The Bush administration said on Wednesday that the US and its allies had begun a campaign to disrupt terrorist operations around the world, including the arrest of a suspected senior member of al-Qaeda in the UK.
The suspected al-Qaeda operative was among 12 men being questioned by UK authorities after raids prompted in part by the same intelligence information that led the administration to elevate the terror threat level in the US over the weekend, including detailed reports about buildings housing major financial institutions in New York, New Jersey and Washington. The al-Qaeda member, referred to as Abu Mussa al-Hindi or Abu Eisa al-Hindi, was of intense interest to the US, a senior US official said.
A day after senior White House officials said the decision to raise the terror alert level on Sunday had been driven in part by new intelligence beyond the information about specific buildings in New York, New Jersey and Washington, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, told reporters that "there are some ongoing operations under way" to disrupt terrorist activity.
It was not clear whether the arrests in the UK were directly linked to the apparent risk of an attack on the buildings or whether they were tied more generally to suspected al-Qaeda plotting in Pakistan and elsewhere. One senior official in Washington said there were "possibly" direct ties.
The official described the arrests as "part of this web that emanates from Pakistan."
Administration officials signaled that in light of the new information from Pakistan and the second strain of intelligence reporting, they had stepped up their efforts at home and abroad to track down suspected terrorists and guard against the possibility of an attack.
As new information came into the White House over the weekend, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice called her coun-terparts in several countries to request help from their intelligence services, an official said.
Also see story:
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
NEW GEAR: On top of the new Tien Kung IV air defense missiles, the military is expected to place orders for a new combat vehicle next year for delivery in 2028 Mass production of Tien Kung IV (Sky Bow IV) missiles is expected to start next year, with plans to order 122 pods, the Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) latest list of regulated military material showed. The document said that the armed forces would obtain 46 pods of the air defense missiles next year and 76 pods the year after that. The Tien Kung IV is designed to intercept cruise missiles and ballistic missiles to an altitude of 70km, compared with the 60km maximum altitude achieved by the Missile Segment Enhancement variant of PAC-3 systems. A defense source said yesterday that the number of
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
Taiwanese exports to the US are to be subject to a 20 percent tariff starting on Thursday next week, according to an executive order signed by US President Donald Trump yesterday. The 20 percent levy was the same as the tariffs imposed on Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by Trump. It was higher than the tariffs imposed on Japan, South Korea and the EU (15 percent), as well as those on the Philippines (19 percent). A Taiwan official with knowledge of the matter said it is a "phased" tariff rate, and negotiations would continue. "Once negotiations conclude, Taiwan will obtain a better
RSS