Fighting terror notebook

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times
published March 31, 2002

Gunfire erupts near German patrol in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Automatic gunfire that may have come from a compound housing Afghan militiamen struck close to patrolling German soldiers in the first such incident in more than a month, the U.N. peacekeeping force said Saturday.

No one was injured by the gunfire Friday afternoon near a compound of the Northern Alliance, said Lt. Col. Ludwig Gedicke, a spokesman for the German peacekeeping contingent. The Northern Alliance was aligned with the U.S. coalition in last fall's anti-Taliban war.

It is not clear whether the shots were fired intentionally, and whoever fired apparently did not intend to hit the peacekeepers, Gedicke said. Attacks on the International Security Assistance Force have been rare since it was established by the U.N. Security Council in late December.

Muslim group creating legal fund

WASHINGTON -- An Islamic advocacy group hopes to raise $1-million for a legal defense fund to help people alleging civil rights violations since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Washington announced Saturday that it was creating the fund. It wants to reach its $1-million target by the end of this year by collecting private donations nationwide.

"After Sept. 11 there was a lot of backlash and abuse of human rights, and many people who needed help could not get help," said "Their rights were thrown away because they didn't have money. It's our duty to provide legal services and representation to these people."

Nihad Awad, the council's executive director, said the council's Washington office had received 1,800 complaints from Arab and Muslim Americans of discrimination and backlash since the terrorist attacks, far more than the 300 complaints it typically handles each year.

Karzai visits coalition troops

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- Afghan Prime Minister Hamid Karzai received a welcome of rock and country music Saturday as he paid his first visit since the war began to international troops hunting al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives.

Hundreds of soldiers from coalition countries from Australia to Poland applauded as the interim leader said they had "helped Afghanistan free itself once again." Many took photos with disposable cameras as the interim leader made his way around the hangar at Bagram, a former Soviet base.

Karzai, who was surrounded by some 30 aides from the moment he landed in a Chinook helicopter, said he encouraged the coalition forces to stay in his country for as long as it takes to clear Afghanistan of "bad people."

"Go ahead, keep hunting them," he said.

Report: King to return soon

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Despite warnings from Western intelligence officials of a possible attempt to assassinate him, Afghanistan's former king, Mohammed Zahir Shah, has rescheduled his postponed return home and will now arrive in the Afghan capital in mid April, the New York Times quoted unnamed Western diplomats as saying Saturday.

The former king's return was thrown into doubt when elaborate arrangements for his flight back to Kabul from Italy were canceled less than 72 hours before his scheduled arrival last Tuesday. Confusion ensued, with neither Zahir's entourage in Rome nor the interim government in Kabul offering any clear explanation for the postponement.

But Saturday, the New York Times quoted the diplomats as saying that security concerns had prompted the delay and that arrangements were in hand to allow the Zahir, 87, to return between April 15 and 17.

The journey would end 29 years of exile that began when Zahir's cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan, staged a palace coup in 1973 that proved to be the trigger for three decades of coups, warfare and chaos.

Pakistani arrested in Texas

WASHINGTON -- One of four Pakistani crewmen who jumped ship in a Virginia port was arrested Saturday in Texas, immigration officials said Saturday.

Ahmad Salman's arrest was based on leads developed by Immigration and Naturalization Service investigators at a bus station in Norfolk, Va., agency spokesman Bill Strassberger said. Those leads took INS special agents to Philadelphia and eventually to San Antonio.

After being put under brief surveillance, Salman was arrested at midday without incident at a San Antonio apartment building where he was staying with an acquaintance, Strassberger said. Salman was being held without bail.

The case prompted demands for stricter security because of reports that an immigration official improperly allowed the men to come ashore.

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