New taskforce to track terrorists

1 Nov, 2001 07:47 PM4 mins to read

WASHINGTON - United States Attorney-General John Ashcroft yesterday announced the creation of a foreign terrorist tracking taskforce as part of a larger immigration-tightening package aimed at curbing terrorist acts here.

"America will not allow aliens to use our hospitality against us," Ashcroft said. "We will detain and arrest any suspected terrorist."

The taskforce will be charged with tracking, picking up and deporting any immigrant suspected of terrorism and prevent any suspected terrorist from entering the US.

New security measures for the issuance of visas would be implemented by the Justice and State departments in conjunction with the CIA. Domestically, federal agencies would redouble their efforts to "neutralise the threat of terrorist aliens".

The US is attacking the Taleban regime in Afghanistan in response to the September 11 terror attacks on the US. Terrorist Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network are based there.

Ashcroft named FBI official Steven McCraw to lead the Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force. McCraw said the key to singling out possible terrorists is cooperation from a variety of government agencies. "That requires information sharing, and that's what we'll be doing."

Officials said that information, or the lack of it, has hindered efforts to keep out suspected terrorists. In the past, those responsible for letting people into the country, or letting them stay, have not had access to intelligence reports that some individuals are members of terrorist groups. The US said most of the hijackers entered the country with papers obtained from US missions in Saudi Arabia.

"The big challenge with our visa programme right now is the database," Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "We have to make sure that all derogatory information we have on individuals who might be trying to get into the country are in that database."

The revised rules include new security measures on non-immigrant visas, and more background investigations and security advisory opinions. Officials said they would not hesitate to kick out any possible terrorist for any violation of any immigration law.

In other news:

* Ashcroft dismissed a newspaper report that federal agents were searching for six men who had been carrying material about a nuclear power plant in Florida and an Alaskan pipeline.

"To the best of my knowledge that's a story and nothing more. I don't have any reason to believe it to be true."

The Miami Herald said federal agents were searching for six men who had been detained in the Midwest but later released even though they were carrying photographs and information on a nuclear power plant in Florida and the transalaska oil pipeline.

* The head of the international watchdog on atomic safety has issued his strongest warning yet about the danger of terrorists attacking nuclear installations or stealing radioactive substances to make "dirty" bombs.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that September 11 had highlighted the vulnerability of nuclear plants to suicide attacks and the possibility of terrorists creating crude nuclear devices to contaminate entire cities. "The willingness of terrorist to sacrifice their lives to achieve their evil aims creates a new dimension."

* A senior State Department official said he was convinced that if the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center had possessed nuclear weapons, they would have used them. John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security said, "it's hard to see how people with that belief system could be deterred."

* The British Air Line Pilots' Association claimed that reinforced doors, which could be deadlocked from the inside to prevent passengers from storming the flight deck, were a much higher risk to aviation safety than hijackers. The union said cabin crew, who check on the welfare of the pilots, would be powerless to help if those on the flight deck became incapacitated. Virgin Atlantic and British Airways are to introduce the new security measure.

- AGENCIES

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