Terrorism Notebook
Bush agrees to release all Clinton files

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WASHINGTON — In its second high-profile turnabout of the week, the Bush administration agreed yesterday to give the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks full access to the papers of former President Clinton.

The decision came after commission officials pressed the White House to turn over thousands of pages of documents that had been shipped from the former president's archives for review by the commission.

The White House received 11,000 pages of Clinton documents, but turned over less than 25 percent of them to the commission despite repeated requests for all of them, according to commission officials and a top aide to the former president.

The decision to release all the Clinton papers came two days after President Bush announced that White House national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice would testify publicly before the commission.

U.S. soldiers fatally shoot attacker in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. soldiers shot to death a militant and detained two others after a failed grenade attack on their patrol near the Pakistani border, the military said early today.

Several grenades were thrown Wednesday at a convoy of U.S. vehicles patrolling south of Khost city, about 100 miles south of the capital, Kabul, military spokesman Lt. Col. Bryan Hilferty said. No soldiers were hurt.

Hilferty said he had no information about the three attackers' identities or affiliation.

German judge questions retrial of 9-11 suspect

HAMBURG, Germany — A German judge said yesterday the case against the only Sept. 11 suspect ever convicted may collapse if it goes to a retrial, adding that he will decide next week whether to free Mounir el Motassadeq.
 
At a hearing to rule on the Moroccan's request to be released from jail, Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt pointed to a March appeals court ruling that the suspect failed to get a fair trial the first time. It was the first time the court publicly raised such doubts.

Uzbekistan blames terrorists for recent explosions, attacks

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Uzbek authorities yesterday blamed international terrorism for a wave of explosions and attacks that killed 47 people in the Central Asian country and said they have arrested 19 suspects.

Police have seized a wide array of arms and sophisticated bomb-making materials from safe houses and have determined that many of the militants were trained abroad and not in Uzbekistan, said Uzbek Prosecutor General Rashid Kadyrov.

Italy police say al-Qaida tape calls for an attack on Rome

ROME — Videotapes of a key al-Qaida suspect urging followers to destroy Rome have reportedly been found by Italian police, heightening concerns about security in Italy and at the Vatican before Easter.

Tapes featuring Abu Qatada, a militant Muslim cleric named by Britain as the spiritual inspiration for the lead Sept. 11 hijacker Mohammed Atta, were found during recent raids in the town of Cremona, the weekly news magazine Panorama reported yesterday.

Qatada was arrested in October 2002 and is in a British prison under emergency powers.

Also ...

The Pentagon said yesterday it released 15 people held as terrorism suspects at a U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, reducing the number confined there to 595. ... Admitting they were part of an Islamic terrorist group, four jailed Malaysians said yesterday that a string of attacks against churches and other targets in Southeast Asia — including bombings in Bali that killed 202 people — was inspired by Osama bin Laden.

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