Bomber

Lt. Col. Marvin T. Ross, a retired Air Force pilot and a project manager for almost 20 years at Westinghouse Aerospace division in Baltimore, died of a heart attack Feb. 3 at a medical center in Florida. He was 86. Colonel Ross was born in Spring Hill, Kan. He joined the Army Air Corps in 1943 and became a B-24 bomber pilot assigned to the 15th Air Force in Italy. He flew more than 50 bombing missions during World War II, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross and four Air Medals. He remained in the Air Force after the war, serving as a pilot in the Korean conflict, followed by other foreign assignments and duty at the Pentagon.

WORLD Suicide bomber kills 150 A suicide bomber drove a load of watermelons and vegetables to the center of a village marketplace in northern Iraq yesterday and then detonated his truck, killing as many as 150 people in what appeared to be the deadliest attack yet in a year of unremitting violence. pg 15a Britain identifies 2 suspects Investigators have identified two "principal protagonists" in the botched attacks in London and Glasgow and are trying to establish how other detained suspects fit in, a British security official said yesterday.

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Unlike so many deaths in this city these days, the passing of Ahmed Lami was remarkable not for its violent end but for its lack of bloodshed: He died of natural causes, at age 65. But even peaceful death has become a magnet for violence. As his Shiite Muslim family and friends gathered to mourn his passing yesterday afternoon under a tent in a middle-class, religiously mixed neighborhood on Palestine Street, a suicide bomber walked in, sat down and detonated his explosives, killing at least seven people and injuring 21 others.

Richard M. Nixon approved it, Jimmy Carter canceled it, Ronald Reagan resurrected it and Thursday, the B-1 bomber finally accomplished something many thought it would never do: It flew in combat.Two B-1B Lancers dropped bombs onto a military complex near Baghdad, Iraq, the Air Force said yesterday."I certainly felt a sense of personal exhilaration at being able to lead this," Air Force Lt. Col. Steve Wolborsky, one of the two pilots, said in a conference call from the gulf. "The adrenalin was pumping."

Felony charges were dropped yesterday against five peace activists accused of banging on a B-52 bomber with hammers, but they still face misdemeanor charges, the Maryland U.S. attorney's office said.The five will be tried Sept. 22 in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Schenning. The activists are the Rev. Frank J. Cordaro, 47, of Lacona, Iowa; Sister Ardeth Platte, 62, of Baltimore; Kathleen A. Boylan, 54, of -- Washington; the Rev. Lawrence A. Morlan, 38, of Bloomington, Ill.; and Sister Carol Sue Gilbert, 50, of Baltimore.

WASHINGTON -- Federal agents detained yesterday in Montana a man they suspect of being the Unabomber, the terrorist who has left a 17-year-long trail of bombs across the United States that have killed three people and maimed 23.The suspect, Theodore J. Kaczynski, 53, is a former assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley who graduated from Harvard University and received a doctorate from the University of Michigan --...

WASHINGTON -- While FBI agents in Atlanta conduct a massive search for the Olympic bomber, agents in Virginia are engaged in a more subtle task: developing a psychological profile. "Everything that's been collected in terms of the evidence -- the 911 call, everything else we get in -- will be referred to our Behavioral Science Unit" at Quantico, Va., FBI special agent David Tubbs told reporters in Atlanta yesterday. "They'll review everything and attempt to come up with a profile."Law enforcement officials in Washington said it was still early to develop a concrete profile in this case.

Bob McKean has heard the complaints against the B-26 Marauder: that it was hard to handle, that its early design caused almost as many crashes as German fighters, that the war was really won by larger bombers.But he doesn't buy it. As U.S. Army Air Corps Staff Sgt. Bob "Mac" McKean he flew Marauders on 52 missions deep into Italy, France and Germany, taking out bridges, barracks and softening up opposition for advancing Allied troops."It was the best plane in the world," said McKean, now a 72-year-old retired International Business Machine Corp.

An article in Sunday's editions about the display of World War II aircraft at the Glenn L. Martin State Airport misidentified the Grumman F4F Navy Wildcat fighter.The Sun regrets the errors.Imagine standing on the catwalk of a B-29 bomber as bombs hurtle toward enemy territory or climbing into the cockpit of an F-15 Navy Wildcat to battle Japanese Zeros.Such flights of fantasy have drawn hundred of visitors to Martin State Airport in Baltimore County this week.Six World War II aircraft, including the only B-29 still in flying condition, are on display today from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The planes arrived last week and will fly to East Hartford, Conn.

IT'S A SIMPLE question, and one that nobody seems to be asking: What if Richard Jewell, the suspected Olympic bomber, didn't do it?The latest news from Atlanta is that Jewell is still on the street, still not in custody, still only a suspect, still only maybe at the wrong place at the wrong time.The FBI is now cautioning against jumping to conclusions, even as it brought a SWAT team in with a warrant to search Jewell's apartment. It seems a little late for caution now -- now that Jewell has been labeled a "prime suspect" by every possible news outlet this side of House and Garden.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - - A suicide bomber disguised as a Pakistani security officer attacked the lobby of a heavily guarded and fortified U.N. office in Islamabad on Monday, killing five other people and heightening fears of renewed violence in Pakistan's capital after a long lull in suicide attacks. The midday bombing occurred at Islamabad headquarters of the World Food Program. Dressed in the uniform of a paramilitary police officer, the bomber asked a security official at the agency's main gate for permission to use the bathroom, said Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik.

Explosions in India leave 67 dead, 210 wounded NEW DELHI: A series of apparently synchronized explosions tore through four towns in the troubled state of Assam in northeastern India yesterday, killing at least 67 people and leaving more than 210 wounded, according to witnesses and police. The bombs targeted crowded markets and government buildings like courts and police stations, witnesses said. The attacks, among the bloodiest in recent months, left streets littered with bodies and the wreckage of cars and motorcycles, according to witnesses and photographers at the scene.

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- A suicide bomber cloaked in a burqa killed at least 12 other people and wounded at least 27 yesterday in southwestern Afghanistan, a sparsely populated region where Taliban militants have increased attacks in recent months. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault and denied that the bomber was a woman. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said the intended target was a local police commander. Officials said that a large number of police and civilians were among the victims.

BAGHDAD -- A suicide bomber walked undetected into a funeral yesterday and blew himself up, killing as many as 17 people and injuring nine in a predominantly Sunni village near Tikrit, police said. The explosion in the Hajaj village killed Iraqis attending a funeral for Antar Abdullah, a tribal leader and brother of the Salahuddin provincial governor's security chief. The security officer, Ahmed Abdullah, left the funeral minutes before the attack and was not injured. Many other officials - police, tribal chiefs and members of volunteer security forces - also attended the funeral, although police said they survived the bombing.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Nine people were killed and at least 25 wounded when a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up last night in a crowded Shiite Muslim prayer hall in this border region. The attack marked the onset of sectarian violence that often flares during Ashoura, the annual religious holiday when Shiites mourn the death in the seventh century of Imam Hussein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad. Shiites are a minority in Pakistan. Elsewhere in the troubled mountain region near the Afghan border, dozens of Pakistani paramilitary troops abandoned an outpost after threats by Islamic militants.

BAGHDAD -- Moments after jubilant Iraqi troops were captured on videotape yesterday shouting, "Where is terrorism now?" a suicide bomber detonated his explosive vest, killing at least three soldiers celebrating Army Day. It was the first of three deadly attacks in Baghdad during the day, all within about an hour. The bombings killed at least eight people and injured dozens, although some estimates put the death toll as high as 15. Despite an overall decline in violence in recent months, several high-profile bombings recently have rocked the city.

MOSCOW -- Russian President Vladimir V. Putin said yesterday that he has ordered the resumption of long-range strategic bomber flights, a return to a Cold War-era practice and another sign that the Kremlin is flexing its military might amid a deepening chill in relations with the U.S. Putin's decision comes a week after Russian fighter jets flew within a few hundred miles of a U.S. military base in Guam. Yesterday, several pairs of Russian Tu-160 and Tu-95MC bombers were flying over Atlantic and Pacific waters, Russian Air Force spokesman Alexander Drobyshevsky told the Russian news agency Itar-Tass.

WORLD Suicide bomber kills 150 A suicide bomber drove a load of watermelons and vegetables to the center of a village marketplace in northern Iraq yesterday and then detonated his truck, killing as many as 150 people in what appeared to be the deadliest attack yet in a year of unremitting violence. pg 15a Britain identifies 2 suspects Investigators have identified two "principal protagonists" in the botched attacks in London and Glasgow and are trying to establish how other detained suspects fit in, a British security official said yesterday.

BAGHDAD -- The friends and family of slain Fallujah tribal leader Alawi Ahmed Zuwaid decided to ignore a threatening leaflet and honor him yesterday with a public funeral. The mourners were hit with the most deadly bombing of the day in Iraq. As the funeral procession moved through Fallujah, a suicide car bomber attacked the mourners, killing 30 people and injuring 34, authorities said. They were among at least 67 Iraqis killed or found dead yesterday. The U.S. military said two soldiers were killed Wednesday in Anbar province during combat operations.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A suicide bomber blew himself up yesterday in a hotel restaurant popular with Afghans, killing at least 22 people and injuring scores in what might be a sign of the Afghan conflict spilling over into Pakistan's cities. The explosion in Peshawar, a provincial capital close to the lawless tribal areas that straddle the Afghan-Pakistan frontier, came one day after a U.S. soldier was killed in an ambush on the Pakistan side of the border - a rare Western combat casualty inside Pakistan.