ERRI MORNING NEWS SUMMARY

TERRORISM/POLITICAL VIOLENCE

UNITED STATES

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The Washington Post was reporting on Thursday that a suspect in the 7 August bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, has fled the tiny African archipelago of Comoros, eluding FBI investigators who were hot on his trail. The newspaper said Abdallah Mohammed Fazul apparently left the Indian Ocean nation on 22 August two days after U.S. officials asked Comoran authorities to trace a telephone number discovered during a search of a Nairobi hotel.

According to the report, Fazul boarded a flight to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and then disappeared. U.S. federal investigators swarmed Comoros shortly after Fazul disappeared and discovered interesting material, including computer disks, in searches of the suspect's family homes. The Post said FBI technicians are now analyzing the disks.

Investigators reportedly discovered letters in which Fazul boasted of his involvement in al-Qaida, the terrorist network that U.S. prosecutors say organized the Nairobi bombing and the simultaneous explosion at the U.S. embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Fazul reportedly told relatives he started "military service" while in Sudan, and made later visits to Yemen and Afghanistan, where Saudi exile Osama bin Laden has his headquarters.

ERRI MORNING NEWS SUMMARY

ERRI MORNING NEWS SUMMARY

MUNICH, GERMANY (EmergencyNet News) - Bavarian police have arrested a man described as a close associate of international terrorist Osama bin Laden. German officials did not release the identity of the man. They said he was arrested Wednesday afternoon near Munich on a tip from Interpol officials in Washington. The Washington Post on Saturday identified the suspect as Mamduh Mahmud Salim and described him as a top lieutenant and weapons procurer for bin Laden. The Post said U.S. officials have filed charges against him in New York. Osama bin Laden has been accused of orchestrating recent the U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - A senior U.S. official said on Friday that 18 people have been detained in Uganda over alleged plans to attack U.S. interests in the East African country that led to the closure of the U.S. embassy there this week.

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TERRORISM/POLITICAL VIOLENCE

EUROPE

MUNICH, GERMANY (EmergencyNet News) - The state Justice Ministry said on Saturday that police in Bavaria have arrested a man described as a close associate of international terrorist Osama bin Laden. German officials would not release the identity of the man who they said was arrested on Wednesday afternoon near Munich on information from Interpol officials in Washington.

The Washington Post on Saturday identified the suspect as Mamduh Mahmud Salim and described him as a top lieutenant and weapons procurer for bin Laden. The Post said U.S. officials have filed charges against him in New York. It also said a sealed warrant seeking Salim's arrest was issued recently in Manhattan.

According to the Post, Salim is a member of al-Qaida, an international terrorist organization that is headed by bin Laden. The FBI and CIA assisted in Salim's arrest.

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U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT NEWS

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - An administration official says that the White House is negotiating with Congress for $1 billion in emergency funds to help upgrade security at 220 overseas posts deemed to fall short of security standards. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said all 260 diplomatic posts were surveyed following the bombings last month at two U.S. embassies in East Africa; only about 40 were deemed to be fully secure.

The additonal money would provide additional guards and video cameras and other equipment to enhance security. Some officials had proposed that emergency funds be concentrated on the 25 percent of diplomatic posts most in need of security upgrades. But that proposal was rejected on grounds that after the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, no post can be considered to be "low threat." So the administration decided to carry out security upgrades at all sub-par posts. A separate appropriation is being negotiated for the repair of the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

Bonnie Cohen, the State Department's top management official, told a Senate panel Thursday that high priority is being given to reinforcing the perimeters at overseas posts. She said the best physical security systems in the world can be rendered ineffective without the presence of qualified professionals.

She said that in Tanzania, a State Department diplomatic security officer found flaws in the system requiring an inspection of all vehicles entering the embassy compound. As a result of corrective measures, the terrorist bomb detonated outside the main gate of the embassy, rather than inside, thus saving many lives.

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WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - A senior U.S. official said on Friday that 18 people have been detained in Uganda over alleged plans to attack U.S. interests in the East African country that led to the closure of the U.S. embassy there this week. The U.S. official said, "There was information developed in Uganda that there were a number of people who were in Uganda and other countries that were planning an attack against American interests in Uganda."

Ugandan police said on Thursday that six people suspected of terrorist activities had been arrested early Tuesday during a raid in a suburb of the capital Kampala. The U.S. official, speaking on condition he was not identified, said the 18 detentions had taken place both in Kampala and in a border town which he did not identify.

The official said that U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had been sent to Uganda and were hoping to speak to the detainees. The FBI was investigating whether the threat in Kampala was linked with the bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on 7 August.

In a report published Thursday by Kampala's Monitor newspaper, two of the arrested men were identified as Sheikh Abdul and Omar Ahmed Mandela. The operation came after a series of bomb threats against several foreign missions in Kampala prompted the U.S. and British missions to close earlier this week. The British High Commission (embassy) has since reopened.

The U.S. official said the State Department had suggested to U.S. ambassador Nancy Jo Powell that the embassy take "a temporary time out ... until we were able to resolve these allegations." He said that Powell had chosen to shut down the embassy but staff were visiting it from time to time to work there.

The official said as many as 80 percent of U.S. missions abroad were not set back far enough from the street to be fully secure, and he spotlighted the consulate in Istanbul in Turkey, a country where he said there was "an active threat." He said, "That building has to be moved, it has to be moved in the longer term sense in order for us to provide a level of security for those people there."

Meanwhile, he said, U.S. officials were pressing the Turkish government to close off streets adjacent to the consulate. He said, without elaborating, that Turkish authorities were cooperating.

TERRORISM/POLITICAL VIOLENCE

LATIN AMERICA AND CARIBBEAN

ASUNCION, PARAGUAY (EmergencyNet News) - Local Paraguayan police say that Paraguay on Saturday extradited to the United States a man traveling on the passport of Lebanese national that Washington suspects of terrorist links. Police Chief Pablo Marin said, "The anti-terrorist department asked a judge for the extradition." The man, who was arrested on Friday on false passport charges, was flown to Miami on an American Airlines flight.

The man, carrying a passport identifying him as Mohamed Garib Makki, age 39, was arrested when he arrived on a flight from Syria to Ciudad del Este, which is located about 220 miles east of the capital. Paraguayan authorities had been advised by Washington that Makki was part of a terrorist organization and was wanted in the United States, but there was uncertainty surrounding the man's true identity.

Marin said, "Here in Asuncion we took his fingerprints ... and checked them against those in the passport and they did not match."

Hugging the border with Brazil, Ciudad del Este is considered a hot spot for terrorists and narcotraffickers. Both U.S. and Argentine officials suspect the city houses pro-Iranian extremists responsible for the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy and the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center, both in Buenos Aires.

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U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT NEWS

ASIA AND PACIFIC

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The U.S. State Department warned on Saturday of a possible "terrorist threat" to U.S. diplomatic and business interests in Burma (Myanmar). In a Public Announcement, the State Department said: "The U.S. government has received information that there may be a terrorist threat to U.S. diplomatic and U.S. business interests" in the military-ruled Southeast Asian nation.

The DoS said that the U.S. Embassy in the capital city of Rangoon has taken steps to increase its security, and U.S. citizens living or traveling in Burma should exercise "much greater caution than usual" to protect themselves. The State Department urged Americans now in Burma to stay in contact with the U.S. Embassy and to protect themselves by maintaining a low profile, varying their travel routes and treating mail from unfamiliar sources with suspicion.

ERRI MORNING NEWS SUMMARY

DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA (EmergencyNet News) - A magistrate's court formally charged two men with murder on Monday in connection with the 7 August bombing of the U.S. Embassy in which 11 people died. Mustafa Mahmoud Said Ahmed and Rashid Saleh Hemed were charged with 11 counts of murder according to Section 196 of the Tanzanian Penal Code. It was not immediately possible to ascertain the nationalities of those charged, but police said earlier that one was a Tanzanian national from Zanzibar and the other was a foreigner. All 11 killed were Africans, mainly Tanzanians.

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - The latest edition of U.S. News & World Report says that the FBI reported ten suspected terrorist attacks were thwarted during 1997. That's the good news. The bad news is that number accounted for twice as many as there were in 1996 and eight more than there were in 1995.

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT NEWS

WASHINGTON (EmergencyNet News) - As ERRI has been reporting the last few days, the White House plans to request $1.8 billion for emergency security improvements at U.S. missions around the world. A study after the bombings at two embassies in East Africa has determined additional security -- ranging from additional guards to security cameras -- is needed at most official American buildings in foreign countries. The New York Times is reporting that the request for additional funds will be sent Tuesday to Congress and will likely be approved.

LONDON (EmergencyNet News) - British anti-terrorist police have detained seven men suspected of having links with the Saudi terror chief blamed for the US embassy bombings in Africa. The seven, arrested in London, are thought to be associated with Osama bin Laden, the multi-millionaire Islamic fundamentalist identified by the American authorities as the man who plotted last month's attacks in Kenya and Tanzania.

The suspects were seized in dawn raids at addresses in northwest and west London, after a joint operation involving MI5, Special Branch and Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch. All the men were taken to be interviewed at a London police station. An eighth address, believed to be business, was also searched.

Scotland Yard said the arrests were the culmination of an operation codenamed "Challenge." It involved Special Branch and MI5 gathering intelligence over a period of several weeks. The information was then passed to Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch, commanded by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alan Fry, which made the arrest.

Those detained are thought to include a number of Egyptians and at least one Saudi. Asked whether the British agencies involved had been in touch with the FBI over the arrests, a Scotland Yard spokeswoman would say only: "As a matter of routine, the Metropolitan Police Service liaises regularly with international law enforcement agencies."

Wednesday's arrests in London were made under section 14 of the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1989. Scotland Yard provided few details, but did say the arrests were not thought to be linked with any unsolved terrorist incident. Nor did the raids involve the use of the new anti-terrorist powers - introduced after representations from foreign governments who suspect that London has been used by terrorists as a base from which to launch attacks elsewhere. The powers allow police to act against suspected terrorists plotting terrorist acts in other countries.