Terrorism Notebook
British pilots criticize flight cancellations

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Flight 223 from London's Heathrow Airport to Dulles Airport in Washington, D.C., on Sunday and BA 263 from Heathrow to Riyadh on Monday have been canceled on the advice of the British government, a BA spokesman said, declining to give further details.

It was the fifth time that Washington, D.C., flight has been canceled since Jan. 1.

"Safety and security is our priority. But we now believe that the United States intelligence service is jumping at shadows," said Jim McAuslan, General Secretary of the British Airline Pilots' Association. "They are taking bits and pieces of information and letting their imaginations run riot."

Series of rockets hit Khost; two Afghans killed in blast

KHOST, Afghanistan — At least two Afghans were killed and six wounded today in an explosion at a government military post near the former Taliban stronghold of Khost in southeastern Afghanistan, police said.

The blast came hours after more than 20 rockets landed near Khost's airport, where U.S.-led forces are based, they said.

No immediate reports of casualties or damage were received in what was the biggest single rocket attack since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

A government soldier guarding the post was killed along with one civilian, while five soldiers and another civilian were wounded in the blast in Ali Sher district on the outskirts of Khost, said Mohammad Zaman, a police official.

"There is no doubt that the Taliban carried out the two attacks," Zaman said.

Bush, Cheney, Clinton, Gore testimony sought by panel
 
MADISON, N.J. — The federal commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will soon ask President Bush, former President Clinton and their vice presidents to testify in public about possible warnings they might have received from U.S. intelligence sources before the attacks.

"We need them to testify," former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, the bipartisan commission's chairman, told The Record of Bergen County in a story published yesterday. He said the panel would issue formal invitations within the next few weeks, although he conceded all four men would probably decline to be questioned at a public forum.

Bush said in an NBC interview broadcast this week that he would "perhaps" submit to questions from the commission. White House press secretary Scott McClellan yesterday would not say if Bush would testify publicly.

Target Afghan opium labs, Illinois congressman says

WASHINGTON — U.S. forces should treat Afghanistan's opium labs as military targets and strike the facilities that the Taliban and al-Qaida use to help finance their fighting, a House committee chairman said yesterday.

"Opium production in Afghanistan not only undermines Afghan reconstruction but also fuels Islamist terror groups," said U.S. Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois, the Republican head of the House International Relations Committee.

The United Nations' top counternarcotics official, Antonio Mario Costa, also has urged U.S.-led coalition troops to move against smugglers and labs in Afghanistan, the world's leading opium producer, with an estimated $2 billion annual trade.

U.S. officials say privately that going after growers would be too sensitive and undermine the government in a country where an estimated 30 percent of families have a member involved in drug cultivation, production or sale.

Peacekeeper spy plane, two rockets hit Afghan capital

KABUL, Afghanistan — Two rockets slammed into the Afghan capital yesterday, injuring two children, and an unmanned spy plane used by international peacekeepers fell onto the roof of a home.

Kabul Deputy Police Chief Gen. Khalil Aminzada claimed both rockets were fired from the southeast of Kabul, an area populated mainly by Pashtuns — the country's largest ethnic group, from whom the former Taliban regime drew its main strength.

Rockets are regularly fired at U.S. military bases around the country and sporadically in the capital. Officials blame the Taliban or allied militants loyal to Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar for the attacks.

The unmanned drone — a white, propeller-driven aircraft about 10 feet long with German markings — parachuted into the same district, landing on the roof of a mud home atop a hill. There were no injuries.

Militants might use Pakistan to launch attacks, leader says

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan acknowledged yesterday that suspected al-Qaida and Taliban militants might be using its territory to launch attacks inside Afghanistan.

Speaking to military officers in the capital Islamabad, President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan was trying to stem "whatever" was crossing from its soil into its western neighbor.

"On the western border, certainly everything is not happening from Pakistan but certainly something is happening from Pakistan," he said. "Let us not bluff ourselves ... whatever is happening from Pakistan must be stopped. That is what we are trying to do."

Al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden, accused of coordinating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, could be hiding along the porous Afghan-Pakistan frontier, U.S. and Pakistani military officials say.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company