Terrorism Notebook
Afghanistan land-mine crew killed

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The attack is the latest in a series that have killed at least 20 foreign and Afghan aid workers since last March, in what local and international officials say is a campaign to scare away foreign aid and undermine the government.

Abdul Hai Neamati, the governor of Farar Province, where the incident occurred, said he believed the killings were the work of Taliban or al-Qaida because the assailants did not take the mine-removal workers' money or belongings.

A spokesman for the U.N. Mine Action Center for Afghanistan confirmed that the victims were staff workers from the Afghan mine-removal agency, Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghan Reconstruction.

They had been traveling back to the western town of Herat from a supply trip to their teams working in Farar Province, in southwestern Afghanistan.

Terror on agenda as Bush talks with world leaders

WASHINGTON — President Bush called the leaders of Russia and Italy yesterday to discuss how to check the spread of dangerous weapons and keep them from terrorists.

Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Bush's speech last week in which he proposed new ways to halt illicit weapons trafficking, White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said.

Bush warned that black-market dealings by the architect of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program had exposed holes in global-enforcement efforts.

Bush wants other countries to spend more on programs aimed at securing vulnerable nuclear arsenals in Russia and other former Soviet-bloc nations. He made no mention of any additional U.S. dollars for the effort.

Bush and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi spoke about Libya, whose leader, Moammar Gadhafi, pledged in December to end development of weapons of mass destruction. Berlusconi last week became the first Western government head to visit Libya since Gadhafi's announcement.
 
Also ...

A senior member of the al-Qaida terror network, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, told U.S. authorities the group had plans to carry out attacks in Japan during the 2002 World Cup soccer tournament, Japanese media reported yesterday. ... Jordan has charged four men with plotting to carry out attacks on Americans in the kingdom, state security prosecutor Col. Mahmoud Obeidat said yesterday. ... The United States said yesterday it will remove Philippine communist rebels from a list of terrorist organizations if they reach a peace deal, clearing the way for a new round of negotiations in Oslo, Norway.

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