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(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.
(11/15/02 4:55am)
ROME -- Pope John Paul II delivered a historic speech to the Italian parliament Thursday, urging Italians to have more children to reverse the country's declining birth rate.\nIt was the first time a pope has addressed Italy's legislature. In the speech, the pontiff also called on authorities to show prisoners "a gesture of clemency" by reducing their sentences and repeated his call for the new European Union constitution to recognize Christianity's tradition on the continent.\nJohn Paul acknowledged the significance of the visit considering the turbulent history of relations between Italy and the Roman Catholic Church.\nUp until 1929, the Vatican refused to recognize the Italian government. Popes, deprived of papal territory that once covered much of Italy, called themselves "prisoners" in the Vatican.\n"We all know that this association has gone through widely different phases and circumstances, subject to the vicissitudes and contradictions of history," John Paul told lawmakers gathered in Palazzo Montecitorio, the lower chamber of parliament.\nHowever, the bond between the two is now deep, he said, adding that Italy's very identity "would be most difficult to understand without reference to Christianity, its life-blood."\nHis speech, interrupted about 20 times by applause, was anticipated for weeks by Italians and treated as an enormously symbolic event for this mostly Roman Catholic country.\nHowever, it was not without opposition: A handful of deputies said they wouldn't attend to underscore that Italy remains a lay country and a dozen or so gay activists protested at a nearby piazza.\nThe 82-year-old Polish-born pope covered most of the general topics he has addressed in his 24-year pontificate, including respect for the dignity of man, democracy, peace and justice.\nBut his emphasis was on Italy -- and particularly what he called "the crisis of the birth rate."\nItaly has one of the lowest birth rates in the world -- 9.3 births per 1,000 inhabitants -- and one of the oldest populations.\nThe United Nations has warned that Italy's economic future is at risk because its shrinking work force will be unable to support its aging population without an influx of migrant workers.\nThe pope called the situation "another grave threat that bears upon the future of this country, one which is already conditioning its life and its capacity for development."\n"Above all, it encourages -- indeed I would dare to say, forces -- citizens to make a broad and responsible commitment to favor a clear-cut reversal of this tendency," he said.\nThe pope also urged clemency for Italian prisoners.\n"A gesture of clemency toward prisoners through a reduction of their sentences would be clear evidence of a sensitivity which would encourage them in their own personal rehabilitation for the sake of a constructive reinsertion into society," the pope said.\nAnd he called on European leaders, who are drafting a new EU constitution, to recognize the role Christianity has played on the continent.\n"There is a need to guard against a vision of the continent which would only take into account its economic and political aspects," and not its religious ones, the pope said.\nThe speech represented the latest step in improving relations between Italy and the Church, which ruled a vast swath of the Italian peninsula until the mid-19th century.\nWhen the new Italian army seized the territory when Italy was unified in 1861, the pope was only left with Rome and some coastal areas, which were finally taken in 1870.\nAt the time, the government guaranteed the pope independence within what is now the Vatican and offered to compensate the Church for the lost lands. But Pope Pius IX refused to recognize the government.\nThe Vatican and Italy signed a treaty that recognized both as sovereign entities in 1929.
(11/14/02 6:15am)
UNITED NATIONS -- Facing a tight deadline and the threat of war, Iraq accepted a tough, new U.N. resolution on Wednesday that will return weapons inspectors to the country after nearly four years. Iraq's U.N. ambassador said his country hadn't placed any conditions on the resolution's terms.\nIn an argumentative and sometimes threatening nine-page acceptance letter to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri attacked the United States and Britain, the co-sponsors of the resolution, and called the U.N. action unjust and illegal. But he declared nonetheless that Baghdad would abide by the resolution.\n"We hereby inform you that we will deal with resolution 1441, despite its bad contents. … The important thing is trying to spare our people from any harm," Sabri wrote. The letter went on to add that Iraq is "prepared to receive the inspectors within the assigned timetable."\nAnnan, speaking to reporters in Washington after a meeting with President Bush, said "we take it that they have accepted" the resolution, clearing the way for an advance team of U.N. inspectors to arrive in Iraq on Monday.\n"Yes, Iraq has accepted," Annan said. But, he added, "the issue is not acceptance but performance on the ground. Let the inspectors go in. I urge the Iraqis to cooperate with them and to perform and I think that is the test we are all waiting for."\nBush said he wouldn't tolerate "deception or denial or deceit" from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and he renewed his warning that if Iraq "chooses not to disarm, we will have a coalition of the willing with us" to do the job.\nBush declined to discuss the letter, though he thanked the U.N. Security Council for passing the U.S.-backed resolution. The Council approved the resolution last Friday and gave Iraq to accept its terms.\n"They had no choice" but to accept, said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "Iraqis need to give their full cooperation to the inspectors to bring about complete and verifiable disarmament. Nothing else will do."\nRussian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, whose country is Iraq's closest Security Council ally, said on state-controlled ORT television: "We were confident that Iraq would make this decision, which opens the way for a political resolution of the situation. Now it is important that the international inspectors quickly return to Iraq."\nIn Baghdad, state-run television announced Saddam's acceptance of the Security Council resolution two hours after Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri told the rest of the world.\nIraqi TV showed images of Saddam, in a dark suit and tie, presiding over a meeting of his Revolutionary Command Council, made up of senior military officers. The picture was frozen on the screen while an announcer read the message recounting at length a history of Iraq's dispute with the United Nations.\nIn the letter, Sabri accused Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair of fabricating "the biggest and most wicked slander against Iraq" by claiming that it had or was on its way to producing nuclear weapons.\nHe also warned inspectors that Iraq will be watching their actions very closely. In 1998, Baghdad accused inspectors of spying for the United States and Israel.\n"Dealing with the inspectors, the government of Iraq will ... take into consideration their way of conduct, the intentions of those who are ill-intentioned among them and their improper approach in showing respect to the people's national dignity, their independence and security, and their country's security, independence, and sovereignty," Sabri said.\nUnder Security Council resolutions adopted after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, U.N. inspectors must certify that Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs have been eliminated along with the long-range missiles to deliver them. Only then can sanctions against Iraq be lifted.\nAl-Douri delivered the letter to Annan's office. "There are no conditions, no reservations," contained in the acceptance, he said.\nThe advance team that will arrive in Iraq on Monday will be led by chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix, who is in charge of biological and chemical inspections, and Mohamed ElBaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is in charge of nuclear inspections.\nThe resolution allows inspectors to go anywhere at any time to search for weapons of mass destruction. It also warns that Iraq faces "serious consequences" if it doesn't comply -- and the United States has made clear that an Iraqi failure to cooperate will almost certainly mean a new war.\n"Now, we are not talking about war or military action. We are talking about the mission of inspectors and how to make it a successful one," Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League, told CNN. The Arab League had been instrumental is getting Iraq to accept the unconditional return of inspectors and to secure its support for the resolution.\nIn his letter, Sabri urged inspectors to bear in mind that they were starting work during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan when people fast during the day.\nIf the inspectors do their work "professionally and lawfully," Sabri said "the liars' lies" perpetrated by the United States and Britain about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be exposed and the Security Council will then have to lift sanctions.\nSabri said he intends to send another letter stating Iraq's observations on elements in resolution 1441 that Baghdad believes are contrary to international law and the U.N. Charter.\nOn Tuesday, Iraq's parliament recommended that Saddam reject the resolution. Saddam's son, Odai Saddam Hussein, proposed making Arabs part of the U.N. team, echoing a recommendation from the Arab League.\nBlix's office said it has trained inspectors from 49 countries, including six Jordanians, one Moroccan and five Turks. "We don't get too many applications from Arabic countries and we would welcome more applications from people who have the right expertise," one official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.\nElBaradei said the IAEA in the past had "many inspectors from many Arab countries" and this was not a problem.\nIn addition to offering Iraq "a final opportunity" to cooperate with inspectors, the resolution extends the possibility of lifting the sanctions.\nBut Iraq must comply with its strict timetable, which now gives Iraq until Dec. 8 to declare all its chemical, biological and nuclear programs. In the meantime, inspectors will have until Dec. 23 to begin their work and must report to the Security Council 60 days later. However, the resolution orders inspectors to immediately notify the council of any Iraqi infraction which could be considered a "material breach," of its obligations to disarm itself of weapons of mass destruction.
(11/14/02 6:15am)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA has found the oxygen leak that delayed space shuttle Endeavour's launch earlier this week, but now is trying to determine whether the ship's robot arm was damaged during inspections.\nThe countdown was halted with only two hours remaining Sunday night because of an abrupt leak in the astronauts' oxygen supply, and the launch was postponed until Nov. 18 at the earliest.\nNASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham said Wednesday that the leak was traced overnight to a flex hose in Endeavour's midbody. "They think this is it," he said.\nEngineers do not know when or how the line was damaged, Buckingham said.\nWhile working in Endeavour's payload bay, however, technicians bumped a platform into the shuttle's cradled robot arm on Tuesday.\nSome of the thermal insulation on the arm was torn, Buckingham said. No one knows yet whether the 50-foot crane itself was damaged; X-rays have been taken. The crane is needed for assembly work during Endeavour's visit at the international space station.
(11/14/02 6:15am)
ZIPAQUIRA, Colombia -- The Colombian government pledged an all-out effort Wednesday to find a bishop and prelate kidnapped by suspected rebels earlier this week. The pope "vehemently" called for their release.\nBishop Jorge Enrique Jimenez and the Rev. Desiderio Orjuela were seized Monday as they headed to a religious ceremony in central Colombia. Army troops backed by helicopters scoured the mountains north of Bogota on Tuesday, but failed to find the priests.\nThe Colombian army blamed the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, for the kidnappings. The leftist guerrilla group has not commented on the abductions.\n"The armed forces are making every effort" to find the two men, President Alvaro Uribe told reporters in the capital, Bogota. He declined further comment.\nJimenez is president of the Latin American bishops conference, an organization of Roman Catholic bishops that determines church policy in the region and has a mandate covering the 22 nations of Latin America, home to nearly half the world's Catholics.\nAt the Vatican, Pope John Paul II appealed for the release of the priests and condemned all violence and human rights violations in Colombia, which has the world's highest kidnapping rate.\n"While I vehemently ask for the freedom of all abductees, and that these priests return to exercise their service to the people of God, I raise my prayers so that God grants much-desired peace to Colombia," he said in Spanish.\nIn Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the kidnapping was a cowardly act that demonstrates "the lack of regard for the most basic human rights" by the abductors.\nThe FARC, which is fighting the government and an outlawed paramilitary group in Colombia's 38-year civil war, is holding dozens of prominent politicians, soldiers and police in hopes of exchanging them for jailed rebels.\nBeniamino Stella, the Vatican envoy to Colombia, said the Church was trying to make contact with the men's kidnappers.\n"It is premature to say how, or where," Stella said. "But I think that those who have (Jimenez) are going to consider making contact."\nThe president of Venezuela's bishops conference, Archbishop Baltazar Porras, called the kidnapping "another injury to our dear sister Church."\nThe diocese of Zipaquira, home to the soaring brick and stone cathedral where Jimenez worked, demanded the immediate release of the men, calling them "peace builders."\n"I have faith that by today or tomorrow, he will be back here with us," said Emilio Ballesteros, a parish priest at the cathedral.\nSince 1984, one archbishop, one bishop and 48 priests have been assassinated in Colombia, according to the bishops conference. Four bishops, 14 priests and a missionary have been kidnapped.\nIn March, the outspoken archbishop of Cali, Isaias Duarte, was shot dead after performing a mass wedding in a poor neighborhood in Colombia's third-largest city. Authorities are still investigating the motive.\nMore than 3,000 people were taken hostage in Colombia last year. The rebels use kidnapping to press their political agenda as well as for ransom.
(11/14/02 5:31am)
WASHINGTON -- The House voted emphatically Wednesday to create a Homeland Security Department, propelling President Bush nearer his goal of answering last year's terrorist attacks with the biggest restructuring of government in half a century.\nThe 299-121 roll call -- and a pair of favorable procedural votes in the Democratic-run Senate -- signaled that lawmakers were ready to award a legislative triumph to a president whose hand was strengthened by Republican victories in last week's congressional elections. Bush began supporting the idea of a huge new department combining 22 agencies this summer after initially coming to office seeking to diminish the role of government in Americans' lives.\n"Times have changed and it's imperative to the security of our country and the security of our families that our government change as well," said Rep. Rob Portman, R-Ohio.\nOpposition came mostly from Democrats arguing that the bill still lacked adequate job protections for the new agency's 170,000 workers. Voting for the measure were 212 Republicans and 87 Democrats, while six Republicans, 114 Democrats and one independent voted "no."\nThe bill is "just another example of the Bush administration's union-busting policies," said Rep. Corrine Brown, D-Fla.\nAmong the agencies the bill would combine are the Coast Guard, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Customs Service.\nIn the Senate, Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., predicted the bill would pass by next week. Underlining the shift in momentum, he said he might vote for it despite his own objections to its labor provisions.\n"It's a lame duck. The president has said he wanted the bill," Daschle said in explaining why a bill snagged in the Senate for two months was sailing toward enactment.\nThe Senate began debating the bill and voted 89-8 to end procedural delays and 50-47 to kill a more pro-labor Democratic alternative. Though opponents will have other chances to slow the measure, the votes reflected that senators realized it was now politically impossible to kill.\nThe idea of combining the government's far-flung domestic security functions into a single agency was originally proposed last year by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., and other members of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee as a response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.\nThe Bush administration initially opposed the plan, offering its own proposal last summer when congressional support for the concept became overwhelming.\nWith hopes of wrapping up its business for the year, the House also voted 270-143 to keep federal agencies open through Jan. 11, a bill required by this year's budget deadlock between Congress and the White House. Senate passage was needed.\nOnly two of the 13 spending bills for the federal fiscal year that started Oct. 1 have become law. The remainder will have to be revisited by the new Congress next year.\nThe temporary bill would keep most spending at last year's levels. That meant domestic security and other programs for which Bush proposed big increases would not receive additional funding unless Congress votes for it later.\nDemocrats complained that Republicans stuffed provisions into the homeland security bill limiting liability for producers of the smallpox vaccine and makers of high technology airport screening equipment, as well as for many airport private security companies.\nIt also has vaguely worded language that would make Texas A&M University eligible for federal homeland security research -- a provision inserted by Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, whose district is nearby.\nThe measure would allow airline pilots to carry guns in cockpits, give airports a one-year delay in the Dec. 31 deadline for installing equipment to inspect all checked bags for explosives, and let the new agency sign contracts with U.S. companies that have relocated abroad to dodge taxes.\nAn earlier version passed the House easily in July. But the Senate deadlocked over Bush's insistence on national security grounds that he needed the power to hire, fire and deploy workers without the civil service protections most federal workers have.\nThe final bill requires a month of talks with unions and another month of federal mediation, but would let the agency do what it wants anyway. It would also let the president strip department workers of collective bargaining rights, though that decision would be revisited every four years.\nSensing that last week's election had turned the tide, three pivotal moderate senators accepted the new language and embraced the bill, ensuring it had the votes needed to break the stalemate. They are Sens. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I.; John Breaux, D-La.; and Ben Nelson, D-Neb.\nRepublicans say the voters punished Democrats on Election Day for taking the side of public employee unions and blocking the earlier version of the bill.\nRep. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., who did not serve in the military, emphasized the issue in his successful campaign to oust Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, a Vietnam War triple amputee. And some Democrats worried that if the bill was not approved, it could hurt Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., in the runoff election she faces next month.\nDaschle said he believed Bush and the GOP played politics with the bill.\n"In my view, he didn't want the bill before the election, with the expectation and hope they would use it for political purposes," Daschle said. "They have"
(11/14/02 4:14am)
COX'S BAZAR, Bangladesh -- Nineteen boats disappeared in a fierce storm off Bangladesh on Wednesday, and officials and witnesses said about 200 fishermen were missing and feared dead.\nThe bodies of two fishermen washed ashore. Rescue workers were battling high waves to search the seas and offshore islands for the missing men.\nAt least 10 wooden fishing boats sank off Cox's Bazar, 185 miles southeast of Dhaka, local official Azimuddin Chowdhury said. Eleven survivors reached shore but 140 were missing, he said.\nEight other fishing boats carrying about 60 fishermen were reported missing from the southern coastal district of Barisal.\nIn addition, a navy motor boat sank near the offshore island of Kutubdia. Its six crew members swam ashore, a navy spokesman said.\nThe fishermen said they were caught in the storm, which began Tuesday night, after ignoring warnings about the bad weather.\n"We didn't think the storm would get us, so we decided to stay out," said one survivor, 25-year-old Mohammad Iqbal.\nThe tropical storm whipped up waves that swamped eight coastal districts in southern Bangladesh. Winds and torrential rains swept through most of southern and central Bangladesh, flooding dozens of villages and forcing thousands to flee their homes.
(11/14/02 4:13am)
NABLUS, West Bank -- In the biggest sweep in months, Israeli troops hunting for militants stormed dozens of homes in this Palestinian city Wednesday, ordering residents to line up in the dawn chill as tanks blocked roads and helicopters hovered above.\nPalestinian leader Yasser Arafat, meanwhile, responded angrily to Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge that, if elected prime minister, he would expel him.\n"Netanyahu has to remember that I am Yasser Arafat and that this is my land and the land of my grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfathers," Arafat said in English.\nArafat also denounced Wednesday's raid, which came two days after five Israelis were killed in a shooting rampage in a farming community, as a "new war crime."\nThe sweep came in response to a weekend attack on Kibbutz Metzer, an Israeli communal farm, by a gunman from the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, a militia linked to Arafat's Fatah group. The gunman fled the scene after killing five people, including a mother and her two boys.\nThe escalation came as Palestinian negotiators met with U.S. envoy David Satterfield, who is seeking comments on a new peace plan calling for Palestinian reforms, an Israeli troop pullback and a provisional Palestinian state by 2003.\nPalestinian officials denied Israeli reports that the United States agreed to put the plan on hold until after Israeli elections on Jan. 28. Israeli officials have said the plan does not meet Israeli security concerns and is unacceptable in its present form.\n"Contrary to what the Israelis are saying, Mr. Satterfield informed us that the American administration will complete work on the road map and declare it by the middle of next month," said Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat.\nNetanyahu renewed his call to expel Arafat in a meeting of the Security Cabinet. Netanyahu's appeal was supported by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, said Netanyahu spokeswoman Rena Riger. The Cabinet made no decision.\nOn Tuesday, Netanyahu told a convention of the rightist Likud Party that, if he became prime minister after Jan. 28 elections, he would make it a priority to kick out Arafat.\nAt the Likud convention, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised to wage an unrelenting battle against Palestinian militants but distanced himself from Netanyahu's pledge.\nSharon has repeatedly laid siege to Arafat's headquarters and troops have largely destroyed the block-sized compound, but Sharon has stopped short of ousting the Palestinian leader, apparently because of U.S. opposition.\nBoth Sharon and Netanyahu are vying for the leadership of the Likud, which polls show is poised to win the most seats in the Jan. 28 general elections, giving its leader a good chance of becoming prime minister.\nIsraeli officials identified the gunman in the attack on the kibbutz as 19-year-old Sirhan Sirhan, who they believe was dispatched by militiamen in Nablus.\nThe officials initially said they believed he was a distant relative of the assassin by the same name who killed Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in 1968--but later withdrew that claim.\nHundreds of soldiers backed by about 100 armored vehicles and helicopter gunships poured into Nablus before dawn Wednesday.\nIt was the biggest sweep in the city since Israel's "Defensive Shield" offensive in April, and military commentators said they expected the operation to go on for many days.\nTroops have been in Nablus for most of the past seven months, enforcing curfews and manning checkpoints.\nThe focus of Wednesday's raid were several militant strongholds--the Old City, two neighborhoods near An Najah University as well as the Balata and Askar refugee camps on the outskirts of Nablus.\nThere were sporadic gunfights but no injuries.\nSeveral explosions were heard in Nablus' Old City, or Casbah, apparently set off by soldiers breaking open doors. Tanks sealed all exits from the Casbah, a maze of alleys and underground passages and the scene of fierce fighting in April. Troops took over a nearby girls' elementary school as a makeshift base.\nIn the Raffidiyeh neighborhood near the university, four men and 10 women dressed in traditional Muslim robes were pulled out of their homes. The men were told to face the wall and the women were told to sit on the ground as soldiers checked their identification and questioned them.\nIsrael declared Nablus a closed military zone, and soldiers barred journalists from taking pictures or talking to those rounded up. The army said 30 suspected militants were arrested in the raid.\nTroops also swept into Bir Zeit, a university town north of Ramallah, arresting suspected militants and confining residents to their homes.\nIn the Gaza Strip, Israeli helicopters fired four missiles on a suspected weapons workshop in Gaza City early Wednesday, the second such strike on the site in two days. The attack demolished a car repair shop that had been severely damaged in a similar pre-dawn attack Monday. The shop was empty both times.\nArafat's Fatah faction, meanwhile, was trying to persuade the militant Hamas group to stop suicide attacks in Israel. A meeting in Cairo on Wednesday ended without agreement, but talks were to continue.\nFatah has distanced itself from the shooting attack on the communal farm, saying it was a rogue operation and that it would help Arafat investigate.
(11/14/02 4:12am)
MANASSAS, Va. -- Sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad on Wednesday made a second appearance in a Prince William County court, this time with a lawyer experienced in high-profile cases.\nDuring the 10-minute hearing, Judge Leroy Millette appointed a second attorney for Muhammad and set a Dec. 12 hearing to consider a trial date. He is entitled to a trial by April 7.\nWhen Muhammad made his initial court appearance in Virginia on Friday, he was by himself. He seemed confused that the public defender appointed to represent him on federal extortion charges was no longer representing him.\nSince then, attorney Peter Greenspun has been appointed to represent him, and on Wednesday, the judge also appointed Jonathan Shapiro to the defense team.\nMuhammad, 41, sat impassively at Wednesday's hearing wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. He spoke only two words: "Yes, sir," when asked by the judge if he needed court-appointed counsel.\nGreenspun also asked the judge during the brief hearing to ban still cameras in the courtroom, a request Millette rejected.\nMuhammad is charged in the Oct. 9 slaying of Dean Harold Meyers, 53, at a gas station near Manassas.\nThe other sniper suspect, John Lee Malvo, 17, is being held in the Fairfax County jail awaiting a Dec. 5 hearing. The are suspected in 21 shootings -- 14 of them fatal -- in Maryland, Virginia, Washington, D.C., Washington state, Alabama, Georgia and Louisiana.\nBoth suspects face the death penalty if convicted of the Virginia charges.\nGreenspun has handled death penalty cases before. In 1994 he represented Ralph Shambaugh Jr. in a murder-for-hire case. Shambaugh eventually pleaded guilty as an accessory to murder.\nHis highest-profile case, though, was representing Marv Albert on charges of forcible sodomy after a woman claimed Albert bit her on the back and forced her to perform oral sex in an Arlington hotel room. Albert pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge, spent no time in jail and eventually had the conviction wiped from his record.\nAlbert's lead attorney in that case, Roy Black, said he was impressed by Greenspun's work.\n"We selected him because he was clearly the best criminal defense lawyer in that area of Virginia," Black said. "He's very good thinking on his feet; he's great with a jury."\nBlack said Greenspun's experience with that high-profile trial should prove helpful and that Muhammad is fortunate that Greenspun is representing him.\n"I wish Greenspun good luck," he said. "The only thing standing between Muhammad and a lynch mob is Peter Greenspun"
(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.
(11/12/02 9:36pm)
CAIRO, Egypt -- Arab foreign ministers urged Saddam Hussein on Sunday to accept the U.N. Security Council resolution ordering new, tougher weapons inspections and demanded that Arab arms experts be included on the U.N. teams.\nThe ministers adopted the eight-point statement shortly after the Iraqi leader ordered his nation's parliament to meet to recommend a response to the U.N. resolution, which was adopted Friday and gives Baghdad a seven-day deadline for acceptance. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said parliament would convene Monday.\nThe United Nations is not obliged to heed the Arab ministers' demand on weapons inspectors, adopted at the end of a two-day meeting of the 22-member Arab League in Cairo.\nThe United States, meanwhile, warned it will not tolerate any Iraqi failure to cooperate with weapons inspectors. \n"We do not need to waste the world's time with another game of cat and mouse," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned while making the rounds of Sunday news talk shows in Washington.\nArab foreign ministers, including Sabri, worked into the evening on a final communique that demanded Iraq and the United Nations work together and called on the United States to commit to pledges Syria said it was given that the resolution would not be used to justify military action.\nThe Arab ministers "called on the permanent Security Council members who presented Syria with assurances to commit to what they presented, that the resolution is not used as an excuse to wage war on Iraq and does not constitute automatic military action," the statement said.\nThe Arab League document did not specify how many Arab experts it wants on inspection teams or say which countries they should represent.\nHowever, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is an Egyptian, and would be on the advance team of inspectors headed to Iraq if Saddam accepts the resolution. ElBaradei's agency is in charge of looking for clandestine nuclear arms programs.\nA spokesman for the U.N. inspection operation said a list of inspectors and their country of origin was not immediately available.\nThe Arab League document also demanded "the continuation of U.N.-Iraq cooperation to solve all standing issues peacefully in preparation for the lifting of sanctions and the end of the (U.N.) embargo as well as the suffering of the Iraqi people."\nIt put forward a united Arab position of "absolute rejection" of any military action against Iraq, saying it represents a threat to the security of all Arab nations.\nIn addition, it called on the Security Council to require Israel to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction because they "constitute a serious threat to Arab and international peace and security."\nArab foreign ministers have said they fully expect Iraq to accept the U.N. resolution.\nRice dismissed the prospect of Saddam seeking parliament's advice as "ludicrous."\n"Saddam Hussein is an absolute dictator and tyrant, and the idea that somehow he expects the Iraqi parliament to debate this -- they've never debated anything else," Rice said Sunday on the ABC network's "This Week" program. "I'm surprised he's even bothering to go through this ploy."\nIraq's parliament is stacked with Saddam's allies. Should parliament recommend acceptance to the Revolutionary Command Council, led by Saddam, he would have some cover for retreating from previous objections to any new language in a resolution governing weapons inspections.\nIn brief remarks to journalists on Sunday, Sabri said only that the Arab position is firm in rejecting any United States use of military force. He said Saturday that "no decision has been taken" by Baghdad on cooperating with the resolution. But if Saddam fails to follow through, U.S. officials have said a Pentagon plan calls for more than 200,000 troops to invade Iraq.\nBritain sent similar signals, with Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon telling Sky News on Sunday that his country is prepared for possible military action against Iraq should diplomatic efforts to disarm Saddam fail.
(11/07/02 5:18am)
UNITED NATIONS -- The United States took a final revision of its Iraq resolution to the Security Council Wednesday in hopes of winning approval after eight weeks of tumultuous negotiations with wary allies concerned it could trigger a new war against Saddam Hussein.\nThe draft has changed significantly since it was first introduced last month, but U.S. officials said the bottom line remains the same: tough new weapons inspections coupled with a threat of "serious consequences" if Iraq fails to comply.\nWhile the revised draft offers major concessions to critics, it still frees the Bush administration to take military action against Iraq without a second resolution.\nIn an attempt to meet French and Russian concerns, the new U.S. draft gives Saddam "a final opportunity" to comply with U.N. inspectors, holds out the possibility of lifting sanctions against Iraq, and adds a reaffirmation of Iraq's sovereignty.\nBut it remains to be seen whether the latest draft, written with British support, will satisfy Russia, France and others.\nRussia's Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov said Wednesday that Moscow remains opposed to any wording that would give Washington a free hand in launching military action.\n"We still believe that it's necessary to ensure that the new resolution contains no automatic mechanism for the use of force," Fedotov said, according to the ITAR-Tass news agency.\nU.S. diplomats met earlier Wednesday with the four other veto-wielding permanent council members -- Russia, France, Britain and China -- before sharing the new text with the other 10 elected members.\nU.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said he wanted a vote "be week's end."\n"We certainly believe that this is a resolution that deserves consensus support," Negroponte said.\nWednesday's consultations follow an extensive round of last-minute diplomacy. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke Tuesday to his French, Russian, Mexican and British counterparts.\nA U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Powell worked out some of the final points on key issues with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin.\nBut a French diplomat said Paris has not signed off on the new U.S. draft.\n"It's too early to say we have an official position on a text," the diplomat said late Tuesday. "We have to see the text. We must send it to Paris and our government, including the president, will have a careful look at the entire text, not only one or two paragraphs."\nAnother council diplomat called it "a partial deal" that still needs work.
(11/07/02 5:15am)
GREENBELT, Md. -- The attorney for John Allen Muhammad denounced the government's case against the sniper suspect, saying federal prosecutors overreached in bringing extortion charges.\nThe lawyer's remarks Tuesday came as a federal judge ordered Muhammad held without bail and investigators on the other side of the country looked into a fatal shooting to see if it's related to the sniper suspects.\nFederal prosecutors brought charges against Muhammad last week under weapons and extortion law in the October sniper attacks that killed 10 people in the Washington, D.C. area. He could get the death penalty.\nIn court, federal public defender James Wyda accused prosecutors of trying to "shoehorn this case into federal courts" in using the extortion law. He said the government is trying to prove that "these seemingly random attacks were all motivated by a crackpot scheme to collect $10 million."\nWyda noted that authorities did not even receive a note demanding the money until Oct. 19, well into the shooting spree.\n"This is no longer a murder case; this is an extortion case," he said outside court. "They can't prove extortion. They can't meet their burden of proof in making this a federal case."\nWyda also said authorities have not asked his client for a handwriting sample to attempt to link him to the note.\n"The government's case has significant problems," Wyda said. "There's no direct evidence that Mr. Muhammad was at the scene of any of these crimes."\nIn arguing against bail, federal prosecutor James Trusty told Chief Magistrate Judge Jillyn K. Schulze that Muhammad, 41, used multiple names and birth dates and had been living out of a car.\nThe other sniper suspect, 17-year-old John Lee Malvo, was ordered detained Monday after appearing at a closed juvenile hearing in federal court in Baltimore. Federal charges have also apparently been brought against Malvo, but authorities will not say so because he is a juvenile.
(11/05/02 6:11am)
WASHINGTON -- A former California sheriff and his deputy can be sued for ordering the pepper-spraying of shackled anti-logging protesters, the Supreme Court said Monday in turning aside an appeal.\nThe court did not comment in refusing to hear the case, which involved the arrests of nine people who staged sit-ins at Pacific Lumber Co. headquarters and a congressman's office. They were protesting the cutting of ancient redwood trees.\nWhen the demonstrators, who had chained themselves with a 25-pound steel device, would not leave, law officers swabbed pepper spray near the demonstrators' eyes, sometimes repeatedly. Those who refused to surrender were sprayed in their face at close range.\nAttorneys for former Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis and Chief Deputy Gary Philp argued that the lawmen consulted with legal experts before using the pepper spray, and that protesters were not hurt.\nDeputies' videotapes of the sit-ins show demonstrators screaming after the spray was applied.\n"Our national tradition of nonviolent protests is alive and well and won't be extinguished by a police policy of torturing protesters just because that torture leaves no marks," said Mark Hughes, a professor at the University of Denver College of Law and the attorney for the protesters. "It's great when courts have a conscience."\nThe Supreme Court considered the case for the second time in a year. Last fall, the justices threw out a lower court ruling that ordered a trial for the protesters. The appeals court reconsidered and again said protesters were entitled to sue the sheriff and deputy.\nThe court could have clarified when officers have immunity for on-the-job actions, a subject of significant interest to justices in recent years.\nThe anti-logging protesters, part of the group EarthFirst!, demonstrated at the offices of Pacific Lumber and at the office of then-Rep. Frank Riggs, R-Calif., a logging supporter. Those were among multiple protests in the fall of 1997.\nHughes said no other American police force had a policy of using cotton swabs to apply pepper spray to the eyes of people who resisted arrest. In this case, he said the protesters were unarmed and unthreatening.\nNancy K. Delaney, an attorney for Humboldt County and the lawmen, said the force was reasonable.\n"To brush aside as harmless the well-planned criminal activities of plaintiffs is to compromise allegiance to principles which permit the very existence of a society which is both democratic and ordered," she said.\nHumboldt County is a coastal county in northern California known for giant redwood forests.\nThe case is Humboldt County v. Headwaters Forest Defense, 01-1744.
(11/05/02 6:11am)
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- A steaming-mad Gov. Jesse Ventura appointed a fellow independent to temporarily fill Sen. Paul Wellstone's seat Monday, while Walter Mondale went on the offensive against Republican Norm Coleman in the only debate of their compressed Senate campaign.\nVentura's choice of Dean Barkley, a major figure in Minnesota's third-party movement, leaves the balance of power in the Senate up in the air. The two major parties now have 49 members each, with two independents.\nOne of those independents, Jim Jeffords of Vermont, routinely votes with Democrats. Barkley said he is not sure which way he would lean.\n"I can get along with moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans," he said. He later noted that Jeffords told him in a call, "Don't commit to anything." Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott also called in a bid to court the newest senator.\nIt is unclear how long Barkley will serve. An attorney general's opinion said the winner of the Senate election will replace Barkley once the winner is certified in mid-November. But Senate rules suggest Barkley's term will run into early January, until the new senators arrive.\nIt also remains unclear whether the Senate will hold a lame-duck session between Election Day and January.\nFor Ventura, the timing of his angry announcement was a bit of mischief: It came just as the Coleman-Mondale debate got under way. The governor said he was upset that his Independence Party's Senate candidate, Jim Moore, was excluded from the televised event. Moore has polled in the low single digits.\n"Today, three very powerful institutions, the Republican Party, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor-Party, and the Minnesota media are conspiring to limit the hard-earned rights of ordinary citizens," Ventura said.\nIn the debate, Mondale -- the 74-year-old former vice president and senator who came out of political retirement after Wellstone was killed in a plane crash Oct. 25 -- questioned how independent a voice Coleman would be as a senator. The two also laid out different stances on issues such as abortion, prescription drug benefits and Social Security.\n"Mondale came out swinging and showed himself ready and willing both for a fight and for public life, which is a lot of what people were wondering about," said Lilly Goren, political science professor at College of St. Catherine's in St. Paul.\nMuch of the first part of the debate focused on whether Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul who was picked for the race by President Bush, would be a puppet for the Bush administration.\nMondale called Coleman's campaign "the poster child for what is wrong in politics," citing its reliance on money from corporations and special interests.\n"I can be independent," Mondale said. "I owe no one when I go to Washington."\nColeman said he disagreed with the White House on issues such as keeping Cuba cut off from trade with the United States and opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.\n"If I win on Tuesday, the president is going to owe me big-time," Coleman said. "We walked through fire to get here."\nColeman also pointed out several times that federal taxes were raised when Mondale was vice president in the late 1970s.\nVentura's choice of Barkley to temporarily fill the seat angered Minnesota Democrats.\nShortly after Wellstone's death, Ventura said he preferred to appoint a Democrat to hold the seat since Wellstone was a Democrat. When a memorial service for Wellstone turned raucously partisan, though, Ventura stormed out and said he would consider appointing an independent.\n"It's typical Jesse Ventura," state Democratic chairman Mike Erlandson said. "It is always all about Jesse. He decided to make a political rant when people wanted to focus on who is going to be their next U.S. senator."\nBarkley, 52, was a Democrat before switching to Ross Perot's Reform Party. Barkley ran for the Senate in 1994 and got more than 5 percent of the vote, earning ballot status for the Reform Party in Minnesota. Ventura's Independence Party grew out of the Reform Party.
(11/05/02 6:10am)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Engineers inspected the Alaska pipeline to determine the extent of the damage Monday after one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded in the United States knocked out some of its supports and forced a shutdown in the flow of oil.\nSunday's magnitude-7.9 quake was so strong that it opened cracks 6 feet wide in roads and rocked boats on lakes as far away as Louisiana. However, only one minor injury was reported -- a woman who broke her arm in a fall when she fled her home.\nThe pipeline, which carries crude from the North Slope oil fields, was shut down as a precaution, and Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. spokesman Mike Heatwole said Monday it was too soon to know when pumping would resume.\nThe giant conduit, about 60 miles from the quake's epicenter, was not ruptured, but some brackets were damaged, leaving sections of the 48-inch-diameter pipe suspended without support, officials said. Crews began work on temporary supports.\nThe oil flow can be stopped for maintenance or other reasons without affecting oil shipments because a reserve is stored in tanks at the ocean terminal in Valdez.\nOil analysts had little concern that the pipeline shutdown would dramatically affect supplies or prices.\n"As far as affecting the world's oil markets, it would probably have to be knocked out a month or more," said Ed Silliere, vice president of risk management at Energy Merchant LLC in New York.\nAftershocks rattled the region Monday, one with a magnitude of 4.5, and seismologists said more could be expected for the next several days.\nThe quake was centered in a remote and sparsely populated area southeast of Denali National Park, 90 miles south of Fairbanks, but was felt throughout much of Alaska. It cracked highways and roads, triggered rock slides, shook houses and knocked over home fuel tanks.\n"A charging brown bear I can handle. This scared the hell out of me," said Randy Schmoker of Porcupine Creek. He watched the ground ripple with a series of 8-inch waves. "They looked like ocean waves."\nA 150-pound anvil slid 20 feet across the floor of Schmoker's metalworking shop.\nState Transportation Department crews worked through the night to make temporary repairs to roads, some of which had gaps up to 8 feet deep and 6 feet wide.\nIn the New Orleans area more than 3,000 miles away from the epicenter, the quake made lakes ripple and sloshed water out of pools.\nHouseboats were shaken from their moorings on Seattle's Lake Union, more than 1,400 miles south.\n"This earthquake was shallow and the energy went directly into the surface and that is what causes these effects so far away," said Dale Grant, a geophysicist with U.S. Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.\nSeismologists estimate a 185-mile section of the Denali fault ruptured, slipping nearly 20 feet, said scientist Lucy Jones, of the U.S. Geological Survey's office in Pasadena, Calif. Researchers were planning to map the rupture from the air before it vanishes beneath winter snows.\nThe earthquake was the most severe in the United States since a 1906 quake destroyed San Francisco, Jones said. Larger earthquakes have hit Alaska since, but in each case the epicenter was offshore.\nSunday's quake is as close "as it's going to get in terms of analyzing what happened in 1906 -- and will happen in the next big one," she said.
(11/05/02 6:04am)
BALTIMORE -- Authorities are investigating whether the suspects in the Washington-area sniper attacks may have shot and wounded two people a month earlier in the town where the ex-wife of one suspect lives.\nIn one of the shootings, Paul LaRuffa was shot six times at close range after closing his restaurant on Sept. 5. Prince George's County police Capt. Andy Ellis said Sunday that the department is looking into whether the shooting in the town of Clinton is related to the sniper case.\nIn the other shooting, a liquor store clerk was shot and robbed as he locked the Clinton store where he works on Sept. 15, said police Cpl. Diane Richardson.\nClinton, southeast of Baltimore, is the home of John Allen Muhammad's ex-wife Mildred.\nA Sony laptop computer was stolen from LaRuffa, along with more than $3,000 in receipts. A Sony laptop was found in Muhammad's car when he and John Lee Malvo were arrested Oct. 24 at a rest stop.\nLaRuffa, 55, said Sunday he wanted to know if the laptop was his.\n"I wish somebody would tell me 'yes, it's yours, no, it's not yours,' and that's what's frustrating about it," LaRuffa said.\nHe said he was shot with a .22-caliber weapon. Muhammad and Malvo have also been charged in a Montgomery, Ala., liquor store shooting. A .22-caliber handgun was found near the spot where a clerk was killed and another person was wounded.\n"I don't know if it's linked," LaRuffa said. "Yes, there are coincidences. I don't know."\nIn the Sept. 15 shooting, an attacker fired several shots from a small-caliber gun, striking the unidentified victim once in the abdomen, Richardson said. The man then fled with the man's wallet. The victim has recovered.\nRichardson said the task force was investigating the Sept. 15 case because of the proximity to the earlier restaurant shooting and because Clinton is the home of Muhammad's ex-wife. She did not know if ballistic evidence linked the incident to any of the other crimes.\nMuhammad, 41, and Malvo, 17, also face state and federal counts in the shootings in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C, that left 10 people dead.\nThose shootings involved a single gunshot fired from a .223-caliber Bushmaster rifle.\nThe suspects also have been charged in the shooting of a woman in Louisiana.\nOn Friday, Montgomery County police linked a Sept. 14 shooting in front of a beer and wine store in Silver Spring to the sniper suspects. The store clerk, 22-year-old Rupinder Oberoi, survived.\nA court hearing was scheduled Monday to determine whether Malvo should be detained on federal juvenile charges related to the sniper attacks.\nLast week, a federal judge refused to allow open access to the hearing, saying public interest in the shootings does not outweigh Malvo's right to be shielded from scrutiny as a juvenile.
(11/05/02 6:02am)
JERUSALEM -- In a pair of bombings Monday, a Palestinian suicide attacker killed an Israeli civilian and wounded 11 in central Israel, while two Palestinians died when a car carrying a wanted militant exploded in the West Bank.\nAgainst the backdrop of violence, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government fended off three no-confidence votes in Israel's parliament. Sharon also rejected calls for early elections, saying it would be irresponsible. He was still searching for partners to stabilize his coalition and recapture a majority in the legislature.\nIn the 81st Palestinian suicide bombing since 2000, the assailant blew himself up in a shopping mall in Kfar Saba, a town just across the border from the West Bank Palestinian town of Qalqilyia.\n"I went into the mall and in a passageway there was the guy who blew up, in a pool of his own blood," a witness who gave his name as Ron, told Israel Radio.\nDavid Baker, an official in Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, said the attack was "proof that Palestinian terror knows no limits, specializes in cruelty and specifically targets the innocent."\nIslamic Jihad, the radical group that has carried out dozens of attacks in the current round of fighting, claimed responsibility for the bombing.\nIn the West Bank city of Nablus, two Palestinians were killed--one of them a wanted Hamas militant-- when their car exploded in the middle of the street.\nPalestinians immediately blamed the blast on Israel, which has carried out dozens of killings of suspected militants. It appeared the car was booby-trapped and the bomb was detonated by remote control, said Moeen Sakaran, chief of Palestinian intelligence in Nablus.\nHamad Sadder, a member of the Hamas military wing who was sought by Israel, was one of the men killed, Palestinian security sources said.\nHis nephew, Mohammed Bostami carried out last week's suicide attack in a West Bank settlement that killed three Israeli soldiers, Palestinians said. The second man was not immediately identified.\nIn the southern Gaza Strip, the Israeli army shot and killed a Palestinian man.\nIn Israel's parliament, Sharon's weakened government managed to withstand a trio of no-confidence votes brought forward by opposition parties seeking to bring down the coalition and force new elections.\nSharon said he opposed early elections, but he also insisted he would not change government policies to accommodate a far-right party whose support he needs to restore his parliamentary majority.\n"Taking the nation to immediate elections would be irresponsible," Sharon told legislators from his right-wing Likud party. "I hope everyone acts responsibly and doesn't try to make it difficult for a stable government to function."\nAfter the moderate Labor Party quit the coalition last week, Sharon has the support of only 55 of the 120 legislators. Monday's parliament session was filled with political maneuvering, but at the end of the day, virtually nothing had changed.\nSharon still needs the help of small, far-right parties to restore a parliamentary majority.\nSharon may have a temporary safety net from a far-right grouping whose seven lawmakers seem ready to prop up the government long enough to pass the 2003 state budget in coming weeks, but after that may favor forcing early elections.\nNegotiators from the group, the National Union-Israel Beiteinu, presented Sharon with tough terms for joining his coalition: that he formally cancel Israel's commitment to the 1990s interim peace accords with the PLO and declare the Palestinian Authority those agreements established a terrorist entity.\n"This is a good opportunity to change the government's policies," said Avigdor Lieberman, a lawmaker from the party. "If (Sharon) won't change the basic policies and he won't change anything...why should we join the government?"\nSharon has said elections should be held as scheduled, in October 2003.\nIn another development Monday, parliament approved Shaul Mofaz, the recently retired military chief, as the new defense minister.\nMofaz, known for his hawkish views, had angered Palestinians with his tough policies and supported exiling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.\nAlthough Sharon has boycotted and sought to marginalize Arafat, he has refrained from expelling the Palestinian leader, heeding adviser's warnings that the move would anger the United States and severely inflame passions in the region.
(10/24/02 6:21am)
MOSCOW -- At least 40 armed Chechen rebels stormed a crowded theater and took hundreds of people hostage in the midst of a musical, threatening early Thursday to shoot their captives and blow up the building if Russian security forces attacked.\nSeveral hours after the rebels rushed the theater, firing automatic weapons, they began communicating with Russian officials by cell phone. The hostage-takers demanded that Russia end the war in Chechnya, a southern region where the army is fighting Islamic separatists.\nSome hostages reported seeing pools of blood but there was no confirmation of casualties.\nThe rebels have automatic weapons, grenades, belts with explosives attached, mines and canisters of gasoline. There is little water or food available for the hostages, lawmaker Yuli Rybakov told reporters outside the theater.\nHe said the gunmen told a national parliament member from Chechnya who was serving as a mediator that they wanted Russian troops to withdraw from Chechnya and implement a cease-fire.\nSeveral hostages, speaking by cell phone to various Russian television stations and news agencies, appealed to Russian security forces not to use force.\n"There are women, children, foreigners in here," cardiologist Maria Shkolnikova told REN TV. "We don't want the building to be stormed."\nShe said hostage-takers had lost family members in the war.\nAutomatic weapons fire rang out on at least four separate occasions. Security forces were on high alert throughout the Russian capital and around power plants after the audacious attack, which appeared to be meticulously planned.\nThe drama was a blow for President Vladimir Putin, who repeatedly has said Russia has the Chechnya situation under control. Putin scrapped his planned trips to Germany and Portugal, his spokesman, Alexei Gromov, told the Interfax news agency. It was unclear whether Putin would attend a weekend summit in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he was to meet with President Bush.\nWhile Putin's popularity remains high, recent opinion polls show public support for the war starting to drop.\n"We condemn what's happening in Chechnya," Shkolnikova told REN TV.\nMoscow police spokesman Valery Gribakin said about 40-50 rebels were in the theater and they had released 100 women and children from the theater. News reports quoted some of them as saying there were pools of blood in the theater halls. The freed hostages were distraught, sobbing and shaking as they emerged from the building where they had been watching a popular musical based on a romantic novel.
(10/22/02 6:58am)
RICHMOND, Va. -- Authorities took two men into custody Monday for questioning in the Washington-area sniper attacks after surrounding a white van parked at a pay phone.\nHanover County Sheriff Stuart Cook said the two men were seized about 8:45 a.m. across from an Exxon station in suburban Richmond.\n"The two people we have in custody are being questioned as regards the sniper shootings," Cook said. "When we have further information that we can give to the public ... that we've concluded this case we'll do so, but that's not the case at hand."\nHe refused to describe them as suspects.\nInvestigators also confirmed that Saturday night's shooting at a steakhouse outside Richmond was the work of the sniper. The attacks have left nine people dead and three critically wounded since Oct. 2.\nThe developments Monday came one day after police issued a public plea for the sniper to contact them at a phone number that was part of a message found near the latest shooting scene.\nAt least one of the people in custody was dragged out of the van, described by witnesses as a Plymouth Voyager with temporary Virginia tags.\nKeith Underwood, service manager at an Oldsmobile dealership next door, said officers screamed at the person behind the wheel and yanked several times on the door before getting it open.\n"They basically surrounded him with their shotguns," said another witness, Pathenia Fields, a title clerk at the car dealer. She said she saw just one man in the van.\nOver the weekend, police said they found a note in the woods near the Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, a few miles north of Richmond, after the latest victim was shot and critically wounded. Police urged whoever left the note to call them.\nEarly Monday, Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who is in charge of the investigation, said authorities had received a message and were "preparing our response."\nHe did not specify whether the message was a new communication or the one they discovered near the scene of Saturday's shooting. He refused to elaborate or answer questions.\nSurgeons removed the bullet from the latest victim, a 37-year-old man shot, and turned it over to investigators. As in the previous shootings, the victim was felled by a single shot.\nThe victim, whose name was not released, remained in critical condition Monday after six hours of surgery. Doctors were cautiously optimistic but said he would need more surgery.\nThrough the hospital, the wife released a statement saying the caring and prayers she and her husband have received "have been a bright ray of hope and comfort."\n"Please pray also for the attacker and that no one else is hurt," she added.\nIn other developments:\n• Schools in the Ashland and Richmond areas stayed closed Monday, keeping more than 200,000 public students out of class.\n• France alerted Interpol about a French army deserter who is known as a marksman and is missing in North America. A Defense Ministry spokesman said there was speculation of a link to the sniper.\n• In Arlington, more than 200 mourners gathered Monday to remember Linda Franklin, the FBI analyst shot to death a week ago in Falls Church, as a spirited woman with a generous heart. The altar at Mount Olivet United Methodist Church held candles to represent prayers for each sniper victim.\n• Bail was denied Monday for Matthew M. Dowdy, who was accused of lying to police by describing a cream-colored van with a burned-out taillight at the scene of last week's shooting in Falls Church.\nThe nature of the message that investigators say was left at the Ashland shooting scene was unclear.\nThe message contained significant text and was found in woods behind the restaurant, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Monday, quoting unidentified law enforcement sources. The report also said police have found more than one tarot card during the investigation.\nA tarot death card was reported found Oct. 7 outside a Bowie, Md., middle school where the sniper wounded a 13-year-old boy. It had the words "Dear Policeman, I am God" written on it.