2,000 prisoners eventually may be housed there, Davis said. Gen. Tommy Franks, the head of the military campaign in Afghanistan, said Friday that some prisoners are to arrive at Guantanamo within 10 days.\nThe U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo predates the communist revolution on the island nation. It is well-defended and would offer few avenues of escape for prisoners. Fidel Castro's government says the base should have been closed and returned to Cuban control decades ago.\nMore than 300 suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda members were in U.S. custody this weekend, military officials have said. Soldiers were guarding 275 prisoners at the base in Kandahar, 21 at Bagram air base north of Kabul and one in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Another nine prisoners, including American Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh, are being held on the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea. Afghan and Pakistani authorities are holding thousands more prisoners captured during the fighting.\nBut the top targets, al-Qaeda terrorist chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, continue to elude the coalition hunt.\nSen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who is traveling with other senators in the region, said Sunday that Uzbekistan's military intelligence service believes bin Laden has crossed the border into Pakistan. Uzbekistan, like Pakistan, borders Afghanistan and has been a U.S. ally in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.\n"I fully expect the Pakistanis will do everything they can to help us locate bin Laden," Edwards told "Fox News Sunday."\nIntelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said bin Laden and other top officials have probably escaped Afghanistan, but no one is certain.\n"Increasingly as our efforts to get them in Afghanistan have been futile, there is a greater sense that they have, in fact, escaped, and are probably in one of those tribal territories just over the border into Pakistan," Graham said from Miami on ABC's "This Week."\nTop military officials have said they don't know where bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar are.\nBin Laden was thought to be in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, but he has not turned up in searches by U.S. and anti-Taliban forces there. Omar was most recently thought to be near Baghran, northwest of Kandahar, but Afghan officials now say they believe he escaped.\nIn Cuba, the prisoners will be held in "maximum security" conditions, the Pentagon said, and will be treated in accordance with international standards for military prisoners and have access to Red Cross and other non-governmental organization personnel.\nThe military is planning tight security in light of the rioting by al-Qaeda prisoners at Mazar-e-Sharif, Afghanistan, that left hundreds dead, including CIA officer Johnny "Mike" Spann, Davis said.\n"We are cognizant of the incident that took place in Mazar-e-Sharif," he said. "Many of these people have demonstrated their determination to kill others, kill themselves or escape."\nNo decision has been made whether to hold military tribunals for some of the prisoners at the Navy base, he said.\nMany of the troops will be Army military police from Fort Hood.\nMilitary personnel are also being sent from Fort Campbell, Ky., Camp Lejeune, N.C., and Norfolk Naval Station, Va., among other bases, Davis said. The prison operation will be commanded by Marine Brig. Gen. Michael R. Lehnert from Camp Lejeune.
(11/29/01 6:12am)
WASHINGTON -- Rioting prisoners killed CIA officer "Johnny Mike" Spann at Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, the agency said Wednesday. He was the first American killed in action inside the country since U.S. bombing began seven weeks earlier. \nOfficials recovered his body from the prison compound Wednesday, only after northern alliance rebels backed by U.S. airstrikes and special forces quelled an uprising by Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners. \nSpann, at the compound to interrogate prisoners, was caught inside when the riot began and had been missing since Sunday. The CIA provided few details of the circumstances of his death. \nSpann had been in Afghanistan for about six weeks, said his father, Johnny Spann, during an afternoon news conference in the family's hometown of Winfield, Ala. \nThe father said his son, upon joining the CIA, told his family: "Someone has got to do the things no one else wants to do." \n"That is exactly what he was doing in Afghanistan," said the father. \nThe flag outside CIA headquarters in McLean, Va., was lowered to half-staff. CIA Director George J. Tenet addressed agency employees Wednesday morning, saying Spann was an American hero and calling on fellow officers to "continue the mission that Mike Spann held sacred." \n"And so we will continue our battle against evil with renewed strength and spirit," Tenet said, according to a statement provided by the agency. \nPresident Bush said through a spokesman he regretted the death. "The president understands that this battle began Sept. 11," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. "There may be more injuries, there may be more deaths, and the president regrets each and every one." \nSpann was a paramilitary trooper within the CIA's Directorate of Operations' Special Activities Division. The agency's commando arm, like the Army's Green Berets, can arm and train local forces and conduct covert assaults. \nSpann, 32, lived in a Virginia suburb of Washington. He leaves a wife, two daughters and an infant son. \n"We've got another heartbreak and another hero," said neighbor Richard Faatz. \nBefore joining the CIA in June 1999, Spann served in the Marine Corps as an artillery specialist, reaching the rank of captain. \nSen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., said he spoke to Mike Spann's wife, Shannon. \n"She said that when I saw people, I should tell them her husband cared about America, cared about the future of America, and cared about the security of Americans," Shelby said, fighting back tears. \nFour other Americans, all military personnel, have been killed in connection with the fighting in Afghanistan. All died in accidents outside the country, two in a helicopter crash in Pakistan.