Judge says Moussaoui can see secret plan

WASHINGTON - A federal judge ruled Thursday that terrorist suspect Zacarias Moussaoui should be allowed to see a classified government plan that could give him some access to an alleged al-Qaida operative held in a secret location.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said that the government's reluctance to show the plan to Moussaoui is "unacceptable" because it violates an order from an appellate court that the defendant and his standby attorneys be given an opportunity to respond to it.

The government plan, filed Thursday in the Eastern District of Virginia, is an effort to find a compromise on an issue that has delayed Moussaoui's trial: the defendant's request to interview terrorism suspects in custody, including Ramzi Binalshibh, an alleged top al-Qaida operative captured in Pakistan last year and held in a secret location.

According to news reports, the government plan contains information from Binalshibh and was offered as a substitute for allowing Moussaoui to interview Binalshibh by video hookup. Brinkema ordered the interview in January, but the government appealed her ruling to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., which urged the government to offer an alternative in an effort at compromise.

Brinkema will hear arguments on the matter next month.

Charged as a conspirator with the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers, Massaoui has contended that Binalshibh could demonstrate that he was not part of the attack plot.

The Justice Department had no comment on the order.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Taliban fighters attacked a government office in southern Afghanistan with rockets and automatic weapons, setting off a four-hour shootout that left two Afghan soldiers and three assailants dead, a senior official said Thursday.

The battle took place late Wednesday at Chapan in Zabul province, 150 miles northeast of the city of Kandahar, provincial governor Hamidullah Kahn Tokhi said.

Tokhi said about 80 Taliban fighters fired first rockets and then automatic weapons at the office of Chapan district authorities. "Afghan soldiers also fired back. After four hours, the Taliban escaped," Tokhi said.

He said the assailants retreated to a mountainous region.

MONEY TO ARM PILOTS: The federal government will provide $8-million to step up firearms training for commercial pilots who want to carry guns in the cockpit, officials said Thursday. The Transportation Security Administration offered no estimate on how many pilots can be trained with the money, which is supposed to cover instruction through Sept. 30.

4 INDICTED IN ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: An antiterrorism court in Karachi, Pakistan, indicted four Islamic militants and a former paramilitary fighter Thursday for last year's attempted assassination of President Pervez Musharraf in southern Pakistan, prosecutors said.

The indictment handed up by Judge Maqbool Rizvi charged the men with attempting to kill Musharraf by detonating an explosive-laden vehicle during his visit to Karachi in April 2002. The defendants pleaded not guilty.

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