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Detainee gets to tell his side

WASHINGTON - For the first time in the nearly three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, a prisoner picked up as a potential terrorist and held nearly incommunicado at a U.S. prison in Cuba got a chance Friday to convince his jailers that he should go free.

The hearing at the Navy prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the government's most visible response since a Supreme Court ruling last month granted new legal rights to about 600 foreign-born men held at the U.S. base on Cuba's southeastern tip.

The administrative hearing was closed to the press and the public. There was no immediate decision on the prisoner's fate.

Separately Friday, the Justice Department filed its first detailed response to lawsuits from Guantanamo detainees. The detainees have no constitutional rights, including the right to see a lawyer, the government said in federal court filings.

JERUSALEM - Palestinian gunmen abducted an American and two other foreign church volunteers late Friday and armed militants burned a Palestinian government building, a resurgence of violence that has intensified Palestinian internal unrest.

The hostages were freed unharmed after about three hours in the West Bank city of Nablus under pressure from Palestinian authorities and other militant groups.

The other two victims were a Briton and an Irishman.

FATEH JANG, Pakistan - A suicide bomber blew himself up next to the car of Pakistan's prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz, 55, at a crowded political rally Friday evening, killing the driver and four other people but leaving Aziz unhurt, according to the police and witnesses. Forty-five people were wounded.

It was not clear who carried out the bombing, but Pakistani officials said they suspected the involvement of al-Qaida and its local sympathizers. President Pervez Musharraf, an ally of the United States in fighting terrorism, was the target of two suicide attacks in December.

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan - Suicide bombers struck the U.S. and Israeli embassies along with the top prosecutor's office Friday, killing at least two Uzbeks and wounding nine others in nearly simultaneous attacks in the capital of Uzbekistan, a close U.S. ally in the war on terror.

The attacks came as this majority Muslim country is trying 15 suspects allegedly tied to al-Qaida for a wave of violence four months ago that included the first-ever suicide attacks in Central Asia. The defendants in the trial have said the U.S. and Israeli embassies were among the targets their group planned to attack.

A group that claimed responsibility for the March-April violence, which killed 47 people, said on an Islamic Web site that it was also behind Friday's attacks. The claim, which could not be verified, was from the Islamic Holy War Group.

LIBYAN PLOT: A prominent Muslim activist who said he participated in a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's crown prince pleaded guilty Friday to engaging in illegal business deals with Libya. Abdurahman Alamoudi, 52, of Falls Church, Va., was not charged in the assassination plot. But a 20-page statement of facts spells out many elements in an elaborate scheme that had Alamoudi serving as a go-between for high-ranking Libyan government officials and Saudi dissidents. The plot was exposed before it could be carried out. Alamoudi faces a maximum sentence of 23 years in prison when he is sentenced.

PIPELINE EXPLOSION: A natural gas pipeline apparently pierced by construction workers exploded Friday in a huge pillar of flames that killed as many as 15 people and injured more than 100 in Ghislenghien, Belgium, about 20 miles southeast of Brussels.