US anthrax scare spreads to nuclear safety

19 Oct, 2001 04:49 AM7 mins to read

10.00 am

WASHINGTON/KABUL - US fears of unconventional terrorist attacks spread from anthrax and germ warfare to nuclear safety on Thursday with a major power plant threatened as US planes pounded Afghanistan for the 12th day in their war on terrorism.

The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania was put on high alert after receiving a "credible threat," further jangling American nerves already frayed by last month's mass killings in New York and Washington and three dozen subsequent cases of anthrax or exposure to the potential germ warfare weapon.

"We were notified last night that a security threat had been made against Three Mile Island. That threat was deemed credible. We took extra security measures and we remain at that heightened state of alert," said David Carl, spokesman for operators Exelon Nuclear.

On the military front, US planes in Afghanistan continued a fierce bombardment of targets of the ruling Taleban, who are sheltering Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the September 11 attacks with hijacked airliners that killed nearly 5400 people.

On the diplomatic front, President George W. Bush arrived in China for an Asian summit, hoping to shore up support from countries as diverse as China, the world's largest remaining communist country, and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.

But it was the home front with anthrax and the latest nuclear warning that preoccupied Americans.

Harrisburg International Airport and Lancaster airport near the nuclear plant were shut for four hours.

Local television stations said temporary flight restrictions were put into effect for a 32km radius around the airports and military aircraft were dispatched to protect Three Mile Island -- the site in 1979 of the worst nuclear accident in the United States.

Melanie White, spokeswoman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, said later the plant "is implementing safety standards" as governed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She added, "Everything appears back to normal."

Although no hard evidence has been found linking anthrax-laced letters to bin Laden, Bush has said there could be a link.

The government offered a $US1 million ($2.41 million) reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for mailing anthrax, FBI Director Robert Mueller announced.

The spread of anthrax contamination by letter forced an unprecedented closing of part of US Congress on Wednesday and spooked financial markets around the world.

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives closed until Tuesday for anthrax testing on their side of the Capitol Hill complex, but the Democratic-controlled Senate remained in session after 31 congressional staffers tested positive for anthrax exposure.

The contamination arrived in an anthrax-tainted letter at the office of senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle on Monday.

The closures marked an unprecedented halt to business for an environmental safety check. The last time there was such a closure was on the day of the September attacks when the Senate also shut down.

US Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge said five people had tested positive for anthrax out of thousands who have been given tests after letters containing powder arrived at media offices in Florida and New York, Congress and many other addresses, some of them clearly hoaxes.

A CBS employee who works with TV News anchor Dan Rather in New York tested positive for skin anthrax, making the company the third major network to be exposed to the potentially deadly disease.

The anthrax scare has spread far beyond US borders.

Security guards sealed off the mailroom of the lower house of the French parliament after a letter containing a suspect white powder triggered a new anthrax alert in Paris.

Part of Australia's national parliament was evacuated for five hours after an employee of Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock opened a package that spilled out white powder. Later tests showed the package contained no anthrax.

But in Nairobi, a letter sent to an unidentified Kenyan businessman tested positive for anthrax. Kenyan Health minister Sam Ongeri said the letter was posted from Atlanta on September and passed via Miami.

In Japan, letters containing suspicious powder were delivered to the US consulate in Osaka and three major Japanese newspapers.

In Afghanistan, the 12th day of air raids went ahead despite appeals from aid agencies for a break to get badly needed food into the country.

For the first time ever, the United States is flying armed, unmanned drones into combat. "Predator" spy planes, armed with anti-tank missiles are taking to the skies over Afghanistan, US defence officials said on Thursday.

The remote-controlled RQ-1 aircraft have been modified by the Air Force to carry two Hellfire missiles, which have been fired several times in the intense 12-day air campaign.

"It is a first, a small revolution. It's certainly not widespread or overwhelming, but we have said nothing is ruled out," said one official, who asked not to be identified.

Defence experts have called such a move a first step toward perhaps one day building unmanned, long-range bombers that can carry dozens of missiles and bombs to overseas targets without risking human crews.

The Taleban's ambassador to Pakistan said more than 400 people had been killed so far in the US-led strikes on Afghanistan and confirmed that the country was running short of food and medicines.

Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef's statement accused the United States of "committing state terrorism ... under the cover of fighting terrorism."

More than 60 people have been killed in a fierce bombardment of the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar since Wednesday morning, the Afghan Islamic Press said on Thursday, quoting Taleban officials.

Thursday morning raids hit at targets around Kandahar, which was rocked by a series of powerful explosions, and Jalalabad in the east -- the hub of Afghanistan's notorious guerrilla training camps, witnesses told Reuters.

At least seven civilians were killed and several injured by exploding ammunition after US warplanes bombed a Taleban munitions dump to the north of Kabul, witnesses said.

But the Taleban, who have denounced the air strikes as a war on Islam, said all their leaders were alive and well and so was their guest bin Laden.

"They are all safe. None of the leaders of the Islamic Emirate (Taleban) and nor our guests have been hurt since the start of the American attacks," Education Minister and top government spokesman Amir Khan Muttaqi told Reuters in Kabul.

Bush's first official visit to China is his first trip outside the United States since the September 11 suicide attacks.

With the US president keen to ensure global backing for his war on terrorism, latest developments in that region threatened to complicate his task of selling the idea to sceptical Muslims.

Israel, incensed at Wednesday's assassination of right-wing cabinet minister and former general Rehavam Zeevi, threatened to invoke the war on terrorism to justify attacking the Palestinians if they fail to hand over Zeevi's killers.

Any flare-up in the Middle East could alienate the very Muslim nations Bush is courting.

Flexing its military muscle, Israel sent tanks and troops into two Palestinian-ruled areas on Thursday, sparking battles in which two Palestinians died. It told Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to deliver Zeevi's killers or face retribution.

Cabinet secretary Gideon Saar said Israel would "act against the Palestinian Authority in the way currently accepted by the international community to act against a leadership that supports terror" if Arafat fails to do so.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared the ground for Bush at a meeting of foreign and trade ministers on Thursday at which he said he won support for the strikes against Afghanistan.

Despite previous public opposition by predominantly Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia, Powell said there was no dissent among the ministers.

"I found understanding among my colleagues," Powell told a news conference."

- REUTERS

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