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Briefs

Germany jails 2 on terror charges

By Times wire
Published January 24, 2005

BERLIN - German police Sunday arrested two men suspected of being al-Qaida terrorists - one attempting to buy enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb, the other allegedly planning a suicide attack in Iraq.

German federal prosecutor Kay Nehm said the two arrests took place early Sunday, and came after months of investigation. He described one of the suspects, Ibrahim Mohamed K., a 29-year-old German citizen with an Iraqi background, as a high-ranking member of al-Qaida in charge of recruiting suicide bombers and planning attacks from Europe.

It is not clear if the nearly 2 ounces of enriched uranium that Mohamed K. was allegedly attempting to purchase in Luxembourg actually exists.

He also "played a not unimportant role in al-Qaida, because he showed signs of contact with Osama bin Laden and met with Ramzi Binalshibh," one of the plotters of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, Nehm told reporters.

The other suspect, a 31-year-old Palestinian, identified as Yasser Abu S., was allegedly recruited by the Iraqi to be a suicide bomber in an attack in Iraq. The Palestinian is a Bonn medical student who was born in Libya and has an Egyptian passport, Nehm said.

Prosecutors said the Iraqi took out a $1-million life insurance policy on the medical student, who was then to fake his death in a car accident in Egypt. The majority of the insurance payoff was to fund al-Qaida activities, they said.

Neither man's last name was released.

TORONTO - A broken water main caused a power outage in downtown Toronto on Sunday, prompting the closure of stores and tourist attractions in the core of Canada's largest city.

Electricity crews shut off a downtown power station before 9 a.m. after the water main caused flooding at the facility.

Toronto Hydro spokesman Blair Peberdy said the electricity company was assessing the damage and hoped to have the power back on within hours, but it was still out Sunday evening.

The Toronto Eaton Center, a four-story mall that lines a city block, was shut down for the day and will not reopen until today. The Hockey Hall of Fame also was closed.

DISASTER DEATH TOLL: The Indonesian Health Ministry raised its estimate of the dead from the Dec. 26 earthquake and tsunami by 7,661, to 173,981. The Social Affairs Ministry increased its estimate by 4,749, to 114,978. The discrepancy stems from different ways of counting the missing. Indonesia was the worst-hit of 11 nations affected by the disaster. The increase brings the total death toll to between 162,530 and 228,771.

[Last modified January 24, 2005, 01:32:09]