posted 05-22-2002 07:05 PM            

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57677-2002May22.html

posted 06-10-2002 10:11 AM            

quote:

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U.S. disrupted plans to attack U.S.

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posted 06-10-2002 10:57 AM            

WASHINGTON –– The U.S. government has arrested an alleged al Qaida terrorist who plotted to build and detonate a radiological "dirty" bomb, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday.

Ashcroft said Abdullah Al Mujahir was in the custody of the U.S. military and being treated as an enemy combatant, suggesting plans for the first military tribunal of an alleged terrorist.

The attorney general, who was in Moscow, made the announcement through a television hookup.Ashcroft said Al Mujahir, also known as Jose Padilla, was arrested May 8 as he flew from Pakistan into Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

"We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb," Ashcroft said.

Ashcroft said the government's suspicions about Mujahir's plans came from "multiple, independent, corroborating sources." The attorney general said Mujahir had served prison time in the United States in the early 1990s, then traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan during 2001 and met with al Qaida officials. Ashcroft said Mujahir "trained with the enemy, including studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices."

Ashcroft said al Qaida apparently believed that Mujahir would be permitted to travel freely within the United States because of his U.S. citizenship and because he carried a U.S. passport.

The probable target of Mujahir's plans to detonate the bomb was Washington, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity. The plot was not believed to have passed the early planning stages.Another government official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the intelligence that led to Mujahir's arrest came from captured al Qaida leader Abu Zabaydah during recent interrogations.

The official said Mujahir is a former Chicago street gang member who served time in prison in the 1990s, converted to Islam and met with al-Qaeda leader in 2001 before returning to the United States.

Mujahir will be detained by the U.S. military as an "enemy combatant," the attorney general said, setting up the first military tribunal since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We have acted with legal authority both under the laws of war and clear Supreme Court precedent, which establishes that the military may detain a United States citizen who has joined the enemy and has entered our country to carry out hostile acts," Ashcroft said.

posted 06-10-2002 05:09 PM            

June 10 — John Gotti, imprisoned head of the once-powerful Gambino crime family, died today of complications from head and neck cancer. Gotti was 61.

Federal law enforcement sources said Gotti died at around 12:45 pm ET. Gotti, once considered the No. 1 gangster in America, was dubbed the "Dapper Don" because of his penchant for $2,000 tailored suits.

Gotti took over the Gambino crime family on Dec. 16, 1985, with a burst of gunfire when he ordered the murder of the family's old boss, Paul Castellano. Gotti's henchmen gunned down Castellano and a bodyguard on a busy New York City street.

Eventually known as the "Teflon Don" for his repeated ability to evade criminal convictions, Gotti looked, sounded, and dressed like a gangster out of a movie — a modern-day Al Capone.

In 1992, after a seven-year FBI investigation, Gotti was convicted of murder, racketeering and conspiracy, and sentenced to life in prison. The racketeering case alleged five murders — including that of Castellano — and relied on the testimony of Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano, then Gotti's right-hand man.

Since then he has spent most of his time in solitary confinement in a federal penitentiary in Marion, Ill., one of the nation's toughest, most secure prisons.

A longtime family friend reportedly said Gotti was transferred from the maximum-security prison to a hospital in Springfield, Mo., on Jan. 31, 2002, to be treated for cancer. Gotti has been hospitalized in recent months because of complications from his illness.

Gotti had a malignant tumor removed from the back of his throat in 1998.

Junior Takes Over

Gotti grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. He quit school to devote himself to the Mafia life when he was 16 years old. In 1962, when Gotti was 22, he married Vicky DiGorgio, and they had five children together.

After Gotti was sentenced to jail in 1992, authorities said his son, John A. "Junior" Gotti, took over as acting boss of the once-mighty Gambino family.

The younger Gotti earned a reputation as a mediocre mob leader — one tabloid dubbed him "Dumbfella." Young Gotti was sentenced in September 1999 to more than six years for racketeering and other mob crimes committed in the years after replacing his father.

Bruce Cutler, Gotti's long-time lawyer, called the mob boss a man "of pride, principle and dignity" in a 1999 interview with ABCNEWS' 20/20.

"John Gotti always made it a point of proclaiming that he was his own man, and I think a lot of people find a very appealing message in there," Cutler said.

With Gotti's death, law enforcement authorities will wonder who will take over his role as leader of the Gambino crime family. Experts say a mob boss remains the boss until he either dies or officially steps down. Gotti never officially stepped down.

"With the passing of John Gotti, authorities are watching closely to see who will take over as boss of the Gambino crime family," said ABCNEWS' John Miller, who has long followed Gotti's life and career. "It will likely be someone who chooses to take a much lower profile."

John Gotti's death comes a week after his older brother Peter, who allegedly assumed the leadership role in the family, was arrested on racketeering charges.

posted 06-10-2002 06:44 PM            

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,54918,00.html
AP
Vice President Dick Cheney spoke to the International Democrat Union Party Leaders Meeting on Monday
Monday, June 10, 2002

WASHINGTON — The annual document the president prepares for Congress on national security strategy will include a new "strike first" military policy against terrorists and rogue states that possess chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, the White House said Monday.

The policy, a culmination of changes that President Bush has articulated in foreign relations and national security since Sept. 11, will also include new political and economic reform demands on countries that receive U.S. aid, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said.

"It's part of a charge that the National Security Council has to come up with a broad statement of strategy and policy," Fleischer said.

Bush articulated his "strike first" doctrine in a June 1 commencement address at West Point.

"The war on terror will not be won on the defensive. ... We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt its plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge," Bush told graduating cadets.

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking to the International Democratic Union Party, an association of conservative, democratic leaders around the world, said, "We will not wait until it is too late. We have a responsibility to protect ourselves against future attack, to prepare our military for all future threats, to maintain the global coalition we have built to defeat global terror and to take preemptive action when necessary."

"Containment is not possible when unbalanced dictators with weapons of mass destruction can deliver those weapons on missiles or secretly provide them to their terrorist allies," Cheney added.

Containment and deterrence were the policies of the Cold War that suggested that an enemy would not attack the United States because a retaliatory strike would be too devastating.

This is Bush's first national security strategy following his first full year in office.

posted 06-10-2002 09:45 PM            

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27912
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Smallpox outbreak in Pakistan?
Newspaper stands by story reporting deadly disease 'epidemic'

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Posted: June 10, 2002
5:00 p.m. Eastern

By Ron Strom
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

Pakistan's major English-language daily newspaper has reported what it calls a "smallpox epidemic" that is "rapidly spreading" in the Pakistani province of Swabi, a development that, if true, raises grave concerns about global health and bioterrorism.

Neither the Centers for Disease Control nor the World Health Organization has confirmed or denied the lone report.

Although the highly communicable and fatal disease was officially eradicated from the world in 1977, in recent months the threat of a smallpox bioterror attack has raised new questions about who might have access to the virus and how it could be used as a deadly weapon against large population bases.

According to the Pakistan Dawn story, "a large number of children have suffered from smallpox, but the authorities concerned have failed to take any action to prevent this disease or immunize the people against it." The story adds, "A health official said that the dilemma of the people was that they were not aware of the danger aspects of this ailment as the children suffering from it have neither been kept in isolation nor properly treated."

When contacted by WorldNetDaily, Ismail Khan, the Dawn bureau chief at Peshawar, said he stands by the story.

"I would presume it is correct," he said. "This is the first major story on this disease."

Khan says that, to his knowledge, no other media organization has picked up the story. "You're the first to call about it," he said.

The story also appeared in the paper's hardcopy version in Pakistan. Khan says no government officials have contacted the paper to dispute the story and that the reporter had in fact spoken to an official from the government's health department.

Rebecca Harding of the World Health Organization's press office knew nothing of the story, but was eager to look into it.

A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control says he had not heard anything from official sources about any outbreak.

"We did get some anecdotal reports," said the CDC's Llelwyn Grant.

"There are so many poxes out there that are sometimes misdiagnosed," Grant continued. "It could be a number of things."

If a nation's health minister were to contact the CDC, Grant mentioned, the organization would then take action to help the affected country deal with an epidemic.

Last week, the CDC began an unprecedented series of public forums around the nation, according to its website, to "solicit comments on the use of smallpox vaccine before and after a potential smallpox outbreak or bioterroist attack."

Terror experts have speculated on al-Qaida and other organizations' plans for bioterrorism and how deadly a smallpox attack would be. Pakistan is known to have pockets of al-Qaida operatives working within its borders.

posted 06-11-2002 02:20 AM            

SWABI: Smallpox epidemic spreading in Swabi
By Muqaddam Khan

SWABI, June 8: The smallpox epidemic is rapidly spreading in these parts of the province, but the district health department has failed to take any step to contain this deadly disease, Dawn learnt here on Saturday.

It has been reported from different parts of the Swabi district that a large number of children have suffered from smallpox, but the authorities concerned have failed to take any action to prevent this disease or immunize the people against it.

Smallpox is a fatal disease which causes high fever, leaves permanent marks on the skin and spreads very fast. Timely treatment and precautionary measures are vital for controlling this malady.

A health official said that the dilemma of the people was that they were not aware of the danger aspects of this ailment as the children suffering from it have neither been kept in isolation nor properly treated. And this resulted in the spread of the virus.

In most of the cases, the children of a family or those living close to each other, contract it at one and the same time.

The residents of Naro Banda, a rural area in the district, told this correspondent that a majority of the children in the village had suffered from smallpox a few years back. "My two brothers, Shams and Akhtar, have been afflicted by smallpox and I have appealed to the officials concerned, but they did not bother either to visit the area or take steps for controlling it," said Mukhtaj Ahmad of Naro Banda.

The mother of a sick child said she had informed the lady health workers about the spread of the disease four days ago, but no action was taken.

It was also noticed that most of the parents of the sick children were uneducated. They had either approached the quack living nearby, or the self-made homeopath doctors to treat the children, but no visible improvement could be seen in the health of the children.

If the district health department delayed taking steps for containing the disease, the epidemic may spread to other areas in the vicinity, or the whole of the district, for that matter.

posted 06-11-2002 03:41 AM            

U.S. officials now admit they're not sure what American-born Abdullah al Muhajir's plans were when he returned to the U.S. last month. And any plot, including possibly exploding a radiation bomb in Washington D.C., was in the "initial planning stages." But given what he'd trained for in Afghanistan, they expected the worst.

"He researched nuclear weapons and received training in wiring explosives while in Pakistan, and he was instructed to return to the United States to conduct reconnaissance operations for al Qaeda,'' said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz.

Investigators had known of Muhajir for some time, including his alias. Much of their information about him came from Abu Zubaydah – al Qaeda's top surviving operations officer until his capture last March – who tipped them off to Muhajir's American mission.

"He had indicated some knowledge of Washington, D.C., but I want to emphasize again that there was not an actual plan. We stopped this man in the initial planning stages,'' said Wolfowitz. That was echoed by FBI Director Robert Mueller, who also said the plan to explode a dirty bomb had not gotten past the planning stages.

Muhajir, born in New York as Jose Padilla, was detained by the FBI in Chicago over a month ago, when he flew in from Pakistan on May 8. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, speaking in Moscow where he was meeting with Russian officials, announced the arrest Monday.

"We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States by exploding a radioactive dirty bomb," Ashcroft said. The attorney general said the government had "multiple, independent and corroborating sources" that al Muhajir was closely associated with al Qaeda and was "involved in planning future terrorist attacks on innocent American civilians in the United States."

"While in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al Muhajir trained with the enemy, including studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices," Ashcroft said.

The dispersion devices, known as a 'dirty bomb,' involves exploding a conventional device wrapped in or laced with radioactive material. Ashcroft said such a bomb could cause mass deaths but radiation experts said it would be more likely to cause panic than injury.

Mujahir was taken from Justice Department custody in New York City Monday morning to a high-security U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C., said Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Rivers Johnson. Military officials have not decided whether to charge Muhajir or what charges to file, Johnson said.

Muhajir had a lawyer in New York but his access to a lawyer probably will be severely restricted now that he is in military custody, Johnson said. The alleged al Qaeda operative is being held separately from other prisoners at the brig, Johnson said.

Officials said al Muhajir, a 33-year-old American, traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001 and met with senior al Qaeda officials to discuss the plan.

The officials would not say whether the meetings took place before or after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed 3,000 people and which the United States has blamed on Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

Another official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said al Muhajir was "probably" targeting the U.S. capital.

U.S. officials knew al Muhajir was on the airplane heading into Chicago O'Hare International Airport on May 8, where he was detained upon arrival.

Mueller, whose bureau has been under fire for failing to share information with other U.S. intelligence agencies that might have prevented the hijacked airliner attacks, said the CIA played a key role leading up to the arrest.

After a 1991 arrest in South Florida on a handgun-related charges, Padilla began referring to himself as Abdullah al Muhajir, officials said. He lived in South Florida's Broward County from 1990 to 1997 and was convicted of aggravated assault with a firearm in Sunrise in 1992.

When he was arrested, he told police he had worked at a Holiday Inn in Plantation setting up banquet rooms for two weeks. Records show he has his name "Jose'' tattooed on his right arm.

While in the Broward County Jail, he was accused of battery on a jail officer and resisting without violence in January 1992.

Al Muhajir, who has family in the United States, was last in the United States in 1998. After that he traveled mostly in the Middle East, officials said.

"While in Afghanistan and Pakistan, al Muhajir trained with the enemy, including studying how to wire explosive devices and researching radiological dispersion devices," Ashcroft said.

"Al Qaeda officials knew that as a U.S. citizen, holding a valid U.S. passport, al Muhajir would be able to travel freely in the United States without drawing attention to himself."

Al Muhajir is being held by the Defense Department as an "enemy combatant," which under the rules of war allows him to be questioned without the usual protections afforded in the U.S. judicial system, like having an attorney present. Officials have not ruled out lodging criminal charges against al Muhajir later.

Bush has said American citizens would not be tried in military tribunals that were created after Sept. 11 to try foreign terrorists outside the U.S. court system.

Al Muhajir becomes the third U.S. citizen detained since the Sept. 11 attacks. John Walker Lindh, 21, who was arrested in Afghanistan, faces charges in U.S. court in Virginia of conspiring to murder Americans and providing services to the Taliban and al Qaeda. The other is Yasser Essam Hamdi, 22, an American-born prisoner who was transferred from Guantanamo to a prison at Norfolk Naval Station in Virginia.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/10/attack/main511671.shtml

posted 06-12-2002 11:45 AM            

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http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27923
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WHO probing smallpox claim
World Health Organization suspects Pakistan outbreak chickenpox

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Posted: June 11, 2002
5:00 p.m. Eastern

By Ron Strom
© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com

Officials from the World Health Organization are "on the ground" in Pakistan investigating a claim first reported in the Pakistan Dawn newspaper that an "epidemic" of smallpox is threatening the Swabi district of the country.

"There has not been a case of smallpox anywhere in the world since the late 1970s, and all rumors since then have been proved to be false," Iain Simpson, a spokesman for WHO, told WorldNetDaily.

"There have been several recent rumors from Central Asia and the Middle East. In all cases, it has turned out to be the result of poor translation. In each recent case, the disease was actually chickenpox. It is likely that this is again chickenpox in Pakistan, especially as the report itself comments that those infected are mainly children."

According to the June 9 Pakistan Dawn story, "a large number of children have suffered from smallpox, but the authorities concerned have failed to take any action to prevent this disease or immunize the people against it." The story adds, "A health official said that the dilemma of the people was that they were not aware of the danger aspects of this ailment as the children suffering from it have neither been kept in isolation nor properly treated."

While smallpox is a deadly disease, there is no mention in the story of any deaths attributed to the outbreak.

Added Simpson, "For the moment, we are investigating, but have so far received no information to indicate that this is in fact smallpox."

A spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control also was skeptical of an actual smallpox outbreak.

"There are so many poxes out there that are sometimes misdiagnosed," said the CDC's Llelwyn Grant. "It could be a number of things."

There also have been reports on the Internet recently about "smallpox" outbreaks in India. Peter Friedlander translates Indian news stories into English and says terminology can be a problem.

"The Hindi/Urdu term 'cecak' covers smallpox and anything that looks similar," he explained.

In recent months, the threat of a smallpox bioterror attack has raised new questions about who might have access to the virus and how it could be used as a deadly weapon against large population bases.

Terror experts have speculated on al-Qaida and other organizations' plans for bioterrorism and how deadly a smallpox attack would be. Pakistan is known to have pockets of al-Qaida operatives working within its borders.

Previous story:

Smallpox outbreak in Pakistan?

posted 06-14-2002 12:53 AM            

14jun02

A NEW outbreak of ebola fever has been confirmed in the Republic of Congo, with six people already affected.

The latest outbreak is in the republic's northwest, on the border with Gabon, the World Health Organisation said.

It was first detected on May 17 in the Mbomo district near the Gabonese town of Ivindo.Today's statement from the WHO confirms earlier information from the Congolese health ministry.

The Republic of Congo is the western neighbour of the much larger Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

WHO official Lamine Cisse Sarr said investigators in Mbomo reported "the epidemic returned on May 17 after the dismemberment of a chimpanzee found dead in a forest by two hunters".

An earlier epidemic, between December and April, claimed 42 victims.

Five men and a woman have been taken to hospital in the latest outbreak, the WHO representative said.

The last outbreak of the disease was brought under control by joint teams from WHO and the Congolese health ministry.

Ebola is one of the most virulent diseases known to man, and often causes death by massive haemorrhaging in which blood pours from the victim's skin like sweat.

posted 06-16-2002 11:11 PM            

By Terri Judd

17 June 2002

In mid-Winter blizzards, temperatures of minus 50C and almost no daylight, a group of scientists is trapped aboard a ship in the Antarctic, their food and fuel running out.

Yesterday an oceanographic research vessel set off from Cape Town on a treacherous rescue mission to reach the stranded Magdalena Oldendorff before deteriorating weather makes the voyage impossible.

Aboard, the rescuers are carrying two Oryx military helicopters, whose pilots will attempt to pluck the scientists and crew off the vessel in high winds.

Colonel Piet Paxton, a spokesman for the South African Defence Forces, said: "The conditions are terrible. This time of year it's dark for 24 hours, the temperature is minus 50 degrees Celsius and there are very high winds with lots of ice flying around.

The pilots will have a hard time feeling their hands and feet in the cold, and a small accident could easily become a big one. I believe this is a heroic effort."

The 18,000-ton German Magdalena Oldendorff, carrying 79 Russian scientists and 28 crew, was returning from a research mission at the Novolazarevskaya station in north-east Antarctica last week when its passage was blocked by ice.

Unable to get through, it returned to Muskegbukta Bay to await rescue.
"The ice conditions are such that the vessel cannot make its own way out through a small ice-free zone," Vyacheslav Martyanov, deputy head of the Russian Antarctic expedition, explained during a satellite telephone interview.

"We don't really have enough supplies at the moment, but if we cut down I cannot say anyone will go hungry. We have enough fuel for the moment too."

The scientists, while said to be in low spirits, are still in good health, with enough rations to survive about 20 days.

The South African research vessel Agulhas is hoping to make the 2,580-mile trip in a week and intends to meet an Argentine navy icebreaker, Almirante Irizar, at the edge of the ice.

If they are unable to open a passage through to the stricken vessel, rescuers plan to fly its passengers off, leaving the ship and a skeleton crew with enough provisions to survive the Southern Hemisphere winter.

Speaking as they left yesterday, Gerald Hagemann, director of the Antarctic Logistics Centre International, said: "Everybody realises this is going to be a challenge and it is not going to be easy, but we are optimistic. Looking at the latest weather conditions, it doesn't look good but the ice conditions look OK." He added that the scientists on the stricken ship – owned by the Lόbeck-based Oldendorff Carriers – sounded more relaxed, knowing assistance was on its way.

The team, he explained, was taking a Russian expert on ice reconnaissance and navigation, who would lead efforts to reach and extract the vessel. The South African Air Force's Oryx helicopters had been fitted with de-icing and anti-icing equipment.

Colonel Paxton explained that because cold thins the air, they would have to cut down their normal load and transport only 18 people at a time.

posted 06-18-2002 05:47 PM            

By Steve Weizman
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, June 18, 2002; 7:21 AM

JERUSALEM –– A Palestinian man detonated nail-studded explosives on a Jerusalem bus crowded with high school students and office workers Tuesday, killing himself and 19 passengers in the city's deadliest suicide attack in six years. Forty people were wounded.