World in brief

U.S. can't protect oil workers, envoy says

YANBU, Saudi Arabia - The U.S. ambassador traveled to this Saudi oil-industry city Monday with a simple message for the gathered Americans: Go home. We cannot protect you.

Huddled in a meeting room in a Holiday Inn still pocked with bullet holes after the latest in a string of attacks on Westerners killed two Americans and four others, many said they would heed his words.

The first to go were among the 90 foreign employees of ABB Lummus Global Inc., a Houston oil contractor whose offices were attacked Saturday by four gunmen trying to encourage Saudis to join the resistance against the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The Saudi interior minister said early today that the attack appeared to have been carried out by al-Qaida. Arriving in Kuwait City for a meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Prince Nayef was asked whether Osama bin Laden's terrorist network was responsible.

"Yes, but we need time to confirm this," he said.

FRENCH DEPORTATION: French police have detained a Turkish man who runs a mosque in Paris, and they are planning to deport him for advocating violence, France's Interior Ministry said over the weekend. The move is the latest in the country's campaign to rid itself of outspoken advocates of Islamic militancy.

The man, Midhat Guler, 45, was taken into custody late Saturday at his home in the Paris suburb of Courtry after the ministry issued an expulsion order. The ministry said in a statement that Guler heads the French branch of a Turkish Islamic movement that supports terrorism.

PAKISTAN CRITICIZED: The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan questioned Pakistan's commitment to fighting Taliban and al-Qaida militants along the border, saying Monday that appeasing extremists will only put off an inevitable battle.

Lt. Gen. David Barno also voiced caution about the prospects of catching al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, saying it is "too early to tell" if a new U.S. strategy aimed at winning the trust of Afghans will yield crucial intelligence.

PAKISTAN ATTACK: A car bomb shattered a bus carrying Chinese engineers to a port project in remote southwestern Pakistan on Monday, killing three in what the government called a terrorist attack.

The attack occurred as the bus was taking at least 12 Chinese to the port in Gawadar, said Sattar Lasi, the chief of police in Gawadar. The site is about 300 miles west of Karachi, near the border with Iran.

MADRID - Former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has admitted for the first time that his government failed to estimate the threat posed by Islamic extremists ahead of the March 11 terrorist attack.

In a book published Monday, Aznar conceded that - because of its success fighting Basque separatist groups - his government may have lowered its guard ahead of the Madrid bombings of commuter trains that killed 191 people and wounded more than 2,000.

The bombings, Spain's worst terror attack, were blamed on al-Qaida-linked militants.

Aznar's addresses the election defeat in his book, Eight Years of Government: A Personal View of Spain, which was unveiled in Madrid on Monday.

WASHINGTON - President Bush on Monday applauded action by the European Union to embrace 10 new countries, and named three other nations he hopes will be added to the membership list.

"We welcome the prospect of further enlargement of the EU to qualified countries, including Romania and Bulgaria, and we support Turkey's European Union aspirations," Bush said.

The EU swelled from 15 nations to 25 on Saturday by taking in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, along with the Mediterranean nations of Cyprus and Malta. Together, they boost the EU's population to 450-million.

CUBAN DISSIDENTS: U.S. and European diplomats visited the Havana home of jailed Cuban reporter Raul Rivero on Monday, offering support to dissidents imprisoned after last year's crackdown on the opposition. James Cason, chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, and officials from half a dozen European countries arrived together on the same day Rivero was awarded a press freedom prize in Serbia-Montenegro.

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