Striking Back: Latest Developments

By Serena Kappes

Thursday September 27, 2001 02:01 PM EDT

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• Amid accusations that the Iraqi government has had contact with Osama bin Laden, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz insisted Thursday that his nation has had no contact with bin Laden, nor do they know where he is.

• U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill said Thursday that there has been progress in "finding and freezing" bin Laden's assets. He didn't elaborate on the details, but said that "serious money is being blocked now."

• After initial assertions that the Taliban could not locate bin Laden, Taliban officials have advised the suspected terrorist to leave the nation, Taliban ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef said in Pakistan on Thursday. "Osama has now received the Ulema council's recommendations and their endorsement," he said. "We have not lost Osama, but he is out of sight of the people." He did not reveal how the message was conveyed or where bin Laden was hiding. Apparently, bin Laden was also not given a deadline for departure from Afghanistan.

• An important document was found in a car left behind at the airport in Portland, Me., where two of the suspected hijackers -- Abdul Aziz al-Omari and Mohamed Atta -- boarded a flight to Boston on Sept. 11. The photocopied document, originally handwritten in Arabic, appeared to be a terrorist's handbook of sorts, outlining rules such as how to act at a taxi stand, how to dress and instructions like "strike your enemy above his neck." A translator helped decipher the document, which was several pages long.

• Jesse Jackson has been asked by the Taliban militia to lead a "peace delegation" to Afghanistan. The civil rights activist, who had success in 1999 securing the release of three American soldiers captured by Serbs in Yugoslavia, hasn't decided whether he'll go. "We must weigh what this invitation means. We're not going to be precipitous," he said in a press conference on Wednesday. "If we can do something to encourage them to dismantle those terrorist bases . . . we'll encourage them to do so."

• The Bush administration is working on a plan to potentially help to establish a new political power base in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are the ruling force. But, imposing a new government is not in their plans. "To have a successful regime in Afghanistan, it has to be home grown," an official said. "You have to come up with a formula that is balanced with all ethnic groups and sects."

• The abandoned U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, was destroyed in a blaze of fire by thousands of protestors in an attack on Wednesday.

• Ten people have been detained in Britain under the Prevention of Terrorist Act, adding to the list of detainees across Europe.