Fighting terror notebook

WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security director Tom Ridge said Thursday that government and airline officials are at work on a frequent-flier ID card that -- for a fee -- would speed regular travelers through airport security.

"I think people would pay for the convenience of easier and quicker access, so we are discussing that," Ridge said. "It makes some sense to me."

A voluntary biometric identification system would be used to guarantee the security of such "E-Z pass" cards, he said. Biometric systems use fingerprints or retinal patterns to identify people.

Ridge said discussions on establishing such a system will continue when he meets with airline industry officials next week.

Roundup of illegals starting next week

WASHINGTON -- Federal agents will soon begin apprehending and interrogating thousands of illegal Middle Eastern immigrants who have ignored deportation orders, seeking ways to prosecute any who have ties to terrorism and compiling the results of interviews in a new computer database, according to a Justice Department memo.

The Jan. 25 memo instructs federal agents to find methods of detaining some of the immigrants for possible criminal charges, rather than merely expelling them from the United States as previously planned.

The tactics are part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service's efforts to locate an estimated 314,000 foreign nationals, known as "absconders," who have ignored court orders to leave the country. Justice Department and FBI officials have said that the operation would focus first on about 6,000 immigrants from countries identified as al-Qaida strongholds, though the vast majority of absconders are Latin American.

Thursday, officials said the arrests will begin next week with a group of fewer than 1,000 illegal immigrants, most from the Middle East and Pakistan, who are believed to be the most dangerous because they are convicted felons.

Grand council organizing gets under way

KABUL, Afghanistan -- A 21-member commission charged with organizing a loya jirga, or grand council, formally convened Thursday in Kabul, with the country's interim leader Hamid Karzai offering best wishes.

"Do good work," Karzai told the council and an audience of diplomats attending the ceremony. "God bless you, and be successful."

The panel is led by Ismail Kassim Yar, an expert in constitutional law.

The nation's ethnic, regional and religious groups will participate in the loya jirga. They will chose a transitional government to rule for 18 months in the run-up to Afghan elections. It must convene before the interim government's six-month term expires.

The loya jirga itself is expected to be convened by Afghanistan's exiled monarch Mohammed Zaher Shah. The last jirga he convened was in the 1960s.

E-mail linked to kidnapping recovered

Pakistani police have recovered e-mails linked to the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl from the computer hard drive of a suspect in the case, officials said Thursday.

The discovery of the e-mails is a major breakthrough in the case, providing a link to the chief suspect, Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, a young Islamic militant and suspected member of a radical group linked to al-Qaida.

After a raid Sunday, police detained three people and seized a laptop computer belonging to Farhad Naseem, according to police Inspector Qamer Ahmed.

The inspector said the two e-mails were recovered from Naseem's laptop. Naseem, who remains in police custody, admitted receiving the e-mails from Saeed, the Muslim militant.

The owner of the service provider said Naseem had erased his files and browser but had neglected to clean his hard drive, which contained the messages.

The 38-year-old journalist has not been found.

Attack negligence claims top $7-billion

From rescue workers who say they have lung problems to business owners who say their shops were damaged, 1,300 people have given notice they may sue the city for a total of $7.18-billion over the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack.

The claims involve injuries or damage caused not by the attack itself but by the alleged negligence of the city during the recovery and cleanup.

The vast majority are from firefighters who say the city gave them inadequate respiratory protection at the smoldering trade center site.

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