News Briefs

Taliban: We Have bin Laden in Our Control; Former King Readies to Retake Control of Afghanistan; Aid Workers Go on Trial 9/30/01
 
The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said on Sunday the Taliban has hidden Osama bin Laden for his own safety, ignoring U.S. demands to hand him over.

"Osama is in Afghanistan, but he is at an unknown place for his safety and security," Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef told a group of reporters and cameramen at his residence in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.   "Only security people know about his whereabouts. Osama bin Laden is under our control, " said Zaeef.

The Taliban has previously said that the whereabouts of bin Laden were unknown, but then said they were able to relay a message to bin Laden that the Taliban government had invited bin Laden to leave Afghanistan. 

Washington was dismissive of Zaeef's comments.  They made it clear that the U.S. government  was not willing to negotiate on the U.S. demand that the Taliban hand over bin Laden to face charges of attacking U.S. targets.   Bin Laden is wanted in the U.S. to face charges for his role in the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.  There is a $30 million reward for the apprehension of bin Laden.

Asked whether the Taliban would pay the price if it did not comply with U.S. demands and give up bin Laden, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: "I would think that that ought to be self-evident at this point."

White House spokesman Ken Lisaius repeated the demand by President George W. Bush that the Taliban hand over bin Laden without negotiation or debate.

Zaeef said bin Laden had been given an edict from a council of religious elders, the ulema, and endorsed by Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, that asked him to leave the country at a time of his choosing.

"The ulema recommendation was handed to him... it has reached him," Mullah Zaeef said. "There has been no response."

The United States has vowed to track down bin Laden, who is the chief suspect in the  September 11 attacks on New York and Washington and a hijacked plane crashing in Pennsylvania, and if the Taliban does not turn over bin Laden and his associates, the Taliban will risk attack themselves. The Taliban have said there is no proof of bin Laden's involvement, and  have refused to surrender bin Laden and his associates.  The Taliban has demanded that Washington must provide evidence of bin Laden's involvement in the attacks in which approximately 6,500 people are dead or missing.

But British Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday he had seen "incontrovertible" evidence linking the 44-year-old Saudi-born fugitive to the attacks.

"I have seen absolutely powerful, incontrovertible evidence," Blair told BBC Television. He said intelligence and security considerations stopped him making the evidence clear. U.S. and British special forces may already be active inside Afghanistan

 Zaeef said President Bush had taken a hard line against the Taliban, expecting them to accept whatever demands he made.

"Bush has stepped away from negotiations and directly gone to a war situation... He expects us to follow as if he is our amir (leader) but he is not our amir," he added.

Zaeef said the Taliban supreme leader had won assurances of support from Pakistani clerics who visited him in his stronghold of Kandahar on Friday.

"They did not have a specific proposal ... they conveyed their willingness to support him," Zaeef said of discussions Mullah Omar had with the clerics, who are revered by the Taliban.

Zaeef said the group had not gone to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar to demand bin Laden's surrender and the question was never raised.

He said the clerics told Mullah Omar the U.S. threat was not just against bin Laden's group, but involved many other Islamic countries.

The Pakistani clerics from the Deobandi school of Islam -- from where the Taliban draw their austere interpretation of the Koran -- are expected to stay in contact with Omar and may visit Kandahar again, Zaeef said.

Zahir Shah, the Afghan king overthrown in 1973, has been mentioned as a possible neutral figurehead in a new Afghan government if the Taliban lost control. But Zaeef said he would not be acceptable.

"All the problems we have in Afghanistan are because of the misguided policies of Zahir Shah," Zaeef said, blaming the ex-king who lives in Rome for paving the way to the communist takeover of the country by bringing in "western" culture.

In Rome, the former king of Afghanistan told a U.S. congressional delegation Sunday that he was by America's side in the fight against terrorism and would back a U.S.-led liberation force to oust the Taliban.

The delegation, headed by Rep. Curt Weldon, a Pennsylvania Republican, visited King Mohammad Zahir Shah at his villa on the outskirts of Rome. Weldon said Zahir, who ruled for 40 peaceful years, is a "critical" figure who "can rally those against the Taliban."

"We have a common struggle against terrorism," Zahir said.

Weldon told reporters that Zahir, 86, spoke of his desire for a return to democracy in Afghanistan. The former king, who introduced a constitutional monarchy, has lived in Rome since his 1973 ouster opened the way for decades of conflict in Afghanistan.

"All of America is looking to the king to play a key role here and help us coalesce those who oppose the Taliban and those who oppose Osama bin Laden's presence in their country," Weldon said.

Weldon said the king spoke of a two-year transition to democracy with an interim leader and does not envision a long-term presence for foreign troops.

"His wish is that the U.N. play a role. But he did not dismiss the notion that if the U.N. could not agree, that a U.S.-led force of allies would in fact liberate his country and allow this process to go forward," Weldon said.

Zahir also stressed the importance of humanitarian aid for Afghanistan, where winter is approaching.

The meeting came a day after the delegation held talks with members of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban forces, who gathered in Rome to plot strategy for unifying the fight against the hard-line Islamic militia. A few members of the anti-Taliban forces joined the Sunday session with the congressional delegation at Zahir's villa.

At least four guards in bulletproof vests with machine guns watched over the meeting.

The field commanders also met with delegation member Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who said afterward that Afghans could count on a "major aid package" to rebuild their war-shattered nation if they overthrew the Taliban and helped root out bin Laden.

"This is Afghanistan's best shot, the best shot they've had in the last 10 or 15 years," said Rohrabacher, a California Republican and a senior member of the House International Relations Committee.

The former king has hosted several commanders from various Afghan groups this week at his villa in Rome, a bid to rally them together. The king's office said they had agreed to create a new military council, made up of commanders, tribal elders and former army officers.

Zahir's overthrow led to the eventual arrival of a pro-Soviet government in Afghanistan and the 1979 Soviet invasion. Soviet troops withdrew in defeat in 1989, and the Taliban seized power in 1996 after devastating fighting between rival groups. The alliance still controls less than 10 percent of northern Afghanistan.  

A further mass exodus of Afghanis is feared if the country targeted for military action.  At least two million Afghanis are living in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran, with hundreds of thousands on the move within the country.

A convoy of trucks carrying 280 tons of wheat left for Kabul, Afghanistan on Sunday, part of a United Nations effort to avoid widespread starvation amid the threat of a U.S. military strike.  

Francesco Luna, a World Food Program spokesman in Islamabad, said a convoy of eight trucks left for Kabul from Pakistan's northern border city of Peshawar. A WFP convoy with 200 tons of wheat also left Peshawar on Saturday, the first food shipments to Afghanistan since the Sept. 11 attacks. Two additional convoys with another 200 tons of food will depart either Sunday or Monday, Luna said.  

Another convoy of 19 trucks carrying food, medicine, clothes, soap, blankets, school books and other supplies from the U.N. Children Fund left Peshawar on Saturday, heading for the Northern Alliance-held territories. 

The United Nations fears that if the United States attacks Afghanistan up to 1.5 million Afghans will seek shelter in Pakistan and other neighboring countries. In preparation for such an influx, the U.N. refugee agency announced its first emergency flight of supplies to Pakistan. 

Meanwhile, the trial of eight detained foreign aid workers accused of preaching Christianity in Afghanistan resumed Sunday. Two Pakistani attorneys were defending the detainees - two Americans, two Australians and four Germans - who were arrested in August and charged with proselytizing, a serious offense under the Taliban regime's strict version of Islam.  The detainees, who work for the German-based aid group Shelter Now International, insist they were in the country to help the poor, not convert them.   In a brief appearance before the Supreme Court on Sunday, the detainees were told the trial would be postponed three to 15 days to allow their Pakistani lawyer, Atif Ali Khan, to review the evidence against them. 

The two American women, Heather Mercer, 24, and Dayna Curry, 29, were arrested on Aug. 3 in Kabul. Two days later, the Taliban's religious police stormed the offices of Shelter Now International and arrested the other six foreign employees: Germans George Taubmann, Margrit Stebnar, Kati Jelinek and Duerrkopf; Australians Peter Bunch and Diana Thomas; and 16 Afghan staff members.

A Supreme Court chief justice told eight foreign aid workers Sunday that they would be treated fairly, and that the threat of a U.S. military assault would not play a part in their trial on charges of preaching Christianity, and that their case would be handled according to Islamic law.  The Taliban have refused to say what the punishment would be if the eight are convicted, but Taliban law allows for sentences ranging from expulsion to jail terms to death.   The Afghan workers of Shelter Now International will to be tried separately, although the Taliban have refused to say when. 

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, Taliban officials meeting in at least eight Afghan provinces Saturday ``expressed their readiness to defend Afghanistan ... and for (holy war) against America,'' the Taliban-run Radio Kabul reported. 

Also Sunday, the Taliban sent a special team to the northeastern city of Jalalabad to investigate the case of a British journalist who was arrested after being found in Afghanistan, a news agency with ties to the Afghans reported.  

Yvonne Ridley, 43, a reporter for the Sunday Express of London, was arrested Friday along with two Afghan guides in the Dour Daba district of eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban reported. She was taken to Jalalabad for investigation on possible espionage charges.  Quoting Taliban sources, the Afghan Islamic Press said the special team wanted to determine if she was a spy. The team did not know how long the investigation would last.

Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said on Sunday they had arrested six people for distributing pro-U.S. pamphlets that called for a return of ex-king Zahir Shah, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported.  

AIP, quoting Mullah Abdur Raoof, governor of eastern Khost province, said three people were arrested for distributing pamphlets in the town of Gardez in Paktya province and another three in Khost. 

"We have arrested three people in Khost and three in Gardez," Raoof said, explaining that they had secretly dropped leaflets in the streets and bazaars of the two towns at night.  

The leaflets said the United States was not an enemy and people should support ex-king Zahir Shah.  

Separately AIP quoted another Taliban spokesman as saying an assembly of 150 elders in the eastern provinces of Khost, Paktya and Paktita had decided to burn the houses of any person found supporting the United States or his "puppet" Zahir Shah.  

Burning houses is a tribal punishment practised in the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan under tribal laws. 

The elders also endorsed support to the Taliban, under threat from the United States for protecting Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden whom Washington suspects of attacking New York and Washington this month.  

Governor Raoof said the six detained were local people and they would be punished according to the decision of the grand council of clerics.

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Investigation Moves Forward; Ten Men Arrested Across Country in The Wake of Terrorist Attacks 9/27/01

Law enforcement nationwide arrested ten Middle Eastern men believed to have fraudulently obtained commercial driver’s licenses to transport hazardous waste, as authorities try to determine if terrorists were plotting an attack using biological, chemical or other toxic materials.

Five men were arrested on those suspicions in Detroit, four in Seattle and one in Kansas City, although a Justice Department spokeswoman said the men had no known links to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The ten men arrested were among 18 that investigators said had obtained fraudulent licenses to haul hazardous materials with the assistance of a Pennsylvania state official.  The investigation continues.

In a 13-page federal complaint that was unsealed in Detroit, FBI special agent John Kelly and Pennsylvania State Trooper Francis Murphy III said the fraudulent licenses were obtained with the help of a driver's license examiner in a state office building in Pittsburgh.  

In court papers, the FBI said a Middle Eastern man named Abdul Mohamman, known as "Ben," acted as a middleman in the scheme, bringing in as many as 30 drivers who fraudulently obtained commercial licenses to carry hazardous materials. 

The FBI quoted the examiner, identified in the affidavit only as CW-1, as saying that he was introduced to "Ben" about six years ago. The examiner told the FBI he "issued HAZMAT endorsements to these individuals at Ben's instruction without conducting the required test."   "Ben paid between $50 and $100 per individual by placing the money in 'brand-new' bills under CW-1's desk calendar," said the FBI affidavit. 

Investigators said 20 people from seven states, including nine from Michigan, had falsely obtained licenses in Pennsylvania to drive semi-trailers between July 1999 and February 2000.

Eighteen of the 20 also were fraudulently certified to haul hazardous cargo, the prosecutors said in a criminal complaint charging Hussain Al-Obaidi, one of the Michigan suspects.

Also appearing in brief hearings in U.S. District Court in Detroit on Wednesday evening were Samil Al Mazaal, 29, who said he is an Iraqi citizen, and Hatef Al Atabi, 35, a U.S. citizen. The two other people arrested were not publicly identified.  The hearing of three of the men arrested in Seattle was postponed until an Arabic translator could be located.

One hazardous waste license holder, Nabil Al-Marabh of Michigan, is believed to be an associate of Osama bin Laden. Al-Marabh was arrested last week near Chicago and was flown to New York for questioning. Al-Marabh had attempted to get a duplicate license in a Berrien County driver’s license center.

Most of the men arrested and wanted for arrest obtained the Pennsylvania licenses by falsely claiming they had been certified as commercial drivers in other states,according to affidavit said. Nine of the people claimed certification in Michigan. The rest said they had been certified initially in other states including Washington, Virginia, Kentucky, Kansas, Tennessee and Texas. In fact, none of them had been certified commercial drivers, the affidavit said.

The Pennsylvania examiner, who was not named in the affidavit, allegedly helped the group obtain the licenses and certifications without taking required tests. Eighteen of them also were provided hazardous materials endorsements without taking tests.

Court documents indicated that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation began investigating the fraud scheme in March 2000. Kelly, in the affidavit, said he is assigned to the FBI's response team investigating the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Attorney General John Ashcroft told a Senate hearing Tuesday there is a "clear and present" danger of additional terrorist attacks that could include trucks carrying hazardous chemicals. Police across the nation have been put on alert for anything suspicious involving hazardous materials because people with possible ties to the suicide hijackers have obtained or tried to obtain licenses to transport hazardous cargo, Ashcroft said.

Wednesday's arrests raise further questions about what role, if any, trucks may play in the ongoing national terrorism investigation.  Security in New York City was increased dramatically Tuesday shortly before Attorney General John Ashcroft told Congress that terrorists may be planning an attack using a truck carrying hazardous chemicals.

Asked about reports that specific threats had been made against the city, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said: ``Sometimes they're credible, sometimes they're not.''  

According to the New York Daily News, police were acting on a tip that a semi-trailer packed with explosives was bound for New York  prompted them to block the bridges and tunnels yesterday and caused massive gridlock in the already jittery city.  Thousands of trucks and vans were searched by swarms of heavily armed officers before they were allowed to pass.

Beginning Thursday, Giuliani said, no driver would be allowed to take most bridges into southern Manhattan between 6 a.m. and noon unless they have at least one passenger. Officials are hoping the restrictions willreduce traffic jams that have clogged the city since stop-and-search points were set up this week.

The ban includes some of the busiest commuter pathways in the country, including the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and four bridges linking Manhattan to Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island. The ban takes effect Friday for the Lincoln Tunnel from New Jersey, the only tunnel into the area not included in the Thursday ban.  Two other tunnels near the disaster site, the Holland and Battery, remained closed Wednesday.

Drivers will be able to leave the city at any time without carpooling. Giuliani said the city would decide after using the new rules Thursday and Friday whether they are working.  ``This is a trial-and-error thing,'' the mayor said.

At the entrance to the Midtown Tunnel between Queens and Manhattan at midday Wednesday, more than a dozen vans and trucks were lined up waiting to be searched by police while other traffic was at a crawl.

At the same tunnel entrance, a Port Authority police officer stopped a bus and demanded to see the driver's license and bus company identification. The officer warned he would ``turn the bus around'' if the driver couldn't produce the two forms of identification.

``We're in heightened alert ... and we think that these checks are prudent,'' said Joseph Esposito, chief of the New York Police Department.  There were no reports of explosives or other potentially dangerous cargo found, police said.

In another development Wednesday, an aging Toyota that was left behind by one of the hijackers who crashed into the Pentagon has led federal investigators to arrest a Virginia man whose name and phone number were found in the vehicle.

In Alexandria, Va., U.S. Magistrate Curtis Sewell denied bail to former airport worker Mohamed Abdi after prosecutors warned that he might flee the country. U.S. Attorney Robert Spencer described Abdi as an essential witness in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, but said he may be more directly involved.

Authorities said Abdi, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Somalia, could not explain how his name and number turned up in a vehicle owned by Nawaq Alhamzi, a Saudi national who was named by the FBI as one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77. Authorities found Alhamzi's 1988 Toyota in an hourly parking lot at Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., the day after the hijacking.

Abdi's name and number were found on a map of Washington. Investigators also found a map of New York, four drawings of the cockpit of a Boeing 757 airplane, a box cutter utility knife and cashiers check made out to a flight school in Phoenix, Ariz. The hijacked plane was a Boeing 757.

According to the FBI, Abdi initially said he had donated his car to the Salvation Army in 1999 and that the map with his phone number and name were left in it. Telephone records showed that Abdi did not have the phone number in 1999.

The FBI was also suspicious because Abdi was carrying a newspaper article about Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian who was convicted of conspiring to bomb the Los Angeles airport as part of a millennium terrorist plot. Ressam has admitted in court that he spent six months training in an Afghani terrorist camp.

Joseph Bowman, Abdi's lawyer, said his client was just "a guy trying to make his way" who had "his name found in an unfortunate place." He said Abdi works as a security guard and lives in Arlington, Va.

Abdi is being held on unrelated forgery charges for allegedly signing and cashing monthly housing subsidies that were intended for his landlord. Abdi received a county housing subsidy of $220 month because he was relocated from a neighborhood to make way for a development project. 

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European Terrorist Manhunt Continues 9/27/01

European countries  continued to crack down on suspected terrorists,  making arrests in Spain, Britain and the Netherlands in an effort to link Osama bin Laden to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. 

In Spain, police detained six Algerians on Tuesday and Wednesday who allegedly are linked to bin Laden, the chief suspect in the suicide hijacking attacks, and to a group suspected of planning attacks on U.S. targets in Europe. 

In Britain, authorities captured a French national on Tuesday who was allegedly involved in a plot to attack U.S. interests in Europe.  France also placed seven other suspects in the case under formal investigation on Tuesday, one step before being charged. 

French authorities say the eight all are believed to have ties to bin Laden. Evidence found during arrests in France last week suggest the suspects were part of a group scouting out European locations for attacks, with the U.S. Embassy in Paris a prime target, French news reports said.  Another target is said to be the European Parliament building in Strasburg, France.

In the Netherlands, police arrested an Iraqi man suspected of belonging to a radical Muslim network planning attacks, Dutch news reports said Wednesday. 

Authorities would not confirm the Dutch reports. They said the suspect, who was arrested Monday, faced the same charges as four other men detained in Rotterdam Sept. 13 for possessing fraudulent documents. 

In Sweden, police have placed people under surveillance.  These people are alleged to have gone to suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan linked to bin Laden. 

The six people detained in Spain allegedly belong to a dissident faction of the Armed Islamic Group, Algeria's most hard-line insurgency movement, Interior Minister Mariano Rajoy said. 

The six Algerians have not been charged but ``evidently had serious connections with international terrorism and were financially connected with terrorist bin Laden's organization,'' Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar told reporters, according to the Associated Press.. 

The Algerians appeared to be responsible for sending optical, electronic, computer and communications equipment to colleagues in Algeria, as well as camping material to Chechnya, Rajoy said. Russia maintains that separatist rebels in Chechnya are Islamic extremists aided by foreign terrorist groups, some of whom trained at bin Laden's camps.

Spanish police found forged passports and sophisticated computer equipment used to produce fake documents, and airline tickets for trips to Algeria and France, Rajoy said. 

The state news agency Efe identified the six Algerians as group leader Mohamed Boualem Khnouni, Mohamed Belaziz, Yasin Seddiki, Hakim Zerzour, Madjid Sahouane and Hocine Khouni. 

Meanwhile, in Britain, police got a 48-hour extension Wednesday to continue interrogating two men arrested in connection with the World Trade Center attacks. Lotfi Raissi and Abu Imard were arrested on Friday, along with another man and a woman who have since been released. 

British authorities also were investigating reports that eleven of the 19 suicide hijackers may have passed through Britain on their way to the United States, said David Verness, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. 

Also in Britain, police arrested six Iraqis found hiding Wednesday in a truck parked outside a Royal Air Force base used by U.S. fighter jets. The German driver of the truck was also arrested. But the ties to terrorism were unclear. A police spokesman said the six could have just been illegal immigrants who mistakenly ended up at the base. Britisn police continue to investigate.

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As Manhunt Continues, bin Laden & Afghanistan Become Isolated 9/26/01 

Saudi Arabia, following the lead of the United Arab Emirates, withdrew their recognition of the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.  Pakistan is the only country to recognize Afghanistan, but has withdrawn its embassy staff from the country.  Pakistan said they are recognizing the Taliban so that the Taliban has one diplomatic outlet to the rest of the world.

Saudi Arabia accused the Taliban of continuing "to use their land to harbor, arm and encourage those criminals who carry out terrorist attacks, which frighten the innocent and spread horror and destruction in the world." The kingdom's decision to cut all ties with the Taliban gives the U.S. campaign against terrorism a push forward. 

"It further alienates them from international community, and it provides the diplomatic coalition with greater weight so it has more diplomatic utility at this moment than military utility," Joanna Spears of the Department of War Studies at the University of London told CNN.   Osama bin Laden was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991 for his anti-government activities and was stripped of his Saudi citizenship in 1994. Bin Laden is under indictment in the United States for his role in the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.  The U.S. is offfering a $30 million reward for his apprehension.

After the Saudi announcement, a Taliban representative urged Pakistan to maintain its diplomatic ties and prevent the United States from using Pakistani airspace to launch an attack on Afghanistan.

The Taliban official, Mohammad Hussein Mostassed, told the Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera that a clash with the United States would be a clash of values.

"The Americans are fighting so they can live and enjoy the material things in this life. But we are fighting so we can die in the cause of God," he said.   Mostassed, the Taliban official appearing on Al Jazeera, warned that Afghans were ready to resist any U.S. attack. Speaking from Kabul, he held up a rifle and said, "This is one of the weapons the Soviets left behind. The people of Afghanistan own a lot of these weapons. The Afghans are proud to die martyrs while defending themselves."

``We should maintain contact, at least there should be one country who ought to be able to have an access to them, to be able to engage them,'' President Pervez Musharraf told reporters in Islamabad, Pakistan.

Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, urged Muslims in Pakistan to fight a holy war against "America's crusader forces" that are preparing to strike his bases in Afghanistan, according to a statement faxed to an Arab television station.

The statement, purportedly issued by bin Laden, did not address allegations that he masterminded the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Instead, it focused on the death last week of three Pakistanis who were protesting plans to target bin Laden, calling them "the first martyrs in the battle of Islam in this age" and encouraging others to follow their example.

"We incite our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to deter with all their capabilities the American crusaders from invading Pakistan and Afghanistan," said the typed statement, which was received by Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite television channel this afternoon. "I assure you, dear brothers, that we are firm on the road of jihad for the sake of God."

Although there was no independent verification that bin Laden authored today's statement, the station's news director said that Al-Jazeera correspondents in Afghanistan confirmed with their sources that the message came from bin Laden, who U.S. officials have said is being harbored by the Taliban. Bin Laden generally does not communicate by fax, and Taliban officials have said that he does not even have a phone, but analysts said it was possible that he conveyed the message by a courier, who then sent it to the station.

The English translation of the text is as follows:

To our Muslim brothers in Pakistan, peace be upon you.

The news of the death of our brother Muslims in Karachi while expressing their opposition to the crusade of American forces and their allies on Muslim lands Pakistan and Afghanistan has reached us with great sorrow.

We ask God to accept them as martyrs and to join them with the prophets, the caliphs and the martyrs and those of goodwill and to provide for their families. Those who are left behind children are my children and I will, God willing, take care of them.

It's not a surprise that the Muslim nation in Pakistan will die defending Islam. It is considered on the front line of defending Islam. As Afghanistan was on the front line of defending itself and Pakistan during the Russian invasion more than 20 years ago.

We hope that these brothers will be the first martyrs in the battle of Islam in this era against the new Jewish and Christian crusader campaign that is led by the Chief Crusader Bush under the banner of the cross.

We tell our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to use all their means to resist the invasion of the American crusader forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I convey to you good news my beloved brothers that we are steadfast in the way of jihad following in the footsteps of the prophet -- peace be upon him -- with the believing heroes, the people of Afghanistan and under the leadership of our prince the warrior Mullah Mohammed Omar.

We ask God to make us defeat the infidels and the oppressors and to crush the new Jewish-Christian crusader campaign on the land of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

If God allows you to win, there will be no defeat; if he chooses that you will be defeated nothing will allow you to win. Therefore, depend on God.

Your brother in Islam, (signed) Osama bin Muhammed bin-Laden"

The day after the attacks, a Palestinian journalist, quoting a close aide of bin Laden's, said bin Laden congratulated the people who carried out the strikes but denied that he was involved. U.S. military strike appearing increasingly likely,

Bin Laden's Al-Qaida organization issued a fiery new statement warning Washington against attacks against him or Afghanistan.

``Wherever there are Americans and Jews, they will be targeted,'' said a statement faxed to news organizations in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, in the name of Al-Qaida's chief military commander, Naseer Ahmed Mujahed. ``We can defend ourselves. The holy warriors are fully prepared.''

``Wherever there are Muslims, they should prepare for jihad (holy war), and by the grace of God, the victory will be Islam's,'' the statement said.

UN officials said the Taliban had taken over several aid-agency offices in the country, severely impeding most humanitarian relief operations.   Although international aid workers for the UN had left the country, local workers continued to staff the aid agencies.  The workers were told if they used the satellite telephone or the computers, they would be executed.   The Taliban seized approximately 1,400 tons of food, which was supposed to go to the dr. ought-stricken Afghanis.

The militia raided U.N. offices in Kabul, the capital, and Kandahar, where the Taliban leadership is based, during the weekend and sealed their satellite telephones, walkie-talkies, computers and vehicles to bar them from use, according to U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker.

``They warned our staff that if they use these things they will face execution,'' said Gordon Weiss, the spokesman for UNICEF in Islamabad.

The World Food Program, which assists millions of poor Afghans, said in a statement released at the U.N. headquarters in New York that the Taliban had also seized food from the group's offices in the southern city of Kandahar.

``Around 300,000 experienced mujahedeen (holy warriors) are guarding the borders and all other important places in Afghanistan,'' said the minister, Mullah Obaidullah Akhund. He instructed the Afghan people to ``remain vigilant and prepare for jihad, ' a holy war.  Afghanistan is estimated to have somewhere between 25,000 and 40,000 troops.

The Taliban's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, said killing bin Laden would not protect America against terrorism. In a statement faxed to news agencies from his headquarters in Kandahar, Afghanistan, Mullah Omar called on the United States to withdraw troops from the Persian Gulf, eliminate its ``bias'' against the Palestinians and refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of Islamic countries.

``America wants to eliminate Islam, and they are spreading lawlessness to install a pro-American government in Afghanistan,'' Mullah Omar said. ``This effort will not solve the problem, and the Americans are igniting a fire that will burn them if they indulge in this kind of activity.''

Omar said the attacks on the United States were to avenge US "cruelty" toward Muslim countries, Omar said in a message to the American people.

"The American people must know that the sad events that took place recently were the result of their government's wrong policies," he said in the message, delivered through Pakistan-based private news agency, the Afghan Islamic Press.

"Your government is perpetrating all sorts of atrocities in Muslim countries. Instead of supporting your government's policies you should urge your government to reconsider their wrong and cruel policies," he said.

"The recent sad event in America was the result of these cruel policies and was meant to avenge this cruelty," he said, without claiming to know who was responsible. Omar continued  to defend Osama bin Laden, named by the United States as the prime suspect for the September 11 attacks. He said again bin Laden was incapable of planning the sort of sophisticated suicide hijackings which destroyed the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and crashed a plane south of Pittsburgh  two weeks ago.

"You must think of where the attack took place and who was behind it, but Afghanistan is being made the target and preparations are being made to attack Afghanistan," he said. "What will be the consequences?

"You accept all just or unjust statements from your government but why can't you judge whether Osama bin Laden is involved in this? Can he do this in America? It is better for you to consider this seriously and act with wisdom."   

''America should not mislead itself. It cannot emerge from this crisis by the murder of myself and Osama bin Laden,'' said a statement issued by Mullah Omar's office.  ''If America wants terrorism to end, it should withdraw its forces from the Gulf and end its partisanship in Palestine,'' said Mullah Omar, who has given shelter in Afghanistan to bin Laden since 1996.

Separately, the Taliban warned its northern neighbor, Uzbekistan, against aiding any U.S.-led coalition that moves against Afghanistan, saying that in the past, ``imperialist forces'' invading the country had met with defeat.

With a massive troop build-up and warships from the U.S., Britian and Japan steaming towards the Persian Gulf, at least 1.5 million Afghanis are headed towards the Pakistan border, with one million more expected.  The UN has asked Pakistan to reopen its border to let the refugees into camps.  The UN has shipped 20,000 tents to Pakistan, and has committed refugee assistance to the region.  UN relief workers may attempt to bring in food to Afghanistan on a trial basis.  

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Administration Pushes For Greater Investigative Power for FBI 9/26/01

In the two weeks since the terrorist attack, U.S. authorities have taken 352 people into custody and are looking for nearly 400 more who might have information on the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft revealed as he testified before Congress.  

Until  Monday, it was thought  that about 80 people were being held on immigration charges in connection with the case, while perhaps a dozen
others had been arrested as "material witnesses."

Ashcroft, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee to urge passage of
legislation that would give authorities stronger tools to fight terrorists,
said the new numbers show that the investigation is "moving aggressively
forward." Authorities have also conducted 324 searches and issued 3,410
subpoenas, he said.  At least 4000 FBI agents are investigating the case worldwide.

Law enforcement authorities say some of the people arrested in the case are
cooperating with authorities and that the investigation has already produced
key evidence about how the suspected terrorists were organized, financed and
trained.

Some of those 352 people who Ashcroft said have been taken into custody may
have already been released, Justice Department officials said, but authorities refused to give a breakdown of the 352 people or the charges against them because they said it could compromise the sensitivity and secrecy surrounding the investigation. Many of the documents in the case have been sealed by court order.  Officials said that 98 of those detained are being held by the INS for alleged immigration violations.

"Some of these people could be very tangential to the case," said one FBI official who asked not to be identified. But others may prove critical in reconstructing how the hijackers were able to infiltrate American society and plot their attacks.

Some Arab-American leaders and civil rights groups questioned whether authorities are rounding up Middle Easterners with little or no direct connection to the case.  Of the people whom authorities have publicly acknowledged detaining, virtually all are of Middle Eastern heritage. "When you're talking about hundreds of people being arrested, it brings a chill to the whole American Muslim community," said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' Southern California branch.

"The problem is that we know very little about who is being held and on what
basis. We're putting a lot of trust in our government not to abuse the powers given them," he said in an interview.

Ayloush said his group has been contacted by friends and family of four men
who are in federal detention in connection with the case--all Middle
Easterners who were attending college in Orange County on student visas.
Ayloush said that despite federal charges that the men had violated
immigration law, all four appear to have valid, current visas.

The American Islamic group has also been contacted by two other people who
were subpoenaed to come to New York to testify before a federal grand jury.
One is a San Diego man who may have worked with a suspected hijacker at a
gas station there, Ayloush said.

The FBI has picked up material witnesses in New York, Texas, Michigan, California and elsewhere, according to law enforcement sources, while others were arrested by local and state authorities around the country because of their possible connections to the case.  One person, a doctor from San Antonio who was arrested on a material witness warrant, has been released.  Authorities now say the doctor may have been the victim of a stolen identity.

Two detainees who have drawn heightened interest are two men from
India who were removed from a train in Fort Worth on the day of the attacks.
Ayub Ali Khan, 51, and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47, who authorities said were carrying box-cutters and thousands of dollars in cash, were arrested as
material witnesses and transferred to New York City for questioning.

Investigators are also focusing on Zacarias Moussaiou, who was arrested on
immigration charges in Minnesota in August and had allegedly offered to pay
thousands of dollars in cash for flight lessons but only wanted to learn how to steer, not to land. Investigators suspect that Moussaiou may have had contact with at least two of the hijackers in the attacks.  Moussaiou also had flight manuals and a crop-dusting manual in his possession.  Mohamed Atta, one of the hijackers thought to have piloted the plane that crashed into the first World Trade Center tower, visited a training center for crop-dusters on several occasions and had tried to get a USDA loan to by a crop-duster.  After being grounded for two days, crop-dusters in the US are now allowed to fly.

In one of the few cases in which authorities have released public documents,
federal court records in Virginia showed Monday that authorities have arrested two men who allegedly helped five of the suspected hijackers illegally obtain Virginia driver's licenses.  According to the criminal complaint, the hijackers allegedly paid several hundred dollars to obtain false, notarized identification documents from a law office, allowing them to then get driver's licenses.

The man appears to be the first to be publicly charged with helping the terrorists, but he is not charged with participating in the plot to hijack jetliners and crash them into buildings.

Authorities in Europe have also arrested several dozen people in connection
with the terrorist investigation in recent days, but a relative of a 26-year-old fugitive wanted in Germany for mass murder as an accomplice in the Sept. 11 terror attacks insisted Monday that authorities have the wrong man.

Osman Kul, whose daughter is married to fugitive Said Bahaji, said his son-in-law is a devout Muslim who could not have played any part in the attacks.

"I would have nothing to do with these crazy people, these terrorists who killed thousands of innocent people. They will burn in hell for eternity for what they did," he said, adding that he was horrified by the slaughter and felt deep compassion for the American people.

But U.S. authorities said the expansion of the investigation to Europe highlights  the worldwide threat posed by terrorist networks.

"The highly coordinated attacks of Sept. 11," Ashcroft told members of Congress on Monday, "make it clear that terrorism is the activity of expertly organized, highly coordinated and well-financed organizations and networks."

Ashcroft is asking Congress to pass legislation which would permit the indefinite detention without trial of immigrants suspected of ties to terrorist groups  The bill would make it easier for law enforcement agencies to eavesdrop on suspected terrorists by expanding wiretap authority from single phone lines to multiple modes of communication linked to a suspect, such as cell phones, pay phones, voice mail, pagers and e-mail.  It would also expand the definition of terrorists to include those who "lend support" to terrorist organizations, and it would allow immigration officials to "detain and remove" them. It would permit law enforcement agencies to share information, including grand jury testimony , with intelligence agencies, and it would let law enforcement officials not only freeze terrorists' assets but also seize them. 

The legislation also includes giving authorities at border checkpoints and consular offices electronic access to crime, intelligence, and immigration data from many federal agencies to help identify high-risk travelers;  imposing stiffer penalties on anyone who harbors or supports terrorists. The law would also allow the confiscation of the property of terrorists, and  DNA samples to be collected of all people convicted of terrorist crimes; allowing the use of information collected by foreign governments against American citizens, even if the collection violates constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Public-interest groups worry that many of these provisions go too far and are likely to stay in place even after the threat to national security diminishes.

The bill has received a mixed reception on Capitol Hill, and objections from civil libertarians.  Public-interest groups worry that many of these provisions go too far and are likely to stay in place even after the threat to national security decreases.

"There's no question that a concerted attempt is being pursued to take advantage of the attack as an opening for government to secure a wide variety of powers that it has raised over the years," says Tom Devine, legal director of the Washington-based Government Accountability Project. "Many of the items in the legislative package aren't directly relevant to the events of September 11."  

However, Attorney General Ashcroft disagrees.

"We're going to do everything we can to harmonize the constitutional rights of individuals with every legal capacity we can muster to also protect the safety and security of individuals," he said.

return to index

Arrests Made Across the Globe in Search for Terrorists 9/23/01 

Arrests of persons who may be connected to the terrorist attack on the United States have been made in the United States, France, Germany, Paraguay, Canada, Belgium and England.   Peru may have been used as a resting area for bin Laden's terrorist organization.

In the United States, at least 125 people who are in custody have been transferred to New York to be questioned, to go before a grand jury, or both. Some of the persons are under arrest, either as a suspect or as a material witness; others are being detained on immigration violations.  Arrests have been made in Kentucky, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, and New Jersey.  Alerts for water quality and the sale of fertilizer have been made, as well as restrictions on the use of crop-dusters.

Kentucky 

On Thursday, a law enforcement task force raided two apartments in Burlington, Kentucky, near Cincinnati, Ohio.  Dozens of federal agents descended on two apartment complexes Friday, leaving with vanloads of Islamic immigrants and confiscating computers in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorism investigation.       

No arrests were announced, but at least 25 people were detained on potential immigration law violations, the FBI said in a statement they released on Friday night.   

Jeffrey A. Lampinski, special agent in charge of the Kentucky FBI, provided few details but did confirm that the investigation is related to the Sept. 11 attacks.  

 “Numerous persons were interviewed and at least 25 have been detained on potential immigration law violations,” Mr. Lampinski said.      

One of the apartment complex residents told the Cincinnati Enquirer that  agents took computers and grocery bags full of items from the apartments.   

“They had some of them in handcuffs, and others just walked out and got into the vans,” according to the resident.     

Both complexes are within 3 miles of the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport. Earlier in the week, reports that hijackers might have been aboard two more jets than the four crashed focused on American Airlines Flight 43, which made an emergency landing at the airport on Sept. 11. That flight originated at Newark and was bound for Los Angeles.     

 Grant County Sheriff Randy Middleton said Friday night that a couple from Crittenden is also under scrutiny by federal authorities, but he was unaware if they also were a target of Friday's searches.  Two men said they were jailed for about eight hours Friday, asked to show identification and released without being questioned.         

“I am not an extremist. I had nothing to do with what happened,” said Mohamed Selem Ould Yeslem, 32, a restaurant worker from Mauritania, in North Africa, who works at the airport.         

El Houssein Ould Mohamed Saleh, also from Mauritania, said he was stopped by police in a parking lot and handcuffed.   “I think people are worried when they see people that look like Arabs,” said the unemployed 32-year-old. “If it just happens one time, it's not bad, but if it keeps on happening, I wouldn't want to stay here.”

Participating with the FBI agents from Kentucky and Cincinnati were the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Secret Service, the Boone County Sheriff's Department, the Florence Police Department and the Northern Kentucky Drug Strike Force.     

Agent Lampinski did say the agents executed six search warrants, four federal and two state,  but that the warrants have been sealed.  In his statement, Agent Lampinski said people in this area are not in danger.   “Nothing that was developed today in any way should suggest any concern for the persons living in the Northern Kentucky or Cincinnati, Ohio, area,” he said

There were no reports of struggles. After questioning people, showing them some kind of pictures and asking for proof of citizenship and identification, officers herded as many as 15 people into vans and drove off.   Ten more people were taken into custody at another apartment complex. 

The FBI would not say where they were taken, but officers on the scene told residents they might have gone to FBI offices in Louisville, Kentucky,  or Cincinnati, or possibly to a federal detention facility in Lexington, Kentucky.   Residents said some of people taken into custody may have worked at area restaurants. Others did not appear to have jobs.         

Two cars owned by some of the men detained had Jefferson County license plates. One had a book and cassette tapes with Arabic writing. Another had a thesaurus, a brochure from Paramount's Kings Island, a Lexington apartment guide and what appeared to be an assignment from a temporary employment agency for a $7 an hour job as a packer and assembler that was scheduled to start Sept. 7.        

Illinois-Detroit-Florida Connections

Federal prosecutors in Chicago said they had charged a man with trying to fly into Chicago with an illegal passport and airline uniforms on the day of the hijackings.

In a criminal complaint filed in Illinois, prosecutors said Nageeb Abdul Jabar Mohamed Al-Hadi was flying aboard a Lufthansa airliner on Sept. 11 when it was grounded in Toronto as a result of the attacks.

Al-Hadi was traveling with a ticket under a different name and was carrying three passports from Yemen, the complaint said. In his luggage found on the flight, investigators found two Lufthansa crew uniforms, at least one identification card and paper with Arabic writing, the complaint said.   In a search of his possessions, law enforcement said they found a pair of pants that had a small piece of material sewn into the side of a pocket that had a sequence of English and Arabic numbers. 

Al-Hadi, who is in custody in Canada, appeared to be an employee of Lufthansa, according to the complaint. He was charged with possessing and attempting to use a false passport.   The complaint, which was filed Sept. 14, had previously been sealed.

Each of the Yemeni passports he carried had a different number, different name and different date of issue, it said. Al-Hadi presented one of the passports, issued in Yemen on Sept. 2, to Canadian authorities. A receipt showed that he had purchased a visa from the United State Embassy in Yemen on that day.  Using a search warrant, the FBI also recovered a student identification card from the Yemenese Language Institute in Yemen.

Nabil Al-Marabh, 34, was arrested Wednesday night in Justice, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, by police and FBI agents, FBI spokeswoman Mary Muha said.

She said Al-Marabh was being held on a warrant issued in Boston in March for assault with a knife. Federal agents had been looking for him since at least Monday.

That day, they raided a Detroit house with Al-Marabh's name on the mailbox and arrested three men after discovering false visas, passports and other identification, as well as what appeared to be a diagram of an airport flight line. The FBI list that Al-Marabh is on includes suspects, potential associates of the suspects, and potential witnesses related to the attacks, the FBI said.

While agents were in Detroit on Monday, Al-Marabh was in Three Oaks, Illinois, in the southwestern corner of Michigan near the Indiana state line, getting a duplicate driver's license, state authorities said. Al-Marabh holds a commercial driver’s license, which allows him to drive semi-trucks, as well a as a certification for hauling hazardous materials.  In Tampa, Florida, the county's public transportation commission said Friday that Nabil Al-Marabh had obtained a taxi license in Florida in February 1999. The Florida license expired in November 1999.   An application for the Florida taxi license said Al-Marabh lived in Tampa from 1994 through 1999.  

The FBI said details of his capture were not immediately available. In December, Al-Marabh was convicted of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon – a knife – in Boston. He was to have started serving a sentence in March but failed to show up.

During the raid in Detroit on Monday, federal agents found a cache of documents and arrested Karim Koubriti, 23, Ahmed Hannan, 33, and Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 21, on charges of having false immigration papers. The men were identified as resident aliens from Morocco and Algeria.

Agents also found a planner with handwriting in Arabic, according to court papers. The day planner included information about an American military base in Turkey, the "American foreign minister," and Alia Airport in Jordan, the FBI said.

Investigators also found what appeared to be a diagram of an airport flight line, including aircraft and runways, according to the court document, which did not identify the airport. Hannan and Koubriti briefly worked as dishwashers for an airline catering company, LSG Sky Chefs, near the Detroit airport between May and June, the company said. More recently, they worked for Technicolor in Livonia, putting together cardboard boxes for shipping DVDs and videos.

The FBI did not say where Al-Marabh was from; his former landlord in the Boston area, Marian Sklodowski, said Al-Marabh told him he was Palestinian. In Massachusetts, where Al-Marabh lived from at least 1989 to 2000, he had worked for the Boston Cab Co., according to state driver's license records. All four men hold chauffeur's licenses in Michigan, according to state records.

Florida-New Jersey Connection

FBI agents and sheriff's deputies interviewed employees at at used car lot in Titusville, Florida, on Tuesday.

A man questioned in last week's terrorist attacks bought a car there in February and listed a bogus address on paperwork. The car, a 1993 green Ford Taurus with Florida plates, belongs to Mohammad Mahmoud Al Raqqad, 37.

The man, picked up in New Jersey last week, may have lived in Titusville until last year but gave a North Central Florida address on the car title application.

Police stopped Raqqad and two other men, Ahmad Kilfat, 45, and Nicholas Makrakis, 27, Thursday night while driving another car in Elizabeth, N.J. Federal authorities told police to be on the lookout for that car, a red Pontiac. They were taken to the FBI's Newark, N.J., headquarters.

Law enforcement want to know what connection the three men may have to Florida, where most of the suspected hijackers lived at one time.

"Secret Service agents informed us that the suspects were wanted by the FBI for questioning in regards to the recent attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon," a report from the Elizabeth Police Department says of the men, who also are suspected of running a credit card scam.

"We suspect at least one of them, posing as a Greek immigrant, may have been in possession of false identification," said Sandra Carroll, an FBI Special Agent in New Jersey. "A number of documents were in their possession."

Among these documents were at least one one-way airplane ticket, according to Carroll. Carroll wouldn't say if the men were still in custody. Some news reports place them and several other suspects in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. INS officials in Washington D.C. wouldn't say who or how many people are in custody.

In the Pontiac, Elizabeth police found a bag belonging to one of the companions of the Florida Taurus owner, Kilfat. The bag contained $9,900 in U.S. currency, in various denominations, wrapped in a white envelope, the police report said. It also contained 12 credit cards with statements indicating large cash advances and a one-way ticket from Austrian Airlines for a flight from Kennedy International Airport in New York City to Vienna, Austria and a connecting flight to Damascus, Syria. The ticket was in Kilfat's name.

Police also found a phone bill listing several phone calls to various locations in the Middle East and United States. Kilfat had $1,741 cash on him, bringing the total amount he was carrying to $11,641, the police report said. He told police the money was for construction equipment.

All three men gave police the same address and phone number in Passaic, New Jersey, the police report said. Monday, officials with Florida's Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle blocked access to records on Raqqad and his green Ford Taurus.

According to Florida Today in Melbourne, Florida said they searched Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicle public records and found  that Raqqad purchased the car Feb. 5 from Zach's Cars. The owner of the used car lot, Azzam M. Elgamil, said the FBI instructed him not to release any information.

The car had been on a Cocoa, Florida, used-car lot FBI agents visited last week. When Raqqad bought the car, he listed his address as 20551 NE Hwy. 27, in Williston, a small town southwest of Gainesville. But the address is for a gas station. No one at the station said they have ever heard of Raqqad.

Special Agent Carroll said she "wasn't surprised" the address is bogus. Raqqad might have stayed at the Washington Arms Club in Titusville last year under a different name, said Michael Porter, a manger at the complex on 190 E. Olmstead Dr. Neither Porter nor Michael O'Brien, president of the condo association, would identify the Middle Eastern man who lived at Washington Arms from June to October.

"I will tell you there were a lot of Middle Easterners coming in and out of that unit," O'Brien said Tuesday. "But until we hear back from the FBI, we're not releasing any names."

Manuel Arruda, a six-year resident and a former board member at Washington Arms, said he never heard of Raqqad.

The FBI's interest in Raqqad and where he bought his car is part of a growing interest in Brevard County to determine if anyone connected to the terrorist attacks has local ties.

After the terrorist attacks, federal agents forwarded a list of suspects to several police agencies, including the Brevard County Sheriff's Office. A crosscheck of names found two men with police records who have the same names as two of the hijackers. But agents haven't determined yet whether they're the same people.   The hijackers are suspected of using a variety of names, variations on names and stealing identities.

"It's one of these situations where it could very well be an individual sharing the same name," Sheriff Phil Williams said Tuesday. "But we haven't ruled anybody in or out yet."

In the case of a man held on a material witness warrant,  Federal investigators took Ahmed Badawi into custody in Orlando.  Ahmed Badawi is a 48-year-old Egyptian American that the FBI and Orange County deputies took from his east Orange County home last Saturday night and taken to New York.   Badawi owns and operates three businesses in Orlando.  Florida Sunny Summer Tours, Ed's Drive Services and The Cash Station, a check cashing service. 

More Cautions Issued

U.S. law enforcement officials have found a manual on the operation of cropdusting equipment while searching suspected terrorist hideouts, according to Time magazine.


The discovery has added to concerns among government counterterrorism
experts that the bin Laden conspirators may have planned or are planning to disperse biological or chemical agents from a cropdusting plane normally used for agricultural purposes.

Among the belongings of suspected terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui, sources tell
TIME, were manuals showing how to operate cropdusting equipment that could
be used to spray fast-killing toxins into the air.

The discovery of the manual resulted in the grounding of all crop-dusters nationwide by the FAA on Sunday Sept. 16th. The dusters have been allowed back up, but are not allowed to take off or land from what traffic controllers refer to as Class B airspace, or the skies around major cities.

Government officials caution that because they have not been able to corroborate the evidence the FBI does not place "high credibility" in the notion that the hijackers were in fact exploring the idea of stealing or renting crop-dusters. However, the FBI is advising members of a crop-dusters' group to report any suspicious buys of dangerous chemicals in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks.

Last week, the National Agricultural Aviation Association, a crop dusters trade group, posted a message from the FBI to its membership: "Members should be vigilant to any suspicious activity relative to the use, training in or acquisition of dangerous chemicals or airborne application of same including threats, unusual purchases, suspicious behavior by employees or customers, and unusual contacts with the public. Members should report any suspicious circumstances or information to local FBI offices."

Waterworks across the country have been notified to be on high alert to a “terrorist threat advisory for infrastructures”  from possible breach in their security to protect the nation’s water supply from the American Water Works Association.  Farm supply companies and cooperatives have been notified to report any large purchases of ammonium nitrate and other possible bomb-making materials to the FBI.

International Arrests Made

The pursuit of the network behind the terrorist attacks in the United States spread across Europe today, with arrests of four people in Britain and seven men in France and the issuing of two arrest warrants in Germany.

Prime Minister Abd al-Qadir Ba Jamal of Yemen announced the detention of 21 men for questioning about their possible links to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi fugitive who is the prime suspect in the attacks.

President Alejandro Toledo of Peru announced the detention of three men of Middle Eastern descent for potential links to international terror. 

The British arrests were by the antiterrorist police, according to Scotland Yard, which said that two men and a woman, all in their 20's, had been arrested at two houses in West London. A fourth person, a man, was arrested in Birmingham, England. One of the unnamed persons has since been released after questioning. No further details were given.

In Germany, the arrest warrants were for two men who had signed a lease on an apartment and apparently lived with Mohamed Atta, a civil engineer who was said to be a hijacker on one of the planes that plowed into the World Trade Center.  They have each been charged with 5000 counts of murder by German authorities.

"The German-based terrorist organization that was involved in the attacks on Sept. 11 is slowly getting a face, and with that names," the federal prosecutor of Germany, Kay Nehm, said today. One man being sought, Said Bahaji, paid the rent on the apartment, in Hamburg, and left Germany for Pakistan a week before the attacks, according to Nehm.

The actions by the German authorities are directly linked to the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the abortive hijacking of a plane which crashed near Pittsburgh. Bahaji and the other man named, Ramzi Muhammad Abdullah bin al-Shibh, had links to the hijackers and were guilty of "grave crimes," Nehm said.

At one time, the two shared an apartment in Hamburg with Atta, who was said to be the head of the cell that commandeered the first plane to hit the trade center. Bahaji paid the rent, and Atta and bin al-Shibh paid their shares to him, the prosecutor said. On the bank transfer forms, on the line after "purpose of payment," they wrote, "Dar al-Ansar," which in Arabic means "house of supporters," Nehm said.

Last August or September, bin al-Shibh asked to enroll in a pilot's course at a flight school in Florida and sent $2,200, Nehm said. Al—Shibh could not obtain a visa and did not go to flight school

Bahaji, who is of Moroccan descent, was born in Germany and is a German citizen. He served in the German Army in 1999, according to The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. On Sept. 3, he told his family that he was leaving for Pakistan to take a computer course, left a power- of-attorney document with a relative and has not been heard from since then.

Although Germany may be a hub, traces of a terrorist network spread across the Continent. Spanish officials said Atta spent two weeks in Spain in July, after arriving on a flight from Florida.

In Poland, officials said there were strong indications that some suspects had briefly been there. The officials did not give details.

In Britain, authorities are investigating whether several suspects had lived here and, maybe, had taken flight training.

In Belgium, Belgian police have arrested two men and seized a large quantity of chemicals in an action linked to the recent arrest of Islamic militants, a spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor office announced .

Belgian media reported that the chemicals could have been used to make a bomb, and that the arrests foiled a "terrorist" plot.  The prosecutor's office spokeswoman said the two men were arrested on Friday and charged with "criminal association" after authorities searched premises in Brussels and seized 220 pounds of sulphur and 50 quarts of acetone.

She declined to say if the men were suspected of plotting an attack, but said the case was linked to the arrest in Brussels last week of two Islamic militants who are suspected of planning attacks on U.S. targets.

Belgium's Le Soir newspaper said the chemicals seized in Brussels, if mixed, could form the basis of a very powerful bomb that could blow up a building.

The paper quoted an investigator as saying: "It is clear that we have foiled the plans of a European terrorist network, but we do not yet know which objectives were targeted."

The activities by European authorities constitute a very visible effort to crack down on Islamic radicals. But they also show that European governments, despite the firm resolve at a summit meeting tonight in Brussels to work together and to strengthen the common European police agency, Europol, sometimes have conflicting strategies, according to the New York Times.

The arrests in France were prompted by an article in Le Monde about an Islamic militant, Djamel Begal.  Begal was arrested in Dubai at the end of July, a French official said. Acting on information from Begal, Belgium had arrested a number of individuals. But the French decided to monitor the activities of Begal's associates in France, rather than arrest them or take them into custody.

After Begal's name had appeared in print, French officials said, everyone linked to him would go into hiding. The Le Monde article "announced clearly to these people that they were in danger of arrest, so we had to move," the official said.

The French declined to name those arrested. One official said they were young and from Algeria. Contrary to the Le Monde report, he said, the authorities had no evidence that the men had plotted to blow up the American Embassy in Paris.

He said that the arrests were not directly linked to the attacks in the United States, but that those arrested would be questioned about them.

Details of the arrests in Yemen and Peru were less clear. The Yemeni leader made clear, however, that they were made in response to American requests. Relations between the Yemenis and the Federal Bureau of Investigation had soured over perceived Yemeni stalling of an investigation into the bombing last October of the destroyer Cole, in which bin Laden is also the FBI's prime suspect.  Bin Laden has been indicted by the U.S. for his role in the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

"These preventive arrests were carried out in response to a U.S. request for cooperation in the investigation into the attacks," Ba Jamal told journalists.

Seventeen Arrested in Paraguay are Related to bin Laden Investigation

Paraguayan police said they had detained 17 Lebanese and Syrian citizens near the landlocked South American nation's border with Argentina during probes into last week's U.S. attacks.

The arrests were made in Encarnacion, a town near a mostly lawless border area of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, where the United States said it was investigating whether Islamic militant groups were receiving support for their activities.

The arrests "were related to the investigation into the attacks in the United States. No charges have been brought at the moment," Baldomero Giorgi, head of police investigations in Encarnacion, told journalists.

There have been periodic reports of Islamic militants living in the border region, which has a large Arab community. Suspicions have focused on the area partly because it is seen as the center of the poor country's renowned smugglers.