America strikes notebook

Suspects targeted embassies, bases

SINGAPORE -- Singapore's defense minister said suspected militants arrested in the city-state were plotting to blow up military targets and embassies, a radio station reported Sunday.

Defense Minister Tony Tan did not specify which embassies or military bases had been targeted, NewsRadio 93.8 reported. The report came a day after the government announced the arrest of 15 suspected militants, some of whom allegedly trained at al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan.

Some of the 15 were serving in Singapore's military, but there were no high-ranking officers among them, the station quoted Tan as saying. Tan could not be reached for comment Sunday.

The suspects were arrested last month, and detailed information on bomb construction and photographs and video footage of targeted buildings in Singapore were found in their homes and offices, the Ministry of Home Affairs said Saturday.

Al-Qaida-linked materials, falsified passports and forged immigration stamps were also found, a ministry statement said.

Germans rule out suspect's terror ties

BERLIN -- Investigators in western Germany have ruled out any link between the al-Qaida network and a man they arrested on a tip that he was a member of the terrorist organization, authorities said Sunday.

Heinz Jurgen Vitz, a prosecutor for the city of Moenchengladbach, said that the man remains in custody on a charge of carrying false papers but that there is no evidence he has anything to do with Osama bin Laden's organization.

The man was arrested late Saturday at a hotel in the city 25 miles west of Dusseldorf. Police did not release his name, in accordance with German law.

But the lead investigator said the man was a 27-year-old Lebanese national who has been living in the area since 1992. He is married with a 3-year-old child and has a criminal record for robbery and assault and battery, said the investigator, Georg Schubert.

Also . . .

ARRESTS: The Saudi newspaper Okaz quoted Pakistani Interior Minister Moin Haidar as saying Pakistan recently detained 240 Saudis and will extradite to the United States any believed to be affiliated with bin Laden. They were said to have entered Pakistan from Tora Bora and Afghan cities in recent weeks. U.S. and Pakistani investigators were questioning them, the newspaper said.

HOSPITAL STANDOFF: Anti-Taliban troops said Sunday they plan to starve out seven heavily armed al-Qaida members holed up in a Kandahar hospital for a month. The troops said they expect the standoff to end within a week.

"The United States wants us to take them alive. It would be easy to finish it now, but they would all die," said Fazil Bali, a commander with the Kandahar security force.

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