By Ibon Villelabeitia and Michael Christie
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - U.S. Marines raided one of Port-au-Prince's most dangerous slums in a crackdown on gunmen firing at U.S. forces in troubled Haiti where the interim prime minister was set to pick a new Cabinet on Tuesday.
In Washington, the White House blasted Jamaica's decision to allow ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to visit -- a move that has infuriated Haiti's new government because of its potential to stir up violence.
Aristide, who returned to the Caribbean on Monday from Africa after being forced out of office on Feb. 29 by an armed revolt and U.S. pressure to quit, was in seclusion at a country house northeast of the capital, Kingston.
Aristide's stay in Jamaica enraged the new Haitian government, which fears the former slum priest's presence 115 miles from Haiti's shores might galvanize his supporters, many of whom see Aristide as a champion of the poor and believe he was kidnapped in a U.S.-backed coup.
One day after suffering their first casualty in Haiti, a column of 120 U.S. Marines swept through the Belair slum, an Aristide stronghold, on foot and in armored vehicles mounted with machine guns in a major show of force.
U.S. forces leading a 2,650-strong force have fought half a dozen battles with Aristide loyalists -- killing six people -- since they landed hours after Aristide left the country.
Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said Marines and members of the Haitian police on Monday night raided two buildings in Belair, where a Marine was shot in the arm by gunmen in an ambush on Sunday. No arrests were made. Marines said they did not open fire.
Moving toward setting up a transitional government, new Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was set to pick a Cabinet on Tuesday. The Cabinet, which will run the poor Caribbean nation until elections are held, could be sworn in as soon as Wednesday.
Latortue, selected by a U.S.-backed council of leading Haitians, has said he plans to bring in members of Aristide's Lavalas Family political movement to form a government of national reconciliation.
The man tipped to hold the critical security portfolio is former army Gen. Herard Abraham, regarded as a respected military man in a country with a history of brutal military rulers.
Abraham, who as the commander of the armed forces handed power over to a Supreme Court judge in 1989 to end a military government, will be involved in disarmament efforts of rival gangs in this deeply divided country awash with weapons.
More than 200 people have been killed in the month-long violence.
"THIS IS NOT IRAQ"
Resident in Belair were defiant and angry at the raids.
"This is not Kosovo. This is not Iraq. This is not Chechnya. They have to withdraw their war tanks because we are not terrorists," Wilgo Supreme Edouard said outside a church where huge bullet holes poked the walls of buildings.
Weighing in a dispute which has caused a diplomatic rift between Port-au-Prince and Kingston, Venezuela's leftist President Hugo Chavez offered refuge to Aristide.
"We don't recognize the new government of Haiti. The president of Haiti is called Jean-Bertrand Aristide," Chavez said in Venezuela.
Latortue said on Monday he was recalling Haiti's ambassador to Jamaica. Jamaican Foreign Minister K.D. Knight said in a statement later in the day Jamaica had not been formally informed of the decision and so it could not respond.
But he added, "Jamaica has not recognized the interim Government of Haiti as this will be the subject of deliberations" at a meeting later this month of heads of government of the Caribbean Community, a regional group that Haiti belongs to and which Jamaica currently chairs.
In an interview with The Washington Post published on Tuesday, Aristide insisted he is still president, reiterated his belief that he was the victim of a coup by the United States, and said he hoped his followers would take comfort from having him nearby.
"I do believe many Haitians who are poor or suffering, or in hiding, think that if I am closer physically, it's better for them instead of being far away," he told the newspaper, which had a reporter with Aristide on his journey from the Central African Republic.
But Washington, which reinstalled Aristide in 1994 after a coup overthrew him, does not want Aristide so close. The White House said Aristide's visit to Jamaica was "not helpful."
By Pamela Sampson Associated Press Writer
Published: Mar 16, 2004
PARIS (AP) - Spanish authorities knew as early as 2001 that Jamal Zougam, a central suspect in the Madrid bombings, had contacts with accused terrorists linked to al-Qaida, an investigator told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Despite his suspicious ties, Zougam maneuvered with ease in Spain while making extensive contacts with key militants, from the alleged leader of the Spanish al-Qaida cell to a Kurdish guerrilla group in Iraq, according to court documents and wiretapped conversations.
Zougam also traveled back and forth to his hometown of Tangiers, Morocco, which he left on April 20, 2003 - just weeks before a deadly bombing in Casablanca, Morocco killed 45 people, including 12 attackers.
Zougam was placed under surveillance after the Casablanca bombings, Moroccan officials told AP. He was one of three Moroccans arrested over the weekend after Thursday's bombings in Madrid, which killed 201 people.
Jean-Charles Brisard, a French private investigator, told AP that in a conversation wiretapped by Spanish police, Zougam and his half brother Mohamed Chaoui - also arrested in the Madrid case - were described as being close to Said Chedadi, an alleged al-Qaida member jailed in Spain.
Chedadi was arrested weeks after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States on charges that he belonged to al-Qaida and that he had a hand in the preparation and carrying out of the attacks.
The wiretapped call is cited in a report by investigative Judge Baltasar Garzon, who is probing the Sept. 11 attacks, said Brisard, who is gathering evidence for lawyers who have filed a civil lawsuit on behalf of some of the victims and their families and has a copy of the report.
"These two Moroccans have already been known to various justice and intelligence services," Brisard said.
In another tapped conversation, Zougam describes a meeting with Mohamed Fizazi, the spiritual leader of Salafia Jihadia, a clandestine Moroccan extremist group blamed for the Casablanca attacks. Fizazi was sentenced to 30 years in prison in Morocco last August.
The Garzon report also cites a telephone conversation between Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of Spain's al-Qaida cell, and another member of the al-Qaida cell in Spain. In that conversation, Brisard said, the half brothers are described as "important" because they are good friends of Chedadi, and Yarkas appeared anxious to meet them.
In an indictment Garzon issued in the case last September, he described Zougam as a "follower" of Yarkas, whose alias is Abu Dahdah and who is in Spanish custody. Zougam himself was not indicted.
In the Madrid attacks, cell phones apparently were used as detonators on the 10 train bombs. Zougam and four other suspects were arrested after a phone and prepaid card were found on a bomb that failed to explode.
Zougam and his half brother had a shop that repaired cell phones in Madrid. In 2002, they were joined by Mohammed Bekkali, the third Moroccan suspect arrested over the weekend.
French authorities appeared to have set the Spanish on Zougam's trail.
Zougam's name turned up in a notebook of David Courtailler, who is standing trial Wednesday in Paris on charges of criminal association in connection with a terrorist group that recruited fighters for Afghanistan through the mid-1990s. David Courtailler is the brother of Jerome Courtailler, a Frenchman acquitted in 2002 of plotting an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
Once Zougam's name surfaced, France asked Spain to search his apartment. They did in June 2001 and discovered contact information on Mullah Krekar and propaganda for Ansar-al-Islam. Krekar is the founder of Ansar al-Islam, a suspected Kurdish guerrilla group. Ansar, one of the chief threats in the U.S. occupation of Iraq, also has a Europe presence.
The French paper Le Figaro on Tuesday, quoting sources close to investigation, said Zougam went to Norway between 1996 and 2001 and had close ties to Krekar.
Zougam also has connections that lead to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Moroccan official told AP. Al-Zarqawi is a key operative working with al-Qaida and blamed for attacks in Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere.
Zougam's alleged associations to terror suspects date back more than a decade, when he was introduced to Abdelaziz Benyaich in 1993, Moroccan authorities said. Benyaich, who has dual French and Moroccan citizenship, was arrested in Spain in 2003 in connection with the Casablanca bombings.
Morocco is seeking Benyaich's extradition and claims he has had contact with al-Zarqawi, whom German authorities reportedly believe was appointed by al-Qaida's leadership to arrange attacks in Europe.
Moroccan officials also believe al-Zarqawi ordered the attacks in Casablanca, and U.S. officials blamed al-Zarqawi for March 2 bombings in Iraq that killed at least 181 Shiite Muslim pilgrims. The Jordanian militant also is believed to have been behind the 2002 killing of Laurence Foley, a U.S. aid worker in Jordan.
AP-ES-03-16-04 1739EST