TERRORISM - 2003

Tuesday August 5,  20036:25 PM

Jakarta Hotel Bombing Shows Terrorism Remains A Threat

JAKARTA (Dow Jones)--Indonesia's efforts to stamp out terrorism took a blow Tuesday as a bomb ripped through a downtown Jakarta hotel, killing at least 10 people, including one foreigner, and wounding dozens more. Police said it was a suicide attack.

The explosion in the J.W. Marriott Hotel, which destroyed the lobby and shattered windows half way up the multistory building, sent stocks and the rupiah currency tumbling amid fears that Islamic militant groups still pose a threat to security here.

The main stock index slid 3.1% to end at 488.529 points, while the rupiah was trading down 2.1% at IDR8,665 to the U.S. dollar in late Asian trading.

Hans Winkelmolen, president of PT Rabobank Duta Indonesia, a Dutch national, was among the dead, a company official said. The bank is majority-owned by Rabobank (N.RBK) of the Netherlands.

Although no group immediately took responsibility for the blast, the attack on the Marriott came only days ahead of a verdict in the trial of a key suspect in last year's Bali bombing, which the U.S. and other governments say was carried out by an al-Qaida linked regional terrorist network known as Jemaah Islamiyah.

"Probably this latest bomb is related to the radical Muslims," said Rizal Mallarangeng, a political analyst.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri's government has arrested scores of alleged Jemaah Islamiyah members since the October 2002 attack on two Bali nightclubs, which killed around 200 mainly Western tourists. A Bali court Thursday will hand down its verdict on Amrozi bin Nurhasyim, a ringleader of the attack who faces a maximum death penalty.

Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, also is set to take the stand in Jakarta this week in his trial over a series of Christmas Eve church bombings three years ago.

Tuesday's bombing adds to fears that Islamic militants are trying to strike back at Megawati's administration, and is likely to hurt foreign investor confidence. The attack comes after a small bomb exploded in Parliament last month, causing minor damage but no injuries.

Like the nightclubs hit by the Bali bombing, the J.W. Marriott Hotel is a favorite spot with Westerners. The hotel, which is owned by a Chinese-Indonesia businessman, Tan Kian, but managed by U.S.-based Marriott International Inc. (MAR), has hosted the U.S. embassy's July 4th celebrations for the last few years.

Indonesia's markets have been among the best-performing in Asia this year in part due to the government's ability to crackdown on terrorism after the Bali bombing. By showing it could restore security, Indonesia attracted investors, helping boost the rupiah currency and push interest rates lower.

This could be in "vain if this latest bombing signals the return of old law-and-order issues," said Song Sen Wun, a Singapore-based economist with GK Goh Research.

Megawati vowed in her annual state of the nation speech to lawmakers last week to destroy terrorism "to its roots," highlighting an increasingly hardline stance toward Islamic militants.

But that battle faces hurdles given the poor state of Indonesia's police force and intelligence services, Mallarangeng said. Indonesia relied heavily on assistance from Autralian and other foreign police forces to catch the Bali bombers.

Megawati outlined in her speech that building a strong armed forces was crucial to the battle against terrorism. The U.S. still has a ban on the sale of military equipment to Indonesia due to the poor human rights record of its armed forces.

Jakarta was initially slow to move against Islamic militants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. Megawati's government, having come to power only months earlier, was keen not to estrange Islamic parties. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim nation, and although most people follow a moderate version of the faith, hardline groups have been gaining a growing following in recent years.

A decline in political violence - which had racked Indonesia since the dictator Suharto's fall in 1998 - helped restore limited investor confidence toward Megawati's government.

Under former President Abdurrahman Wahid, a string of bombs helped to destabilize the economy, including an attack in September 2000 on the Jakarta Stock Exchange building, and the Christmas Eve church bombings of the same year.

Last year's Bali nightclub bombing, however, showed that terrorism remained a threat, and forced Megawati to take stronger action.

"Megawati has understood that this is a battle she can't afford to lose," Mallarangeng said.

World - Asia Pacific

from the August 06, 2003 edition

Indonesia car bomb echoes Bali

A group linked to Al Qaeda is fingered in a deadly blast Tuesday at a Jakarta hotel.

By Dan Murphy | Special to The Christian Science Monitor

JAKARTA, INDONESIA – A car bomb ripped through the J.W. Marriott Hotel in Jakarta at lunchtime Tuesday, killing more than a dozen and dealing a harsh blow to an economy and a people that were only just getting over last October's terrorist attack in Bali.

Surveying the scene, Jakarta governor Sutiyoso said it was "probably" a suicide attack. "This is clearly terrorism,'' he said, adding that it was too soon to say who was responsible.

But there have been only three previous car-bomb attacks in modern Indonesian history - the most recent in Bali - and all have been tied to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a group that US officials say acts as Al Qaeda's franchise in Southeast Asia. Tuesday's car bomb also follows more than a month of heightened US warnings about the increased risk of Al Qaeda attacks, particularly on so-called "soft targets."

The US State Department had issued specific warnings of possible attacks in Indonesia. US and Indonesian officials say American interests were the likely target.

"This was almost certainly the JI,'' says Rohan Gunaratna, a terrorism expert and author at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies. "Car bombs are a sophisticated weapon, and JI is one of the only terrorist groups in Southeast Asia that can conduct this kind of operation."

The business district that houses the hotel was swarming with bomb-sniffing dogs and soldiers as rescue workers combed through the wreckage of cars and plate glass at the hotel's front. The blast left a blackened hole in the ground and blew windows out at least two-thirds of the way up the 33-story building.

At press time, Reuters put the number of injured at 150, including two Americans, two Australians, four Singaporeans, and a New Zealander. A Dutch banking executive was among the dead.

Economic blow

Though there's no conclusive proof who was behind the attack, the damage that terror can do to Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, was starkly apparent. The main Jakarta stock-market index tumbled 3.1 percent after the attack and its currency, the rupiah, lost as much as 2 percent of its value against the dollar.

"Terrorism is the devil,'' Indonesian House Speaker Amien Rais told reporters shortly after the attack. He warned that panic caused by such attacks could "destroy our economy." The Bali attack last October left 202 dead and drove tourists - one of Indonesia's most important sources of foreign money - out of the country.

Indonesia's neighbors and allies expressed outrage at the blast. "If, as it appears likely, it is a terrorist attack, it is yet another reminder that the fight against JI and other groups goes on," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.

Coincides with trials

The attack came just two days before a Bali court is scheduled to hand down the first verdict in the trials of the alleged Bali bombers, and also coincides with the ongoing Jakarta trial of alleged JI spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir.

Mr. Bashir and another Indonesian cleric founded JI in the early 1990s. The group is dedicated to the creation of an Islamic theocracy to unite the Muslim arc in Southeast Asia - a region stretching down from southern Thailand and across Borneo to the southern Philippines.

Many of the group's members trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and 1990s, and investigators allege that Al Qaeda has helped pay for most of JI's operations. Riduan Isammudin, the fugitive operations head of the JI, is alleged to be a full member of Al Qaeda in his own right.

Though Indonesia has received plaudits from the US and others for the arrest and prosecution of roughly 30 militants in connection with the Bali attack, analysts like Mr. Gunaratna say the Marriott bombing is evidence of how deeply entrenched terrorists have become here.

"So far, they've only been going after people tied to the Bali attack, or apprehended with weapons, but there are many more members,'' he says. "This kind of attack will happen again and again until a more proactive approach is adopted."

An embassy favorite

Indonesian and US officials say the bomb could have been targeted at the US. The hotel is a favorite for US Embassy and American Chamber of Commerce functions, and has hosted the embassy's July 4 party since it opened in 2001. When the US ambassador to Indonesia, Ralph Boyce, called a town-hall meeting for citizens after the May terror attacks in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the event was held at the Marriott.

"The JI has strong ties to Al Qaeda. And we know they have the means and motives to carry out more attacks," Mr. Boyce said during the meeting. The embassy's chief security officer also warned of a "fundamental change in targeting" that was making targets like five-star hotels and nightclubs more vulnerable than ever, and urged residents to avoid places where foreigners were known to gather.

That prompted a joke from one of the American executives in the audience that the meeting was a violation of the embassy's own advice. Everybody laughed, but it brought home how difficult it is to take every bit of antiterror advice.

"It's a little early to be making authoritative statements, but it's certainly possible that we were the target,'' says a US official. "But who are the big victims? They're the Indonesian drivers, the hotel staff, [and those] who died. Indonesians have been hurt the worst here."

Suicide truck bombing destroys military hospital building near Chechnya, at least 33 killed

By Sergei Venyavsky

ASSOCIATED PRESS

2:45 p.m., August 1, 2003

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia – A suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with explosives through the gates of a Russian military hospital near Chechnya on Friday, destroying the building and killing at least 33 people.

Seventy-six others were wounded in the attack, the latest in an upsurge of suicide bombings that have killed more than 100 people since May.

Russian authorities suspected Chechnya's separatist rebels in the blast, which demolished the four-story red brick hospital in the city of Mozdok in Russia's North Ossetia region.

A suicide truck bombing destroys a military hospital building near Chechnya, killing dozens.

At least 33 people were killed, said Yevgeny Volodchinkov, an Emergency Situations Ministry official at the scene.

The region's Emergency Situations Minister Boris Dzgoyev told The Associated Press that at least 76 were injured, including personnel at the hospital and soldiers taken there after being wounded in Chechnya, where Russia's second war against rebels in a decade is nearly four years old.

Russian Deputy Prosecutor General Sergei Fridinsky said 35 were killed and 150 injured, according to the Interfax news agency.

The building, which had 115 people inside, including medical workers and patients, collapsed like a house of cards, Dzgoyev said.

Maj. Gen. Nikolai Lityuk said the Russian-made Kamaz truck broke through the hospital gates, pulled up to a reception office building and exploded. The blast left a crater 26-feet wide and 10-feet deep, according to Lityuk, deputy chief of the southern Russia branch of the Ministry of Emergency Situations.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Russian authorities said they suspected Chechen rebels. Lityuk said it appeared to have been carried out by a lone attacker in the truck.

"Near the checkpoint of the hospital there were charred corpses," a medical assistant from Mozdok's central hospital identified as Galina said on state-run Rossiya television. "Tents that were put up near the main building were all gone. There was one wall left from the main building."

"The United States condemns this act of terrorism," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "No cause whatsoever, be it national, ethnic, religious, or political, can justify terrorism."

A woman who lives 2½ miles from the hospital said windows broke and plaster fell from walls in her neighborhood. "I saw a big column of smoke," said the woman, identified as Valentina, speaking on Ekho Moskvy radio.

Mozdok is the headquarters for Russian forces fighting in Chechnya and has been repeatedly targeted by attackers.

Emergency workers were picking through the rubble, and the Ministry of Emergency Situations was sending a plane with rescuers, sniffer dogs and medical equipment from Moscow, officials said.

A duty officer at the regional Emergency Situations Ministry in North Ossetia said 35 of the wounded were taken to Mozdok's central hospital and four others died on the way.

Alina Totykova, deputy head of the North Ossetian hospital in the regional capital, Vladikavkaz, said all available ambulances were sent to Mozdok. There was a shortage of medicine, anesthetics and bandages and a severe shortage of blood, she said, adding that an appeal for people to give blood would be broadcast on television in the region.

President Vladimir Putin expressed condolences to relatives of the victims and urged the North Ossetian leadership to tell federal authorities in Moscow what was needed to aid the victims, the Kremlin said. Putin also ordered law enforcement officials to investigate.

Chechnya has been wracked by violence since Russian forces entered the mostly Muslim region in 1994 in a bid to crush separatist rebels. Russian troops withdrew in 1996, leaving the separatists in charge, but returned in 1999 after Chechnya-based militants invaded a neighboring region. The Kremlin also blamed rebels for apartment-building bombings that killed 300 people in 1999.

Last month, Putin signed an order setting presidential elections in Chechnya for Oct. 5 – the latest step in his strategy of trying to bring a political resolution in the Caucasus republic even as fighting continues.

However, rebel attacks – which have increasingly involved suicide bombings targeting civilians – have undercut the Kremlin's effort to portray the situation in the war-shattered region as stabilizing.

In June, a female suicide attacker detonated a bomb near a bus carrying soldiers and civilians to work at a military airfield near Mozdok, killing at least 16 people.

In May, in Chechnya, a suicide truck-bombing killed 72 people and a woman blew herself up at a religious ceremony, killing at least 18 people.

A double suicide-bombing at a rock concert in Moscow on July 5 killed the female attackers and 15 other people.

In Chechnya on Friday, fighting raged for hours in the town of Argun and 19 Russian servicemen and Chechen police were killed in the region in the past 24 hours, an official in the Moscow-backed administration said.

CASABLANCA, Morocco (May 17, 2003) - Suicide attackers set off explosions at a Jewish community center, a Spanish social club, a hotel and near the Belgian consulate in the heart of Casablanca, killing at least 30 bystanders and about 10 attackers, officials and witnesses said Saturday.

The five nearly simultaneous bombings also wounded at least 100 people, the official Moroccan news agency MAP said Saturday, and threw Morocco's largest city into chaos.

The attacks came just days after U.S. officials warned that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network was planning a worldwide series of terrorist attacks. On Monday, a series of suicide bombings in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, killed 34 people - including eight Americans - at three foreigners' housing compounds.

The FBI knows of no Americans killed in the Morocco attack, bureau spokesman Bill Carter said. At least six Europeans - two Spaniards, two Italians and two French - were killed, according to the chief of medical services at the Averroes Hospital, Said Ouhalia.

Three suspects in Friday's bombings, all Moroccans, were arrested later that night, MAP said. The agency cited Interior Minister Mostapha Sahel as saying 41 people were killed, including about 10 attackers.

Decapitated bodies and smashed cars littered Casablanca's streets. Walls were peeled back and some buildings partially leveled. Alone in the wreckage, a woman howled in anguish. Later, hundreds of curiosity seekers and relatives rushed to the scene seeking information.

The blasts apparently occurred just after 9 p.m., officials said. Joanne Moore, a State Department spokeswoman in Washington, said no American government offices were targeted.

The assailants carried out the carnage with precision, witnesses said. Three of them entered the restaurant in the Casa de Espana social club after slitting the security guard's throat with a large knife, employee Lamia Haffi told Spanish National Radio.

Then two attackers detonated explosives, she said.

``We had just been served paella, and they were calling out the numbers,'' said Mohammed Zerrouki, a medical technician having dinner and playing bingo with his friends. ``Then, `Boom!' a first blast - it was like a thunderclap,''

Social club owner Rafael Bermudez told The Associated Press that one bomber then blew himself up under a tent where clients, including several Spaniards, were seated.

``I heard the bombs and then everything started burning,'' Bermudez told Spanish National Radio. ``Everyone was on the ground and there was blood everywhere. It was horrible.''

The Spanish Embassy in Rabat estimated there were 18-20 dead at the restaurant bombing.

A U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington said late Friday there were no immediate claims of responsibility or any clear indications of who carried out the bombings.

However, al-Qaida involvement was plausible and the group maintains a presence in Morocco, the official said on condition of anonymity.

The attacks bore many al-Qaida hallmarks: multiple, simultaneous strikes; suicide assailants; and lightly defended targets.

``They were terrorists, suicide bombers,'' Interior Minister Mustapha Sahel said. ``These are the well-known signatures of international terrorists.''

The German government on Saturday urged its citizens to watch out for terrorist threats in Morocco after the blasts. A Foreign Ministry travel advisory called for ``heightened vigilance,'' especially around tourist sites and places of worship.

The blasts damaged a Jewish community center and cemetery, the Belgian consulate, the Spanish restaurant and the Hotel Safir. The community center was closed at the time, said Mohammed Aithammou, the owner of a nearby cafe.

Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said the consulate was not a target but rather suffered ``collateral damage.''

Michel said a restaurant across the street from the consulate was the likely intended target. The Positano restaurant is owned by a French Jew of Moroccan origin. Moroccan officials had no immediate comment on the theory.

Owner Jean-Mark Levy said the bomb exploded in the middle of the narrow street and the consulate took most of the impact. There are about 4,000 Jews living in Morocco.

The motive for the bombings was unclear. Morocco has been a staunch U.S. ally, but expressed regret that a peaceful solution to the Iraqi crisis could not be found. Spain supported the U.S.-led war against Iraq but Belgium opposed it.

U.S. counterterrorism officials warned Thursday of a coordinated effort by bin Laden's network to hit targets worldwide. They cited the Saudi bombings as well as threats in Africa and Asia.

U.S. and British authorities warned of threats in East Africa, particularly Kenya, and in southeast Asia, especially Malaysia. American officials also received an unconfirmed report that a possible terrorist attack may occur in the western Saudi city of Jiddah.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Saturday the blasts were not a surprise.

``The terrorists are still there. They are still dangerous,'' he said. ``They want to take Arab Muslim people backward ... but I do not believe that that is where the great majority of Arabs and Muslims want to go.''

In Morocco, municipal elections were delayed in April over concerns of growing Muslim fundamentalism.

Sahel, the Moroccan interior minister, said his country would not be intimidated.

``The Kingdom of Morocco will never surrender to terrorists and will not allow anyone to disturb its security,'' he said.

The Moroccan public turned out in large numbers for protests against the Iraq war, including one in the capital Rabat in March that drew 200,000 people.

King Mohammed VI, who was scheduled to travel to site of the blasts, had expressed concern the war could rouse the country's Islamic fundamentalist movement.

Casablanca, which has 3.5 million people, lies 200 miles southwest of Spain on North Africa's Atlantic coast.

Three Saudis were arrested in Casablanca last year, and sentenced to 10 years in prison by a Moroccan court, for an al-Qaida plot to attack U.S. and British warships in the Straits of Gibraltar.

Al-Qaida has suffered serious blows in recent months, including the capture of alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But senior al-Qaida leaders were believed to be hiding in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, U.S. officials said.

05/17/03 15:31 EDT

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

Three dead as terrorists target Saudi May 13 2003

Three people were reported dead and 60 injured as attackers shot their way into compounds housing westerners in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

Car bombs were set off as four huge explosions came hours before the US Secretary of State was due to visit the capital.

American officials said they suspected al-Qaida was behind the bombings.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said three people were confirmed dead, but gave no details.

The US Ambassador to Saudi, Robert Jordan, said there were unconfirmed reports of "a couple of American deaths". He said 40 US citizens were among the injured.

City officials said at least 50 wounded were taken to the National Guard Hospital, and other hospitals reported at least 10 injured.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell was expected to arrive in Riyadh at 11.30am as scheduled.

Powell, who has already visited Israel, the West Bank, Egypt and Jordan on a Mideast tour, was to meet Saudi leaders to seek help in tackling the militant groups and in promoting Palestinian reform.

No one claimed responsibility for the attacks, but an intelligence official in Washington said information over the past two weeks had indicated that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida was planning a strike in Saudi Arabia.

Saudi officials also have said al-Qaida was planning attacks in the oil-rich kingdom, which is bin Laden's birthplace and home to Islam's holiest sites. It was home to 15 of the 19 September 11, 2001, hijackers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Secretary of state condemns ``cowardly individuals'' who carried out bombings in Saudi Arabia

BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer Monday, May 12, 2003

(05-12) 23:47 PDT AMMAN, Jordan (AP) --

Secretary of State Colin Powell condemned on Tuesday the "cowardly individuals" who carried out bombings in Saudi Arabia and said "they had the earmarks of al-Quaida."

Powell said he would continue with his plan to go Riyadh for talks with Saudi officials on U.S. peace efforts in the Middle East.

He said the attacks "once again remind us that terrorism is a global phenomenon," but declared that "the United States will not be deterred" in trying to root out the al-Quaida network.

"I believe al-Quaida has been weakened, but it has not been destroyed," Powell said at a news conference after authorizing $700 million in additional U.S. aid to Jordan.

Hours before Powell's visit to Saudi Arabia, attackers shot their way into three gated compounds housing Westerners in the capital and set off car bombs. At least three people were killed and about 60 injured, officials said.

The string of attacks occurred in quick succession Monday night, capped by a fourth explosion early Tuesday outside the headquarters of a joint U.S.-Saudi owned company in Riyadh.

If al-Quaida was responsible for the bombings, Powell said "it illustrates it can still strike" and means "we have to redouble our efforts to go after terrorists" by tracing the network's finances and strengthening U.S. defenses against terror.

"All it says to me is the war continues," Powell said of the Bush administration's anti-terror campaign. "We have made some progress, but it is not over."

He said al-Quaida "has been weakened, but not completely destroyed" and "it can still strike."

Jordanian Foreign Minister Marwan Muasher also condemned the attacks in Saudi Arabia and expressed his government's sympathies for the victims. "This will only strengthen our resolve to find a solution to all the problems of the region," he said.

Powell, however, said he did not consider the bombings to be related to the Arab-Israeli dispute and that the United States will not be deterred in pursuing peace.

He said the administration had been concerned about the situation in the Persian Gulf region for some time.

An agreement Powell signed with Minister of Planning Bassem Awadallah sets the ground for transfer of $700 million in additional assistance to cash-strapped Jordan this year to offset Jordan's losses from the war in Iraq.

Jordan's trade with Iraq amounted to $700 million last year, making Baghdad the largest importer of Jordanian goods. Jordan also depended on Iraq for all its average need of 90,000 barrels of oil per day, receiving half of it at preferential prices and the other half as a gift of the deposed Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein.

After meeting with Powell, King Abdullah II endorsed the road map for peace between Israelis and Palestinians being touted by the United States and other countries , especially its provision for "an independent Palestinian state on Palestinian lands" by 2005.

A Royal Palace statement said he and Powell discussed during a two-hour meeting how to resuscitate Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking and what to do about the reconstruction of Iraq after the U.S.-led war. Abdullah pressed for swift formation of "a national government in Iraq which could take the lead in that country," the statement said.

After their meeting, Powell took the wheel of King Abdullah's 1959 Mercedes-Benz SL300 sports car and, with the king in the passenger seat, drove away to Powell's hotel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

By Neil MacFarquhar with Douglas Jehl

The New York Times

Monday 12 May 2003

KUWAIT — Four separate overnight attacks involving explosions and small-arms fire struck Western targets including residential compounds in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, causing an undetermined number of casualties, Saudi officials and diplomats said today.

Initial news reports put the number of injured from the explosions, believed to have been caused by car bombs, as high as 50, but embassy officials were unable to confirm that number.

"We can confirm that there are casualties, but we can't confirm the numbers or the extent," said John Burgess, the counselor for public affairs at the American Embassy in Riyadh.

Three blasts came almost simultaneously just before midnight local time, and a fourth followed shortly afterward, Saudi officials said.

There were no official reports of deaths from the attacks. But news reports from Saudi Arabia, citing hospital officials and residents of the compounds, said dozens of people had been wounded and some appeared to have been killed. The residents include American, British, Italian and other Western citizens, as well as Saudis and citizens of other Middle Eastern countries.

The attacks were carried out just hours before Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was due to arrive in the Saudi capital as part of a diplomatic swing through the Middle East. American officials said tonight that they expected Mr. Powell to travel to the kingdom as planned.

The Saudi ruling family has warned repeatedly that the failure to promote peace in the region would inflame extremist sentiment and that the occupation of Iraq would only serve to fuel such attacks.

The attackers struck just days after the State Department issued an extraordinarily specific warning on May 1 that terrorists "may be in the final phases of planning attacks" on American targets in Saudi Arabia.

"We didn't have anything particular in mind, except there were clearly plans for something to happen or that someone was planning to do something," said Mr. Burgess. "There was no specificity in the warnings that the U.S. got about attacks in Saudi Arabia."

The attacks on Monday followed a botched attempt by the Saudi security services to seize a cell the Interior Ministry accused of being linked to the Al Qaeda network. A senior Saudi official said that 19 suspected militant, 17 of them Saudis, sought in the raid had escaped. The suspects, the official said, had served in Afghanistan or Chechnya and had links to radical clerics.

A huge arms cache including 800 pounds of advanced explosives along with hand grenades, assault rifles, ammunition, disguises and tens of thousands of dollars in cash were seized in the raid, a Saudi official said.

Some diplomats said it was too early to draw any link between the attacks on Monday and Al Qaeda. Other United States officials said Monday night that initial suspicions were that Al Qaeda was behind the attack. They said the nearly simultaneous explosions were reminiscent of the attacks by Al Qaeda on United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.

A senior government official who spoke on condition that neither his identity nor his nationality be disclosed said Monday night, "There's been a lot of chatter in the last six weeks involving possible attacks by Al Qaeda, and it looks like this time they succeeded."

A Saudi newspaper editor, quoting witnesses in Riyadh, said that at least one of the explosions, at the Hamra compound in northeast Riyadh, could be seen from several miles away. The explosion was "huge," said the editor, Jamal Khashoggi of Al Watan.

News agency reports from Riyadh quoted witnesses as saying the explosions caused extensive property damage, leveling entire houses. The witnesses said the force of the blast shook buildings and rattled windows.

Diplomats said the wounded foreigners were reportedly from the Hamra compound. The Saudi-owned Al Arabiya satellite news channel reported that a number of charred bodies were transferred to an area hospital.

Smoke lingered over the Hamra compound as police cars and ambulances rushed in. Hundreds of anti-riot policemen and members of the National Guard converged on the scene, evacuating compound residents and sealing off the area. Saudi security forces surrounded the three compounds, according to wire service reports from Saudi Arabia.

Officials with access to early reports suggested an element of precision in the attacks. In each case, they said, the attackers appeared to have shot their way into and out of the compound, and possibly used car bombs to set off large explosions.

The official Saudi Press Agency reported three explosions, but gave no other details.

According to Saudi officials, the main attack was at the Hamra compound, whose residents are divided roughly equally between Westerners and Arabs. Another attack was at a compound known as Granada, whose residents included employees of a British aerospace company and, possibly, a British school, the Saudi official said.

The third attack, the Saudi official said, was at the premises of the Vinnell Corporation, an American consultancy for the Saudi National Guard, which is headed by Crown Prince Abdullah, the kingdom's day-to-day ruler.

A senior Saudi official said of the Hamra attack: "It appears that the explosives were in a car. Many homes were affected, and it appears that the number of injured is high."

According to The Associated Press, the fourth blast went off early this morning at the headquarters of the Saudi Maintenance Company, also known as Siyanco. The company is a joint-owned venture between Frank E. Basil Inc. of Washington, and local Saudi partners, The A.P. said.

A State Department spokeswoman, Nancy Beck, said Monday: "We are deeply concerned about the reports of explosions in Riyadh. At this time we are working closely with the Saudi authorities to determine the facts."

Ms. Beck said the State Department was advising Americans in Riyadh "to remain at home until we can ascertain the facts and the nature of any ongoing threat."

The attack against American targets in Saudi Arabia appears to have been the third major strike by suspected militant Islamists since the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

In November 1995, five Americans and two Indians were killed and 60 people were wounded in an explosion in a parking area near a military training center in Riyadh run by the United States.

In June 1996, a bomb in a fuel truck killed 19 American soldiers and wounded nearly 400 people at an American military housing complex in the eastern city of Khobar.

Saudi Arabia is home to Islam's two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina. The withdrawal of American troops from Saudi Arabia has been one of the main demands of Osama bin Laden, the Qaeda leader and Saudi-born militant accused of plotting the attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

American and Saudi officials announced last month that all but a small handful of the United States troops would be withdrawn from the kingdom by this summer. The troops were primarily Air Force personnel who had been involved in patrolling the skies over Iraq. Officials from both countries said the fall of Saddam Hussein's government meant that they were no longer needed.

Officials at the Vinnell Corporation, which is based in Fairfax, Va., did not respond to a request for comment late Monday. Frank Moore, a spokesman for the corporation's parent company, Northrup Grumman, declined to comment.

According to its Web site, Vinnell has provided military training under contract to the Saudi Arabian National Guard since 1975. In 1995, Vinnell entered into a joint venture with the Saudi government to provide supplies training and logistics support.

The Saudi-based operation has focused on recruiting former American service personnel. The company Web site tells prospective job applicants that one of the positive aspects of working for Vinnell Saudi Arabia is that applicants may "continue to do what you did in the military."

The recruitment page also emphasizes the benefits of a "tax free income" and minimum in-country expenses. Yet it acknowledges negative aspects, or "cons," including tours away from home, no alcohol and "few Western cultural amenities," as well as a "harsh physical and cultural environment."

Philippines Bomb Blast Kills at Least 13

Sat May 10, 9:36 AM ET

KORONADAL, Philippines - A bomb exploded Saturday at a crowded market in a southern Philippine city, killing at least 13 people, officials said.

About two dozen others were injured seriously and brought to a hospital in Koronadal city, police Superintendent Danilo Posadas said.

Two hours later, another bomb was found near the market but taken away by a police bomb squad to be defused.

Mayor Fernando Miguel said the Muslim extremist group Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility in a telephone call. The group is on the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

Miguel said in a radio interview that a man identifying himself as Abu Solaiman of the Abu Sayyaf called him shortly after the 3:30 p.m. blast and warned of "more bombings in the days to come."

The man has been calling since last year demanding $75,000 a month to spare Koronadal from bombings, the mayor said, adding that he refused.

There was no independent confirmation that the call came from Solaiman,

Posadas said an initial investigation indicated the bomb that exploded around 3:30 p.m. was fashioned from an 81 mm mortar shell. Police suspect the person who planted the bomb died at the scene.

"Terrorists did it," Posadas said, without elaborating.

Dema-ala said one of the people killed at the market was believed to have carried the bomb. He said a witness saw a man placing a bag on the sidewalk in front of a glass supply store at the market.

"It went off as he turned his back on it," Dema-ala said, quoting the witness.

He said a National Bureau of Investigation office is located in the market building, above where the blast occurred.

The area was crowded because it was market day for traders in Koronadal, capital of South Cotabato province, about 600 miles southeast of Manila.

About two hours after the bombing, residents reported to police a cylinder containing cooking gas abandoned in front of a fire station near the market. It was the second bomb and a police bomb squad found a timer attached to the cylinder and took it away to defuse it.

19 killed in Philippines airport blast

3-3-03

One American reported among dead; dozens wounded

A young victim of a bomb attack at the Davao airport on the island of Mindanao, the southern Philippines, is rushed to medical treatment on Tuesday.

MANILA, Philippines, March 4 — A powerful explosion ripped through the waiting area of an airport in the southern Philippines, killing at least 19 people, including an American, and injuring scores of others, authorities said Tuesday. With many of the injured in serious condition, officials feared the death toll could rise.

THE BLAST ROCKED the Davao airport on the island of Mindanao at 5:20 p.m. local time, said local civil defense chief Susan Madrid.

Two other explosions were reported in the area on Tuesday. Local officials told NBC that one person was killed and at least two wounded in Tagum city, which is northwest of Davao city.

No one claimed responsibility for the blasts but the military has blamed Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels for a string of attacks, including a car-bombing at nearby Cotabato airport last month that killed one woman.

Madrid said the explosion occurred as scores of people waited for a plane to arrive.

U.S. Philippines operation in limbo

“It was a very, very loud explosion,” Terry Labado, an airport official said. “I saw bodies flying.”

“We rushed out of the building to see where the explosion happened,” she said. “We saw many dead.”

DETAILS ON WOUNDED

An airport security official, who did not want to be identified, said the bomb rocked the front of the terminal building, smashing windows and causing considerable damage.

“It happened ... a few minutes after a Cebu Pacific flight arrived and people packed the waiting area. There were many people killed. I saw six persons killed on the spot,” the official said.

Madrid said 18 people were killed and more than 100 were injured. One hospital alone reported 91 casualties.

The dead included a boy, a girl, nine men and seven women, officials said.

There were conflicting reports on American casualties. A U.S. Embassy official told Reuters that four Americans were among those wounded while the Associated Press gave details on three Americans hurt in Davao.

Later, the embassy told Reuters that one American man had died from wounds, raising the overall death toll to 19.

According to the Associated Press, the injured Americans were Barbara Stevens, 33, and her 9-month-old son Nathan. They were brought to Davao Doctors Hospital, hospital staff said.

Another American, identified as William Hyde, was treated for multiple injuries at Davao Medical Center, Dr. Manuel Tan told the AP. It was not immediately clear what they were doing in Davao.

BACKPACK BOMB

TV footage showed the waiting stand in front of the terminal building wrecked by the blast, metal pieces strewn on the road. The injured included young children.

Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte ordered all pharmacies and drug stores to remain open to supply medicine to the victims.

National Police Deputy Chief Edgar Aglipay told a Manila radio station that the explosion was caused by a bomb hidden inside a backpack.

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo “strongly condemns the Davao bombing as a brazen act of terrorism which shall not go unpunished,” her spokesman Ignacio Bunye said.

Arroyo called an emergency meeting of the Cabinet oversight committee on internal security later Tuesday.

Flights to and from Davao were suspended.

The Moro rebels have been fighting for a separate Muslim homeland in the impoverished southern Philippines for three decades. Despite a 1997 shaky cease-fire, fighting has occasionally flared up.

xxx

Philippine terrorists claim link to Iraq

By Marc Lerner

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Hamsiraji Sali, a local commander of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf on the remote southern island of Basilan, says he is getting nearly $20,000 a year from supporters in Iraq. "It's so we would have something to spend on chemicals for bomb-making and for the movement of our people," Sali told a reporter this week, renewing earlier claims of support from Iraq.   The payments, while small, provide additional evidence of a link between Iraq and the Abu Sayyaf — a group with long-standing ties to al Qaeda and its global terror network.

The boast of an Iraqi connection was taken seriously after the expulsion  of an Iraqi diplomat from Manila last week amid charges he had been in contact with the Abu Sayyaf by telephone.

"Things like this are very difficult to pin down," said a Manila-based Western diplomat who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "But it certainly wouldn't surprise me." Iraqi diplomat Husham Hussein was expelled after Philippine officials discovered that he had received a telephone call from an Abu Sayyaf member linked to the Oct. 2 bombing in the southern port city of Zamboanga that killed one American serviceman and badly wounded another. The soldiers were part of a joint training exercise intended to bolster the Philippine military's ability to hunt down the terrorists.   A new contingent of 1,700 U.S. troops began arriving in the southern Philippines last month, with plans to put them into combat alongside their Philippine counterparts in the fight against the Abu Sayyaf. That operation is on hold as questions have arisen about whether U.S. participation in combat would violate provisions of the Philippine Constitution.

The Abu Sayyaf was founded more than a decade ago with help from Jamal  Mohammad Khalifa, a brother-in-law of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Several of its members have received explosives training from Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center in New York who is now in prison. Sali, who participated in the 2001 hostage seizure from a dive resort that led to the deaths of two Americans, had claimed support from the Middle East.

Reports of links between Middle Eastern terrorists and the Abu Sayyaf,  which means "bearer of the sword" in Arabic, have been rife since the group's founding in the late 1980s by Abdurajak Janjalani, born to a Muslim father and Christian mother on Basilan. Janjalani, who was killed in a firefight five years ago, studied in  Libya and Saudi Arabia and later fought in Afghanistan alongside men who today form the core of bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Joel Guillo, a hospital worker held hostage for six months by the Abu Sayyaf, said he witnessed the visits by Arab terrorists to the camps. Sali, the Abu Sayyaf commander, said several of those visitors were Iraqis. Mr. Guillo was held along with Guillermo Sobero, an American tourist, and Gracia and Martin Burnham, American missionaries who were taken from a dive resort May 27, 2001. Mr. Sobero was beheaded the following month, and Mr. Burnham was killed last year by his captors during a military rescue operation that freed his wife.

Sali told a reporter for the Philippine Daily Inquirer that weapons for the Abu Sayyaf were being provided by unnamed contacts in the Middle East. The weapons, he said, were transshipped through Cambodia and Vietnam, then to Malaysia and on to the southern Philippines. That the Abu Sayyaf needed outside aid baffled some observers who pointed out that the terrorists received a windfall after their April 23, 2000, kidnapping of 21 persons — eight Europeans, two South Africans, nine Malaysians and two Filipinos — from a resort in neighboring Malaysia. Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has long meddled in Philippine affairs, gave the Abu Sayyaf $20 million in ransom money — called "development aid" — to release the hostages. Much of the money reportedly was siphoned off by middlemen who helped negotiate the hostage release. The remainder was squandered by the Abu Sayyaf on speedboats and arms, leaving ragtag units like Sali's destitute. While estimates of the number of full-time committed Abu Sayyaf guerrillas vary, the Philippine military puts their strength at about 200, down from more than 1,000 at the height of their kidnapping sprees. Many of those fighters have retreated from Basilan to Jolo, an island farther south where U.S. troops were to go into combat.

3/3/2003

Car bomb explodes in Venezuela

10:28:48 AM

Caracas, March 3 - A car bomb exploded just blocks away from a chevron office in northwestern Maracaibo oil field Sunday, police and firefighter officials said.

Nine people inside the house where the explosion occurred -- including a local strike leader -- escaped unharmed, but the bomb caused severe damage to nearby buildings, authorities said late Sunday.

The car was parked outside the home of Antonio Melian, who participated in the crippling oil workers' strike designed to oust President Hugo Chavez, and who the police said had been "a very controversial figure" in the area.

The explosion came five days after twin attacks against the Colombian and Spanish embassies on February 25 which injured four.

President Hugo Chavez in his 'Alo Presidente' radio program blamed would-be "coup" leaders for the attacks, and said Venezuela was conscious it has a battle against "terrorism" on its hands.

An opposition lawmaker warned that the car bomb could be an indication that Venezuela's conflict was being "Colombia-ized."

Wreckage from the car was flung some 150 meters out, hitting neighboring houses, local media reported.

Feb 22, 2003 4:02 PM EST

Gunmen Kill Nine in Pakistan Mosque

By AFZAL NADEEM

Associated Press Writer

KARACHI, Pakistan (AP) -- Attackers stormed into a Shiite mosque in southern Pakistan and sprayed worshippers with automatic weapons fire Saturday, killing at least nine people - one a seven-year-old boy - and wounding nine others, police and hospital officials said.

The gunmen jumped off motorcycles and rushed into the Imam Bargha Mehdi mosque shortly after the call to evening prayers in this southern port city and fired upon worshippers, witnesses said.

"The call for prayer had just begun and four people on two motorcycles rode up to the gate and opened fire," said worshipper Mohammed Ali.

The motive for the killings was not immediately clear, but Pakistan has been wracked by religious violence in recent years, mostly by Sunni Muslim extremist groups targeting minority Shiites. Places of worship are often targeted.

The attackers had been waiting at a nearby tea shop and quickly fled the scene after the firing spree, witnesses said. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

"The government will leave no stone unturned to arrest these killers," said regional Home Department minister Syed Sardar Ahmed. He said the government will increase security at mosques in the city.

Karachi, a sprawling industrial city, has also been the site of a series of violent attacks against Westerners and minority Christians in recent months.

A June 14 suicide bombing outside the U.S. Consulate in Karachi killed 12 Pakistanis and injured 50 others, while a May 8 suicide bombing outside the Sheraton Hotel in Karachi killed 11 French engineers and three other people, including the bomber.

While the sectarian Sunni-Shiite violence is centuries old, the attacks on foreigners have caused concern in Washington, which counts Pakistan as a crucial ally in the war on terror.

Most of the deaths in the religious violence have been blamed on a Sunni Muslim extremist group, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), which is outlawed by the government. A breakaway faction of the SSP, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, also is blamed for attacks on Shiite Muslims and several of its members have been arrested.

The rivalry between Sunnis and Shiites dates back to a 7th-century split over who should be the heir to Islam's prophet Mohammed.

In Pakistan, small but violent groups of extremist Sunni Muslims revile Shiites as non-Muslims. Most of Pakistan's 140 million people are Sunni Muslims who have no quarrel with their Shiite brethren.

The shooting came about two weeks before the start of the Islamic month of Muharram, which Shiites observe as a month of mourning.

"This is a conspiracy to create a sectarian problem in the coming holy month," said Hasan Zafar Naqvi, a top Shiite community leader in Karachi. "The government should be ashamed for not protecting the mosque. We demand an immediate arrest of the killers and adequate security for all mosques."

At least eight bodies were brought to nearby Jinnah Hospital, where the boy died of his wounds, Dr. Kalim Ahmed told The Associated Press. Nine other people were wounded, two of them seriously.

Police said about 25 people were believed to be inside the mosque at the time of the shooting.

Some described a narrow escape.

"Two injured people fell on me, and because I was covered by them, I was safe," said Anwar Hussein, who said he had run to the scene from a nearby hotel after hearing gunfire.

Hundreds of relatives and friends of the victims gathered outside the hospital, many crying and beating their chests in anguish. Men who had carried some of the victims wore clothes covered in blood.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf banned five extremist groups in January 2002 in an effort to purge the country of extremist elements, but religious violence has continued.

On Jan. 31 gunmen attacked a Sunni mosque in eastern Pakistan, killing a Muslim prayer leader and another man in what police said was a dispute over the mosque's ownership.

The same day, in the central city of Faisalabad, two Sunni worshippers were injured in a shooting on a mosque.

On June 17, 2002, unidentified gunmen opened fire on minority Shiite Muslims outside a mosque in the central city of Multan, killing three worshippers, including two brothers.

And on Feb. 26, 2002, attackers opened fire at a Shiite mosque in Rawalpindi, adjacent to the capital, killing 11 people.

US troops to join in attacks vs Abu Sayyaf: report

Feb. 21, 2003

Agence France-Presse

WASHINGTON - About 1,750 US troops will join the Philippine armed forces in an offensive against the Abu Sayyaf rebel group in the southern Philippines, the French news agency reported.

"These operations will be led by the Armed Force of the Philippines with assistance by US forces," an American official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

US forces last year helped train and advise Filipino military units in an operation against Abu Sayyaf on the southern island of Basilan.

But the official said this time US forces -- which include elite special forces and marines -- would participate in combat.

"This is different. This is an actual combined operation, and it is US forces accompanying and actively participating in Philippines-led offensive operations," the official said.

Some 750 US troops on the ground and another 1,000 marines aboard amphibious assault ships will take part in the operations, to be conducted primarly in the Sulu archipelago, whose main island is Jolo, the official said.

About 350 US special forces troops will be on the Sulu archipelage with Filipino forces and another 400 US troops will provide support from Zamboanga City, the official said.

The marines, operating from the helicopter carrier USS Essex and another amphibious assault ship, are to be a quick reaction force and provide aviation, logistics, medical support and command and control for the US forces, the official said.

"Initial forces could begin to move within days," he said. "Those would be assessment teams, who would go in to begin planning for some of these operations."

Philippines bomb hits airport

20feb03

AT least two people were killed and an airport terminal was damaged on the southern Philippines island of Mindanao today in two bombings blamed on Muslim separatist rebels, military officials said.

A van rigged with explosives exploded outside the Cotabato airport in the early afternoon, killing at least one person and injuring six others, Colonel Tifonio Salazar said at the scene.

Military sources in Manila said the dead man was a Filipino soldier, but Salazar insisted that all the known casualties were civilian.

The blast shattered windows and glass facades at the terminal and on nearby buildings.

It also ignited a massive fire that gutted the row of establishments. Two other parked vehicles were also destroyed.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Manquiquis said in Manila "one of the possibilities that we would consider is that it could be the MILF."

The military mounted an offensive against the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) around the central Mindanao town of Pikit last week, leaving nearly 200 people dead, most of them MILF rebels.

The airport terminal was empty of passengers at the time. The provincial airport, situated on the Cotabato outskirts beside the headquarters of the Philippine Army's 6th Infantry Division, services one daily flight by national flag carrier Philippine Airlines.

It was not known if flight operations would be affected.

Earlier Thursday, a suspected MILF guerrilla was killed and 10 civilians injured when a bomb was set off at a market in Kabacan town, 60 kilometres east of Cotabato.

The suspected bomber, Imaran Makalogi, 17, was killed after he appeared to detonate the explosive prematurely in Kabacan, military spokesman Major Julieto Ando told reporters.

One person injured when bomb explodes outside Swedish court

Thu Jan 30, 2003 12:21 PM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - One person was slightly injured after a bomb exploded outside a courthouse in northern Sweden Thursday.

Police arrested a 22-year-old man suspected of planting and detonating the bomb.

The bomb exploded at the entrance of the district court in Umeaa, 645 kilometers (400 miles) north of the capital, Stockholm, injuring a man who was about to enter the building.

The injured man, who wasn't identified, was going to court to face charges of threatening to kill another person when the bomb went off, rescue service spokesman Claes Cahier told The Associated Press.

He said the bomb was put inside a snowdrift outside the building's entrance was likely triggered by remote control.

The 22-year-old man, a local resident, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and devastation endangering the public, police spokesman Ebbe Nyberg told the AP. His identity was not released.

Police evacuated the building and the courthouse was closed for the rest of the day.

"The bomb was not very powerful, but enough so to hurt a person," Cahier said.

Hans Jansson, the principal of a school 100 meters (yards) from the courthouse said the explosion was "very strong" and felt "like a small earthquake."

Fifteen Killed in Afghan Bus Bombing

Fri Jan 31, 2003  2:58 PM ET

By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) — Police blamed Taliban and al-Qaida fugitives for a bus bombing that killed at least 15 people near this southern Afghan city on Friday.

The blast on the Rambasi Bridge, six miles south of Kandahar, appeared to have been caused by a land mine placed overnight, said deputy police chief Ustad Nazir Jan.

Jan said he believed Afghan soldiers may have been the intended target; the army has a post a half-mile away. Soldiers from the unit are loyal to Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Sherzai and routinely patrol the area, he said.

The bombing underscores the security threats that have plagued the region since the United States and its allies ousted the Taliban. The U.S. military uses the airport as a base. Previously, the city was a spiritual hub for the radical Islamic regime.

The explosion destroyed the bridge and left the bus a mangled hulk. The bus driver, one of two survivors, said 15 people were killed. Police said as many as 18 died and blamed Taliban fugitives and their allies in Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al-Qaida terrorist network.

"One hundred percent we are sure it was Taliban and al-Qaida," Jan told The Associated Press. "We will get the proof."

Jan said the explosion may also have involved guerrillas loyal to rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, believed by Afghan and U.S. authorities to be allied with Taliban and al-Qaida remnants.

The bombing fits with a general pattern of recent attacks in Afghanistan — surprise military assaults, scattered rocket barrages and occasional bombings by individuals or small groups whose loyalties and lines of command are uncertain.

While the size of the threat is unclear, Western and Afghan intelligence officials point to new attempts at recruitment and organization by rebel groups that could harden resistance to efforts by the United States and the government of President Hamid Karzai to pacify Kandahar.

"When the explosion occurred, I heard cries. Then I lost consciousness," said the driver, Ahmad Zia, 26. "When I woke up, I saw myself on the hospital bed."

A 12-year-old boy, Naimatullah, also survived and his injuries were not life-threatening. The boy's father and uncle died.

Several Afghan soldiers were killed in a similar explosion about two months ago in Kandahar. A bomb went off as their jeep crossed a busy road.

On Sept. 5, 2002, an assassination attempt was made on Karzai in Kandahar. The authorities also blamed Taliban and al-Qaida. The would-be assassin was killed by U.S. special forces guarding the president. Two bystanders also were killed.

Police defuse bomb at Istanbul McDonald's restaurant

Sat Feb 1, 2003  8:32 AM ET

ISTANBUL, Turkey - Police found a time bomb at a McDonald's restaurant in Istanbul on Saturday, but defused it before it exploded.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the bomb. But radical leftist, Kurdish and Islamic groups are active here and have carried out bombings in the past.

Police said the explosive was found at a two-story McDonald's in the suburban Merter district, but refused to elaborate.

The Anatolia news agency reported that an employee found the bomb inside a cardboard box left under a table. The employee had been taking the box outside to throw it away, but noticed cables and a timing device inside.

Bombs have exploded previously in McDonald's restaurants in Istanbul, including a September 2001 attack, which injured one person in the leg.

Bomb Explodes in Parking Lot in Pakistan

Mon Feb 3, 2003  12:30 PM ET

By AFZAL NADEEM, Associated Press Writer

KARACHI, Pakistan - A bomb packed into a motorcycle ripped through a parking lot Monday outside Pakistan's state oil company in the southern city of Karachi, killing one man, shattering windows, cracking marble walls and gutting nearby vehicles.

A 22-year-old parking attendant was killed instantly in the explosion, and seven other people were injured. There was no claim of responsibility for the blast, but police were examining security camera tape showing a young man riding the suspect motorcycle into the lot and then walking away moments before the blast.

The explosion — which could be heard for miles — reawakened security concerns in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, where a pair of blasts last year outside the U.S. Consulate and the Sheraton Hotel killed 26 people, including 11 French engineers.

It was not clear whether the oil company was the target of Monday's blast. It was also near the home of Farooq Awan, head of anti-terrorism police in Karachi. Awan was not injured, and his house was not seriously damaged.

Police chief Syed Kamal Shah said the bomb might have been aimed at anti-terrorism officials.

"Maybe it is a message to us from the terrorists," Shah said. "Surely, it is an act of terrorism."

Deputy police chief Gul Hameed Samoo identified the dead man as Karim Dad, who had apparently been sitting on the motorcycle when the explosives went off. He said two motorcycles destroyed in the blast bore fake engine numbers, pointing to terrorists who tamper with engine and vehicle registration numbers used in bombing attacks to avoid being traced.

Another police official, Qamar Zaman, said surveillance cameras recorded footage of a man wearing blue jeans and a purple shirt riding up on a motorcycle and parking it. A minute later, the explosion occurred, Zaman said.

Another attendant identified the man on film as having visited the parking lot on several previous occasions.

The blast smashed windows in the Pakistan State Oil company building and cracked glossy marble tiles along the exterior wall. Employees were evacuated briefly before being allowed to return. Road blocks were set up around the scene by security forces.

"I was blown away. I landed on a footpath. There was smoke all around. I lost consciousness," said Afzal Sharif, a cleaner in a shopping center across the road from the building. He was hospitalized with head injuries caused by flying glass shards.

In a previous attack in Karachi in May, a suicide car bomber detonated explosives outside the Sheraton Hotel, killing 11 French engineers, himself and two Pakistani passers-by. The engineers had been helping Pakistan's navy build a submarine.

Then in June, a car bomb detonated outside the U.S. Consulate, killing 12 Pakistanis and injuring 50 others. Suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested in connection with both bombings.

Police have launched a crackdown on Islamic militant groups in the city, arresting dozens of people and uncovering several other plots, including one to kill U.S. Consulate officials.

Police have also arrested several al-Qaida suspects in the city, including Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged planner of the Sept. 11 attacks who was apprehended in September 2002.

Pakistani Police Detain 18 in Bomb Blast

Tue Feb 4, 2003  3:22 PM ET

By AFZAL NADEEM, Associated Press Writer

KARACHI, Pakistan - Pakistani police have detained 18 men in a search for clues into a deadly bombing in the southern city of Karachi, officials said Tuesday.

It was not immediately clear if any of the detained had links to Monday's blast, traced to a bomb stuffed into a motorcycle left in the parking lot of the Pakistan State Oil company building. The blast killed a 22-year-old parking attendant and wounded seven other people.

Police are looking for a young man filmed by security cameras parking the suspect motorcycle and then walking away minutes before the blast.

No one has claimed responsibility, although suspicion has fallen on Islamic militants who have targeted Westerners and Pakistanis since Islamabad became a key ally of the United States in its war on terror after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

"So far we have detained 18 men to trace a young person we believe detonated the bomb," Karachi's deputy police chief, Fiaz Leghari, told The Associated Press.

The home of the head of Karachi's anti-terrorism police, Farooq Awan, is located near the blast site. Awan has overseen the arrests of several suspected terrorists in Karachi over recent months and Leghari said the explosion might have been "a message for him from the attacker."

"We are still trying to learn the motive of the attacker," he said.

In a previous attack in Karachi in May, a suicide car bomber detonated explosives outside the Sheraton Hotel, killing 11 French engineers, two Pakistani passers-by and the attacker. The engineers had been helping Pakistan's navy build a submarine. Then in June, a car bomb detonated outside the U.S. Consulate killed 12 Pakistanis and injured 50 others.

Suspected Islamic extremists have been arrested in connection with both bombings.

Bomb explodes outside restaurant in northern Swedish ski resort

Wed Feb 5, 2003  7:44 AM ET

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - An explosive device detonated outside a restaurant in a popular ski resort in northern Sweden Wednesday, causing some damage but no injuries, a police spokesman said.

The Thaison restaurant is located on a square in the central part of Aare, 560 kilometers (348 miles) north of the capital, Stockholm.

"All we can say is that an explosive device detonated at the Aare Square around six in the morning," police spokesman Mats Nilsson told The Associated Press.

He said the restaurant had received some threats, but didn't say what the nature of those were or if the explosion was related.

The square was sealed off as forensic experts searched the area for clues.

Police: Bombs Caused Blast in Nigeria

Thu Feb 6, 2003  4:36 AM ET

By DULUE MBACHU, Associated Press Writer

LAGOS, Nigeria - Bombs caused the weekend blast that killed at least 44 people and flattened buildings in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos, police said Wednesday.

Police bomb experts said they drew the conclusion after finding fragments of bombs and live explosives at the site of the blast, which hit a crowded residential and business district Sunday.

"It was a series of explosions which brought down these buildings," said Henry Iduode of the bomb squad.

The blast leveled two buildings that housed a bank and apartments.

Lagos state Gov. Bola Tinubu had originally ruled out terrorism and said the blast appeared accidental. After hearing investigators' conclusions Wednesday, he said the cause was unclear.

"Whether it was deliberate or there is an underground market of explosives, these are questions for the police to answer," he said. "Is it a crime, a robbery, or politically motivated?"

Iduode said he believed the explosives were not manufactured in Nigeria but didn't elaborate.

Authorities have looked at a range of motives in the disaster, including whether the explosion was part of a plot to rob the bank. Police arrested a number of young men for stealing bank deposits scattered by the blast.

Rescue workers have given up on finding survivors. Bodies still were being pulled out Wednesday as cranes and bulldozers lifted huge concrete slabs that had slammed on victims.

The death toll on Monday hit 44, but it was impossible to obtain a precise figure Wednesday with the latest discoveries of dead.

Authorities have evacuated six buildings housing hundreds of people near the charred ruins to evaluate them for structural damage. Some of the severely damaged structures already have been marked for demolition.

The blast occurred on Lagos Island, a crowded high-rise district of banks and other businesses packed side-by-side with poor, densely populated residential blocks. The island is one of two that, with the mainland, form this city of 12 million people.

Almost exactly a year before, on Jan. 27, 2002, a series of explosions at an army munitions depot in Lagos killed more than 1,000 people.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, with 120 million residents.

Man claiming to have bomb seizes hostages at Istanbul airport

Fri Feb 7, 2003  2:58 PM ET

ANKARA, Turkey - A man claiming to have a bomb took at least two flight attendants hostage Friday after his domestic flight landed at Istanbul airport, private NTV television reported.

The man took the hostages after the passengers left the aircraft, NTV said.

The aircraft had taken off from Ankara.

The hijacker reportedly demanded to be flown to Moscow, NTV said.

CNN-Turk television said all flights to and from Istanbul had been canceled.

sf-lm

Rebels Blamed for Bogata Bombing, 32 Dead

Sat Feb 8, 2003  7:51 PM ET

By SUSANNAH A. NESMITH, Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia's government blamed leftist rebels Saturday for a car bomb that ripped through an exclusive social club, killing 32 people — including six children — and injuring 162 in the worst terrorist attack in Bogota in more than a decade.

The bomb, which gutted the 11-story club Friday evening, was planted on the third floor inside a parking garage and was packed with 330 pounds of explosives, officials said.

The attack was a shock to capital residents accustomed to a war, now in its fourth decade, fought mostly in the countryside. Vice President Francisco Santos said he "had no doubt" the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, was responsible.

He blamed the rebel organization for adopting the tactics of the drug lords who plague the country as well.

"Before, what the narcoterrorists used, now (the rebels) use without any concerns of conscience," Santos said.

Not since drug lord Pablo Escobar unleashed a bloody campaign to avoid extradition to the United States had Bogota seen an attack of Friday's magnitude. With Escobar's death in 1993 and the subsequent breakup of Colombia's large drug cartels, the rebels inherited control of the country's cocaine trade.

The FARC recently vowed to take its drug-financed war against the state to the cities and to attack the country's elite — people like the businessmen and politicians who frequent El Nogal.

The rebel group did not claim responsibility for the attack. Local media outlets, however, speculated that a message posted on a Web site used frequently by the rebels contained a veiled warning.

The message, signed by an unknown group and posted Thursday, complained bitterly of President Alvaro Uribe's hardline government, and of the prominent people who support it. The message ends: "We'll see on the 7th at six." The bomb exploded Friday, Feb. 7, shortly after 8 p.m.

President Bush extended his sympathy to Uribe and to the families of those killed, saying, "On behalf of the United States, I condemn this barbaric act of terrorism.

"We stand with the Colombian people in their fight against narcoterrorists who threaten their democratic way of life," Bush said, offering U.S. support in finding those responsible for the attack.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the bombing, saying, "The heartless killing of innocent civilians will only deepen the conflict and further undermine hopes for peace that Colombia seeks and deserves."

The death toll increased from 25 to 32 on Saturday afternoon and included six children, according to the Bogota coroner's office. Another 162 people were injured, officials said.

On Saturday, firefighters searched through the rubble of the club, one of Colombia's most exclusive and a symbol of wealth and power that had some 2,000 members. Inside were restaurants, a mini-golf course, a gym and rooms for overnight guests. On Friday night, it was packed with revelers, businessmen attending meetings and a group of children that was to perform a ballet.

Though officials had held little hope that anyone was alive in the wreckage, rescuers found a 12-year-old girl — Maria Camila Garcia — between the third and fourth floors, Attorney General Luis Camilo Osorio said after touring the scene.

Garcia was in serious condition, hospital officials said. Her uncle, Mauricio Mugno, at the scene hoping for news of her, said both her parents were killed.

Family members of missing employees and patrons of the club gathered Saturday near the building.

"We searched through all the clinics this morning and haven't found anything," said a tearful Rosa Maria Baracaldo, whose sister, Margo Alfonso, was working last night in the club and had not been heard from. "The rescue workers have told us that all the bodies inside are badly burned, and its difficult to recognize them."

Rescue workers set up a makeshift morgue in tents outside the building. Bodies, many of them charred from the fire which burned for two hours after the explosion, were brought out on stretchers. Rescue workers sat nearby at typewriters, taking down descriptions of the missing from relatives.

Each time a new body was brought down, relatives rushed to push photographs of their loved ones toward officials. Across the street from the club, many stopped in a Catholic church to pray.

Stories emerged of how more than 40 people, including several children, managed to escape from the fifth floor. While others died there, survivors slid down a large plastic tube — apparently part of the building detached in the explosion — which was near a hole where air came in through the smoke.

"That's how my small children got out," said Luis Carlos Naranjo, explaining that his 2-year-old daughter slid down the tube on the shoulders of her nanny. His 4-year-old son escaped the same way, with the help of a waiter.

"The man's face was bleeding, but despite his injuries, he helped my son," said Naranjo, who was on the eighth floor when the bomb went off.

___

Associated Press Writer Michael Easterbrook contributed to this report.

N. Ireland Dissidents Set Off Bomb

Mon Feb 10, 2003  7:29 PM ET

ENNISKILLEN, Northern Ireland - Irish Republican Army dissidents set off a small bomb Monday ahead of a meeting on the progress of the 1998 Northern Ireland peace accord. The explosion caused no injuries and little damage.

A caller claiming to represent Continuity IRA, which opposes the accord, told a local business about the bomb before it exploded. Police had time to evacuate the area outside Enniskillen's town hall, where the bomb was placed.

On Wednesday, the British and Irish prime ministers will meet with local parties to talk about implementing goals of the 1998 pact, which was aimed at ending decades of rival violence in Northern Ireland.

Catholics are demanding Britain make further commitments on military cutbacks and reform of the mostly Protestant police force.

Still, Enniskillen politician Arlene Foster, part of the major Protestant party the Ulster Unionists, said the bomb "illustrates that talk of a normalized security situation and the need for demilitarization seems premature."

Enniskillen, a lakeside town of about 15,000, was the site of a 1987 IRA bomb that killed 11 people and wounded 63 as Protestants were commemorating deaths in World War I and World War II.

Also Monday, lawyers for victims of the worst IRA dissident attack — a car bomb that killed 29 people in Omagh in 1998 — said they had issued subpoenas against five alleged IRA commanders, including Sinn Fein party chief Gerry Adams.

The lawyers are suing alleged leaders of Real IRA, another dissident group responsible for the Omagh blast, trying to shed light on how the group was created in 1997.

Sinn Fein said it had no immediate knowledge of the subpoena.

Bomb threat closes parts of Chinese airport used by Brazilian national soccer team

Tue Feb 11, 2003 3:21 AM ET

BEIJING - Police acting on a bomb threat searched an airport in southern China hours before Brazil's national soccer team landed there, an officer said Tuesday.

The anonymous telephone threat Monday at Baiyun airport in the city of Guangzhou wasn't connected to the Brazilians, and the search ended before they arrived as scheduled Monday evening, the officer at the airport said.

Police removed a bag holding "dangerous materials" that was found in a garden outside a domestic departure gate, the officer said. He wouldn't give his name or any details of what the bag contained.

The Brazilians came to Guangzhou to play a game Wednesday against China's national team.

Guangzhou is the business center of southern China, and Baiyun is one of the country's busiest airports.

Parts of Baiyun airport were closed for up to five hours, but flights continued uninterrupted using other portions of the building, the officer said.

Bomb explosion in eastern Colombia kills police officer

Wed Feb 12, 2003  2:04 PM ET

BOGOTA, Colombia - A bomb exploded Wednesday in a drug store in Colombia's embattled Arauca state, killing one police officer and wounding another.

The bomb was strapped to a bicycle in the store in Saravena, 220 miles (355 kilometers) east of Bogota, the capital, Saravena Mayor Jose Sierra said.

Arauca state is one of Colombia's hottest war zones, where leftist rebels regularly set off bombs, assassinate local officials and kidnap motorists.

On Monday, rebels angered by the arrival of U.S. Army special forces in the state, issued a warning to motorists to stay off Arauca's roads.

The National Liberation Army, or ELN, also demanded air traffic be suspended and warned people to abstain from sabotaging the traffic ban "to avoid trouble."

Seventy U.S. Green Berets arrived to Arauca in January to train Colombian soldiers in counterinsurgency tactics to protect an oil pipeline frequently attacked by the rebels. Most of the Green Berets are based in Saravena.

Colombia is torn by a 38-year civil war that pits rebel groups against the government and right-wing militias. Each year, about 3,500 people, mainly civilians, die in the fighting.

Four arrested near Heathrow

LONDON, Feb. 14. — As the UK remained on high security alert, British anti-terror police arrested four people near Heathrow airport even as they questioned a Venezuelan nabbed on his arrival from Columbia for smuggling a live hand grenade.

The Thames Valley police yesterday arrested the four suspects under the Terrorism Act 2000 in Langley, 8 km west of Heathrow. The suspects are being questioned and local police are in contact with the Scotland Yard.

The arrests came the day when police in Hounslow, near Heathrow, nabbed two men. Police were also questioning the 37-year-old Venezuelan man, who arrived in Britain on British Airways flight from Bogota in Colombia, after he was caught trying to smuggle a grenade through Gatwick airport in Sussex.

The north terminal of the airport was evacuated and shut down yesterday for five hours after the grenade was discovered in the Venezuelan’s luggage. The flight had stopped en route to London at Caracas in Venezuela and Barbados but it was not clear where he had boarded. The airport reopened today.

USA gears up against terror

Signs of preparation for possible terrorism are everywhere in the USA, AP adds from Washington. Congress members are being told to put together a “go bag” and keep a low profile while the government warns key industries about potential attacks.

“Everyone in (the Capitol) has remained calm but cautious,” said Republican Bob Ney, chairman of the House Administration Committee. Even so, lawmakers were told to gather up supplies, sensitive documents, medicine and a laminated list of key phone numbers in case they have to leave quickly.

Huge bomb blast turns neighborhood of Colombian city into scene of desolation, 15 killed

MARGARITA MARTINEZ, Associated Press Writer Friday, February 14, 2003

(02-14) 13:09 PST NEIVA, Colombia (AP) --

A squad of policemen, acting on a tip about a rebel assassination plot against President Alvaro Uribe, raided a house in this southern Colombian city before dawn Friday. In one thunderous explosion, the house and the policemen were no more.

Three other houses in the working-class neighborhood adjoining the airport also were destroyed in the blast that killed 15 people, including eight policemen, an investigator with the attorney general's office and three children.

If there was any doubt that Colombia's four-decade-old war had moved into this South American nation's cities, they were erased in the devastating blast that gouged a 15-foot-deep crater in the ground and turned a quiet neighborhood into one of destruction and desolation.

Security officials said rebels of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia planned to kill Uribe as he flew in to Neiva on Saturday. They were to do it either by detonating the huge bomb as his plane flew low overhead -- the house was located on the flight path of approaching planes -- or by firing mortar rounds at him from launching tubes that were believed to be at the house, authorities said.

The explosion was heard throughout Neiva, a city of 250,000, and flung debris for 15 blocks. Dozens of houses were heavily damaged.

"My God! My God," exclaimed Irma Diaz, whose house disappeared in the blast. "Every day, something worse happens."

Scattered on the earth were the items that she and her neighbors had scrimped and saved for, now turned to debris: children's shoes, pieces of tables, carpets, pots and pans, a set of keys to doors that no longer existed.

Diaz, 50, rose before dawn and set off to her job as a cleaning lady at the municipal offices in this city -- which was founded in 1538 and lies in a valley underneath an Andean mountain range -- when the bomb went off. She rushed back, frantic about her daughter, who had been in the house. Amazingly, the girl was alive, but the blast fractured her hip.

Diaz's neighbor, Nancy Castro, was sleeping alongside her husband when the bomb blast stopped her clock at 5:25 a.m. and sent roof tiles cascading onto the couple.

"When I opened the door, there was only debris," Castro said. "The first thing I saw was a little girl in a white dress drenched with blood."

The government canceled peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia on Feb. 20, 2002, after the rebels snubbed their noses at the peace process by hijacking an airliner and kidnapping a senator aboard. Many Colombians braced for a bloodier war.

A year later, it has come. The FARC, as the rebel group is known by their Spanish acronym, was blamed for Friday's bombing. The FARC also set off a huge bomb on Feb. 7 in an exclusive club in Bogota, the capital, killing 35 people, wounding more than 100 and turning the 11-story building into a charred hulk.

While making no mention of its increasing attacks, the rebels insisted in a communiqu De this week that the government grant them another safe haven like one it had enjoyed until the peace talks were canceled. Uribe, a hard-liner elected by a landslide last year, rejected the proposal as "terrorists' buffoonery."

Agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, meanwhile, completed their investigation of the bombing of the El Nogal Club in Bogota. They determined the bomb was packed into a Renault Megane that had been parked in an interior garage on a floor directly underneath squash courts, a restaurant and a bar, in order to cause maximum casualties.

The explosive charge weighed 330-440 pounds and had been composed of a mixture of ANFO -- ammonium nitrate and fuel oil -- as well as TNT. The blast was so powerful it blew some pieces of the Renault five blocks away.

DAEGU, South Korea (Feb. 18, 2003 ) - Fire raced through two subway trains packed with people in South Korea on Tuesday after a man ignited a carton filled with flammable material, killing about 120 people and injuring 135, officials said.

A suspect was under interrogation in Daegu, South Korea's third-largest city, but police still did not know what motivated the attack. Rescue workers had given up the search for survivors by the afternoon. It was unknown what substance the attacker used to start the blaze.

The fire started in one six-car train at a station, igniting seats and spreading to another train also stopped at the station, officials said.

Lim Dae-yoon, the chief of Daegu city's east district municipal government, said the number of victims was about 120. ''We believe the death toll will not rise drastically from that,'' Lim said.

Many bodies were burned beyond recognition. Officials said they would have to wait for DNA tests to determine an exact number, which could take weeks.

Other people died of asphyxiation on the train platform. One man said his missing daughter called by mobile phone to say there was a fire and the subway door wasn't opening.

Firefighters gave horrifying accounts of the scene underground:

bodies of victims asphyxiated as they tried to escape up the stairs; on the platform were the ashen bones of those trapped in the flames.

Chung Sook-jae, 54, rushed to the scene after her daughter, 26-year-old Min Shim-eun, called her husband to say she was suffocating. Then the line went dead.

''She never caused any problems. She was a good kid. Why does this have to happen her?'' Chung said, crying on the pavement near the scene. ''If she's not out by now, she's probably dead. What am I going to do if her body is all burned out of recognition?''

Police were interrogating Kim Dae-han, 56, who witnesses said carried the milk carton into the subway car, according to Kim Byong-hak, a police lieutenant in Daegu.

''When the man tried to use a cigarette lighter to light the box, some passengers tied to stop him. Apparently a scuffle erupted and the box exploded into flames,'' the officer said.

Authorities said that the fire was put out by 1 p.m., about three hours after it started, but toxic gas in the tunnel delayed rescue efforts, the Yonhap news agency said. The acrid odor of burned plastic still wafted over the fire scene hours after the flames had been put out.

The television station YTN aired footage of the chaotic scene inside a nearby hospital reportedly showing the suspect being attended to by nurses. The man sat frowning on a bed wearing a hospital smock, his face and hands smudged from soot from the fire.

Yu Heung-soo, a police sergeant in Daegu, said Kim had been burned in both legs and the right wrist. But a doctor told YTN that the man's only injury was toxic gas inhalation.

YTN, without citing sources, also reported that the suspect worked as truck driver and had once threatened to burn down the hospital where he had received unsatisfactory treatment.

In the minutes after the fire began, thick black smoke billowed out of ventilator shafts of the subway. Downtown traffic came to a standstill as ambulances rushed to the scene. Orange suit-clad firefighters wearing oxygen tanks rushed into the subway.

Kim Bok-sun, 45, said her missing daughter, 21-year-old Kang Yeon-ju, was on the burning train and called in panic.

''She only said that there was a fire and the train door wasn't opening, so I told her to just break open a window and get out,'' she said, her voice trembling with emotion. Kim called her daughter back a few minutes later, ''but she never answered the phone.

Rescuers brought victims, their faces and clothes black with soot, up to the street in stretchers and slid them into ambulances. One witness detailed the terrifying scene inside the subway as the fire ignited.

''The man kept flickering a lighter and an old man told him to stop. The man dropped the lighter and the train caught fire,'' an unidentified male survivor told YTN. ''Several young men seized him, but the fire spread and black smoke rose. Then everyone rushed out.''

The injured were rushed to nearby hospitals, but details on their conditions were not known, said Kim, the police officer. YTN reported that some of the injured were in serious condition.

One man told YTN that his friend called on his cell phone and said he was trapped inside one of the cars. The unidentified man told YTN that he had called subway officials and they were unaware of the fire at the time.

President Kim Dae-jung ordered the government to consider designating the accident site as a special disaster zone, which would give it priority in receiving government aid and other assistance.

Daegu, one of the 10 World Cup soccer venues last year, is the third largest city in South Korea with a population of 2.5 million.

AP-NY-02-18-03 0912EST

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.

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