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U.S. Suspects Several Foreign Powers
Wednesday September 19, 2001
By Ian Traynor in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and agencies

* Trio Arrested in Michigan
* Taliban 'Considers U.S. Talks'
* Britons Urged to Leave Pakistan
* U.S.: War Will Go Beyond bin Laden

The Guardian
The US has for the first time suggested more than one foreign power was behind last week's terrorist attacks.

US attorney general John Ashcroft has said it was likely the terrorists behind the attacks received support from foreign governments and that it was too early to tell if surprise arrests in Michigan were a major break in the case.

"It is pretty clear that the networks that conduct these kind of events are harboured, supported, sustained and protected by a variety of foreign governments," he said.

"It is time for those governments to understand with crystal clarity that the United States of America will not tolerate that kind of support for networks that would inflict this kind of damage on the American people."

Mr Ashcroft said authorities were still reviewing the first arrests in the investigation involving three men near Detroit who had false documents and airport diagrams.

The arrests took place after FBI agents raided a residence looking for one of the nearly 200 witnesses being sought in the investigation.

Instead, they found the three men and a cache of documents. The men were charged on Tuesday with fraud and misuse of visas, passports and other immigration documents.

Meanwhile, the US government has announced a new policy giving investigators more scope to detain the non-US citizens it arrests on possible immigration violations in the terrorist probe. The Justice Department also has drafted legislation that would allow the attorney general to arrest and deport suspected terrorists without presenting evidence in a court, The Washington Post reported in Wednesday's editions.
(More: The Guardian News Source)

Dan