A New Jersey woman became the 15th confirmed American anthrax victim on Tuesday, and spores turned up in at least three additional government buildings, according to AP. Meanwhile, US Attorney General John Ashcroft said the nation was still at risk, and that new terrorist attacks were expected this week.
Other reports said the total number of confirmed US victims of the fatal bacteria had reached 16.
"We believe that the country must stay on the alert, that our enemies still hate us," US President George W. Bush said Monday.
Bush's warning was underscored by a formal terrorist threat advisory issued late in the day to law enforcement agencies nationwide.
The woman, whose name was not disclosed, has been treated successfully for the skin form of the disease and released from the hospital, according to authorities. Officials said she works at a business near the Trenton-area Hamilton Township mail processing center, which is shut down because of the discovery of anthrax contamination. The facility processed anthrax-laced letters sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle as well as NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw and the New York Post.
Three weeks into a new age of anthrax warfare, experts are puzzling over an unexplained substance found among spores in a letter to Daschle.
Late Monday night, New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani announced that a 61-year-old stockroom worker at a Manhattan hospital had tested positive in preliminary tests for inhalation anthrax. "She was in very, very serious condition and on a respirator," Giuliani was quoted by the AP as saying.
Administration officials sought to reassure the public that mail was safe. But the New York Area Postal Union filed suit trying to force the closure of a vast processing and distribution center where traces of anthrax were found on four machines. The Postal Service has sealed off the machines and says the rest of the building is safe.
The number of contaminated locations has continued to grow. The Supreme Court, State Department and a third government office building that houses the Voice of America and Food and Drug Administration were added to the list, evidence of contamination found in mailrooms in each structure, added the agency.
That followed the disclosure on Sunday that a small amount of anthrax had been found in the Justice Department's main building. The Department of Agriculture closed the mailroom in its downtown Economic Research Service office after a trace number of anthrax spores were confirmed there.
In the Senate, lawmakers announced plans to use a chlorine gas to kill anthrax bacteria in the Hart Senate office building, a process that will span more than two weeks. Fifty senators have their offices there.
GOV'T WARNS OF NEW ATTACKS
Meanwhile, the US administration warned that new terror attacks could be planned for this week, but insisted it had no intention of halting its military campaign in Afghanistan, according to AFP.
The warning, issued Monday by Ashcroft, came as US warplanes continued to target Afghanistan's ruling Taliban for harboring members of the Al Qaeda network accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes in the United States.
"The administration has concluded, based on information developed, that there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States and against United States' interests over the next week," Ashcroft told reporters.
Hours after the announcement, US aviation authorities diverted a Texas-bound American Airlines flight with 149 people on board to Dulles International Airport after a suspicious note was found on the plane, an airport spokesman said.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents were interviewing the 141 passengers and eight crewmembers late Monday.
The US military has insisted that its Afghan campaign is on track despite criticism of civilian casualties and questions over the effectiveness of the air strikes.
But as US warplanes bombed caves and bunkers in Afghanistan on Monday, the Pentagon conceded US forces had not struck any top Taliban or Al Qaeda leaders.
Afghanistan's ruling militia taunted the United States, saying the US-led war effort had achieved little more than high civilian casualties, and claiming Americans had been captured.
"In the first phase there is no significant achievement as the Pentagon wished to achieve, except the genocide of Afghan civilians," the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef said Monday.
But the Pentagon claimed the Taliban vastly exaggerated the toll in claiming about 1,000 dead, and in turn accused the Islamic rulers of putting civilians in harm's way.
"Their leadership is the one that is hiding in mosques and using Afghan civilians as human shields by placing their armor and artillery in close proximity to civilian schools, hospitals and the like," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference.
That was the second excuse for the rising civilian death toll given by Rumsfeld in two days. First he told reporters that the Taliban were lying about the death toll and accused them of leading the only satellite channel covering the war, Al Jazeera, to fabricate stories. Al Jazeera rejected the allegation, with its correspondent saying, “We have no Hollywood here to produce movies.”
Rumsfeld reiterated that the military campaign was on track and that more than three weeks of bombings had cleared the way for what he called "phase two."
A senior defense official said Monday US military planners were considering establishing a base for commandos inside Afghanistan to support opposition forces fighting the Taliban regime.
But the official stressed that the idea was only one of a range of options under consideration by the military as it ponders how to bolster the opposition.
The Pentagon deployed the campaign's commander to Pakistan, where President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally in the Afghan campaign, has expressed deep concern over the civilian casualties.
Musharraf's talks with General Tommy Franks, head of US Central Command, came amid growing anger in Pakistan, where 16 Christian worshippers and a policeman were gunned down and three other people were killed in a bomb explosion on a bus Sunday.
To allay Pakistani concerns, Washington said Islamabad could expect much more aid from the United States and international financial institutions in coming months.
"All these programs totaled up, you get well over $1 billion from the US government," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "You can get several billion dollars coming from the international aid organizations."
The relentless airstrikes have entered their fourth week with no end in sight, no sign that the Taliban's grip on power is weakening and no reports that the anti-Taliban opposition forces have gained any ground.
To make matters worse for the US administration, the Taliban claimed a number of Americans had been arrested, but gave no details.
Asked about the claim, Rumsfeld said that no US troops had been captured.
The armed anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, meanwhile, warned that the ruling Islamic militia was not about to fall, continued AFP.
Taliban forces have so far repulsed a series of US-backed offensives aimed at capturing the strategic northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif, and the Northern Alliance called for a significant increase in US bombing.
Rumsfeld said the United States had started supplying ammunition to the opposition fighters but said this was a slow and complicated operation as the supplies had to be parachuted in and then carried overland.
The US administration also continued to work on the diplomatic front to ensure its global coalition against terror did not fall amid unease over the casualties and fears of a humanitarian disaster as huge numbers of civilians flee the fighting.
The White House on Monday announced that Bush would meet with Musharraf on November 10 in New York.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair prepared to use a keynote speech Tuesday to shore up public support for the war in Afghanistan, as a new poll showed the majority of Britons are disaffected by the bombing campaign against the Taliban regime.
The survey for The Guardian newspaper said British public support for the war had dropped by 12 points in the past two weeks and that a majority believed there should be a pause in the bombing to allow aid convoys into Afghanistan.
Nations around the world continued efforts to generate assistance for more than 60,000 Afghans, who have crossed into Pakistan since the September 11.
South Korea has sent a fact-finding mission to Pakistan to help the refugees, setting aside $12 million in aid, the foreign ministry said Tuesday.
Japan said it will give $3.3 million in emergency aid to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
