Terrorism

WASHINGTON -- The arrest of three terror suspects in Germany yesterday followed months of monitoring by American authorities concerned about an intensifying threat to the United States, according to senior U.S. counterterrorism officials. German officials informed the U.S. government at the end of last year that American military facilities were being targeted, an intelligence official said. U.S. interest in the alleged plot became "much greater at that point." While many details have yet to emerge, terrorism analysts said the German plot could represent a new and dangerous turn in the radicalization of local youths in Western countries.

AFTER THE BOMBINGS of the U.N. headquarters and Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad, U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid commented that terrorism was becoming the "No. 1 security threat in Iraq." In truth, terrorism was the greatest threat from the moment coalition forces set out to liberate Iraq. This was the plan in Damascus, Tehran and al-Qaida's Afghan caves from the beginning, but it will fail. Contingency planning by U.S. military strategists prepared to deal with a laundry list of potential catastrophes that never materialized, from saboteurs rupturing major dams to reprisal attacks by the long-suppressed Shiite majority against their Sunni-Baathist tormentors.

WASHINGTON -- A terrorism suspect who lived in Catonsville has challenged his detention in federal court, making him the first of 14 "high-value" detainees transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay to argue he is being wrongfully held. It is also the first case to contest the legality of the CIA's secret prisons program, said lawyers for the suspect, Majid Khan. Khan asserts in papers filed in federal District Court in Washington that he is far from the terrorist the government alleges him to be and confining him to a cell without providing an opportunity to contest his detention violates the Constitution and international law. He describes teaching basic computer skills to children in Baltimore and working for the Maryland state government, and denies membership in al-Qaida or ever being "a combatant of any kind."

WASHINGTON - Wars are always clarifying, and what this war clarified most was the degree to which there were actually three bubbles that burst at the beginning of the 21st century: a stock market bubble, a corporate ethics bubble and a terrorism bubble. The stock market bubble we're all too familiar with. When it burst three years ago, millions of people all over the world were made more sober investors. The second bubble was the corporate governance bubble - a buildup of ethical lapses by management that burst with Enron and Arthur Andersen, producing a revolution in boardroom practices.

IF, AS OUR nation's leaders say, the Sept. 11 terrorist-inflicted carnage was an attack on freedom and we are now fighting a war for freedom, then we ought to be wary of sacrificing our civil liberties on the altar of security. If we do, the terrorists will have won. Fortunately, we can be both safe and free, if our leaders are mindful. Unfortunately, President Bush and Congress have just succeeded in unnecessarily imperiling civil liberties with passage of a controversial administration-sponsored anti-terrorism act. To be sure, we needed to make some changes to improve security.

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is considering designating Eritrea as a state sponsor of terrorism, accusing it of running arms to Islamic insurgents in Somalia, the State Department's top official for Africa said yesterday. American officials say Eritrea, on the Red Sea, has been trying to destabilize the fragile government in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. That government came to power after Ethiopian troops, backed by the U.S., invaded Somalia and toppled an administration run by radical Islamic militias.

Excerpts from an editorial that appeared in the Orlando Sentinel on Friday:U.S. airstrikes against presumed terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan on Thursday may well have been warranted and necessary.Unfortunately, coming as they did on the heels of President Clinton's admission of having lied about an inappropriate relationship with a former White House intern, the attacks inevitably raised questions.The administration insists that it took the action to strike back at terrorists thought to be behind the recent bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

WASHINGTON -- At a time when U.S. global power seems absolute, the presidential candidates are assiduously avoiding thorny international security issues. Such complacency is misguided because the U.S. faces a greater terrorist threat now than at any point in the past. The next president will have to confront not just the challenge of rogue states but also free-lance terrorists such as Osama bin Laden. There is much confusion and ambivalence in the higher echelons of government about how to address this augmented threat of terrorism.

WASHINGTON - In the past few weeks, I have spoken with a number of politically experienced Democrats. The two questions I've asked them: "What do you think of President Bush's chances in 2004, and why?" Publicly, they would state Mr. Bush is in trouble. But privately, to a person, they say the election is all but over, and he will win. Their rationale, pure and simple, is terrorism. These Democrats know the American people believe that Mr. Bush can protect them against terrorism better and more forcefully than the Democrats, and that protecting the homeland trumps economic issues or any other wedge issue the Democratic nominee may come up with.

From time to time the Irish Republican Army in Northern Ireland sets out to prove that it is still in the IRA business. It was going to do that this autumn with a campaign of murder of British politicians in England and soldiers in Germany, which met with a little success and more failure. So it aimed terror at Irish Catholic families in Northern Ireland instead, by holding three families hostage and forcing the men to be suicide drivers of bombs into British army installations.The net death toll was six British soldiers and one Irish driver.