Hi there, !
Today Tue 09/18/2001 Mon 09/17/2001 Sun 09/16/2001 Sat 09/15/2001 Fri 09/14/2001 Thu 09/13/2001 Wed 09/12/2001 Archives
Rantburg
531713 articles and 1856004 comments are archived on Rantburg.

Today: 59 articles and 0 comments as of 15:27.
Post a news link    Post your own article   
Area:         Opinion           
Masood is dead
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 1: WoT Operations
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
0 [1] 
0 [] 
0 [] 
Page 4: Opinion
0 []
Afghanistan
Afghans start to flee the country
  • Sensing the US military action against Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans have started fleeing their country and rushed to the Pak-Afghan border. The Pakistan government has reportedly deployed additional force to prevent the entry of the displaced people. The sources said that around 5000 displaced people had reached Torkham, the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, and desperately awaiting to make their way into Pakistan. The Taliban officials have also strengthened their border security and their guards were baton-charging the crowed to push them back. (Dawn By Zulfiqar Ali)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


    US contributed food aid to Afghans
  • In 2001 alone, Kabul has received $124.2 million from the United States — much of it in food aid. The last installment came in May at the urging of Secretary of State Colin Powell. At that time, the United States gave $43 million in "humanitarian assistance" to Kabul because Afghanistan was "on the verge of a widespread famine," Powell said. The United Nations distributed the aid in May, bypassing the country's ruling Taliban militia. (By Jon Dougherty WorldNetDaily.com)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 11:58 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


    Masood is dead
  • Ahmed Shah Massood died Saturday of injuries suffered in a suicide bombing last weekend, his spokesman said - a major blow to the fractious forces battling the country's Taliban rulers. Massood, 48, died at 10 a.m. in Khodja Bahauddin in the northern Takhar province, the spokesman, Abdullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said in a telephone interview. He was the first person close to Massood in Afghanistan to confirm his death. (By Amir Shah Associated Press)
    This article starring:
    Ahmed Shah Massood
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


    Mullah Omar calls for world-wide jihad
  • ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The supreme leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban has urged Muslims there and around to world to face the threat of U.S. attack firmly and prepare for jihad (holy war) to defend their faith. Mullah Mohammad Omar told the Taliban Voice of Shariat Radio on Friday in an address monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation that Afghanistan was an obvious target as a true Muslim state.

    The United States, he added, saw this as a danger sign and he cautioned against handing over Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, the key suspect in Tuesday's terror attack on New York and Washington. "You should know that this is not only the issue of Osama, it is opposition to Islam," Mullah Omar said, according to a BBC transcript. Here (in Afghanistan) there are real Muslims and there is real Islam, and the real voice of religion is raised. They regard this as a danger signal and pay attention to this danger signal... Each Muslim should be ready for a jihad against this and be ready for his religion if there is a need for him to sacrifice himself for Islam and his belief, and make a sacrifice for the symbol of belief in Islam... All the Muslims in the world should support their Islam and their own belief, should defend Afghanistan, should defend Muslims and should be ready for anything to make a sacrifice for Islam... If they don't do this, then they don't do it. It depends on everybody and it is everybody's own business. But they should defend their history and their Islam and their belief."
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


    Binny free to leave but Afghans won't throw him out
    By Sami Aboudi
    DUBAI (Reuters) - An Afghan Taliban diplomat said on Saturday that Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, a prime suspect in the terror attacks on the United States, was free to leave Afghanistan but would not be forced out. ``If the man wanted to leave of his own will, we will not stop him. But if he wanted to stay in Afghanistan, we cannot make him leave,'' the Taliban charge d'affaires in the United Arab Emirates, Aziz al-Rahman, told Abu Dhabi television in an interview aired early on Saturday.

    Asked if there was any chance that the Taliban would consider handing over bin Laden to the United States to spare Afghanistan the prospect of military action, Aziz al-Rahman said in Arabic: ''Basically, this is not a consideration... We have no agreement with any country to extradite criminals or suspects to hand him over.''
    This article starring:
    AZIZ AL RAHMANTaliban
    Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


    Iran and Talibs don't like each other
  • TEHRAN (AFP) - Despite some seeming similarities within their respective systems, Shiite Iran has from the start displayed a clear-cut hostility towards the Taliban in power in Afghanistan, charging it with deviating from Islam. Politically, Tehran which supported the Islamic resistance against the former Soviet Union, is sympathetic to the northern alliance led by commander Ahmed Shah Massud -- whose death was announced Saturday -- and which wants to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban, Sunni Muslim theology adherents in power in Kabul since 1996.

    Iran's contacts with the Taliban are very limited, restricted to the operational requirements of an Iranian consulate in Herat, some 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the north-eastern border with Iran, and to discussions on the issue of refugees. Iran is in a state of virtually permanent war along the border, having over the past 10 years lost some thousands of soldiers and police officers dealing with drug traffickers from Afghanistan and, according to Tehran, "protected and encouraged" by the Taliban.

    Yet on the religious level, the differences between the two systems are total, despite the fact that they are often grouped together in western eyes and that the Taliban has claimed to be inspired by the Iranian example. In that context, some conservative ayatollahs have on occasions shown greater "indulgence" than reformists towards the Taliban, as demonstrated during a recent debate over the comparative struggles in Iran and Afghanistan.

    In Taliban's Islam, women are forced to wear a head-to-toe veil; they do not go out, they don't work, and young girls have no right to education. In Iran, however, young girls are far more numerous than young men at universities, which also take in many Afghan women. "The Afghan refugee camps also serve to educate girls, and their return to Afghanistan, where they are prisoners at home, is sometimes painful," according to a specialist on humanitarian problems.

    Furthermore, the principle of an Islamic republic in Iran encompasses the principles of elections and democracy. Tehran was behind the worldwide "dialogue among civilisations" and strongly condemned the destruction of the giant Buddhas of Bamian at the beginning of the year.

    Shahram Pazouki, a professor at the faculty of philosophy and religious science in Tehran, says "the main distinction revolves around jurisprudence... The Sunni Taliban do not have an up-to-date notion of fatwas (religious decrees). They act as if we were living in the era of 1,400 years ago," in the time of the prophet Mohamed. The Shiites completely reject this interpretation, and acknowledge the passage and progress of time. The Taliban, unlike the Shiites, accord no space at all to spirituality, nothing esoteric."
    This article starring:
    Ahmed Shah Massud
    Shahram Pazouki
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Taliban


    Fifth Column
    Why do they hate us?
  • LA Times By C. ALTON ROBERTSON,
    C. Alton Robertson is an emeritus associate professor at University of Redlands.
    I love this country. I am grateful for my freedoms and for the opportunities that citizenship has provided. I am proud of the many achievements we have made. But I also know that my government, acting on behalf of myself and all my fellow citizens, has perpetrated unspeakable acts of violence against the citizens of other states.

    Why were Palestinians celebrating in the streets of Jerusalem and in the putrid Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon on Tuesday? Why were people dancing in the streets in Tehran? Why did Chile have to go through 17 years of terrible oppression under Gen. Augusto Pinochet after our government instigated the coup that led to the death of the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende, in a country that had a history of 100 years of democracy? Why did we oust Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala? Why did we spend billions of dollars decimating the countryside of Nicaragua? Why were we bombing Cambodia? How long did we support apartheid in South Africa and keep oppressive regimes in office?

    The front page of this newspaper on Thursday screamed, "America: Stunned, Saddened and Now Ready for Revenge." Is revenge what the perpetrators of Tuesday's crimes seek? Will revenge in return solve anything? Of course, the perpetrators need to be identified and their supporters held accountable. But revenge, unbalanced by truth, will gain nothing but increased rage and further acts of revenge. Revenge, unaccompanied by self-examination, accomplishes little. There are other ways to right wrongs and to resolve conflict.
    This article starring:
    Gen. Augusto Pinochet
    Jacobo Arbenz
    Salvador Allende
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Muslims in Britain are insular
  • telegraph.co.uk By Stewart Payne
    A SCHOOL librarian who witnessed Muslim pupils in their classroom celebrating the terrorist atrocities in America said she believes that fundamentalists peddling an extreme form of Islam are deliberately targeting Asian children in Britain. The librarian said the 15-year-old pupils cheered and chanted anti-American slogans when one of their classmates walked into the room during registration, punching the air and shouting about the attacks. "I was sickened," she said. "I thought, 'Dear God, how can they behave like this?'."

    The librarian asked not to be named for fear of reprisals against her and her Home Counties school, which has mainly Muslim pupils and where there have been vicious assaults, threats and arson. "I was with an Indian member of staff. Because she is a Hindu they despise her as well. She said to me, 'I cannot bear to watch this', and we closed the door, leaving them with their teacher who said nothing. She has been told by the head teacher that it is better not to interfere. So instead of the school being able to take a moral lead and to use the attacks as a means of having a discussion about values and rights and wrongs, we have to let it pass unremarked. It is heart-breaking. I have decided to leave the school because I feel absolutely powerless."

    The librarian, who has worked at the comprehensive school for two years, said: "About 95 per cent of the 560 pupils are of Muslin origin." Most originate from three villages in the disputed Mirpur region of Kashmir on India's border with Pakistan. Large numbers have settled in the school's catchment area. "It is like a parallel universe. They have created a Kashmiri ghetto, and the children are not allowed to adopt any western values or customs. Some of the children are a real worry. We have pupils who will come up to you and smile sweetly and say something in Urdu. Later you discover that they have called you a bitch. But most of them are decent kids and so are their families. Yet whereas Indian children are encouraged at school, the Pakistanis are not. They watch only Pakistani programmes on cable or satellite. Their mothers never learn to speak English. The girls are treated as second class and all are sent home to marry their first cousins in pre-arranged weddings. They receive no support in their studies. If we interfere we are called racists. Yet they hate Sikhs with a vengeance, they hate Hindus and Afro-Caribbeans, and they don't much like us either. They will go Sikh-bashing at the weekend. When I have offered advice to a Muslim girl who came to me and said, 'Please miss, I don't want to get married', I am not supposed to offer her any help. I am not meant to say, 'You are in Britain. This is a free country. You don't have to do anything against your will.' "

    The librarian said that although parents actively resisted any assimilation - packing children off to Kashmir if they showed signs of becoming westernised - she did not believe that the scenes she witnessed in the classroom were inspired in the home. "Most are not sophisticated enough for that. Other forces are at work, maybe through their Muslim youth leaders and out on the streets. We recently had Islamic literature circulating that was deeply offensive. Islam is being peddled to these kids. They are told to hate the West, and America in particular. These children are victims, growing up in a country they are forbidden to become a part of and encouraged to despise the people they live amongst."
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Muslim goof deported
  • By PHILLIP REESE, Staff Writer News & Record (Greensboro, North Carolina)
    GREENSBORO -- On Tuesday, Abdou Larabou Moussa showed up at Kay Chemical celebrating the morning's terrorist attacks. On Wednesday, Moussa arrived at work in combat fatigues. On Thursday, he was fired, arrested and told he would be deported.

    Moussa, 28, was charged with trespassing after refusing to leave Kay Chemical Co. on Capital Drive, Greensboro police said Friday. Company officials say Moussa loudly celebrated Tuesday's attacks and later distracted workers by dressing in combat fatigues.

    After his arrest, Moussa admitted he is in the country illegally, according to Detective S.E. Sanders. Immigration and Naturalization Services will soon deport him to his home country of Niger, Sanders said. Moussa was an employee of Key Resources, a local temp agency, and had been working in a Kay Chemical warehouse for about two weeks. He began taunting employees when he showed up for work Tuesday, Kay Chemical Vice President Steve Mosh said.
    This article starring:
    Abdou Larabou Moussa
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Home Front
    "It's wierd!" He's an American.
  • Damon Wyckoff--by night a guitarist at Forever Goldrush, a rock band in Sacramento, Calif.--said the attacks had left him "freaked out" at first. A day later, though, at his job behind a coffeehouse counter, the shaggy-haired 26-year-old sounded almost Pattonesque. "It's weird," he said, "but for the first time I guess I really feel like an American. And I can suddenly identify with all those teenagers back during World War II who said, 'Hell yeah, I'll fight for my country.' " (WSJ On-Line Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    "Father Mike" buried
  • Mourners crowded St. Francis of Assisi Church in midtown Manhattan Saturday for the funeral of Rev. Mychal Judge, who died Tuesday as he was administering last rites to a firefighter after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. The Fire Department chaplain known as "Father Mike" had removed his hat to pray when he was hit by falling debris. (UPI)
    This article starring:
    Father Mike
    Mychal Judge
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Neal catches it for stupid remarks...
  • Also the target of stinging criticism was U.S. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Springfield,) whose office received hundreds of calls after he was quoted in the same story. In the Herald story, Neal was quoted as saying of Bush's public remarks on the terrorism crisis, ``It's not a question of what he's saying. The content is fine. But the blandness with which it is delivered has caused considerable reaction.'' Yesterday, Neal said, ``I can disagree about speech delivery but not substance. I can't emphasize enough my overriding support of the president's policies.'' (by David R. Guarino and Ellen J. Silberman Boston Herald)
    This article starring:
    Richard Neal
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Meehan catches it for stupid remarks
  • U.S. Rep. Martin T. Meehan had police guarding his Lowell office after comments he made critical of President Bush's leadership prompted an angry reaction nationwide. In an interview published in yesterday's Herald, Meehan questioned the White House response to suggestions that Bush stayed away from Washington too long during the terrorist attacks - and publicly doubted that Air Force One was a target of the hijackers. ``I don't buy the notion Air Force One was a target,'' he said. ``That's just PR. That's just spin.''

    But yesterday Meehan said, ``The reality is I fully support the president and I have fully supported the administration from the beginning of this crisis.'' The congressman did not dispute the accuracy of the quotes attributed to him in an interview with two Herald reporters, but said they were taken out of context. (by David R. Guarino and Ellen J. Silberman Boston Herald)
    This article starring:
    Martin T. Meehan
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Congress to vote on missile defense
  • To opponents of missile defense, now is the moment for quiet and deep reflection. For the friends of missile defense, like Mr. Rumsfeld, now is the time for action. This week a congressional vote on full funding and rapid deployment of missile defense--along with the other measures proposed--would send a strong signal of resolve to a shaken, shocked nation. (WSJ On-Line BY KENNETH ADELMAN)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    "Nuke 'em!"
  • Thomas Woodrow, a former U.S. intelligence officer, issues a call in the Washington Times for a U.S. nuclear first strike: "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilities should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." (WSJ On-Line Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL)
    Woodrow stakes out the space 180 degrees from Barbara Lee. They're both wrong, for opposite reasons.
    This article starring:
    Thomas Woodrow
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    71 percent would support strikes
  • If President Bush launches military strikes against terrorist bases, he will have the support of most Americans. In a NEWSWEEK poll released today, 71 percent of 1,001 adults surveyed by telephone said they favored such attacks, even with civilian casualties. And 54 percent favored attacking those suspected of terrorism, even if it hasn't been proved that they are responsible for last week's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. (By Jane Spencer NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:12 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bush's timing off?
  • YOU may recall that George W. Bush was nearly six months into his presidency before he decided that New York City was worth a few hours of his time. He arrived in July, not sounding too thrilled. Someone asked how he liked the city. "It's a beautiful day," Mr. Bush replied. You didn't get an impression that he was about to volunteer his services for the next batch of "I H New York" commercials.

    No one would have been surprised if that was the last time we saw this president. Who could really blame him? When you lose the state by about 25 percentage points in the last election, and the city by even more, you are not likely to beg your travel office to book you a return trip.

    Now we know what it takes to get Mr. Bush back, nothing less than the most devastating terrorist attack in American history.

    Don't misunderstand. It was necessary and important that the president came yesterday. The tireless, valorous rescue workers standing on the rain-soaked muck that used to be the World Trade Center were heartened by his visit. So were many other New Yorkers, maybe most.

    But more than a few said they felt that Mr. Bush's timing was off. In the home of the New York minute — which means, what, 32 seconds? — some wanted to know why it took him so long. (NYT By CLYDE HABERMAN)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:12 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Barbara Lee and her "moral compass"
  • Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, said her "moral compass" guided her decision. "However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint," said Lee, whose district includes Oakland and Berkeley. "I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States," Lee said during the House's five-hour debate on the war resolution.

    Lee, who was elected in 1998 to succeed Democratic Rep. Ron Dellums, the district's longtime anti-war congressman, has opposed U.S. military action before. (Edward Epstein, SF Chronicle Washington Bureau)
    Two peas in a pod. Their "moral compass" sommehow always veers to the left.

    This article starring:
    Barbara Lee
    Ron Dellums
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:11 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Congress approves joint resolution
  • Congress passes a joint resolution authorizing the use of military action against "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." The Senate approved the measure 98-0; the House vote was 420-1.

    The one "no" vote came from Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat whose district includes Oakland and Berkeley. She tells the Los Angeles Times: "Military action is a one-dimensional reaction to a multidimensional problem," adding, "I think people understand votes of conscience." (WSJ On-Line Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL)
    She didn't come up with a multidimensional solution, though, did she? Pure posturing for posturing's sake.
    This article starring:
    Barbara Lee
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Barbara Olson buried
  • By Jennifer Lenhart Washington Post Staff Writer
    At this morning's memorial service for Barbara K. Olson, who died Tuesday when American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, a priest reached into scripture for something familiar — a Bible story. He did so as he recounted the now-familiar story of the telephone calls Olson, 45, a lawyer and prominent commentator, made to her husband, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, to tell him her plane had been hijacked. Theodore Olson was powerless to stop events from unfolding.
    This article starring:
    Barbara K. Olson
    Theodore Olson
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Gephardt impressed by Bush
  • By R. W. APPLE Jr. NY Times
    WASHINGTON — With the eyes of a nervous nation fixed upon him, George W. Bush began coming of age as president this weekend. In the capital and in New York City, in settings both formal and informal, Mr. Bush sought to lift the spirits of the American people in the wake of Tuesday's horrific terrorist attacks. He sought to console the bereaved, comfort the wounded, encourage the heroic, calm the fearful and, by no means incidentally, rally the country for the struggle and sacrifice ahead.

    In the process, he made significant progress toward easing the doubts about his capacity for the job and the legitimacy of his election that have clung stubbornly to him during his eight difficult months in the Oval Office. You could almost see him growing into the clothes of the presidency. "I'm impressed," said Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the Democratic leader in the House. "He's been very strong these last few days."
    This article starring:
    Richard A. Gephardt
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:10 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Dems salute Bush
  • WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats, who routinely use their weekly radio address to slam President Bush, stepped up to the mike on Saturday to thank him instead. Sens. Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton, both New York Democrats, saluted the Republican president as well as all Americans who rallied in support of victims of the airliner attacks this week, particularly those on New York's World Trade Center. ``On behalf of every New Yorker, on behalf of the 8 million people who live in this city, I want to extend our deepest gratitude to the president and the people of America who have given us their love, sorrow, grief, tears, support and prayers,'' Schumer said.

    ``Chuck and I are deeply grateful to all Americans for the outpouring of support for New York in our hour of need, beginning with President Bush,'' Clinton said.

    At the urging of New York senators and other lawmakers, Bush agreed to a $40 billion emergency package to fund counterterrorism and recovery efforts. On Friday, Bush visited the ruins of the World Trade Center where he promised a crowd chanting ``USA! USA!'' that those responsible for the violence would be punished.

    Schumer and Clinton, along with other Democrats, have battled Bush for months on matters from health care and education to judicial appointments and Social Security. But in their pre-recorded radio address on Saturday, in another sign of a new spirit of bipartisanship, New York's two senators hailed the president.
    This article starring:
    Chuck Schumer
    Hillary Clinton
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Two men with box cutters, hair dye arrested
  • By ROSS E. MILLOY NY TIMES
    IRVING, Tex., Sept. 14 — Two men with box cutters, hair dye and a large amount of cash who were seized by federal authorities on an Amtrak train in Fort Worth on Wednesday remained in custody today for immigration violations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. The men are Ayub Ali Khan, 51, and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47, the F.B.I. said. The bureau would not identify their country of origin. "Certainly the totality of the circumstances involved leads us to want to know why they were traveling, and why they carried those items," said Lori Bailey, a spokeswoman for the Dallas office of the F.B.I. "They are out of status with regard to their immigration papers and have no right to be in the United Sates."

    Both men were carrying identification documents, but Ms. Bailey would not say whether the documents were false, how much cash the men carried or whether they had been connected to terrorist groups or the attacks in New York and Washington. "All information on anything connected to this has to come out of the White House," she said. "That's the direction we've received."

    The authorities confirmed that the two men were flying to San Antonio from Newark when their plane made a stopover in St. Louis on Tuesday. After federal officials halted air traffic in response to Tuesday's hijackings, the men continued by train toward San Antonio until they were taken into custody during a routine drug patrol, officials said.
    This article starring:
    Ayub Ali Khan
    Lori Bailey
    Mohammed Jaweed Azmath
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    A dozen hijackers lived in southern Florida
  • By Kevin Johnson and Blake Morrison, USA TODAY
    WASHINGTON — An arrest warrant was issued Friday in the attacks investigation, a government official says. Meanwhile, the FBI on Friday dramatically expanded its search for possible accomplices to the terrorist attacks here and in New York and circulated a list to law enforcement agencies across the nation containing the names of 108 people investigators want to interview in connection with the deadly assaults. Attorney General John Ashcroft also released the names of 19 hijackers and appealed to the public to provide information about the terrorists so authorities might locate others who may be plotting additional strikes against American targets. All of the hijackers, senior government officials say, can be linked directly or indirectly to terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

    It is believed that at least a dozen of the hijackers were living in south Florida, seven alone in Delray Beach, near where many received flight training in local flying schools, according to Justice Department documents. Federal authorities believe seven of the 19 hijackers were pilots or received flight training at various schools in the U.S. Of the five men who overtook American Airlines Flight 11, the first jet to strike the World Trade Center Towers in New York on Tuesday, it is believed that four were trained pilots.

    "The FBI requests that anyone who may have information about these individuals, even though these individuals are presumed to be dead, immediately contact the FBI," Ashcroft said Friday. Separately, Ashcroft said the bureau has distributed the list of 108 names to 18,000 local police agencies in an effort to locate possible witnesses or those who might have knowledge of the terrorists' movements in the days and weeks before the carefully choreographed assaults were launched Tuesday morning.

    Almost all of the names on the list, a copy of which was obtained by USA Today, appear to be Middle Eastern in origin. Some of the people have addresses in New Jersey, Arkansas, Florida, Texas, Ohio and Canada. "These are the names of individuals the FBI would like to talk to because we believe they may have information that could be helpful to the investigation," Ashcroft said.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Binny may have made a market profit from 9-11
  • By Robert Windrem NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT
    The Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported Saturday that associates of Islamic fanatic Osama bin Laden might have used short-selling to make a profit on Tuesday's terror bombing. The newspaper said the FBI is looking into possible short-selling of the stocks of reinsurance companies in the four trading days before the terrorist attacks on the United States on Tuesday. Short-selling can produce huge profits when a stock plummets because of bad news. The stocks of the three reinsurance companies — AXA in France, Munich Re in Germany and Swiss Re in Switzerland — dropped 13 percent to 15 percent in the week before the attack.

    Analysts suggested at the time that the drops were anomalous — unexplained — since the reinsurance business was healthy and premium payments were on the way up. In fact, before the terrorist attacks, the Financial Times on Tuesday published a positive report on the industry.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:08 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bush: "I can hear you!"
  • By Christie Blatchford National Post
    NEW YORK - To the malevolent and still smouldering heart of the very city that in other days has mocked him most cruelly as Dubya, the clown president both curiously privileged and unaccomplished, George Bush arrived yesterday afternoon. He wore one of those little beige windbreakers that American dads have always donned on weekends to signify that now they are at home, with the family. Again and again, he flashed a thumbs-up, that dated gesture most often seen on this country's playing fields, to a huddled mass of firefighters. He kept a constant arm around a tremulous fireman who was at his side, and when Mr. Bush was moving through the throng of rescuers, he shook about 400 hands and patted hundreds more of strong and unbent backs, as though he simply could not bear to go long without the warmth of human touch.

    The President clambered onto a great mound of debris -- more than 10,400 tons of this grim rubble already has been removed from the World Trade Center crime scene -- grabbed a bullhorn and began to speak to the men with the lousiest job in the world, those sifting through buckets in which are both the remains of a nation's innocents and the shards of her innocence. These men began to raise their fists and chant, that chorus heard on Olympic podiums and that so often has irritated even America's friends, "USA! USA! USA!"

    "I can hear you!" President Bush said into his bullhorn.

    The crowd of rescue workers, fire, police and volunteers, wretched and wet under rubber coats and hard hats, roared. "The rest of the world hears you," he said, to more cheers and hoots.

    "And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!"

    It was another president, Abraham Lincoln, who said, of moments when the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present, "The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise to the occasion." It seems this 55-year-old man who looked so small, wounded and stricken may be doing just that.

    For many Americans, the moment of truth may be found in this picture of Mr. Bush, thumb cocked in fetid air. For others, it will be the sight of their Commander-in-Chief yesterday waving a small U.S. flag from the platform he carved for himself, like the country boy he is at bottom, smack in the middle of the most enormous and evil dump on Earth. Some will find it in the magnificent speech the President gave yesterday morning at the National Cathedral in Washington, on the day he proclaimed one of remembrance and prayer, and that saw the sound of military boots on hard floor mix with the peal of church bells and the sweet voices of a children's choir.

    There, Mr. Bush invoked "those who in their last moments called home to say 'Be brave' and 'I love you,'" "passengers who defied their murderers," men "who wore the uniforms of the United States and died at their posts" and "the ones whom death found running up the stairs and into the fires to help others."

    Now come the names, he said, and "We will read all these names and linger over them and learn their stories, and many Americans will weep."

    In the grace of the lost and those who now labour to reclaim them, Mr. Bush said, America sees a reflection of her national character. "Our fellow Americans are generous and kind, resourceful and brave."
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    "Every tradesman in New York"
  • By Sally Jenkins Washington Post Staff Writer
    NEW YORK They tramp into the smoke and dust, a legion of volunteer laborers wearing hard hats and tool belts and thick-soled boots. Hours later they walk out again, looking for fresh gloves and dry socks, or a sandwich, which they eat standing up. They crave food, and batteries.

    The men who normally power and run this city, the lawyers, brokers and financiers, are useless. You can tell this by their papers, which have been blown to bits, those formerly crucial documents, so wordy and so thick, that they stuffed in their briefcases. What's left of the World Trade Center is a heap of twisted steel and ruined brick, substances with which many powerful New Yorkers have no experience. A building to them is something to walk through or ride up. The rest of us don't know where or how to begin, but the impromptu volunteer army of workers does. "We built this city, you know," said Robert Doremus, 36, a carpenter from the Bronx.

    They come in carrying Skil saws and wrenches, spades and Halligan tools. They drive loaders, excavators, backhoes and bulldozers. They commit grand acts of improvisation and problem-solving. "Every tradesman in New York is here," said carpenter Frank McCluskey of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, Local 608. "All the construction jobs have ceased."

    Elsewhere in the city, cranes stand motionless like birds listening to thunder. The men who operate them are on the only meaningful job, for which an entire city's intelligentsia, normally so supercilious, is suddenly and humbly grateful. The term "laborers" has a new respectability among their fellow citizens. The National Organization for Women won't be suing them for their hiring policies this week. And no one is calling them Larry Lunchpail or Joey Six-pack, either. Much has been said about the brotherhood of police and firemen working tirelessly in the rescue and salvage operation, but alongside them, the volunteers have worked just as heroically, and with a similar sense of brotherhood. "We had a lot of our own guys in there, we lost scores of men who were working on jobs," said McCluskey, of East Chester, N.Y. "Carpenters lost people. Electricians lost people. For us, it's personal."

    They come in by busloads, organized by their local union chiefs. They report to a volunteer desk at the Jacob Javits Center and wait to be assigned shifts. Others simply walk up to the barricades at Canal Street, and show a union card to the cops, and ask to be put to work. In teams, they crawl over the mounds of wreckage, scale it with safety ropes and hooks, and dig through it with their hands. The hazards are numerous; they can't be certain of the air above them or the ground beneath them. The ruins shift under their boots, potential sources of cave-ins or gas main breaks, and windows overhead pop and send shards down on their heads. They ignore all this.

    Firefighter Steve Hartman, a volunteer from West Orange, N.J., said, "It's like picking up garbage on your hands and knees. You pick it up and throw it in the bucket. You pass the bucket."

    Somehow, they have created order and routine. The iron- and steelworkers cut at the massive beams with blowtorches. When they have cut through a section, the riggers come in and cable it to a crane. When it's cabled, the crane lifts and hauls it out, and drops it into a dumpster. Then the diggers go in to check the holes and crevices underneath. The diggers come upon crushed torsos, wire, sheetrock, broken chairs, office equipment, seat cushions and other flotsam. "You pick up a rock, and then a lady's handbag," one said.

    Three ironworkers stamped along the Hudson River, asking strangers where they might find a place to park their truck. They had just driven 12 hours and 750 miles from Indianapolis to volunteer. Rob Jones, 31, Gary Renick, 50, and Randy Martin, 42, members of the Ironworkers Local 22, arrived in Manhattan at 9 a.m. Thursday. They signed in at a volunteer center and by lunchtime were sent into the smoldering heap of wreckage. They found the going slow. There weren't enough blowtorches -- "Only had two on our side of the pile," Renick said.

    The instability of the surrounding buildings caused periodic evacuations. Three sharp blasts from a horn meant they should run, the men were instructed. "It's dangerous," Renick said. "You can't just start banging and cutting and slopping things around." After a while, they were relieved and set off to find a place to park their truck and to sleep. They were worried about being towed. A city official told them they could park at Shea Stadium and take a bus back in. They set off wearily. "We intend to stay the week if they'll put us to work," Renick said.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    50,000 reserves called up
  • telegraph.co.uk By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
    AMERICA geared up for war yesterday with Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, warning the country's servicemen that they would be called on to vanquish "powerful and terrible enemies" in the months ahead. The rallying call came as defence officials said an attack on Afghanistan, which has given safe haven to Osama bin Laden, could come as early as this weekend.

    As President Bush authorised the call-up of 50,000 reservists, the Senate gave him unanimous backing to use "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organisations or persons" who carried out the attacks. Mr Rumsfeld told US servicemen around the world in a videotaped address that much had already been asked of them, but "more, much more will be asked of you in the weeks and months ahead".

    "The task of vanquishing these terrible enemies and in protecting the American people and the cause of human freedom will fall to you. I know you are ready. I know America can continue to count on your selflessness and courage," he said. The Pentagon is believed to be considering a range of military options against Afghanistan, from heavy bombing to the insertion of special forces.

    Meanwhile, America's preparations for war continued to build. Two tankers were ordered to take 235,000 barrels of marine diesel fuel to Diego Garcia, the US Air Force base in the Indian Ocean. A number of B52 bombers capable of launching cruise missiles are believed to have been deployed there. Another oil tanker was booked to deliver 28,000 tonnes of aviation fuel from Greece to southern Spain. It is believed to be bound for the Moron air base, used by US Air Force KC10 tanker aircraft to refuel bombers crossing the Atlantic during the Kosovo conflict.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Giuliani's leadership...
  • NY POST John Podhoretz
    OK, show of hands: How many people care today that Rudy Giuliani has a girlfriend? Given Rudy's extraordinary leadership over the past five days, one is almost inclined to cast one's eye over other politicians and order for them in the manner of the lady in Katz's Deli in "When Harry Met Sally": "They'll have what he's having."

    What we require from political and military leaders is political and military leadership. They are role models, certainly, but at their best they are role models of qualities like perseverance and courage and resilience and vision. These virtues are markedly different from the ones related to marital fidelity.

    Rudy Giuliani has given us a display of leadership virtues that make him a role model - for civic leaders. He never asked to be considered a role model for husbands. Maybe we can retire this tiresome public conversation about adultery because we're going to be demanding a lot more of our leaders than we have in the past decade.
    This article starring:
    Rudy Giuliani
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bush warns conflict won't be short
  • WSJ On-Line Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL
    In his weekly radio address, President Bush prepares the nation for war: "You will be asked for your patience, for the conflict will not be short. You will be asked for your resolve, for the conflict will not be easy. You will be asked for your strength, because the course to victory may be long." Bush names Osama bin Laden as the "prime suspect" in Tuesday's atrocity.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Dealing with Bin Laden
  • WSJ On-Line Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL
    Reuel Marc Gerecht, another former U.S. intelligence officer, has a piece in The Weekly Standard offering some insights into bin Laden's motives: What hasn't been fully appreciated in the West is the extent to which bin Laden and the other radical Islamists in his orbit have a domestic, Middle Eastern agenda. They want to drive the West, physically and spiritually, out of the Islamic world, which means at home intimidating, preferably annihilating, backsliding Muslims who are far too comfortable with Western ways. . . .

    If you can repeatedly maul the United States, the spiritual cutting edge of Western civilization, and get away with it (and the Clinton administration's feeble attempts to punish bin Laden with cruise missiles and court cases certainly gave no impression that America was defending its turf), you simultaneously degrade the West's ideals, which is the ultimate objective. The collapse of the World Trade Center is in this sense, for an Islamic holy warrior, the most potentially promising victory since the Ottoman Empire took Constantinople in 1453.

    The only way to defeat Bin Laden is to kill him, Gerecht adds: With bin Laden dead, we will no doubt see again Americans slaughtered by Islamic holy warriors. But when we down him and take back the awe that is ours, we will have turned the tide. After that, we will just have to persevere and slowly burn the hope out of Islam's holy warriors. The painful integration of the Muslim and Western worlds, which has been relentlessly moving forward for more than two hundred years, will then continue, God willing, with less bloodshed on both sides.
    This article starring:
    Reuel Marc Gerecht
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda


    Tom Burnett, RIP
  • By Karen A. Davis Associated Press Writer
    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Thomas Burnett Jr., the California executive who may have helped thwart a plan by hijackers to crash a fourth plane into a landmark, was on board that day because he was in his usual rush to get home to his wife and young children. Those who knew him say he regarded himself as a family man. But the successful executive and athlete was also a proven leader. A former Bloomington, Minn., high school quarterback, Burnett enjoyed hunting and fishing at his family's Wisconsin farm house retreat. He was also an avid reader, interested in history, politics and sports.

    During Tuesday's hijacking of United Flight 93, Burnett called his wife, Deena, told her about the hijacking and said he and other passengers were "going to do something." Minutes later, Flight 93 crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside, killing all 45 people on board but no one on the ground. Investigators haven't said whether the passengers tried to overpower the hijackers or if that caused the plane to crash far from other possible destinations, such as Washington. The plane's cockpit voice recorder, which should have taped the final 30 minutes of conversation, was recovered Friday and sent to Washington for analysis.

    Burnett, who lived in San Ramon, was a senior vice president of Thoratec Corp., a medical research and development company. His friend and company president Keith Grossman said Burnett had been scheduled to take a later flight but apparently booked the earlier one at the last minute. "He was going home to be with his family," Grossman said. "I've traveled enough with Tom over the years to know that he was eager to get home to them as soon as he could."

    Burnett had three children, twins Madison and Halley, both 5, and Anna-Claire, 4. Grossman said Burnett, a University of Minnesota graduate who earned a master's degree at Pepperdine University, was bright, driven, competitive and possessed skills and maturity well beyond his 38 years. "He had high ideals and principles, and he expected a great deal of himself, and of others," Grossman said. "He had a very strong sense of right and wrong, and was solidly rooted in the strength of his own convictions."

    Those who knew him are counting Burnett - an admirer of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and America's founding fathers - as a patriot for the part he may have played in preventing greater bloodshed. "I would expect Tom to die just as he lived, with honor, principle and dignity," Grossman said.
    This article starring:
    Thomas Burnett
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bush: "Get ready"
  • NY Times By ELAINE SCIOLINO
    WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 — President Bush vowed today that "those who make war on the United States have chosen their own destruction" and steeled Americans for a long struggle that would require personal sacrifice. As he prepared to sign a law passed overwhelmingly by Congress approving the use of force against Tuesday's terrorist attacks, Mr. Bush warned in his weekly radio address that the responsewould be "a conflict without battlefields or beachheads" and that "the conflict will not be short."

    Mr. Bush also said in a brief appearance with reporters before convening his National Security Council at Camp David that the Saudi-born millionaire Osama bin Laden was "what we would call a prime suspect" in the terrorist attacks. But Mr. Bush gave no indication of how he planned to wage a military campaign or what its targets would be. "The message is for everybody who wears the uniform: get ready," he said. The administration also pressed ahead on the diplomatic front, campaigning through its envoys around the world to build a solid international coalition against what Mr. Bush called "an act of war." In an unusually strong diplomatic intervention, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has asked Saudi Arabia, America's closest ally in the Persian Gulf, and the United Arab Emirates to sever diplomatic relations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, senior administration officials said today.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:07 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Cal Thomas: Moral equivalency is dead
  • Cal Thomas
    Something else died on Tuesday, in addition to thousands of innocent people. It was the doctrine of moral equivalency --the idea that people everywhere are just like us, or can be made so by meeting their demands. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that the United States will now go after terrorism wherever it is found in the world. That's a nice change from the State Department's criticism of Israel for doing precisely what we now plan to do. Mr. Powell has said Israel went "too far" when it retaliated against terrorists who killed Israeli civilians. Mr. Powell seems to indicate that America's approach to terror will be limitless. If that's good policy for America, why isn't it good policy for Israel?

    Perhaps the idea of a "cycle of violence" in the Middle East has also died. That phrase has always implied there are no perpetrators and no victims. Funny how American leaders stop talking about such things when Americans bleed and die.

    The enemies of religious pluralism, tolerance and other American values see it as their divine mandate to eradicate people who do not believe as they do. These are not people who can be mollified, coddled or persuaded to think and act differently. For them, it is not an aberration to kill what they regard as the enemies of Islam. It is their commission and their duty.

    Our approach to terrorism has failed because we have looked at it through the wrong prism. Former National Security Adviser Samuel Berger spoke of a "100-year conflict" between Israelis and Palestinians -- not a 4,000-year one. He said he believed there was "not a single issue ... that cannot be resolved." Well, how about the very existence of Israel and the West, or the doctrines of Judaism and Christianity? (Check out the kangaroo court trying those Christian missionaries in Afghanistan and the death sentence that's the lot of anyone in Afghanistan who speaks of another God besides Allah, to say nothing of the Afghans' cave-man view of women. Does anyone seriously believe such radicals can be converted into democrats by Western "earnestness"?)

    Former Middle East negotiator, Ambassador Dennis Ross, spoke of the need for "earnestness" and a "profoundly serious approach" to peacemaking. Did he think Israeli and Western leaders had been playing games since 1948 when Israel was re-established in its land?

    This is the kind of fuzzy thinking that makes America (and Israel) vulnerable to enemies who will not be satisfied until we look like the ashes that came floating down from the World Trade Center.

    Evil exists. It must be opposed. It is self defense to kill people intent on killing you. If this is war, as President Bush and others have said, let's start acting like it and tell America's enemies that if they are so intent on seeing their God, we'll help them get there. As for us, we intend to die of natural causes.

    Those humanistic, "can't we all get along," "profiling potential terrorists is racism," "we're all God's children," Kumbaya, "all we are saying is give peace a chance" moral equivalency equivocators will soon be back. They'll try to wear down our resolve. They should be ignored. They have lost all credibility, just as the "peace in our time" crowd did at the start of World War II.

    We know the enemy. We know where they live. Let's got get them before they get any more of us, and let the moralizers sort it all out later.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bitching about Bush
  • By Jennifer Harper THE WASHINGTON TIMES
    Petty press habits persist, despite the national crisis. Even on the national day of mourning, some journalists continued their sniping at President Bush, judging him primarily by the style rather than the content of his message. "Bush has yet to find a note of eloquence in his own voice. He is, in fact, distrustful of it, and went for Texas plain talk, rhetoric as flat as the prairie and as blunt as a Clint Eastwood soliloquy," wrote Newsweek's Howard Fineman, later noting, "he did not look larger than life at his Oval Office desk, or even particularly comfortable there, and he cited Psalms without the kind of emotional resonance voter-viewers have come to expect from an Empathizer in Chief."

    The Los Angeles Times' Howard Rosenberg called Mr. Bush stiff and boyish, writing that "Bush has lacked size in front of the camera when he should have been commanding and filling the screen with a formidable presence even his body language is troubling." Mr. Rosenberg suggested the president should instead function as a "national anchorman."

    Heaven forbid. The last thing we need at this moment is slick ooze on camera. We need terse, straightforward messages from our leader, and Mr. Bush has delivered them.

    America, apparently, is listening. Mr. Bush's public approval rating skyrocketed into the high 90s yesterday. The critics persist, though, predicting that the approval surge is temporary and that Mr. Bush will fade in the long haul. This is mighty impatient analysis. At this juncture, the president's primary duty is toward the business of the White House rather than the image of the office, and the needs of the press. Mr. Bush has maintained a laudable presence, offering an average five statements a day, plus heartfelt messages at the Washington National Cathedral and the New York attack site yesterday.

    Some critics claimed New York Gov. George E. Pataki and Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani had a more "presidential" presence. Reassurance had come from them, "but not from Bush," stated a Newsday editorial, which asked "Where's W?"
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Two arrested in Jersey City
  • By GEOFF MULVIHILL The Associated Press
    JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) -- The FBI on Saturday searched the Jersey City apartment of two men who were detained in Texas carrying thousands of dollars in cash and box-cutter knives, and took several others into custody as the investigation into the terrorist attacks that crashed four planes and collapsed the World Trade Center picked up speed. An Army helicopter circled overhead as agents removed several cardboard boxes of evidence from the apartment of Ayub Ali Khan, 51, and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, 47, and from another apartment next door, neighbors said.
    This article starring:
    Ayub Ali Khan
    Mohammed Jaweed Azmath
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda


    "We took a taxi"
  • Orlando Sun-Sentinel By Jenni Bergal Business Writer
    Three Florida executives stranded in Chicago during the airport shutdowns this week found an unusual way to get back home: they took a taxi in what became a cross-country, multicultural odyssey. The driver, who introduced himself as Ali, took pity on them and agreed to make the 24-hour trip because he wanted to help the men return to their families, said Bruce Gross, chief financial officer for Lennar Corp., a Miami-based homebuilder.

    "Ali called his office and called his wife, then said he would do it," Gross said. "He didn't pick up clothes or anything else. He just turned around and said, 'does anyone have any money for gas?'"

    The four left at 10 p.m. Wednesday. Ali drove the Mazda mini-van until 5 a.m., when they finally switched drivers. The men learned Ali's full name was Muhammed Ali and he was a mechanical engineer who moved to the U.S. from Bombay, India in 1999. They also discovered he was Islamic and had been outraged and saddened by the terrorist attacks on Tuesday.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:06 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    The Mirror misses Clinton
  • Mirror of London
    CLINTON STEPS IN TO COMFORT SHATTERED VICTIMS AS BUSH WEEPS AND TREMBLES

    THE former president held the woman tightly in his arms and let her pound out all the tears and the rage on his shoulder. Another woman approached and collapsed in a wailing heap on to his chest. He clutched her to him, lowered his head, and whispered words of comfort in her ear. A small boy stood beside him, looked up in awe, and the big man pulled him towards his stomach. He patted his head, looked down with pity in his eyes and gave the lad a look which said he represented all that mattered now. The future.

    All around him, New Yorkers gathered, some to pass on their thanks that he had rushed to their side, others to grab his hand and use him as an emotional crutch to make it through another wretched day. All felt lifted to be in the presence of the man they had looked to for most of the past decade when their country was in its hour of need. Bill Clinton was back on home soil after a trip to Australia, looking, acting and feeling like America's natural born leader.

    New Yorkers, who three days after their world caved in had still to see George W Bush descend on their city and show them leadership, greeted Clinton like a returning Messiah. He, in turn, treated them like a priest tending a wounded flock. And it all came so naturally and so genuinely that it seemed somehow bizarre that he hadn't been driven there in a limousine bearing the seal of office. The scene made me, as an outsider, and surely millions of Americans, ask: Will the real president please stand up?

    Wearing sports jacket and casual shirt, Clinton was mobbed outside The Armory building, where 2,500 distraught New Yorkers queued to fill out missing person reports which demanded the smallest details on their lost loved ones. He went on to tour the World Trade Center wreckage with his daughter Chelsea, who had been only 12 blocks away when the twin towers collapsed.

    As his grey head came into view, faces in the crowd shone with hope. They cheered, they wept, they hugged him. They pushed photo-copied pictures of their missing loved ones into his hands asking him in desperation to help them through this. And he did. Looking gaunt and tired from the stress of the past few days and the long flight from Australia, he took all hands that were offered, pumped them, looked into people's eyes and nodded reassuringly. He was clearly feeling their pain. This was the city where he had recently set up new offices in Harlem. This was the state where he now lived with a wife who is their senator.

    He was feeling their pain and dealing with it like the true statesman he is. "We need not to show fear and not to give in to these people," he said with calmness and clarity. We need to prove them wrong by how we respond to this."

    When pushed on the dilemma facing his successor, he offered his full backing to whatever course of action he takes. He said: "I believe that the magnitude of this has generated support for the United States and for taking action against these people that did not exist before. And that will open up some options for the president that would not have been there before." But it was the people Clinton had come to see and it was on them he lavished his empathy and charisma.

    Here was a leader trying to deal with his people's anguish as they moved from shock to mourning in the second phase of emotional rehabilitation which follows all disasters. And his eyes were dry. Unlike George W Bush, Clinton wasn't weeping for himself or his nation but soaking up their tears, helping them to grow stronger and more resilient as he did so.

    Here he was, flying straight to the carnage at the heart of the nation at his first opportunity. Bush, on the other hand who, when tragedy struck scuttled around national airspace like a frightened rabbit as New Yorkers laid down their lives, had still to turn up in the city. Bush's absence up until yesterday afternoon, had seemed both bemusing and wrong. His speeches had been stilted and uninspiring. His language muddled. His state of mind veering between an awkward blankness and an unfocused fury.

    The president had left his desperate people feeling even more confused and frightened. Worried that a void had opened up at the top of their democracy.

    And then Clinton turned up and showed in a few brief minutes the way to fill it heroically. Which gave America one more reason to weep.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Maureen's scared. Somebody do something.
  • NY Times By MAUREEN DOWD
    WASHINGTON — My mom wore a red satin blouse on Friday to please the president and insisted that I look in my closet for red, white and blue, too.

    We're all burning with patriotism and pride and sorrow and anger. But beneath our determination to get through this, we're afraid, just as jittery as the kids who cling and cry and crawl into bed with parents.

    The adults of this capital are jumpy, driving the wrong way on one-way streets rather than waiting for soldiers in Humvees to untangle traffic, flinching at the sound of planes. The young men and women who work at the White House confess that they are scared to return there each day.

    We worry that the faceless enemy is still lurking nearby.

    We have been jolted by the realization that while those smart missiles we saw in Desert Storm could go down chimneys, they cannot protect us from a handful of guys with box cutters and plastic knives.

    And the realization that we don't yet know how to fight this evil in the Afghan heart of darkness, a place that rebuffed the British empire and the Russians, described by Kipling in "The Man Who Would Be King" as "one mass of mountains and peaks and glaciers, and no Englishman has been through it. . . . The people are utter brutes, and even if you reached them you couldn't do anything."

    And the realization that all our security systems failed. Terrorists could live among us as a fifth column, drinking beer in our bars and getting Americans to unwittingly train them to kill other Americans — even when they drove a car sporting a pro-Osama bin Laden sticker.

    We've known for a long time that the terrorists are coming at us. We've known for a long time that the C.I.A. has spiraled into an identity crisis since the cold war and lost both its best James Bonds and stoolies. We've known for a long time that the F.B.I. is prone to bungling.

    Why not start fresh — and fast — with a new security agency, unleashing an elite squad with plenty of human spies and putting Rudy Giuliani in charge of the global "Untouchables"? The president will have to forgive the mayor for having warm words for John McCain during the New York primary, but desperate times require desperate measures.

    We will soon see whether this shattering crisis will make him more supple, complex and clever. Can he, Cheney, Rummy and Condi move past the cold war attitude and Star Wars obsession that has alienated the countries we will need to help us fight an enemy too shadowy to be stopped by a shield?

    Mr. Bush has promised nothing short of wiping out terrorism. But first the young president, who often seems trapped in the past, must come to grips with the modernity of evil.
    This article starring:
    MAUREEN DOWD
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:05 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Bush as wartime president
  • By Tom Raum Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush came to office as a two-term Texas governor with scant foreign policy experience. Suddenly he faces one of the most complicated national security challenges ever to confront a U.S. president. As his father before him, Bush has been transformed into a wartime president by events beyond his control. But few, not even the elder Bush, believe that the president can orchestrate the kind of offensive that enabled the first Bush administration to prevail over Iraq in a 1991 war that lasted a mere month.

    Initially the president drew criticism for not returning to Washington on Tuesday from Florida to take command. The administration said he acted on the advice of the Secret Service because the White House and Air Force One were possible targets.

    Bush moved quickly to cover the major bases. He unified a divided Congress, comforted a grieving nation, reached out for international support and rallied rescue workers in the rubble of New York's World Trade Center.

    Bush proclaimed the United States engaged in the "first war of the 21st century." Congressional leaders, too, were quick to use the word "war." Hardening his tone, Bush on Saturday said flatly, "We're at war."

    By week's end, both chambers of Congress had put aside their partisan differences to vote unanimously to give Bush the authority to use military force against terrorists linked to the attacks and against those that sponsor them. Congress also approved a $40 billion anti-terrorism package.

    His approval ratings in national polls since have soared from the mid-fifties to about 80 percent - near his father's approval ratings at the end of the Persian Gulf War. But there is no guarantee that those numbers will remain so lofty - as the elder Bush discovered when the economy soured, his popularity plummeted and he lost the White House.

    "Nobody should be questioning any decisions he (Bush) makes," former President Clinton said in a telephone interview after the attacks. "We ought to be hanging in there, giving his national security team the time it takes."

    "This is probably the most complex multilevel challenge that a president has faced since the Civil War," said presidential historian Stephen Hess. "It's almost like a giant onion: there are layers upon layers of challenges that Bush faces."

    Among the challenges: an enormous disaster-relief effort, a complex criminal investigation, trying to force an international coalition against an enemy that is not a nation-state and incredible military logistical problems.

    Despite those obstacles, the fight against terrorism "is now the focus of my administration," Bush said.

  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    International
    Cuba condemns terrorism
  • HAVANA (AP) - During a weekly rally normally reserved to criticize the United States, the Cuban government condemned terrorism Saturday and expressed its support for the American people following the hijackings. The rally in Majibacoa, a small town 410 miles east of Havana, bore the theme: "Our solidarity with the American people during the national tragedy they are living through."

    Defense Minister Raul Castro, President Fidel Castro's brother, presided over the gathering, where speakers condemned Tuesday's attacks on the United States. But speakers also criticized the four-decade U.S. embargo against the island, among other U.S. policies. The speeches echoed ideas expressed by Fidel Castro on Tuesday, hours after the airborne attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

    The Cuban president lamented the "unbelievable" acts and called on the United States to stop what he described as "government-sponsored terrorism," which he claimed Cuba had been a victim of for years. Speaking of the problems of the world, Castro said "none can be solved with force," and cautioned the United States against getting "caught up in the desire" for revenge.
    This article starring:
    Raul Castro
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    CNN footage a re-run?
  • One Marcio A.V. Carvalho, a student at a Brazilian university, says a professor of his is claiming that CNN footage of partying Palestinians was actually shot in 1991 and portrays celebrations of Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. (Why a Brazilian student would think it acceptable to celebrate that atrocity isn't clear.) CNN's chief news executive, Eason Jordan says the Brazilian charge is "baseless and ridiculous."
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    China warns against gloating
  • WSJ On-Line Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL
    Apparently following Yasser Arafat's example, China's Propaganda Ministry issues an "urgent notice," "ordering the media, including Internet portals, not to publish anything that gloated about the attack or seemed to insult the United States," the Washington Post reports. The Post says anti-American remarks and expressions of support for the terrorism had surfaced on government-monitored Internet sited before the order was issued. The Post also notes that China is now denying reports in a Pakistani newspaper, the Frontier Post, and a state-run newspaper in Afghanistan that an agreement had been signed between China and the Taliban minister of mines.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Binny's family denounces him
  • DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) - The family of Osama bin Laden denounced the notorious Saudi dissident on Saturday and offered their condolences to victims of the terror attacks in the United States. In a telephone interview from the Red Sea port city of Jiddah, the head of the wealthy bin Laden family, Sheik Abdullah Awad Aboud bin Laden, expressed deep sorrow over Tuesday's attacks. "The family has previously announced its position (to distance itself) from Osama and condemned his acts. All the family members condemn all violent and terrorist acts, even if Osama is behind them," said the sheik, who is bin Laden's uncle.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Virginia Postrel on the Saudis
  • Speaking of civilization-vs.-barbarism, our sort-of allies the Saudis are on the wrong side. As Glenn Reynolds reports, they have long been using their riches to export the worst sort of Islam, even to the point of undermining the religious traditions of other Muslim nations. When Chuck Freund was recently in Lebanon, visiting his wife's Maronite Christian family, the march of "Wahabism" was what everyone was talking about. Reports yesterday from NPR said that two of the hijackers appear to have been former Saudi Air Force pilots who had actually attended exchange programs offered by the U.S. military, one at the AF War College and the other a language school. The Saudi government is illegitimate, decadent, and evil. They are not our friends, and they are at war with our values at home and abroad. Any U.S. response strategy needs to take these realities into consideration. (Virginia Postrel)
    This article starring:
    Glenn Reynolds
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Palestinians march in support of Bin Laden
  • WSJ On-Line Best of the Web Today BY JAMES TARANTO AND IRA STOLL
    "About 1,500 Palestinians, many supporters of the Islamic militant group Hamas, marched in a Gaza Strip refugee camp on Friday, burning Israeli flags and carrying a large poster of Osama bin Laden, who has been named as a key suspect in this week's terror attacks in the United States," the Associated Press reports. The Palestinian Authority continues the practice of intimidation and censorship that we noted Thursday: "After the rally, plainclothes Palestinian policemen questioned several journalists, including staffers of foreign news agencies, and confiscated videotape and film as well as camera equipment. An Associated Press Television News video was among the materials taken, and an AP photographer was warned by officials not to publish pictures of the bin-Laden poster."
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Terror Networks
    Bin Laden's ties
  • by Tom Mashberg Boston Herald
    He is rich and sneaky, but not invulnerable. An enemy to be reckoned with, but hardly a Hitler. His army is tiny, but it is willing to die - and its ranks could bulge if the United States in fact launches a World War III against international terror. He is Osama bin Laden, the 17th of 52 children sired by Muhammad bin Laden of Saudi Arabia, a billionaire construction magnate, and the 44-year-old mastermind of a ``holy war'' against America. ``The United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors,'' he said in 1998 in declaring war on the United States. ``It is our duty to make jihad to drive Americans from all Muslim countries.''

    On Thursday, the United States issued its own fatwah against bin Laden and his ilk, declaring that the people behind atrocities like those committed Tuesday must be rooted out and brought to heel. By most informed accounts, he has cells and operatives in more than 40 countries; a range of shell companies that allow him to circulate and launder money in the Middle East and Central Asia; supporters quietly seeking to purchase airplanes, stinger missiles and even uranium; and a multitude of fast-moving encampments where suicide bombers and other terrorists learn the ins and outs of explosives, piloting, creating false IDs and furtive communications.

    Continued on Page 49
    This article starring:
    MUHAMAD ATEFal-Qaeda
    National Islamic Front
    Moro Islamic Liberation Front
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Moro Islamic Liberation Front


    Feds looking into al-Qaeda links to other groups
  • By NILES LATHEM
    WASHINGTON - The FBI is uncovering evidence that other Mideast terror groups worked with Osama bin Laden's operatives to orchestrate Tuesday's attacks on America, The Post has learned. The specter of "a terrorist NATO" launching strikes against America raises the likelihood of President Bush becoming more heavily involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - even launching military strikes in the region.

    Top intelligence officials told Congress this week that the Lebanese Hezbollah and possibly Palestinian groups such as Hamas are suspected of helping the suicide pilots. "Most of the evidence points to Osama bin Laden. But the speculation at the end of the road is that he was very much involved with Hezbollah and others," said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

    Intelligence sources say that, despite religious differences and political rivalries, Hezbollah and bin Laden's Al-Qaeda have been working together for some time.

    Bin Laden operative Ali Mohammed, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, testified about meetings between the Saudi millionaire and Hezbollah leaders. He also told of explosives training given to Al-Qaeda operatives by Hezbollah fighters. There is also evidence that both organizations were involved in the deadly Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

    Representatives of Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terror organizations met in Beirut in February to form "a terrorist NATO" to fight the United States and Israel, sources said.
    This article starring:
    ALI MOHAMEDal-Qaeda
    Charles Grassley
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Gunnies kill kid in India as warning
  • Gunmen in India who shot a 10 year-old-boy left a note warning the government not to support the US in any retaliatory action against the Taliban. (Ananova)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    The Alliance
    Russia won't allow attacks from Central Asia
  • The Independent BY PATRICK COCKBURN
    DESPITE CALLS from US President George Bush to Russian President Vladimir Putin, asking for full support in the wake of the suicide attacks, Russia is making it clear that it will not back an American invasion of Afghanistan from bases in the former Soviet Central Asia. Sergei Ivanov, the Russian Defence Minister, said: "I don't see any basis for even the hypothetical possibility of Nato military operations on the territory of central Asian nations that belong to the Commonwealth of Independent States."
    This article starring:
    Sergei Ivanov
    Vladimir Putin
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Musharraf in the middle...
  • Sydney Morning Herald
    The man under the most pressure was Pervez Musharraf, the bland army general who seized power in Pakistan in October 1999 and named himself president earlier this year. General Musharraf now faces the stark choice of dropping the Taliban, the prized creation of his own country's military-intelligence cabal, or having Pakistan's own military and economic lifelines severed.

    The powerful head of Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI), General Mahmood Ahmad, was in Washington to argue the case with CIA chief George Tenet when the terror attacks occurred this week. Mahmood and officials in Islamabad were told bluntly that Washington expected Pakistan's "full and practical co-operation" in pursuing those suspected of the assaults. On Thursday the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, called General Musharraf directly with a "specific list of things" that included, Pakistani officials said, Pakistan closing its border with Afghanistan, cutting off funding to groups allied with Osama bin Laden, turning over any intelligence information it has on his whereabouts, pressuring the Taliban to turn him over and allowing US aircraft to fly over Pakistan if the US decided to attack.

    "Islamabad has constantly been apprehensive about the US joining a proxy game against the Talibs involving the Uzbeks, Russians and Indians," says Husain Haqqani, a leading commentator in Karachi who has held positions with prevous democratic governments. "The US message seems to have been that we'd rather work with old ally Islamabad so please fall in line," Huqqani said.
    "Islamabad has no intention of bending, by all accounts. So now the US might have to carry out the threats it has held out until now without action. This could include serious economic screws, which will have to include the IMF."
    "Islamabad has no intention of bending, by all accounts. So now the US might have to carry out the threats it has held out until now without action. This could include serious economic screws, which will have to include the IMF. This is clearly a moment of truth for General Musharraf's military regime. He has to now prove that his pronouncements about being vehemently opposed to militant Islam and terrorism are not mere words." .

    He thinks the heavy American pressure will force Pakistan to review its links towards Islamic militant groups in general. "Until now these groups have been treated as allies in the struggle against Indian occupation of Kashmir."

    There is hardly a more bitter pill for the ISI to swallow. It was livid when the former Benazir Bhutto government helped the US in arresting the main suspect in the earlier 1993 attack on the World Trade Centre, arguing this would shatter morale among the "Jihadis" (holy warriors) it is supporting in Kashmir.

    Another expert on the Taliban, author Ahmed Rashid, also sees little room for half-measures if the Americans are to be satisfied. Allowing strikes from Pakistan means the end of the relationship, he said from Lahore. In addition, Pakistan will have to end the covert but well-known supply of money, arms and fuel to the Taliban. Rashid also sees the ISI having to accept a crackdown on "the whole madrasah culture" - the medium through which the radical Taliban message has been spreading through Central Asia countries and into Malaysia and Indonesia. "It all has to be done in one go," Rashid said. "It's a huge thing."

    Adding to the pressure on Musharraf, President Bush himself referred on Thursday to the Pakistani leader's pledge of "unstinting" support for America's search for the terrorist masterminds. "Now we'll just find out what that means, won't we?" Bush said.
    This article starring:
    Ahmed Rashid
    Benazir Bhutto
    Colin Powell
    General Mahmood Ahmad
    George Tenet
    Husain Haqqani
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    BBC apologizes for scummy behavior to guest
    telegraph.co.uk By Sandra Laville and Matt Born
    THE BBC apologised yesterday for any offence caused by a special edition of Question Time on the terrorist assault on America that left the former United States ambassador to Britain in tears. Hundreds of viewers telephoned to complain that anti-American views expressed by the audience did not represent British public opinion. They also accused the BBC of displaying insensitivity by airing the programme so soon after the disaster. At one point, Philip Lader, the former American ambassador, who was on the panel, was slow handclapped by a section of the audience. He said with tears in his eyes: "I have to share with you that I find it hurtful that you can suggest that a majority of the world despises the US. My parents were immigrants to the US. We have fought as a people and nation for the rule of law and I simply want to say that it saddens me how it is possible on this night, within 48 hours [of the attack], that because of animosity of feeling on political issues we can frankly abstract ourselves from the senseless human victimisation and suffering that has occurred."
    This article starring:
    Philip Lader
    Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Mullah warns jihad will come
  • By Alex Spillius LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH
    PESHAWAR, Pakistan --As Maulawi Gul Rahman prepared for lunchtime prayers yesterday, he donned his ragged scholar's robe, stroked his tangled beard and pondered the question of what the effect of American military retaliation against Osama bin Laden would be. "Muslims around the world, from north, south, east and west, would wage war against the United States," said the maulawi, a senior priest, who considers himself a moderate by the region's standards. "It would be holy war, our duty."


    This article starring:
    MAULAWI GUL RAHMANTaliban
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Six Brit ships pass through Suez
  • CAIRO (Reuters) - Six British navy ships passed through Egypt's Suez Canal heading south on Saturday to participate in military exercises, a British naval source said. ``The ships will be engaging in exercises which were previously arranged and are not related to the recent events,'' the source told Reuters, referring to Tuesday's terror attacks in the United States. He would not disclose the ships' final destination or give any further details.

    He said the support vessels Diligence and Sea Crusader with mine hunters Cattistock, Quorn, Walney and Inverness passed through the canal early on Saturday. Canal sources said the waterway rarely saw such a large convoy of British military ships.

    NATO invoked its mutual defense clause on Wednesday for the first time in its 52-year history, opening the way for a possible collective response by the Atlantic alliance, which includes Britain, to the attacks.
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 12:14 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Blair sez next generation of terrorists will use nukes
  • The Times of London BY PHILIP WEBSTER, POLITICAL EDITOR
    TONY BLAIR gave warning yesterday of nuclear strikes from the next generation of terrorists as he made plain that the war against terrorism could be extended to the states that harboured them. The Prime Minister and Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said that the world would be laying itself open to biological, chemical and nuclear attack if it failed to counter the menace of terrorism now.
    This article starring:
    Jack Straw
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    State department summons diplomats
  • The State Department took the unusual step of summoning foreign diplomatic representatives to warn that their governments will be isolated if they tolerate or assist terrorist groups. The message was delivered in separate meetings by top State Department officials in charge of the five major regions of the world - Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Africa and Latin America.

    Ambassadors were told that the United States expects their governments to shut down money channels that sustain terrorist groups and access of members of these groups across borders, said the senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity. (By George Gedda Associated Press Writer)
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    Vajpayee pledges Indian support
  • In a nationally televised address tonight, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee pledged Indian unity with the American people, warned his country to gird for a possible American response and uttered a gently worded, "I told you so."

    "For years," he said, "we in India have been alerting others to the fact that terrorism is a scourge for all of humanity, that what happens in Bombay one day is bound to happen elsewhere tomorrow." (NYT By CELIA W. DUGGER)
    This article starring:
    Atal Behari Vajpayee
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


    The Investigation
    Flight student believed to be al-Qaeda thug
  • David Chanen Star Tribune
    A man who trained briefly at an Eagan flight school this summer is believed to have been a high-ranking operative for Osama bin Laden. Law enforcement authorities confirmed reports that the student pilot is being investigated in connection with the terrorist organization that officials suspect is responsible for the attacks Tuesday on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Just days after Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested in mid-August for carrying a false passport, the FBI was told by French intelligence officials that he was a high-ranking operative in Bin Laden's organization, according to media reports and a law enforcement official. On Friday, authorities transferred Moussaoui from a Minnesota jail, but wouldn't say where he was taken.
    This article starring:
    ZACARIAS MUSAUIal-Qaeda
  • Posted by: Fred Pruitt || 09/15/2001 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:



    Who's in the News
    51[untagged]
    5Taliban
    2al-Qaeda
    1Moro Islamic Liberation Front

    Bookmark
    E-Mail Me

    The Classics
    The O Club
    Rantburg Store
    The Bloids
    The Never-ending Story
    Thugburg
    Gulf War I
    The Way We Were
    Bio

    Merry-Go-Blog











    On Sale now!


    A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

    Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

    Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
    Click here for more information

    Meet the Mods
    In no particular order...
    Steve White
    Seafarious
    tu3031
    badanov
    sherry
    ryuge
    GolfBravoUSMC
    Bright Pebbles
    trailing wife
    Gloria
    Fred
    Besoeker
    Glenmore
    Frank G
    3dc
    Skidmark

    Two weeks of WOT
    Sat 2001-09-15
      Masood is dead
    Fri 2001-09-14
      Death toll surpasses Pearl Harbor
    Thu 2001-09-13
      Osama bin Laden is prime suspect
    Wed 2001-09-12
      Bush addresses nation
    Tue 2001-09-11
      Terror strikes on US

    Better than the average link...



    Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
    34.229.62.45
    Help keep the Burg running! Paypal:
    (0)    (0)    Opinion (1)    (0)    (0)