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World in brief

Pakistan to send al-Qaida suspect to U.S.

By wire services
Published June 1, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's president said Tuesday that he will hand over senior al-Qaida terrorist suspect Abu Farraj al-Libbi to the United States for prosecution, even though the man is believed to be behind two assassination attempts against him and could have received the death penalty here.

President Pervez Musharraf said that Libbi was cooperating but had not provided any useful information on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden and that Pakistan has no interest in keeping him.

"We deport al-Qaida suspects to the United States," Musharraf said via video hookup from Islamabad to a CNN conference in Atlanta.

Libbi was arrested May 2 after a shootout in northwestern Pakistan. At the time, a senior intelligence officer told the Associated Press he had been in frequent contact with bin Laden in recent months and that Pakistani interrogators were grilling him on the terrorist chief's whereabouts.

It was not clear when Libbi would be turned over, or where he is being held.

LIMA, Peru - Peru's bright-eyed "little mermaid" - a baby born with legs fused from her thighs to her ankles - giggled and played on her hospital bed Tuesday before a delicate operation to begin repairing her rare birth defect.

Thirteen-month-old Milagros Cerron was in prime condition for the surgery, which was to start late Tuesday and last four to six hours, said Dr. Luis Rubio, leader of the team of 11 surgeons who were to perform the operation.

Tuesday night's operation was the first of three complicated surgeries to separate her legs, which are seamlessly fused all the way to her heels.

WASHINGTON - The suspension of Pentagon efforts to find and recover the remains of thousands of American war dead from North Korea was a precautionary move to reassess whether conditions were safe for U.S. teams, President Bush said Tuesday.

Bush said the decision, announced with little explanation May 25, one day after the Pentagon announced a successful recovery mission in North Korea, was made by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"What the secretary of defense has said, "Let me just take a look and make sure that, as we send people into North Korea, that we're fully mindful of them being able to go in and get out,' " Bush said when asked about the matter at a White House news conference.

KARACHI, Pakistan - A mob angered by an al-Qaida-linked suicide bombing in a Shiite mosque set a KFC restaurant on fire in overnight rioting, killing six employees and bringing the day's overall death toll to 12, police said Tuesday.

The bomber slipped into the mosque during a gunbattle with police that left another attacker and two officers dead, and blew himself up during evening prayers Monday, killing one worshiper and wounding at least 26.

An outraged crowd of about 1,000 Shiites, many beating their chests in mourning, rampaged afterward in this southern city, setting fire to cars and shops and killing at least six more people.

Police recovered the bodies from a KFC restaurant burned by the mob. All were restaurant employees, senior police official Manzoor Mughal said. Four were burned to death, while the two others died after taking refuge in a refrigeration unit, he said.

[Last modified June 1, 2005, 00:39:12]