By Chris Buckley
BEIJING (Reuters) - North Korea agreed on Tuesday to return to six-party talks on dismantling its atomic weapons just weeks after staging its first nuclear test, drawing cautious welcome from President George W. Bush and Asian powers.
Envoys from North Korea, the United States and China met in Beijing and agreed to restart the stalled talks in the near future, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on its Web site, promising an end to a year-long hiatus in the negotiations.
“Obviously we’ve still got a lot of work to do,” Bush told reporters in Washington.
The other three countries involved in the talks are South Korea, Japan and Russia. A fifth round of talks in Beijing broke off last November without progress and North Korea later protested over a U.S. crackdown on its international finances.
After the breakthrough meeting in Beijing, Washington’s envoy, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, told a news conference there that he wanted “rapid progress” from the next talks, possibly in November or December.
But he said fully settling the nuclear standoff was likely to be difficult and time-consuming.
“We are a long way from our goal still,” he said. “I have not broken out the cigars and champagne quite yet.”
Hill spelled out a contentious bundle of issues that would preoccupy negotiators and could again derail talks, including the U.S. financial restrictions, how to ensure that North Korea kept any disarmament commitments, and the diplomatic damage done by Pyongyang’s October 9 nuclear test.
North Korea made no explicit promise not to conduct any more tests, Hill said, adding that a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Pyongyang remained in force.
“I think it’s self-evident they should not engage in such provocations,” Hill said of further tests.
“ILLICIT ACTIVITIES”
The next six-party talks will address North Korea’s concerns with the U.S. financial restrictions, possibly through a working group, he said, adding that Pyongyang needs to abandon “illicit activities” that the U.S. has said include currency counterfeiting and drug trafficking.
Washington announced steps to restrict North Korean access to international financial networks days after the six-party group reached broad agreement on September 19, 2005, toward negotiating an end to North Korea’s nuclear weapons and drawing the country out of isolation.
Hill said North Korea had not made lifting the banking restrictions a condition of talks.
After North Korea carried out its nuclear test on October 9, the U.N. Security Council voted to impose financial and arms sanctions on Pyongyang.
“The financial sanctions are effective unless the Security Council adopts a separate decision, whether before or after the talks,” South Korea’s chief nuclear envoy Chun Yung-woo told reporters in Seoul.
“What’s important is the countries prepare for the resumption of the talks so that there will be actual progress,” he said.
Japan’s top government spokesman, Yasuhisa Shiozaki, welcomed the decision to resume the talks, saying the six-party forum hosted by China since August 2003 was the best framework to resolve the standoff, Kyodo news agency said.
A Japanese government official told Reuters: “We think this could be a step in a positive direction, but we still have some caution.”
Earlier on Tuesday, before word of the talks resumption, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said Beijing had no plans to sever aid to or trade with North Korea.
Liu denied that an apparent drop in China’s oil exports to the isolated fortress state signaled a shift in policy. Chinese trade data released on Monday indicated that in September China sent no crude to energy-famished North Korea.
STRAINED TIES
The North relies on China for nearly all its oil, but has strained long-standing ties first by test-firing missiles in July and then by testing a nuclear device — both despite public pleas for restraint from China’s leaders.
Beijing bluntly criticized the North’s nuclear test and backed the U.N. sanctions.
“China has been very engaged,” said Hill. “The fact that China and other countries have felt so strongly about getting the DPRK back in the process is due in part to the fact that we have a multilateral process.”
The DPRK, or Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, is the official name of North Korea.
(Additional reporting by Jason Subler and Benjamin Kang Lim in Beijing, Carol Giacomo in Washington, Linda Sieg in Tokyo and Jack Kim in Seoul)
By Anwarullah Khan
KHAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani army helicopters killed around 80 suspected militants on Monday in a dawn attack on a religious school run by a pro-Taliban commander wanted for harboring al Qaeda fighters, a military spokesman said.
The army said the religious school or madrasa in Chenagai, 10 km (six miles) north of Khar, the main town in the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan, was being used as a militant training camp.
The strike killed almost everyone present in the madrasa, although at least three wounded were taken to hospital in Khar.
“The compound has been destroyed,” Major-General Shaukat Sultan told Reuters.
“According to our local sources, up to 80 deaths have been confirmed,” he said. No ground troops were sent in to mop up.
Residents said they had seen three or four army helicopters flying over Chenagai at around 5 a.m..
No prominent militant was believed to be in the compound when it was attacked, Sultan said. Security officials said one of those killed was Maulana Liaqatullah, the pro-Taliban commander who ran the madrasa.
Sultan said there were no women or children present.
Some villagers said there were young children among those killed, but Maulana Faqir Mohammad, a militant commander at the target site, told Reuters Television that the dead were aged between 15 and 25.
Bodies covered with white sheets lay in rows as Mohammad addressed hundreds of gunmen gathered by the ruined madrasa, declaring his support for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar.
“May Allah protect Sheikh Osama. May Allah protect Mullah Omar,” the long-haired, bearded militant leader said.
ISLAMIST PARTY CONDEMNS
Thousands of tribesmen rallied in Khar chanting “Down with America,” “Down with Bush” and “Down with Musharraf”.
The leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan’s most influential Islamist party, condemned the attack as “barbaric” and claimed it was carried out by U.S.-led forces from across the border.
“This alien attack… is tantamount to a declaration of war on Pakistan,” Qazi Hussain Ahmed told a news conference, while a senior minister from his party resigned in protest from the provincial government in North West Frontier Province.
Last January, Liaqatullah was believed to have had contacts with al Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahri that led to a CIA drone aircraft missile attack on Damadola village in Bajaur.
Zawahri was not present at the time but some al Qaeda operatives were killed.
Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border has been a haven for Islamist militants for decades. Many al Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas took refuge there after fleeing the U.S.-led hunt for them in Afghanistan after September 11, 2001.
Monday’s attack came two days after 3,000 militants held a rally near Khar, chanting support for bin Laden and Omar.
Talks between tribal elders and militants to reach a peace deal along the lines of the one struck in North Waziristan last month appeared to have failed, local clerics said.
A mountainous region that is difficult to access, Bajaur lies opposite Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar, where U.S. troops are leading the hunt for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Bajaur is the most north-easterly of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions that make up Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and are home to around 3.5 million people.
The Pakistan military has close to two divisions, some 30,000 men, in North and South Waziristan, the two other tribal agencies where support for the Taliban and al Qaeda has been rampant.
The army is deployed on the border in Bajaur, but internal security has been left to locally recruited police and militia.
By Ibon Villelabeitia
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The death of a Marine announced on Monday took the American death toll in Iraq for October to 100, a week before elections that could cost President George W. Bush’s Republicans control of Congress because of the war.
A string of blasts and car bombs killed more than 40 people in Baghdad alone, including 28 victims of an attack on poor laborers in the Shi’ite militia stronghold of Sadr City.
The U.S. military said the unnamed Marine was killed in combat in western Anbar province on Sunday, bringing the monthly death toll to 100 — the deadliest for U.S. troops in almost two years and the fourth bloodiest since they invaded in March 2003.
U.S. commanders have blamed October’s toll on more attacks during the Muslim Ramadan fast. In September, 71 Americans died.
Opinion polls show growing numbers of U.S. voters want to see the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq starting to come home. Since the invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein, a total of 2,813 U.S. troops have been killed.
Bush’s Republican Party faces possible loss of control of Congress in November 7, with opinion polls showing dismay over his policy on Iraq could be a critical factor in voter intentions.
Following strains between Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s Shi’ite-led government and U.S. officials over political and security steps intended to restore stability, Bush sent his national security adviser Stephen Hadley to hold talks with Iraqi government officials, a U.S. embassy spokesman said.
He met Maliki, as well as U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie.
U.N. MANDATE
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said his government will ask the U.N. Security Council to extend the mandate governing the presence of U.S.-led forces in Iraq for another year.
Maliki’s administration had indicated on taking office six months ago it might seek a new arrangement.
“The presence of the multinational force is indispensable for the security and stability of Iraq and of the region at the moment,” Zebari told Reuters in an interview.
“At the same time, the Iraqi government is … willing to take more security responsibilities from these forces to do its part.” The existing U.N. mandate expires on December 31 and Zebari said Iraq would request its extension in the next month or so.
Zebari, a Kurdish member of the national unity government, denied any real breach with Washington despite public tension in the past week which raised questions about U.S. policy in Iraq.
He also said Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem had agreed to visit Baghdad, possibly in November. It would be the first ministerial visit from Iraq’s neighbor and long-time rival in the region since the U.S.-led invasion.
In the bloodiest attack on Monday, a bomb killed 28 people and wounded 60 in a square in the Muslim Shi’ite Sadr City district in eastern Baghdad where laborers were gathering to wait for job offers, Interior Ministry sources said. Five car bombs in different parts of Baghdad killed 13 people.
Sadr City is a stronghold of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who heads the powerful Mehdi Army militia widely blamed for sectarian killings targeting Sunni Arabs.
Al Qaeda and other Sunni militant groups battling U.S. forces and the Shi’ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, have in the past struck Sadr City.
The blast tore through food stalls and shops. Scattered clothes and twisted metal lay amid debris and pools of blood.
“They were poor laborers bringing a daily living to their family. Let’s have Maliki hear that,” one witness said.
Sectarian violence kills about 100 people a day, the United Nations says, and political wrangling is hampering reforms.
Maliki and Bush announced at the weekend an agreement to speed up the training of Iraqi forces.
Washington is anxious for Maliki, a Shi’ite Islamist, to crack down on Shi’ite militias, whose political leaders underpin his hold on power. Maliki has said the biggest threat comes from Saddam supporters and al Qaeda.
Saddam himself was in court again on Monday, facing a charge of genocide against the Kurds in the 1980s. On Sunday, he is due to hear the verdict and a possible death sentence in a separate trial, for crimes against humanity involving Shi’ites.
The chief prosecutor has said Sunday’s session may be delayed, pushing it till after the U.S. elections. But Zebari said the year-old trial had already “gone on too long” and should wind up. Saddam, 69, could be hanged if convicted but any appeal could drag on amid other trials he may yet face.
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said on Sunday it would press ahead with its nuclear research and development work after the country expanded its capacity to enrich uranium, the part of Iran’s atomic programme which most worries the West.
Iran last week started up a second network of 164 centrifuges, which can be used to enrich uranium to make fuel for nuclear power plants or material for bombs.
Tehran insists it only wants to make electricity but the West believes it has military goals.
“Iran will continue its research and development activities which are in the framework of the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty),” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news conference.
He said inspectors of the U.N. watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, had visited Iran last week and reported progress on the second centrifuge network, or cascade, to IAEA head Mohammed ElBaradei.
“It (starting the second cascade) is not a special event. It is the continuation of our past legal activities under supervision of the agency,” Hosseini said.
Iran is running two test cascades of 164 interlinked centrifuges each. It would need thousands running non-stop for months to yield enough highly-enriched uranium for one atom bomb. Analysts say Iran is at least three years away from that point.
A draft sanctions resolution has been drawn up by European states, after Iran failed to meet a U.N. Security Council deadline to halt enrichment but Russia, which has veto powers in the council, has expressed misgivings about the proposal.
“Whenever it (the draft) finishes its path, it will put us in a new direction and we will make decisions based on that (new direction),” Hosseini said.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, has said Iran might halt the IAEA’s routine inspections of its atomic facilities if sanctions were imposed. Earlier this year, Iran stopped allowing short-notice checks of its sites.
By Larry Fine
ST LOUIS (Reuters) - The St Louis Cardinals won the World Series by beating the Detroit Tigers 4-2 on Friday, claiming their first MLB crown in 24 years.
The Game Five victory gave the Cardinals their 10th overall championship and went some way to helping erase the disappointment of Fall Classic losses in 1985, 1987 and 2004.
Closer Adam Wainwright struck out Brandon Inge in the ninth inning to spark scenes of joy among the roaring red-jacketed crowd of 46,638, while the Cardinals piled up in the middle of the Busch Stadium diamond as fireworks lit up the night sky.
St Louis shortstop David Eckstein was named Most Valuable Player of the Series. The diminutive lead-off hitter batted .364, going 4-for-5 with three doubles in the Game Four win and 2-for-4 with two RBIs in Friday’s clincher.
“Nobody believed in us but we believed in ourselves,” Eckstein said during the trophy presentation on the field.
“One thing that (coach) Tony (La Russa) preaches is that we go out there and play a hard nine (innings). Fortunately enough we were able to come through.”
St Louis starter Jeff Weaver pitched eight brilliant innings, giving up two runs, only one earned, on four hits while striking out nine against his original team.
“If we didn’t win this one, we would have had to go back to Detroit. This was a huge game and he was our biggest hero,” La Russa said of Weaver.
Rookie right-hander Justin Verlander, who committed the fifth error of the Series by a Tigers pitcher, was the loser.
TIMELY RETURN
The victory capped a stunning postseason surge for the Cardinals, who were hit by injuries to key players and struggled to the finish line of the regular season.
Their 83 regular season wins were the fewest registered by a World Series champion, but with the return to health of Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen and Eckstein they came together to beat San Diego and the New York Mets in the playoffs before defeating Detroit.
Victory also made St Louis manager La Russa the second manager to win World Series with teams from both leagues.
La Russa, who won the 1989 World Series with the American League Oakland Athletics, joins Sparky Anderson, who led the Cincinnati Reds to Series titles in 1975 and 1976, and with Detroit in 1984.
Errors and miscues played a big part in Game Five, contested in windy, cold conditions.
The Tigers, who made eight errors overall for one of the worst displays of fielding in World Series history, opened the door with a gaffe in the fourth.
Yadier Molina and So Taguchi stroked one-out singles to put runners on first and second. With pitcher Weaver coming to bat, Tigers skipper Jim Leyland visited the mound, presumably to advise Verlander to take care fielding the expected bunt.
Weaver bunted directly back to Verlander, who hurried a wild throw to third that allowed Molina to score and put Taguchi on third and Weaver on second. Eckstein followed with a smash at shortstop Carlos Guillen that scored Taguchi and put St Louis ahead 3-2.
Verlander’s error was the second of the game for Detroit. In the second inning, Inge threw wildly to first trying to throw out Eckstein, whose broken-bat grounder over the third base bag scored Molina to put the Cards up 1-0.
“We got beat by a team that played a lot better than we did during course of the series,” Leyland told reporters.
Detroit scored two runs in the top of the fourth on Sean Casey’s home run over the right-field fence to grab a short-lived 3-2 lead.
By Claudia Parsons
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces ventured into the Baghdad stronghold of a powerful Shi’ite militia on Friday hunting for a kidnapped U.S. soldier, two days after another raid in the area stoked tensions with the Iraqi government.
U.S. troops rarely enter the sprawling slum district of Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army, a militia loyal to cleric Moqtada al-Sadr that Washington wants the government to disarm amid accusations it operates sectarian death squads.
Under pressure over Iraq before mid-term elections, President Bush said this week his support for Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki depended on him taking “tough decisions”, including curbing militias such as the Mehdi Army.
Witnesses and two officials of the Mehdi Army said there was a strong U.S. troop presence backed by air support in the northeast part of Sadr City. They reported clashes in the area but it was not immediately clear who was involved.
“It’s ongoing operations specifically related to the search for the missing soldier,” said U.S. Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Garver.
Maliki on Thursday said Iraq’s most notorious death squad leader had escaped a major U.S.-led raid in Sadr City which the Americans said killed 10 “enemy fighters”.
A Sadr aide on Friday threatened Mehdi Army rogue elements with death. Sadr has publicly disavowed some killings blamed on his militia.
“The revolting and disobedience to the leadership has divided us and brought us many enemies,” Sheikh Jaber al-Khafaji told worshippers during Friday prayers in the city of Kufa.
Wednesday’s ground and air assault targeted Abu Deraa, a feared warlord who is said by U.S. officials to be a renegade Mehdi Army member at odds with Sadr and who is held responsible for brutal sectarian killings and kidnappings of Iraqi Sunnis.
The Wednesday raid also targeted a mosque in connection with the hunt for the missing U.S. soldier, who left the safety of the fortified “Green Zone” on Monday to visit a relative.
The raid caused tensions with Maliki, whose government relies on Sadr’s support. Maliki said he was not informed in advance of the full scope of the mission.
RISING CASUALTIES
Rising U.S. military casualties, sectarian violence and attacks on the Iraqi police and army have raised the pressure on Bush ahead of November 7 elections that polls suggest may cost Bush’s Republicans control of Congress. October is already the deadliest month for the U.S. military in a year, with 96 dead.
Iraqi security forces are suffering many more casualties.
U.S. forces have been out in force across Baghdad, conducting house-to-house searches and setting up checkpoints.
They have been on the outskirts of Sadr City for several days, though a senior U.S. officer has declined to say which group was thought responsible for the kidnapping of the soldier, a linguist of Iraqi descent.
Authorities imposed a vehicle ban in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Friday after the bodies of 12 people, including four police officers, were found in the past 24 hours, police said.
Insurgents had distributed leaflets in Mosul on Thursday threatening attacks on the police if they did not release several people detained during the past month.
In further evidence of the obstacles to building a police force capable of taking over from U.S. forces, 28 policemen were killed in an ambush north of Baghdad on Thursday, police said.
Maliki told Reuters on Thursday his Shi’ite-led government could get violence under control in six months if U.S. forces gave them more weapons and responsibility.
He said police were having to share rifles but, with better American help, could bring respite from dozens of daily killings in half the 12-18 months the U.S. commander in Iraq says is needed before Iraqis can take full control.
Maliki also said his priority was to suppress the insurgency and root out al Qaeda, rather than to disarm the militias.
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny, Paul Holmes, Ibon Villelabeitia and Alastair Macdonald)
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Disguised as a merchant and accompanied by his faithful vizier, Abbasid Caliph Haroun al-Rasheed would slip out of his palace at night and mingle with the common folk in the streets and markets of Baghdad.
The ruse, so goes the tale in the “1,001 Nights,” allowed the man who reigned over a vast empire in the late 8th century to be in touch with his subjects’ woes and impart justice.
In today’s war-torn Baghdad, Iraqi officials hardly ever venture out of the U.S.-protected Green Zone, the sprawling government compound by the Tigris removed from the chaos and bloodshed gripping most of the country.
Five months after taking office in the citadel, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki finds his leadership increasingly paralyzed by wrangling within his coalition and Shi’ite allies, as frustration among U.S. officials grows over his failure to move against militias and tackle a host of other issues.
In a recent interview, Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi said Iraq’s most dangerous problem was decision-making.
“Disarming militias is a political decision, not a military one. But who is going to take it? Maliki alone cannot take it even though he is the prime minister,” a senior Shi’ite official close to Maliki said on condition of anonymity.
“The challenges are big but the issue is not about who is the prime minister or about his personality,” the official said.
Maliki was thrust to the forefront of Iraqi politics with the image of a tough Shi’ite Islamist who could weld warring factions together into a national unity government.
His nomination by the Shi’ite Alliance bloc ended months of deadlock over his dithering predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari. His brisk style earned him praise from U.S. officials anxious for a decisive leader capable of stemming a drift toward civil war.
Now, election-year pressure is piling on President George W. Bush to revise his Iraq policy as sectarian violence worsens and the U.S. death toll climbs.
Media reports that Bush officials are drafting a timetable for Baghdad to address violence and assume a larger role in security suggest Washington is prepared to push Maliki harder but the premier’s aides say lack of government cohesion and growing Shi’ite factionalism are holding Maliki hostage.
They say he has found every decision challenged, whether by minority Sunni Arabs or Kurds or Shi’ite rivals.
“Maliki understands that him staying as prime minister depends on pleasing other political groups and on being diplomatic with all powers, so how can he accomplish anything?” said Hazem al-Naimi, a political science professor.
SHI’ITE RIVALRY
Rival Shi’ite groups within his coalition include the powerful Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and the faction of Moqtada al-Sadr, a volatile cleric who heads a militia blamed for many sectarian killings.
U.S. commanders have been pressing Maliki to crack down on Sadr’s Mehdi Army, but Maliki’s political fortunes depend on the support he gets from Moqtada’s group in parliament.
Last week, U.S. officials arrested a senior Sadr aide in Baghdad but reluctantly released him next day after following a request from Maliki that he be freed.
A widening power struggle in the Shi’ite heartland between Sadr and the Badr Brigades, linked to SCIRI, sparked clashes last week in Amara and other towns in the oil-rich south. A Shi’ite verses Shi’ite war would add more headaches to U.S.-led forces, battling Sunni rebels in central and western Iraq.
“There is a lot of political maneuvering going on and these clashes are part of that,” Major Charlie Burbridge, a spokesman for the British forces in Basra said of the fighting in Amara.
Bush administration officials publicly endorse Maliki but have hinted that their patience is not open-ended. Bush has talked of changing tactics if not strategy.
Signs of straining relations between Washington and Baghdad emerged last week when Maliki used a telephone call with Bush to seek assurances that the United States would not set a deadline for him to improve security and address sectarianism.
Some Shi’ite politicians complain that U.S. pressure to form a power-sharing system in post-war Iraq among its three main groups has blocked them from exercising decisive majority rule.
“Maliki did not choose his own government. Some ministers were forced on him. If he wants to replace an inefficient minister with another more professional one he can’t do it,” a SCIRI official told Reuters.
The political paralysis is hindering not only Maliki’s pledges to disarm militias and overhaul the Interior Ministry, but also plans to stamp out graft and improve public services.
“We can’t even decide on building an oil refinery in Samawa,” Mahdi said. “We have the money and it’s a safe place. Why can’t we do it? Because nobody can make a decision.”
(Additional reporting by Mariam Karouny)
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A Briton arrested amid a massive U.S. security alert two years ago admitted in a London court on Thursday to plotting to blow up financial targets in the United States and carry out “dirty bomb” attacks in Britain.
Dhiren Barot, a Muslim convert, admitted to plotting to blow up the headquarters of the New York Stock Exchange, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Citigroup and Prudential in Washington, New Jersey and New York.
“Explosions at these premises were clearly designed to kill as many people as possible,” said prosecuting lawyer Edmund Lawson.
Amid tight security at Woolwich Crown Court in South London, Barot pleaded guilty to conspiracy to murder and prosecutors outlined the details of his confession. Barot, looking relaxed and typing on a lap-top, spoke only to affirm his guilt.
Apart from the U.S. plot, he planned to hit British targets in a conspiracy called the “Gas Limos Project”, which “involved parking three limos with gas cylinders with explosives and detonating them in underground car parks,” Lawson said.
And he admitted another plan to detonate at least one “dirty bomb” contaminated with radiological material in Britain. The prosecution said Barot claimed the dirty bomb was not designed to kill but “rather to cause injury, fear, terror and chaos”.
Under Britain’s tight media laws, the judge ordered that further details of the conspiracy not be reported to prevent prejudicing the trials of any future defendants.
The plans did not seem to have reached an advanced stage. The prosecution said it accepted Barot’s assertion that no funding, vehicles or bomb making equipment had been in place.
“We are happy to confirm that because it’s a true statement of fact,” said Lawson.
MASSIVE ALERT
Barot was arrested by British police in August 2004 after a massive security alert in the United States.
The U.S. Homeland Security Advisory level was raised to “high”, police with assault rifles were posted at possible targets, barricades were erected and traffic into Manhattan via bridges and tunnels were restricted.
The very public U.S. response to the case in 2004 — just weeks before a presidential election — attracted criticism.
Because three years had passed since Barot had visited his potential targets, and he was under tight British surveillance at the time, some Democrats accused the Republican-led administration of overstating the immediacy of the threat.
“I am concerned that every time something happens that’s not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism,” Howard Dean, now chairman of the Democratic Party, said at the time.
U.S. media and security experts also expressed concern at the time that the high profile U.S. public response may have hurt investigations by exposing the identity of source who helped track down Barot.
U.S. officials said in 2004 that they believed the plot was at an advanced stage, an assertion apparently contradicted by the British prosecutors on Thursday.
