| oct/nov news |
A
bomb threat at Delhi airport has led to the grounding of an Air
India flight which was on its way to Hong Kong.
The threat turned out to be a hoax but all 178 passengers on board
the aircraft were evacuated.
Officials say
a call received in Hong Kong said two passengers on board the flight
were carrying explosives. There
was information that there were terrorists on board but it has been
declared a hoax
The Air
India jet was on a routine flight from Bombay, also known as Mumbai,
to Hong Kong via Delhi.
After airport officials were alerted to the bomb threat, the aircraft was taken to an isolated bay and the passengers evacuated.
"There was information that there were terrorists on board but it has been declared a hoax," India's Civil Aviation Minister, Shahnawaz Hussain, said.
The minister said he has now called for an investigation following an increase in hoax calls in recent weeks.
Two days ago, a British Airways flight from Singapore to London made an emergency landing in Delhi following a bomb scare.
Airline crew became suspicious after the discovery of a packet on board which later turned out to be a toilet case.
On Monday, a man was taken off a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight from Dhaka to Delhi on suspicions of being a "terrorist".
He was questioned by police and is said to be facing charges of travelling on a false passport.
And on Sunday, an Indian Airlines flight in the eastern city of Patna was grounded following a bomb scare that also turned out to be a hoax.
Thursday, 31 October, 2002
A series of bomb explosions has hit Soweto township, in South Africa, killing at least one person. Another was badly injured. Police say nine bombs exploded and one more has been defused.
The blasts began at about midnight, rocking parts of the sprawling township one after the other. Several of the explosions targeted railway lines linking Soweto to Johannesburg. Some train services have been suspended, leaving busy commuter routes in chaos.
Another explosion ripped through a mosque, tearing apart one of its walls.
On Wednesday morning, police announced a further blast had occurred at a temple in Bronkhorstpruit, a town east of the capital, Pretoria. It is unclear if the blast is linked to the Soweto explosions.
Police have been out in full force searching for other explosive devices.
No group has said it carried out the attacks, but the BBC's Hilary Andersson in Johannesburg says South African media are speculating that far right-wing organisations could be responsible.
Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi is reported as saying that two white men were seen acting suspiciously in Soweto shortly before the explosions. He said they suspected a major right-wing organisation of being behind them.
Wednesday, 30 October, 2002
Southern Thailand hit by attacks
Arson attacks on five schools and a bomb blast caused jitters in southern Thailand on Tuesday, but the prime minister appealed for calm.
No-one was injured in the attacks, radio and television reports said.
The 12 October bombing of a tourist resort on the Indonesian island of Bali, which has been blamed on Muslim extremists, has left South-East Asia on alert.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has said Thailand is not at risk from international terrorism and he quickly ruled out foreign involvement in Tuesday's attacks.
"It is a local problem and it will not be difficult to find out who did it," he told reporters.
Mr Thaksin also said he believed those responsible for the arson attacks were not involved in a series of murders of police officers in the area earlier this year.
One bomb exploded on the stairs of a Buddhist temple before dawn on Tuesday while another was found and defused at a Chinese temple in Yala.
In neighbouring province of Songkhla, there were a series of fires at five schools, also before dawn. One building was destroyed and several others were damaged.
Malaysia and Singapore have warned Thailand that Islamic militants may try to hide in Thailand. Western countries have warned of possible attacks in tourist resorts such as Phuket.
Tuesday, 29 October, 2002
The authorities
in Colombia say four people have been killed and more than 30 injured,
in two separate bomb attacks in different parts of the country.
They blame the main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) for the bombings.
Two of those killed were police officers. They died when a car bomb exploded in the town of Arauca, near the border with Venezuela.
The device went off shortly before a visit to Arauca by Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe.
In the northern department of Sucre, two marines were killed when a bomb exploded while they were out on patrol.
Meanwhile, more than 20 people were injured when a device went off in the Caribbean port city of Barranquilla.
24 October 2002, BBC
Australia unveils anti-terror plans
Australia has announced a series of new anti-terrorism measures to boost security at home and abroad following the deadly bombing in Bali.
Hours after attending a memorial service for the estimated 94 Australians killed in the 12 October attack, Prime Minister John Howard said the move reflected growing dangers for Australians from international terrorists.
"The events in Bali have shown that Australia is not immune from the large-scale destruction of human lives that terrorist action can bring about," he told reporters.
Australia is also lobbying to get the United Nations Security Council to declare Islamic militant group Jemaah Islamiah (JI) as a terrorist group - blaming it for the Bali attack.
The US on Wednesday named JI a terrorist organisation, freezing any assets it might have in the US. The UK government is set to follow.
Indonesia has not named JI as suspects in the Bali bomb, but it has linked the group with Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, which is blamed for last September's attacks in the US.
However, the official Antara news agency reported that Indonesia has written to the UN, urging it to designate JI a terrorist group.
The Islamic cleric believed to be JI's leader remained under police guard in hospital on Thursday, with doctors saying he was too ill to be questioned.
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, who was rushed to hospital in the town of Solo last Friday, has been placed under custody for alleged involvement in a series of church bombings two years ago and in a suspected plot to kill President Megawati Sukarnoputri before she came to office.
Indonesian police want to have Mr Ba'asyir moved to Jakarta for questioning, or placed under house arrest. However, police doctors have said Mr Ba'asyir is not ready to leave hospital.
Mr Ba'asyir, 64, has repeatedly denied links with terrorism and has denied that JI even exists.
Before the Bali bomb, Indonesia had resisted pressure from the US and other nations to crack down on JI, partly for fear of a backlash from Muslim radicals.
But following the bomb, it rushed through sweeping new anti-terrorism measures. It has also drawn up sketches of three possible suspects in the Bali bomb, though these have not been released to the media.
Australia announced its anti-terror plans following a national memorial service in the capital Canberra for those who died in the Bali bombing.
At a highly emotional service, the prime minister told bereaved relatives that "in every corner of 19.5 million Australian hearts there is a place for you and the person you have lost".
24 October 2002, BBC
Suspected bomb defused in Kabul
International bomb disposal experts in the Afghan capital, Kabul, have exploded a device left outside a United Nations building in the city centre.
No one was hurt in the incident.
Members of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (Isaf) sealed off the area where security guards had noticed a suspicious device that resembled a child's toy car with protruding wires.
A spokesman for Isaf, Major Gordon MacKenzie, said the size of the controlled explosion indicated that the toy may well have been a bomb.
23 October 2002, BBC
Suspicious parcels keep police on the hop
A suspicious looking parcel and a bag forced bomb disposal experts into action in Nakhon Ratchasima and police in Samut Prakan yesterday.
In Nakhon Ratchasima, a parcel weighing 827 grammes was left at the Jomsurang postal office in Muang district yesterday afternoon. It was addressed to a house in Ban Bueng Saensuk village in tambon Phoklang but did not specify either a receiver or a sender.
Police secured the place and bomb experts from the Wing 1 x-rayed the parcel and took safety steps to open it. When it was opened, police found cosmetics, a purse, two apples, an ID card, a house registration copy and photos of Walee Kasan, 38, inside.
In Samut Prakan, Somsak Theewasuwet, a 44-year-old local food seller, alerted police when he saw a black bag in the loading platform of his pick-up truck parked near the Pak Nam market on Sri Samut road.
Police sealed off the area and covered the bag with tyres while waiting for bomb disposal experts to arrive.
After an hour, when the experts had still not arrived, Somsak, who was by now surrounded by sympathetic relatives, received a phone call from his son, Supat, who told him that the bag belonged to his brother.In the bag were a pair of football shoes and a T-shirt.
23 October, 2002 Bangkok Post
Parcel bomb explosion kills Thai Police Officers
A parcel bomb exploded Monday at a government office in central Thailand and killed two police officers and injured four other people.
Interior Minister Wan Muhamad Noor Matha said the bombing 'looks more like a personal vendetta against the agency' than a terrorist attack.
Such attacks are rare in central Thailand, but in recent years there have been isolated bombings the country's predominantly Muslim south. Those attacks have been blamed on bandits rather than insurgents.
21 October 2002 Asia News Yahoo.com
Nine hurt in parcel bomb attacks
Eight parcel bombs were yesterday targeted at Pakistani security authorities here, of which three exploded injuring nine people, police said.
The parcels were all addressed to investigators involved in sniffing out Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda, and five were intercepted or defused before they could cause damage, officials said.
The three blasts occurred at two police stations and a government building in the space of 30 minutes within a 2km radius in the heart of Pakistan's largest city.
"All three were parcel blasts. They went off as the parcels were opened," a senior police officer told AFP. One policeman's hands were blown off.
"One of the bombs was directly addressed to the Sindh province police chief Syed Kamal Shah," Karachi police chief Asad Jehangir told AFP, "but it was intercepted at the courier office."
"It is an act of terrorism," Sindh provincial home affairs secretary Mukhtar Sheikh declared.
"If the message was to deter us from pursuing the war on terror these terrorists are mistaken," he said.
16 October 2002, Dispatch Online
Finnish police arrest teen in mall bomb probe
Finnish police today arrested a 17-year-old boy on suspicion of helping a student who is believed to have set off a bomb at a shopping mall last week, killing himself and six others.
Detective Chief Superintendent Tero Haapala said the boy, from southern Finland, was a chief suspect in “providing information about how bombs are constructed”.
Police said 19-year-old Petri Gerdt, who lived with his parents and studied chemical engineering, built the bomb and intentionally exploded it on Friday evening at one of Finland’s largest shopping malls in Vantaa, 10 miles north of Helsinki.
Gerdt was an avid Internet surfer and probably built the deadly device after visiting a website chat room known as “bomb forum”.
Police detained several people who had visited the site or who knew Gerdt, but all had been released except for the 17-year-old boy.
15 October, 2002
A bomb on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali has killed at least 58 people in a crowded nightclub in the resort of Kuta.
Police said at least 15 of the dead are foreigners, and more than 120 people were injured - among them Americans, Australians, Britons and Canadians.
There are charred
and mangled bodies everywhere, it is unbelievable
A hospital official said many of the bodies brought into hospitals
around the island's capital Denpasar were too charred to be identified.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blast, but the US embassy in Jakarta had recently issued warnings of possible attacks by Islamic militants linked to al-Qaeda.
Australia's foreign minister said he was "almost certain" that it was terrorist attack.
"It's hard to believe there could be any other explanation for it." said Alexander Downer.
Reports say the explosion was caused by a car bomb outside the Sari Club, a nightspot popular with Western tourists in Kuta.
The area was crowded with people out on a Saturday evening.
One survivor said there were two blasts, the first relatively small but the second so powerful that it brought the building down.
Its thatched roof and wooden walls were set on fire. The blaze spread to a bar opposite and flames were still raging in both buildings several hours afterwards.
A further explosion went off almost simultaneously near the office of the American honorary consul in Denpasar, but no one was injured.
13 October, 2002, Reuters
At Least 13 Dead in Chechnya Police Station Blast
Rescue teams worked through the night into Friday searching for survivors in the rubble of a police station in Russia's rebel Chechnya after a bomb exploded, killing at least 13 people and injuring others.
Officials said the bomb that exploded on Thursday night in the four-story building in the regional capital Grozny had been deliberately planted to hit a gathering of police officials on the floor above.
The Emergencies Ministry said 13 people had been killed -- most of them police officers -- though television reports gave their own death toll of 14.
Eight people had been taken to hospital with serious injuries after being pulled from the rubble, the ministry said.
"This terrorist act was carried out to intimidate Chechens who work for the police and those who are about to join the police," Bislan Gantamirov, Chechnya's first deputy prime minister, told Itar-Tass news agency.
The rebel attack mocked Kremlin claims that the Russian military was gradually asserting control over the security situation in Chechnya, where Moscow has been battling separatist rebels on and off for eight years.
The incident seemed certain to cast a shadow over Russian President Vladimir Putin's talks on Iraq later on Friday with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Although Moscow says the military phase of the war in Chechnya is over, it has failed to produce a long-term political solution to the conflict, which continues to claim lives daily among Russian forces and Chechnya civilians.
Using lifting gear to raise chunks of fallen masonry, rescuers pulled several badly-wounded people from the debris.
But by daybreak, an Emergencies Ministry official said that although three or four people were believed to be still under the rubble it was doubtful they were alive.
"We do not count on finding anybody else alive. We hope there will be survivors, but according to our information there are no more," the official Ruslan Gavtayev told the First Channel television.
Chechnya prosecutor Nikolai Kostyuchenko told Tass the bomb had been smuggled into the highly-guarded Zavodsky district police station by "moles" working within the police force on behalf of Chechen separatist guerrillas.
Officials said the bomb had been planted on the second floor -- possibly inside a sofa -- and detonated underneath a meeting, one floor above, of police officers reviewing the security situation at the end of their day.
"The rebels are trying to intimidate all Chechens who have stood up on behalf of law and order and constitutional authority," Kostyuchenko said.
"The explosion was premeditated. Somebody from the building itself carried in an explosive device," Supyan Makhchayev, Grozny deputy mayor, told television.
Television footage in the immediate aftermath of the blast showed rescue workers, including local people equipped with shovel and axes, hacking at debris in a search for survivors. A badly bloodied victim was shown being carried Into an ambulance on a stretcher.
11 October 2002, Reuters
Suicide Bomber Kills One in Israel; Clash in Gaza
A Palestinian suicide bomber killed a woman and wounded 12 other people by blowing himself up near a bus in Israel on Thursday, but the driver and passengers prevented a higher death toll by stopping him boarding.
Two Palestinians aged 12 and 18 were also killed, during an Israeli army raid in the southern Gaza Strip, witnesses and hospital sources said, despite international criticism of such incursions.
The suicide bombing, on a highway east of Tel Aviv, and the army raid in Gaza were sure to fuel tensions that have already increased sharply this week and alarmed Washington as it seeks Arab support for a possible war on Iraq.
In the first suicide bombing in three weeks, the attacker detonated his explosives after he tried to board a bus along a highway near a stop popular with Israeli soldiers.
Burned flesh and body parts were scattered over the area. A scraggly tree next to the spot where the bomber detonated his explosives was singed and branches coated with blood and flesh.
"The driver did not know it was a suicide bomber. He closed the door and the terrorist fell," Tel Aviv Police Commander Yossi Sedbon told Army Radio. "He opened the door to treat the suicide bomber like any passenger, together with another man, and then they noticed that he was an armed man with a bomb belt.
"They held his hands, told everyone to disperse, and then they ran away. He got up...and walked about 30 meters from the bus toward the south, and then blew himself up."
Hospital sources said a woman was killed in the blast near Israel's commercial capital, and most of the wounded were on the sidewalk near the bus stop, which is popular with soldiers.
The bombing was the latest of many carried out by militants in the two-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
It followed four days of violence in the Gaza Strip in which 20 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces during raids which the army says are intended to rein in militants but which the Palestinians say have included many civilian casualties.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the suicide bombing, although the militant group Hamas has vowed to avenge the deaths in Gaza.
10 October, 2002, Reuters
Philippine Bomb Kills at Least 8, Wounds 19
A bomb ripped through a bus terminal in the southern Philippines on Thursday, killing at least eight people and wounding 19 in the latest of a series of bomb attacks in the violence-hit region.
Police said the explosion occurred around 2:45 p.m. at the bus terminal in Kidapawan City in North Cotobato province.
One woman and a child were killed on the spot and the others died in hospital, Superintendent Casimiro Medez of Kidapawan City told reporters.
Local radio reported explosives were believed to have been planted in the waiting shed of the terminal and those who died included a six-year-old boy and street vendors. At least two buses were damaged.
By late evening, the death toll had reached eight and 19 people were being treated for injures, said regional army spokesman Julieto Ando.
Ando said the military and police were investigating possible motives for the attack and that communist and Muslim rebels were among the top suspects.
"We are checking on the possible involvement of the NPA (New People's Army) and the MILF (Moro Islamic Liberation Front). But we are not discounting other terrorist groups," he said.
Authorities said the NPA, a communist group which has been fighting for an establishment of a Marxist state for over three decades, was known to be active in the Kidapawan area.
The MILF is the main rebel group fighting for a Muslim homeland in the south of the mainly Catholic Philippines. The Manila government and the MILF are engaged in peace talks brokered by Malaysia.
Last week, a powerful bomb ripped through a karaoke bar and restaurant in southern Zamboanga City, killing a U.S. soldier and two Filipino civilians. Authorities blamed the Abu Sayyaf, a guerrilla band which Washington has linked to the al Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden.
A Jordanian man detained for immigration irregularities was suspected to be linked to the Zamboanga attack, but officials said on Thursday he was likely to be deported soon as police did not have evidence to press criminal charges against him.
The 36-year-old man was taken into custody on Tuesday in Manila for violating immigration laws. "We do not have anything to link him to any terror activities as of yet," police intelligence Chief Superintendent Jaime Caringal told reporters.
Military intelligence sources had said they suspected the man was a Palestinian. Newspapers have said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Philippine military were looking for a Palestinian who was believed to have had a hand in the bombing.
10 October, 2002, Reuters
DC Police Arrest 4 on Explosives Charges Near IMF
Police arrested four antiglobalization protesters on Saturday for allegedly carrying explosive devices just a few blocks from where global finance officials were meeting at the International Monetary Fund ( news - web sites).
Officers rounded up the men as they left an alley near the IMF and World Bank ( news - web sites) headquarters in Washington and found coffee cans that police said were rigged with an as-yet-unidentified explosive material in their backpacks.
"(It was) some sort of a coffee can device," Kelly McCurry, a spokeswoman for the Washington D.C. Metropolitan police told Reuters. She said the four men were charged with a misdemeanor possession of an explosive device.
Earlier, a march involving thousands protesters ground to a halt when police hemmed marchers in a park a couple of blocks from the IMF and World Bank buildings.
By mid-evening, the protests had largely died down after about 50 protesters, remnants of the big march, staged rotating sit-ins in front of police barricades rimming the buildings, trying to keep delegates inside from leaving.
Police put up police tape and stood shoulder-to-shoulder to keep the activists from getting near the buildings of the lenders, who are holding annual meetings here.
Marchers, pounding drums, waving tattered American flags and chanting, began marching toward the buildings at midafternoon but were stopped at Washington's Farragut Square by police because their permit was limited to that area.
28 September 2002, Reuters
'Shoe-bomb' explosive found on jet
French police said yesterday they had found a package of explosives of the kind used by the so-called shoe-bomber, Richard Reid, on a Moroccan passenger jet that landed in the eastern city of Metz after a flight from Marrakesh.
Judicial sources said no fuse was attached to the 100 grams (3.53ozs)
of explosives, which they identified as pentrite, the same substance
that the British-born Reid is accused of trying to detonate on board
an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December.
A police spokesman in Metz said the explosive was "more than enough" to blow up the Royal Air Maroc Boeing 737, but the fact that it was wrapped in special aluminium foil may indicate it was intended as a "delivery".
The plane landed in Metz on Wednesday after a brief stopover in Marseille, the spokesman said, and the pentrite was found between the armrests of two seats by sniffer dogs performing a routine search after all passengers had disembarked.
The investigation is being handled by French anti-terrorist police and France's counter-intelligence agency, the DST. Both declined to comment.
But justice sources said investigators had two main lines of inquiry: that the target was somewhere in France and the explosives were left on board by a panicked courier, or that the package was intended for pick-up on the return flight for detonation in Morocco, where voters go to the polls in general elections today.
Pentrite, a weapon favoured by Islamist extremists, is found in the Semtex plastic explosive that blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie in 1988, killing 270 people.
It was discovered hidden in the shoes of Reid, who is suspected of links with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida movement, after he was restrained while he allegedly tried to blow up the Paris-Miami flight on December 22.
The judicial sources said the passengers who had occupied the seats where the explosive was found on RAM flight 5764 were tourists with no apparent police record.
The plane, which had been chartered by a tour operator, was due to set off on the return flight at 11.30pm. Its departure was delayed until 3am after a thorough search by police and customs officers.
After decades of repression and widespread allegations of vote-rigging, today's elections are billed as Morocco's first free and transparent polls and are seen as a test of the young King Mohammed's cautious moves towards greater democracy in the Muslim country. Only one Islamist party, the PJD, is presenting candidates.
27 September 2002, Guardian
A
controlled explosion has been carried out on a suspicious package
found in Ipswich.
Police were alerted after the package was found on the doorstep
of a house in Foxhall Road at about 0920.
Officers called to the scene immediately cleared nearby homes and businesses.
Part of the road was also closed.
A specialist bomb disposal squad from Colchester in Essex, used a robot to examine the package. A short time later the decision was taken to carry out a controlled explosion.
23 September 2002, BBC
Bomb blast at Israeli bus stop
A suicide bomber
has blown himself up at a bus stop in northern Israel, injuring
several people, police reported.
The explosion occurred near the Arab Israeli town of Umm el-Fahm,
police said.
The identity of the bomber is not known.
The blast came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon demanded a total cessation of violence before any start to a fresh peace plan proposed by international leaders.
18 September 2002, BBC
U.S. Missions in Europe Get White Powder Letters
U.S. embassies or consulates in Germany, Denmark, Italy and Luxembourg received letters containing white powder on Wednesday, sparking fears of a fresh anthrax attack, a State Department official told Reuters.
"Unidentified white powder was received in local mail deliveries," the official said, citing official information received from the embassies in Copenhagen, Luxembourg and Rome and consulates in Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Leipzig and Munich.
"In each case when the white powder was discovered by mission employees, staff notified local authorities who responded immediately and are now evaluating the substance," he said.
11 September, 2002, Reuters
U.S. Embassy in Copenhagen receives 'suspicious package' with powder
A suspicious letter containing white powder was received Wednesday at the U.S. Embassy, officials said, adding the envelope was mailed in France.
"An unidentified white powder came out of the letter when it was opened in the embassy's mail room," said John-Erik Hansen, the head of the National Center for Biological Defense. "None of the people who were exposed (to the letter's content) have shown any immediate signs of sickness."
Hansen refused to say whether any embassy staff would undergo medical checks.
The letter was mailed in France, according to Hansen and the Copenhagen police, but no further details on the sender or contents were available.
Embassy officials earlier confirmed that a "suspicious package" had been received but declined further comment, but work at the downtown building was not disrupted.
Three center employees in rubber suits and gas masks left the embassy Wednesday afternoon with two black plastic bags. Hansen said they had taken "different kinds of samplings" but refused to disclose the content of the bags.
The samples will be sent to a laboratory in Stockholm, Sweden, later Wednesday to be tested, Hansen said. The results is expected within 24 hours.
The Copenhagen-based center coordinates activities regarding biological warfare agents and bioterrorism. The government created the center last year after a series of false anthrax alarms in this Scandinavian country and global scares of biological attacks.
Hundreds of suspicious packages were reported worldwide after several people were killed by anthrax-tained letters sent through the mail, but most proved to be hoaxes or false alarms.
11 September 2002, AP
German Police Search Mosque After Bomb Tip-Off
Police in the northern German city of Hamburg said on Wednesday they were searching a mosque after a tip off about a possible bomb attack on the anniversary of the September 11 attack on the United States.
The search is the latest in a series of security alerts and arrests in Germany ahead of the anniversary of the attacks, which were orchestrated by extremists who for years lived in Hamburg.
Police raided the warehouse of a textile company owned by a Syrian-born man in a town north of Hamburg on Tuesday and said they were questioning the owner and his family on suspicion of harboring Islamic extremists.
Police in the southern university town of Heidelberg last week arrested an American woman and her Turkish boyfriend on suspicion of planning attacks to mark the September 11 anniversary.
11 September 2002, Reuters
U.S. Embassy in N.Z. Faces Scare
A security alert closed down the mailroom at the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday, after a white powder spilled from a package onto the floor, a spokesman said.
Police and emergency services personnel in airtight suits sped to the building and confirmed the powder was a diet supplement for a weightlifter — and had nothing to do with anthrax.
Embassy spokesman Bill Millman said there was nothing sinister in the delivery.
The scare came just two days before the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
Millman said embassy staff had followed the protocol for such an emergency, closing the mailroom. The emergency did not disrupt work in the rest of the building.
The embassy was the center of a security alert last year when a letter containing poisonous cyanide paste was sent to it along with a threat to the New Zealand Open, where Tiger Woods was a player.
Enough cyanide was enclosed in the letter to kill several people, police said.
The letter had threatened New Zealand, Israeli and American interests, and said the United States hadn't learned its lesson from the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
9 September 2002, AP
Car Bomb Blast Rocks Kabul, Many Dead
A powerful car bomb exploded in the busy business district of the Afghan capital Kabul on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and possibly many more, police said.
One senior police officer blamed Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and Afghanistan's ousted Taliban rulers, who once sheltered bin Laden and his supporters.
Witnesses said thousands of people fled the busy central business district after the blast near the information ministry there at 2.55 p.m. local time.
The deputy police chief for Kabul, Mohammad Khalil, was quick to blame al Qaeda, the Taliban and an exiled former guerrilla chief and prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
"Hekmatyar, the Taliban and al Qaeda have revealed their black faces again," he said. "Was this a military place? Was this a place of the Americans?" he asked, referring to the U.S. forces who helped topple the Taliban and are hunting al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Khalil gave a toll of 10 dead and 16 wounded, including two policemen.
Earlier, another police officer gave a higher toll. "My forces evacuated more than 22 bodies and more than 20 wounded," Police Colonel Abdullah told Reuters.
Residents said the explosion was the worst in Kabul since the Western-supported government of President Hamid Karzai came to power following the overthrow of the hard-line Islamic Taliban last year.
A Reuters correspondent at the scene saw more than 15 wounded people after the blast. The wounded included men and women.
"It's a chaotic scene, people are running everywhere," said Reuters correspondent at the scene, Sayed Salahuddin.
"I can see pieces of flesh on the road and the pavement. There are sandals and pieces of clothing everywhere. I can see hundreds and hundreds of glass windows shattered in nearby buildings."
Several dozen soldiers were seen examining a wrecked taxi in which the device was thought to have been planted.
Among the wounded were officials of the Ministry of Information, some 50 meters from the site of the blast, who were cut by flying glass.
Khalil said there was a small explosion from a bicycle, followed by a massive explosion of the nearby car. Witnesses told Reuters they heard a small blast first followed by a big explosion.
Khalil said peacekeepers from the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul were assisting in the investigation into the explosion.
5 September 2002, Reuters
Homemade bomb kills three in violence-ravaged Ambon
A homemade bomb exploded Thursday in a sports stadium in the violence-ravaged town of Ambon in eastern Indonesia, killing three girls and injuring eight other people, police and witnesses said.
Most of the victims in the blast at Ambon's main Merdeka Stadium, near the governor's office, were believed to be senior and junior high school students who were training for a coming regional sports event, said Lt. Col. Noviantoro, chief of the local police, who like many Indonesians uses only one name.
"All the three dead victims were young girls aged between 14 and 17," Noviantoro said.
He said the blast was caused by a homemade bomb.
Witnesses said a woman was taken by police for interrogation, which Noviantoro would neither confirm nor deny.
Ambon, about 2,600 kilometers (1,600 miles) east of Jakarta, is the provincial capital of Maluku, where three years of fighting between Christians and Muslims has killed 9,000 people.
Sporadic violence has continued despite a February peace accord. In July, a bomb blast ripped through a crowded market, injuring 53 people.
Maluku, an archipelago, was known as the Spice Islands during Dutch colonial times.
5 September 2002, AP
Mail Scare at 8 Massachusetts Police Stations
Eight Massachusetts police stations on Wednesday received threatening letters containing a white powder in an incident reminiscent of the deadly letter-borne anthrax attacks that hit the United States almost a year ago.
"At this hour, we have indications that eight police departments, all in Essex County, have received threat letters with white powder in them," said Roseanne Pawelec, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
She declined to describe the envelopes, the nature of the threats they contained or say to whom the letters were addressed.
But one of the police chiefs who received a letter described what his secretary saw when she opened the mail.
"It was a regular, plain white business envelope and it just said Hamilton Police Department with no return address," said Walter Cullen, chief of police in Hamilton, a small town 23 miles north of Boston.
Inside the envelope "there was a white piece of paper that said 'Black September' and then powder spilled out onto my secretary's desk," he added.
Besides Hamilton, police departments in Middleton, Danvers, Marblehead, Salem, Peabody, Wenham, and Lynnfield also received similar pieces of mail.
Pawelec said the FBI ( news - web sites) was investigating and the powder had been sent to state testing facilities. More about its makeup may be known as early as Wednesday evening, she said.
Police chiefs around Massachusetts were alerted and hazardous materials crews were dispatched to the eight police stations, which are all north of Boston.
Coming just days before the one-year anniversary of the attacks, the incident was expected to refocus the nation's attention on security and the threat of future attacks.
"We have a nit-wit out there who is doing this. This is something that is very serious and we have to take it seriously. Whether it is something that is poisonous or whether it is nothing more than baby powder, we have to take it very, very seriously," Cullen added.
Five people died last autumn after exposure to spores dispersed from anthrax-laced letters. Federal investigators have not found the source of the letters.
4 September 2002, Reuters
Police Remove Suspicious Package from U.S. Open
Police and bomb squads evacuated the International Food Court at the U.S. Open on Sunday after a suspicious package was left unattended.
With the anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center just 10 days away, jittery security personnel cordoned off the area crowded with spectators who were trying to escape the rain.
Bomb disposal experts were brought in to examine the cooler that was eventually found to contain donuts and water.
The package was taken to the lost property area, where it would be left for the owner.
Police said, that it was not the first time this year that suspicious packages have been found and disposed.
"It's just like the airport, no unattended baggage," said U.S. Open worker John Cline.
There was some question as to how the package found it's way through the screening stations set up at all entrances.
New limitations prevent fans from bringing in backpacks, briefcases, large purses, video cameras, radios, coolers, cans or glass containers into the grounds.
Although police refused to confirm an increase in security, the final grand slam of the season appeared to be on heightened alert as the tournament entered its second week.
Sniper teams have been spotted positioned above the Arthur Ashe stadium court while the police continue to provide a large presence.
Just two days after the completion of last year's tournament, planes were crashed into the World Trade Center, prompting the USTA to boost security for this year's event.
Concrete barriers surround the entire National Tennis Center with hundreds of uniformed police officers positioned inside and outside the sprawling grounds.
Buses transporting players, media and spectators are no longer allowed to pull up to the main gate, and instead have drop off points set up 500 yards from entrances.
1 September 2002, Reuters
