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Fighting terror notebook
Compiled from Times wires Soldiers posed with blindfolded LindhU.S. special operations soldiers posed for photos with Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh, who was handcuffed and wearing a blindfold with an obscenity written across it, Pentagon officials said Friday. The disclosure could help support his attorney's claims that Lindh was mistreated while in U.S. custody. It is at least the third troublesome incident for the Department of Defense involving photos of Lindh, a 21-year-old Californian who is accused of training with al-Qaida terrorists and is charged with conspiring to kill Americans. The photos troops took of themselves with their prisoner were found when the Pentagon did a computer search for documents and other materials ordered by the court. In other news ...AT THE FRONT: Factional fighting erupted Friday in the hills just west of Kabul -- the latest in a series of Afghan power struggles ahead of a planned national council that will choose a new government. Meanwhile, south of the capital, U.S. forces seized ammunition caches and captured several al-Qaida suspects. BUT HE'S NOT TALKING: The most senior al-Qaida member in U.S. custody is a "fountain of knowledge" about Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization but it is unclear how much he will reveal, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday. Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaida planner and recruiter, suffered several bullet wounds during a Pakistani raid in which he and dozens of others were captured last month. He is under U.S. control at an undisclosed location. Rumsfeld said Abu Zubaydah developed infections as a result of gunshot wounds but is likely to survive. PEARL TRIAL DELAYED, AGAIN: The high-profile trial in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl convened in secret for a few minutes Friday in Karachi, Pakistan, then broke for a long adjournment, for the second week in a row. This new delay, for 10 more days, raised doubts about the government's stated intention of holding a quick trial and highlighted the seeming tenuousness of a case in which no body or murder weapon or compelling witnesses have been found. Four defendants are in custody, including Ahmed Omar Sheikh, 28, who is accused of abducting Pearl on Jan. 23 by promising to put him in touch with an underground religious militant. HIGH ABOVE CHICAGO: The Federal Aviation Administration has lifted a no-fly zone over downtown Chicago for small planes, worrying city officials who fear the 110-story Sears Tower could be a target for terrorists. ANOTHER QUAKE: An earthquake hit northern Afghanistan on Friday, killing at least 30 people and injuring nearly 100, further crippling an area devastated in a quake three weeks ago. Aid workers helped pull bodies from the rubble of houses in two villages in the quake-prone mountainous region of the Hindu Kush, just a few miles from Nahrin, a town 90 miles north of Kabul that was leveled in the quake on March 25.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
