Fighting terror

WTC steel headed for USS 'New York'

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- Steel salvaged from the wreckage of the World Trade Center is on its way to the Northrop Grumman Ingalls shipyard here and will be used to build the Navy's USS New York, a warship named in honor of those who perished in New York in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks.

It was the Navy's idea to incorporate the steel into the vessel, said Capt. Kevin Wensing, a Navy public affairs officer. Wensing said the steel was extricated from a New York landfill on Friday, but he didn't know when it would arrive in Mississippi.

Den Knecht, communications spokesman for Northrop Grumman, said Northrop Grumman will start building the USS New York in the middle of next year.

Northrop Grumman officials and New York Gov. George Pataki announced in a September ceremony that the ship would honor Sept. 11 victims. Pataki wrote to Secretary of the Navy Gordon England requesting that the Navy revive the name USS New York in honor of the victims and give it to a surface warship involved in the war on terror.

"The USS New York will ensure that all New Yorkers and the world will never forget the evil attacks of Sept. 11, and the compassion New Yorkers showed in response to terror," Pataki said at the time.

The Navy calls the USS New York one of its most revolutionary warships. Its class of amphibious transports will land Marines, equipment and supplies by landing craft or amphibious vehicles and helicopters. The 684-foot vessel will carry a crew of 402 plus up to 800 Marines. It will weigh about 25,000 tons and travel more than 25 mph.

The $800-million vessel should be ready for active duty in 2007.

Paratrooper remembered

NEW YORK -- Friends, relatives and fellow soldiers gathered Saturday to grieve for a U.S. paratrooper killed during a firefight in eastern Afghanistan, with a major general calling him a "servant of our nation."

Sgt. Steven Checo, 22, a soldier in the 82nd Airborne Division, died Dec. 21 from a gunshot wound.

A funeral Mass in Spanish was held at Mother Cabrini Church, not far from where the child of Dominican immigrants grew up in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights. He and his family had moved to Elizabeth, N.J., about three years ago.

"Not only has he served, but he has given the ultimate sacrifice, his life, so you and I can be free in this land of ours," the Rev. Joseph Orlandi told mourners.

Cardinal Edward Egan also offered a prayer during the Mass.

Militant admits role in bombing bus

KARACHI, Pakistan -- An Islamic militant detained for allegedly planning an attack on U.S. diplomats has admitted playing a key role in a bus bombing that killed 11 French engineers, police said Saturday.

Asif Zaheer, 24, told police he prepared the bomb-laden car used in a May 8 suicide bombing of the bus -- an attack that killed the engineers and three Pakistanis, said Farooq Awan, a senior police official in Karachi.

Zaheer has not been charged in the plot against the diplomats or the bus bombing in Karachi. A judge on Saturday ordered that he be held for at least two more weeks while authorities continue investigating his role in the incidents. Under Pakistan's antiterrorist law, a suspect can be kept in custody for one year without being charged.

Rights group wants torture allegations investigated

BAGRAM, Afghanistan -- A human rights group demanded that Washington investigate reports the United States tortured prisoners at secret detention facilities overseas, including one in Afghanistan, allegations that the U.S. military denied Saturday.

"U.S. officials who take part in torture, authorize it, or even close their eyes to it, can be prosecuted by courts anywhere in the world," the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

At Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, where some of the abuse allegedly occurred, a U.S. military spokesman denied the allegations.

"The accusation of inhumane treatment is something that I can clearly refute. The things that they talked about, the inhumane conditions . . . are things that do not go on here," Maj. Steve Clutter said Saturday, referring to a Washington Post article published this week.

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