Military

WAR ON TERRORISM

¨         Al Qaeda has recently set up several new training camps in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan, the head of a United Nations group monitoring the flow of money to the network said on Tuesday. "A large number of al Qaeda operatives and others trained by al Qaeda remain at large," said Michael Chandler, who heads the UN group, which tracks financing links with al Qaeda. "Adherents continue to join their ranks and it continues to develop alliances with national or regional extremist groups bent on using terror as their means to their objectives." Chandler told reporters the unspecified number of camps were located in a region, near the Khyber Pass. However, a U.S. official told Reuters there was no evidence of any new camps. "I don't know of any al Qaeda camps being reactivated," said the official, who asked not to be identified. (Reuters 172258 GMT Dec 02)

¨         Four alleged Islamic radicals arrested in France and linked to a British terror suspect had possession of a mysterious liquid and an anti-contamination suit, France's interior minister said Tuesday. Nicolas Sarkozy said the four - three Algerians and a Moroccan - had been in contact with Rabah Kadre, who was arrested along with two other suspects last month in Britain on terrorism-related charges. The suspects were preparing a chemical attack, according to radio and television reports and the daily newspaper Le Parisien, which quoted unidentified police officials and agents from the counterintelligence service DST. Radio and television stations said the chemicals could be used to pollute public drinking water systems. (AP 172110 Dec 02)

AFGHANISTAN

¨         Attackers hurled a grenade into an unmarked jeep carrying two U.S. soldiers and an Afghan interpreter in the heart of Kabul on Tuesday, wounding all three, the U.S. military said. Three suspected assailants were arrested. Interior Minister Taj Mohammed Wardak said on state TV that authorities were investigating the incident, but accused the attackers of having links with al-Qaeda terrorists. (AP 171745 Dec 02)

IRAQ

¨         Italy will let the United States use its airspace and military bases if Washington decides to attack Iraq, Defence Minister Antonio Martino said on Tuesday. Martino told parliament that Washington had contacted Rome to see what support it would offer in the case of war. While Italy was not at present expected to have a frontline role, it was ready to help in other ways, the minister said. (Reuters 171836 GMT Dec 02)

NMD

¨         President Bush said Tuesday that he will begin deploying a limited system to defend the United States against ballistic missiles by 2004. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said it will likely stop "a relatively small number of incoming ballistic missiles, which is better than nothing." The plan calls for 10 ground-based interceptor missiles at Fort Greely, Alaska, by 2004 and an additional 10 interceptors by 2005 or 2006, defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Bush said the "initial capabilities" will also include sea-based interceptors and sensors based on land, at sea and in space. (AP 171955 Dec 02)

¨         The United States has asked to use a radar complex in northern England and upgrade it as part of a global missile defense shield, the British government said Tuesday. Prime Minister Tony Blair's Downing Street office said the government had made no decision on the U.S. request to use the Royal Air Force base at Fylingdales in North Yorkshire. Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon later outlined the written request from U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, pointed out advantages of the system, and said the government would consider it "very seriously." "The government will now consider the U.S. request very seriously, agreeing to it only if we are satisfied that it will ultimately enhance the security of the U.K. and the NATO alliance," he added. (AP 172019 Dec 02)

¨         The United States asked NATO-member Denmark if it can upgrade a radar at an American Air Force base in Greenland as part of a national missile defense system, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Tuesday in Copenhagen. An early warning radar at Thule Air Base in northern Greenland would have to be upgraded as part of the missile shield. Prime Minister Rasmussen called the planned missile shield "a peace project (because) it doesn't only involve the United States but also NATO, and it includes Russia." (AP 171618 Dec 02)

BALKANS

¨         In a bizarre move, Yugoslavia's parliament on Tuesday ratified the Dayton peace agreement -seven years after it was signed to end Europe's worst postwar bloodletting in neighboring Bosnia. The ratification, confirming that Yugoslavia officially recognizes the peace deal, passed with 75 votes in favor in the assembly's 138-seat lower house. The rest of the 110 lawmakers present abstained, although the lawmakers from the Socialist Party of former Yugoslav President Milosevic had voiced their strong opposition in a heated debate in the chamber. The parliament's 40-member upper house had already approved the ratification two months ago. (AP 171622 Dec 02)

¨         A Kosovo court jailed five former guerrillas for a total of 31 years on Tuesday for abducting and beating four fellow ethnic Albanians who subsequently disappeared, presumed murdered. One of them is the brother of ex-regional KLA commander Ramush Haradinaj, who now heads a party and is a member of parliament in the UN-administered Yugoslav province. The trial, which opened under heavy security last month, was one of Kosovo's most sensitive court cases since the 1999 war. It was the first time former members of the now disbandedKosovo Liberation Army (KLA), regarded by many ethnic Albanians as heroes in a war of liberation against harsh Serb rule, were convicted of such crimes. (Reuters 171819 GMT Dec 02)