MIDDLE EAST

OFFICIALS: ISRAEL HALTS TARGETED KILLING OF PALESTINIANS

Israel has stopped targeting Palestinian Arab terrorists for death, Israeli security officials said early today, fulfilling a key Palestinian Arab demand for a truce to end four years of violence. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Israel has informed the Palestinian Arabs of their decision. It came after generals from the two sides met yesterday to plan the deployment of Palestinian Arab police in central and southern Gaza to prevent terrorists from attacking Israelis.

Since he took office earlier this month, Palestinian Arab leader Mahmoud Abbas has been negotiating with terrorist groups about a truce declaration. In return, the militants are demanding that Israel stop its military operations and cease killing terrorist leaders.

The groups agreed to a one-month halt in attacks to test Israel’s response.

Yesterday, the Damascus-based leader of the violent Islamic Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, described during a telephone interview his group’s conditions for a truce. “If the Zionist enemy abides by certain conditions, such as releasing all prisoners and detainees and halting all acts of killing, assassination, and aggression against our people inside and outside, the general national position of all Palestinian factions has become that they are ready to positively deal with the idea of a temporary truce,” Mr. Mashaal said.

– Associated Press

WESTERN EUROPE

GUANTANAMO DETAINEES ARRESTED ON RETURN TO BRITAIN

LONDON – After enduring up to three years of imprisonment and interrogation at the American detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, four Britons returned to England yesterday and were immediately arrested by antiterrorist police.

Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga, and Richard Belmar were arrested under a provision of the Terrorism Act dealing with “involvement in the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism,” London’s Metropolitan Police said. The four were among some 550 prisoners from 42 countries swept up in the American-led war on terror and detained without charge.

Mr. Abbasi, 24, was reportedly arrested by American forces in northern Afghanistan in December 2001. Mr. Belmar, 25, and Mr. Begg, 37, were arrested in Pakistan in February 2002, and Mr. Mubanga, 32, was detained in Zambia. Each would be allowed a phone call, access to a lawyer, and a visit from a relative.

– Associated Press

EUROPEANS SAID TO MAKE NO HEADWAY ON IRAN

A confidential summary of talks between key European powers and Iran made available yesterday shows there has been no progress in getting Iran to scrap nuclear enrichment – even though Tehran acknowledged it does not need nuclear energy.

America and several other countries fear Iran is seeking to enrich uranium not to the low level needed to generate power but to weapons-grade uranium that could be used as the core of nuclear warheads.

Iran publicly insists it only seeks to make low-grade enriched uranium for nuclear fuel. But the summary of the last meeting on the issue involving representatives of France, Britain, Germany, and Iran says Tehran acknowledged what Washington and its allies have argued all along – that the oil-rich country has no need for nuclear energy. “Iran recognizes explicitly that its fuel cycle program cannot be justified on economic grounds,” the document says.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

INDONESIA STRUGGLES WITH ACCURATE TSUNAMI DEATH TOLL

With workers still finding bodies under mud-caked rubble a month after the tsunami, Indonesia’s Health Ministry revised its casualty count yesterday, lowering confirmed deaths to 96,000 but raising the number of missing, and presumed dead, to 132,000.

Officials conceded a precise total would never be known, and the ministry said its death count now included only buried bodies and excluded any missing. People still missing after a year will be declared dead, it said. The Health Ministry’s new procedure brought its numbers in line with another government agency tallying the dead, the National Disaster Relief Coordinating Board.

But there were still discrepancies over deaths in both Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the two worst-hit countries. Government ministries have provided conflicting figures, reflecting the difficulties of finding, identifying, counting, and burying the bodies from the December 26 disaster.

– Associated Press

SOUTH ASIA

STAMPEDE KILLS MORE THAN 250 IN INDIA

WAI, India – An accident that crushed several people inside a Hindu temple grew into a bigger tragedy yesterday when angry pilgrims outside learned of the deaths and set fire to shops along a crowded walkway, triggering a stampede that killed at least 256 people, police said.

An estimated 300,000 people had gathered for a festival in and around the hilltop Mandra Devi temple in western India near the small town of Wai, about 150 miles south of Bombay.

Police chief Chandrakant Kumbhar said the incident began when the temple floor became slippery from a ceremony that involved breaking coconuts in front of a deity. Some pilgrims slipped and were trampled to death by others propelled forward by the mass of people behind them trying to get into the temple to make offerings. The fires were set along a packed, narrow walkway lined with tea stalls and shops leading up a hill to the temple. They set off what witnesses said was a stampede of screaming crowds fleeing in horror.

– Associated Press

QAEDA SUSPECT ON FBI MOST-WANTED LIST FLOWN OUT OF PAKISTAN

A Tanzanian Al Qaeda operative arrested in Pakistan in July for his alleged role in the 1998 American Embassy bombings in east Africa that killed more than 200 people has been handed over to American officials and flown out of the country, security officials said yesterday.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was on the FBI list of most-wanted terrorists, was moved out of Pakistan months ago, but the security officials said they don’t know where he was taken. The American Embassy in Islamabad declined to comment. Mr. Ghailani, believed to be between 30 and 34, has been indicted in New York for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. Twelve Americans were among the 219 people killed.

He was captured by Pakistani intelligence agents in July after a shootout in the eastern city of Gujrat. About 15 other people, including women and children, were arrested with him, but it’s unclear what happened to them.

– Associated Press