Military

TERRORISM

¨         Kuwait has arrested up to 50 people suspected of helping two Kuwaitis to kill a U.S. Marine and wound another in what the government said was a "terrorist attack." U.S. defence officials, who asked not to be identified, said the Kuwaitis who staged the attack on Tuesday had attended training camps in Afghanistan run by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. The two attackers were buried on Wednesday in what witnesses said turned into an anti-Western rally.  In another incident on Wednesday, a U.S. soldier fired a single bullet at a car, apparently believing he was under threat as troops moved to a desert training area near the Iraq border, a U.S. military spokesman said. The military provided no details of the incident. (Reuters 092329 GMT Oct 02) 

¨         Two Lebanese and a Saudi citizen who were arrested last month in Lebanon admitted they are members of al-Qaida and planned to open a military training camp for the group in Lebanon, Prosecutor General Adnan Addoum said Wednesday in Beirut. Addoum said he received his information from military intelligence officers interrogating the three. Lebanon said it will support the United States in its war on terror. (AP 092130 Oct 02)

IRAQ

¨         NATO's top commander, Gen. Ralston, sought to allay Turkish fears over a possible independent Kurdish state in northern Iraq in a post-Saddam Hussein era, saying the United States respected Iraq's territorial integrity. Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, the U.S. Air Force general commanding NATO forces in Europe, was speaking in Istanbul on Wednesday at a conference on the NATO alliance's ties with Russia. "It is the U.S. government policy that we respect the territorial integrity of Iraq and we very much understand the sensitivities" of Turkey, Gen. Ralston said. His visit came on the day the EU dashed Turkish hopes by remaining silent on when to start membership talks with Turkey. "We want our friends to accomplish their goals as quickly as they would like," Gen. Ralston said. He also said that he was "disappointed" by a lack of progress in negotiations that would allow the EU to take command of a 800-strong peacekeeping operation in Macedonia (sic). The force is almost entirely made up of European troops but remains under NATO command. "Now the problem is back with the EU and the EU needs to work at it," Gen. Ralston added. (AP 092124 Oct 02)

¨         Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix said on Wednesday, in an interview on PBS television,  that he wanted to send an advance team to Baghdad by the end of October, by which time he hoped the UN Security Council would have adopted a new resolution. Blix acknowledged that finding hidden weapons of mass destruction would be difficult and had been in the past. "One must realize and remember that the Iraqis have had plenty of time to hide whatever they wanted to hide since 1998," he said. "They were quite capable of that before, and they would be even better at it now." But he said, "I don't think the Security Council today would be willing to go along with the kind of cat and mouse play that they have in the past." (Reuters 100115 GMT Oct 02)

¨         President Chirac told U.S. President Bush in a telephone call on Wednesday that France remained opposed to a single UN resolution paving the way for possible military action against Iraq, Chirac's office said. However President Chirac has agreed that UN arms inspectors should be given greater powers in an initial resolution to carry out checks to search for any Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a U.S. demand that France has until now resisted. (Reuters 092220 GMT Oct 02)

EU

¨         Asserting that Turkey's future is in Europe, the U.S. State Department on Wednesday urged the European Union to move toward membership for Turkey as soon as possible. Spokesman Richard Boucher said the Bush administration "will continue to be in touch" with the EU on this view until there is a final decision at a December summit meeting in Copenhagen. While noting that the United States is not a member of the EU, Boucher said: "We have long believed that Turkey's future is in Europe. It's in the strategic interest of the United States and the European Union, Turkey and the European Union, that Turkey and the European Union build the closest possible relationship." (AP 092207 Oct 02)

BALKANS

¨         Yugoslav President Kostunica and his pro-Western challenger, Miroljub Labus, faced off Wednesday in an unprecedented U.S.-style TV debate days ahead of Serbian presidential elections, both warning against the likely failure of the vote. Reflecting growing fears that Sunday's runoff vote will fail because of low turnout, Serbian Patriarch Pavle also issued a dramatic appeal for Serbs to vote. (AP 092011 Oct 02)

¨         A Kosovo Serb leader accused of attempted murder turned himself in to international police in the Yugoslav province on Wednesday, a UN spokesman said. The charges against Milan Ivanovic stemmed from a violent demonstration in April in the Serb-dominated north of the flashpoint town of Mitrovica. Kosovo's UN governor, Michael Steiner, welcomed Ivanovic's move. "The investigating judge will now decide on further steps to be taken in this case," he said in a statement. A UN spokeswoman said she could not confirm reports in Belgrade media on Thursday that the charges against Ivanovic had been reduced from attempted murder to participation in unrest. (Reuters 091532 GMT Oct 02)

OTHER NEWS

¨         The U.S. military will try to shoot down a dummy warhead high over the Pacific with an interceptor missile next week, the seventh such test of a key part of its planned shield against ballistic missiles, the Pentagon said on Wednesday. For the first time, a ship-based radar system will be used in the US $100 million test to gather data about the target and interceptor missile, the Missile Defense Agency said. (Reuters 092225 GMT Oct 02)

¨         The United States, campaigning against alleged weapons of mass destruction in mainly Muslim countries, brought up Syria's nuclear program on Wednesday and said that it was very concerned. Under Secretary of State John Bolton coupled Syria and its old ally Iran as the beneficiaries of Russian technology for their nuclear and missile programs. (Reuters 092304 GMT Oct 02)

¨         Cuban President Fidel Castro invited the international community to inspect biotech research facilities in Cuba to counter U.S. charges his country may be developing biological weapons, according to an interview with ABC released on Wednesday. (Reuters 092233 GMT Oct 02)