Posts Byadmin - 11/856 - Terrorism.com
U.S. Links Indonesian Troops to Deaths of 2 Americans
January 30, 2003 | adminBush administration officials have determined that Indonesian soldiers carried out a deadly ambush that killed two American teachers returning from a picnic in a remote area of Indonesia last August, senior administration officials say. The conclusion, which follows a preliminary investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, is likely to muddy relations between Washington and Jakarta. Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and the Bush administration has been trying to persuade its president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, to take a more aggressive stand against terrorism and to support Washington’s policy on Iraq. Full Story
Colombia Rebels Plan Handoff of US, UK Journalists
January 30, 2003 | adminMarxist Colombian rebels called on Wednesday for an official commission to receive a U.S. photographer and British reporter kidnapped last week in a violent stretch of eastern Colombia, and reiterated plans to release the journalists “safe and sound.” “We are requesting a commission from the public prosecutor’s office and the (government’s) human rights office … to receive the journalists,” the Cuban-inspired National Liberation Army, or ELN, said in a statement obtained by Reuters. British reporter Ruth Morris and U.S. photographer Scott Dalton were abducted while traveling on freelance assignment for the Los Angeles Times along a rural road on Jan. 21 in the province of Arauca, where U.S. Special Forces this month started training local troops in counterinsurgency techniques. Full Story
Colombian Rebels Free TV Crew
January 30, 2003 | adminJournalists are released in the province where a photographer and writer on assignment for The Times are being held by other rebels. Guerrillas on Tuesday freed a five-person television crew kidnapped last weekend in the same area of northeastern Colombia where a reporter and photographer on assignment for the Los Angeles Times are being held. The members of the crew, who were working for Colombia’s RCN network, were seized Sunday by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The news team had gone to Arauca province to cover the kidnapping of freelance reporter Ruth Morris and freelance photographer Scott Dalton. Full Story
US advice adds to England's Zimbabwe fears
January 30, 2003 | adminThe England players’ representative Richard Bevan said the team’s World Cup opener in Harare must be moved to South Africa after the US State Department urged Americans to consider leaving the country. The US advice came after the England players issued a statement on Monday saying they wanted their match against Zimbabwe in Harare on February 13 moved to main World Cup hosts South Africa on safety grounds. The State Department said: “Zimbabwe is in the midst of political, economic and humanitarian crises with serious implications for the security situation in the country. “All US citizens in Zimbabwe are urged to take those measures they deem appropriate to ensure their well being, including consideration of departure.” Full Story
South African 'truth' row resolved
January 30, 2003 | adminThe last obstacle to the publication of the final report of South Africa’s Truth an Reconciliation Commission (TRC) has been removed. In an out-of-court settlement in Cape Town, the TRC has agreed to amend a number of sections which blamed the mainly-Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party for human rights abuses during the final years of apartheid. The TRC, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, was set up to investigate human rights violations under apartheid, to advance reconciliation and the reconstruction of a new South Africa. The final report is now set to be published in the first half of this year, opening the way for thousands of victims of the apartheid era to receive compensation. Doctor Mangosutho Buthelezi and his Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) had questioned the findings of the report and a court case was due to begin on Wednesday to challenge 37 entries directly accusing both the IFP and Doctor Buthelezi of human rights abuses. Full Story
Ivory Coast Army Rejects Power-Sharing Deal With Rebels
January 30, 2003 | adminA French-brokered peace accord aimed at ending a brutal four-month-long civil war in this country seemed to teeter this evening, as the army rejected key elements of a power-sharing deal with rebel groups and aligned itself with supporters of Ivory Coast’s elected government. The military made its position clear in a letter to Ivory Coast’s president, Laurent Gbagbo, rejecting calls for demobilization. Full Story
France 'ready' to evacuate Ivory Coast
January 30, 2003 | adminFrench Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin has said France is ready to evacuate its nationals from Ivory Coast, after violent protests sparked by a peace agreement aimed at ending the country’s four-month-old civil war. The deal, signed in France on Saturday, stipulates that supporters of President Laurent Gbagbo should share power with rebels within a unity government. But in a letter to the president, the army says it will not accept the rebels taking over the defence and interior ministries, which the rebels say has been agreed. Mr Gbagbo has yet to address the nation to explain the deal, which sparked fresh anti-French protests on Tuesday. Both the commercial capital, Abidjan, and Agboville, the scene of ethnic clashes on Tuesday, are now reported to be calm. Full Story
Bush targets terror threats
January 30, 2003 | adminIn a wide-ranging State of the Union address, President Bush promised to create a center to integrate information from all intelligence sources at a single location. But Democratic leaders remained wary that it would duplicate what is already being developed. In his address Jan. 28, Bush said intelligence and law enforcement agencies have worked more closely than ever to track and disrupt terrorist networks in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he said he’s ordering the FBI, CIA, the Homeland Security Department and the Pentagon to develop a terrorist threat integration center to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Full Story
Slow Slammer response points to NIPC woes
January 30, 2003 | adminSlow response from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to Saturday’s outbreak of a virulent new computer worm may have been the result of the recent government reorganization creating the Department of Homeland Security and increased concerns about threats of cyber terrorism. The FBI came under scrutiny on Monday when it appeared the agency was asleep on its feet Saturday as the W32.Slammer worm rocketed around the world, infecting hundreds of thousands of systems within the first few hours of surfacing. Full Story
Policy would secure users, transactions
January 30, 2003 | adminThe federal CIO Council this month approved a proposal to create a single policy that all agencies would use to authenticate electronic messages, documents and users themselves. With the growth of e-government, “there is renewed interest from our upper-level management” in authentication, said Judy Spencer, chairwoman of the Federal Public-Key Infrastructure Steering Committee. “We have to develop this common policy framework that reaches across these different areas, and then below that, we need to give agencies the component pieces” to fit into their applications and infrastructure. Full Story