9/11 Report: Al-Qaeda in the U.S.
TIME Magazine

As it shut down formal operations on Saturday, the September 11 Commission released a pair of staff monograph reports that reveal tantalizing and important new nuggets about the 9/11 plot ? including the possibility that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and another hijacker visited an INS office in Miami together in May 2001 with Adnan Shukrijumah, a trained pilot who today remains one of the most wanted al-Qaeda terrorists with a $5 million U.S. bounty on his head.

The commission also revealed new but ambiguous evidence of a financial connection between one of the hijackers and a Saudi national in San Diego, and declares that this is the only known instance of a hijacker potentially receiving a noteworthy sum of money from someone inside the U.S.

Atta visited the INS in May 2001 looking for a visa extension for one of his companions, but ended up with the INS discovering Atta himself had improperly received an eight-month visa, until Sept. 8, 2001, that was then rolled back to July 9. INS personnel who dealt with the Atta group then could not identify one of the men with him.

But the "Terrorist Travel" staff monograph released yesterday said that, based on other evidence, the commission believes that fellow hijacker Ziad Jarrah "may have been" with Atta.

More significant is that an INS officer who dealt with the group said she was "75 percent sure" that one of Atta's companions ? "a great looking kid," as she described him ? was Shukrijumah, based on the photos released along with his "wanted" notice after September 11.

The APB for Shukrijumah has been renewed this year, with Attorney General John Ashcroft calling attention to him in a press conference in May and officials sounding the alarm again in connection with the recent "Orange Alert" for sites in New york, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.

There is a particular alert for Shukrijumah along the U.S.'s southwest border, and officials in Mexico an

Canada : Border security in B.C. forces smuggler shift
London Free Press

CALGARY -- Frustrated by intense security along the British Columbia-Washington border, smugglers of both drugs and people are heading to Alberta in search of an easier route into the United States, say law enforcement officials. "They will continue to move wherever they can get through," said Monique Hirko of immigration customs enforcement in Helena, Mont. "It's just a game for them. Wherever it's easiest to go across, that's where they're going to move."

Hirko said there have been definite signs that smuggling is picking up inland.

"I'd say for the last year and a half they're slowly working their way east because of the heat they were getting from our counterparts over in the Blaine, Wash., area."

Last month, 14 South Koreans were arrested trying to sneak into the U.S. near the Chief Mountain border crossing between Alberta and Montana. It was the second attempted smuggling operation on the Alberta-Montana border this year.

In February, 10 people from South Korea were arrested after a failed attempt to smuggle them into the U.S. All were deported.

"The offenders are looking for a more porous part of the border to get through so they're starting to come further east to look for a route south," said RCMP Const. Dale Duschesne, a member of the Integrated Border Enforcement Team in Raymond, Alta.

UK arrests show terrorist planners avoid US
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - High-profile terror arrests like those recently made in Britain are unlikely in the United States as militants hatch their plans abroad in hopes of evading U.S. detection, experts and former officials say.

While some critics say a lack of similar high-caliber swoops in the United States indicates the Bush administration isn't doing enough to hunt terrorists at home, a range of experts and former officials across the political spectrum say key militants simply stay away because the danger of getting caught is greater in America.

They say insight gleaned from arrested al Qaeda suspects in Pakistan and elsewhere showed militants took advantage of more freedom of movement in Europe, historically more generous asylum laws and proportionally larger immigrant communities they can hide in while planning attacks.

"I believe the higher-level operatives simply view it as too risky to be operating here. Even in the September 11 plot, the hijackers were the footsoldiers rather than the major planners," said Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism expert with the Congressional Research Service.

"After 9/11, with vastly increased vigilance by U.S. law enforcement, intelligence and border control authorities, I think many terrorists quite wisely believe they can lay their plans more easily abroad," said Philip Wilcox, a former counter-terrorism chief at the State Department.

The only other big militant Islamic attack in the United States -- the 1993 World Trade Center bombing -- was probably planned in the suburbs of New York, but experts say this kind of activity would no longer go unnoticed.

U.S. Says Diplomacy Can Resolve Iran Nuclear Crisis
Reuters

VIENNA (Reuters) - The top U.S. disarmament diplomat said on Monday evidence pointed to an Iranian nuclear weapons program, but that Washington wanted a diplomatic solution and its ultimate goal was not to topple Tehran's government.

"There's no question that U.S. President (George W.) Bush wants to resolve the Iranian issue diplomatically," U.S. Under Secretary of State John Bolton told Reuters.

The United States accuses Iran of secretly developing atomic weapons and wants the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Tehran to the U.N. Security Council for what it says are violations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

"The evidence ... points to an Iranian nuclear weapons program," Bolton said in a telephone interview.

Iran denies wanting the bomb and says its nuclear program is intended solely for the peaceful generation of electricity.

The hawkish Bolton was responding to comments from several analysts at U.S. think-tanks, who said that Washington was not interested in resolving the crisis with Iran.

Iran repeats warning against attacking nuclear facilities
Haaretz.Com

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Insisting its nuclear program is peaceful, Iran again warned that it would retaliate if Israel attacked its controversial nuclear facilities.

"If they would do that, we would react," Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said Tuesday during a visit to New Zealand.

"We have our defense capability and that certainly keeps others from exercising such a threat," he said. "They know what is our capability and how ... we react."

Kharrazi's comments revisit the war of words that has escalated in recent weeks. It resurfaced as Israeli suspicions grew that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program in the guise of a peaceful nuclear power industry.

But Kharrazi insisted Tuesday that, "Iran has no program to produce nuclear weapons. It is our legitimate right to have nuclear technology for peaceful purposes."

In New Zealand to renew a cooperation agreement between the two nations, Kharrazi has been urged by senior ministers to fully cooperate with International Atomic Energy Agency requests for details of its nuclear program.

Islamic world’s hatred of occupiers of Iraq on the rise
Tehran Times

TEHRAN (MNA) — Animosity toward the United States is on the rise in the Islamic world as U.S. occupation forces have gone beyond the pale in Iraq by desecrating the country’s sacred sites and oppressing the people.

President Mohammad Khatami of Iran on Monday strongly condemned the occupiers’ heavy-handed handling of the Najaf crisis, saying that such behaviors have no justification.

Khatami even said Iraq's interim government risked losing popular support because of its backing for military operations against people in the holy city of Najaf.

Speaking to reporters, Khatami said the fighting was unjustified since Moqtada Sadr's Mehdi Army had shown it was willing to reach a negotiated settlement.

"It seems there is a desire to crack down on Najaf and scare all Iraqis." "It was Falluja yesterday, today it is Najaf and if the trend continues it will spread to all Iraqis," he said.

"The Iraqi interim government faces a great test and if it fails to resolve the problems it will not be held in high regard by the Iraqi people," he said.

"We want peace and stability to prevail in Iraq,” he added.

Protests in New York: 'What is the plan?'
International Herald Tribune

NEW YORK With less than a week left before the largest planned demonstration of the Republican National Convention, organizers and the city have yet to reach an agreement on how to handle the masses of protesters, setting up the potential for confrontations with the police just as the Republican delegates arrive.

At a moment when city officials and the protest's organizers, United for Peace and Justice, should be polishing the final details of the event next Sunday, they are instead locked in a court battle over the route of the march, which organizers say could draw 250,000 people. The group itself is fractured over how to proceed, and many protesters are vowing to use Central Park despite the vehement opposition of the city, which wants the rally to take place on the West Side Highway.

Adding to the uncertainty are the boiling tensions between Mayor Michael Bloomberg and officials and members of the police and firefighter unions, many of whom have been trailing him at his public events for weeks, threatening illegal strikes or other job actions just as the city struggles to deal with the protests and the convention. The Bloomberg administration and convention officials have dismissed their conflicts with both groups as irrelevant to the success of the convention. Both the city and organizers of the protest next Sunday say they hope to come to terms before the demonstration. "New York City has a way of pulling things off," said Edward Skyler, Bloomberg's press secretary. "But if UPJ feels that marching past Madison Square Garden and having a rally off the Hudson River is such a tragic abuse of the First Amendment, then they have the option of not taking the city up on its offer."