A group of alleged Islamic terrorists arrested in Turkey on suspicion of planning an attack on a NATO meeting were trained in Pakistan and were planning to carry out a suicide mission against US President George W. Bush, Turkish press reports said Tuesday.
The suspects, who had been tracked by Turkish authorities for months before their arrest, were in possession of Turkish-subtitled video cassettes attributed to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden calling for a jihad, or holy war, against the "great Satan" of America, according to the reports.
They were allegedly planning to bomb the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit scheduled for June 28 and 29 in Istanbul -- the scene of four bloody suicide bombings five months ago -- where Bush and other world leaders will attend, according to police sources quoted by the papers.
More at
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1129255/posts I'd say that those assassination articles in Al Battar issues 8 and 9 are not random coincidence.
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=0452C9F5-61F7-414B-849B-5FB5E46CE573 What's with all the train problems in TX in the last day or two?
Train Derails On South Side
LAST UPDATE: 5/4/2004 6:33:26 AM
Posted By: Angela Becerra
(SAN ANTONIO) -- Three people were injured and more than 5,000 gallons of diesel fuel was spilled into the San Antonio River today when two Union Pacific freight trains collided on a bridge just south of downtown San Antonio.
Two locomotives and five cars of a southbound freight train hauling commodities including detergent and beer tumbled off the bridge and into the river, while another seven cars derailed onto nearby streets, according to San Antonio police.
Two engineers leapt from the engines as the trains began to topple off the 70 year old concrete Union Pacific bridge, according to San Antonio police sergeant Gabe Trevino. He says a third person, described as a vagrant who was sleeping under the bridge at the time, was also hospitalized. All are suffering from non life threatening injuries, according to hospital officials.
One locomotive struck the side of the other train and derailed.
"The engineers said they could feel the vibration coming towards them, they knew what was about to happen, so they jumped out of the train," Trevino told 1200 WOAI news.
The locomotives discharged thousands of gallons of Diesel fuel into the river, leaving a plume of potentially hazardous chemicals stretching downstream for more than a mile.
"We usually don't have the locomotives fall into the river, they're usually on dry land, so that is presenting a problem for us," said San Antonio Fire Lieutenant Robert Aguilar, who is in charge of the department's hazardous materials crew.
Dozens of firefighters, as well as officers of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission, erected dikes and lowered booms into the river in hopes of stopping the spill from reaching environmentally sensitive areas southeast of San Antonio. The river eventually empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
"Right now we have a series of flotation devices across the San Antonio River in four to five different locations," District Fire Chief Randy Jenkins said. "We have also lowered the river by closing several of the floodgates. We hope that these flotation devices capture the Diesel fuel which is lighter than water and is floating on the surface."
The derailment also caused major traffic tie-ups southeast of downtown, and Jenkins said some streets in the area, including two major thoroughfares, are expected to remain closed at least for 24 hours.
The incident happened less than a block from San Antonio Breckenridge High Schools, but school officials and firefighters quickly determined that the trains were not carrying hazardous materials and classes continued as usual today.
Officials say the southbound train 'switched' onto a track where the northbound train was already traveling. So far, no word on what caused the mishap to occur.