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November 6, 2002
8 held in Tunisian synagogue bombing
GRENOBLE, France -- French antiterrorism judges ordered the arrest Tuesday of eight suspects in a deadly Tunisia synagogue bombing that authorities have linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network. Among those detained were the parents and brother of the suspected bomber.
Nineteen people, including 14 German tourists, were killed when a truck laden with gas tanks exploded outside the Ghriba synagogue on the island of Djerba.
French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said in a statement that documents seized during the arrests near Lyon appeared to be directly related to the April 11 explosion.
French authorities believe the driver of the truck was a Tunisian identified as Nizar Naouar. He is thought to have carried out the attack with an unidentified accomplice who also lived in the North African country.
Naouar is thought to have died in the explosion, but officials have not said what happened to his alleged accomplice.
CHICAGO -- A judge set a Feb. 3 trial date Tuesday for an Islamic charity leader accused of bankrolling Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, and the man's attorney said he is eager to clear his name.
Federal prosecutors have charged Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen, with racketeering and other offenses, saying his Benevolence International Foundation was a front for funneling money to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.
"Mr. Arnaout would like to go to trial tomorrow," Joseph Duffy, Arnaout's attorney, told U.S. District Judge Suzanne B. Conlon.
Arnaout, who pleaded innocent last month, says the suburban Chicago-based charity has directed all of its efforts to help the downtrodden -- not terrorists -- in Muslim countries.
On Monday, a federal judge in Portland, Ore., set an Oct. 1 trial date for five accused of trying to join the Taliban to help fight U.S. troops.
The five, Jeffrey Leon Battle, Patrice Lumumba Ford, October Martinique Lewis and brothers Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal and Muhammad Ibrahim Bilal, were charged last month with conspiring to wage war on the United States and supporting terrorism.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- International peacekeepers confined to Kabul should be deployed across Afghanistan to restrain warlords, including a U.S.-backed governor whose forces are guilty of human rights abuses, a human rights group said Tuesday.
In a new report, Human Rights Watch alleges that the governor of Herat, Ismail Khan, ordered politically motivated arrests and beatings. The report details lashings with thorny branches, sticks, cables and rifle butts.
In the most serious cases, prisoners were hung upside down, whipped or tortured with electric shocks, the 51-page report said.
"The international community says it wants to reduce the power of the warlords and bring law and order back to Afghanistan," said John Sifton, co-author of the report. "But in Herat, it has done exactly the opposite. The friend of the international community in western Afghanistan is an enemy of human rights."
President Hamid Karzai's government has limited authority outside the capital, Kabul, which is patrolled by a 4,800-strong International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF. The rest of the country is a patchwork of territories divided up among regional warlords.
JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian authorities detained two possible suspects in the Bali bombings that killed nearly 200 people last month, the national police chief said Tuesday.
One man was detained Tuesday in the capital, Jakarta, Gen. Da'i Bachtiar told Indonesia's parliament. Another was taken into custody Monday in the city of Medan on Sumatra island.
The men resemble two of three suspects depicted in composite sketches based on witness accounts after the Oct. 12 blasts, Bachtiar said. It was not certain whether the detainees would be positively identified as suspects. Thursday, police arrested another man because he resembled one of the sketches, but released him.
ROTTERDAM, Netherlands -- U.S. homeland security chief Tom Ridge pressed Tuesday for tighter security measures in European harbors to help prevent terrorists from smuggling weapons of mass destruction into the United States.
Ridge, who is on a weeklong tour of Europe, is pushing a U.S. demand to review cargo lists 24 hours before U.S.-bound ships are loaded.
Some shipping companies allow U.S. customs officials to examine cargo lists, but America wants permission to check all vessels destined for U.S. ports. The advance notice "would dramatically increase our security," he said.