 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Fighting terror notebook
Compiled from Times wires Justice knocking at anthrax lab doorsIn an important step for narrowing the pool of anthrax suspects, the Justice Department is sending subpoenas to microbiology laboratories across the country for samples of the Ames strain of Bacillus anthracis, the kind used in the letter attacks in the fall. Scientists working for the federal government said they hoped that studying the samples' genetic fingerprints would help determine which of 12 or more laboratories is the likely source of the bacteria in the attacks. Some private experts expressed surprise that subpoenas for the samples were going out only now, more than four months after the Ames strain was identified as the germ in the letters. But federal law enforcement officials defended their approach as sound, saying it was purposefully deliberate and thorough to ensure that no logical bit of evidence went unexamined and that assembled clues were incontestable. Giuliani pledges speedupNEW YORK -- Rudolph Giuliani agreed Tuesday to distribute promptly the $100-million remaining in the city's Twin Towers Fund to the families of 430 uniformed and civilian rescuers killed on Sept. 11. Giuliani's pledge came after weeks of criticism about his plans for the Twin Towers money, including threats of a lawsuit from 15 police widows. The decision by the former mayor, who formed the Twin Towers Fund within days of the attack, amounts to a substantial victory for the families of the rescuers, many of whom have criticized his efforts to privatize the fund, hire a staff of 12 to oversee its work and perhaps take months or even years to disburse its millions. Guard aimed at borderWASHINGTON -- More than 700 National Guard troops will begin patrolling the U.S.-Canadian border within the next several weeks as part of a major campaign to gird the United States against possible terrorist attacks, officials said Tuesday. Authorities plan to combine the influx of National Guard personnel with a proposed $1.1 billion plan for ratcheting up immigration safeguards, Attorney General John Ashcroft told members of a Senate panel. But his vision for how law enforcement should work in the age of anti-terrorism came under fire from Democratic lawmakers who accused him of doing too little, too late. Related developments ...U.S. TRANSPORT FIRED ON IN PAKISTAN: Gunmen fired on a U.S. military transport Tuesday after it took off from a Pakistan air base to Afghanistan, according to a Pakistani official and a local journalist. The C-130 transport was about 20 miles into its flight from the southwest city of Jacobabad when several gunmen in the remote village of Umrani Lari opened fire. The plane was not hit and the pilot returned to Shahbaz air base, journalist Hanif Ubro said. "TERRORISM' ASSETS FROZEN: Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill announced Tuesday that the U.S. government has frozen the assets of 21 "financiers of terrorism." O'Neill identified the individuals as members working on behalf of ETA, the Basque acronym for Basque Homeland and Freedom. The U.S. State Department has designated ETA as a foreign terrorist organization. WARLORD IN EXILE VANISHES: A former Afghan warlord who opposes the interim government in Kabul and its American ties has disappeared from his home in Iran's capital after being told to leave the country. Reports of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's disappearance came a day after an Afghan official said he would be treated as a war criminal if he returns to his homeland and as Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai ended a three-day visit to Iran.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
