Herald and Review from Decatur, Illinois • Page 7

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2001 DECATUR, ILLINOIS STATENATION WORLD A7 '(BdEt ell First SiS Sept 11 WASHINGTON (AP) In the first criminal indictment stemming from Sept. 11, federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged a French Moroccan man who was jailed a month before the attacks with conspiring with Osama bin Laden to murder thousands in the suicide hijackings. The 30-page indictment against Zacarias Moussaoui, 33, laid out in extensive detail an international plot dating to 1998 that involved the 19 hijackers, bin Laden, top al-Qaida deputies and hundreds of thousand of dollars. Moussaoui was charged with six felonies, including four that carry the death penalty. The indictment sets the stage for a trial in a federal courtroom in the Virginia suburbs of Washington rather than a military tribunal.

OPERATION: "The United States of America has brought the awesome weight of justice against the terrorists who brutally murdered innocent Americans," Attorney General John Ashcroft said, announcing the indictment on the three-month anniversary of Sept. 11. Ashcroft called Moussaoui an "active participant" with the 19 hijackers who crashed four jetliners in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, killing thousands. Though jailed Aug. 17 in Minnesota after raising suspicions while seeking flight training, Moussaoui had worked in con- WORLD TRADE CENTER The 23 unindicted co-conspirators in Tuesday's indictment in the Sept.

11 attacks: Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden deputy Ayman Zawahiri, head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Mustafa Ahmed al-Hisawi, bin Laden's alleged financial manager. Ramsi Binalshibh, being sought on a fugitive warrant and alleged by the FBI to be a 20th member of the hijack team. The hijackers aboard Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon: Pilot Hani Hanjour, Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, Salem Alhazmi.

The hijackers aboard 4' on anniversary Associated Press at a memorial wall in front blocks from the site of the Fiduciary Trust employee the attacks. A6 yy-y 1 m) -KSj Flight 11 that crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower: Pilot Mohamed Atta, Satam M.A. Al Suqami, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail M. Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari.

The hijackers aboard Flight 175 that crashed into the WTC's south tower: Pilot Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan Al Qadi Banihammad, Ahmed Alghamdi, Hamza Alghamdi, Mohand Alshehri. The hijackers board Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania: Pilot Ziad Samir Jarrah, Saeed Alghamdi, Ahmed Ibrahim A. Al Haz-nawi, Ahmed Alnami. The Associated Press receu Green Beret mourns loss of U.S. officers LANDSTUHL, Germany (AP) Capt.

Jason Amer-ine's mission was a dangerous and delicate one travel deep into enemy territory with his elite team, link up with Afghan opposition fighters, win their trust and help them defeat the Taliban. His band of Green Berets accomplished this, punishing the enemy with thunderous airstrikes and defeating a Taliban force intent on massacring residents of an Afghan town who had defied their rule. Amerine's account sheds light on the mix of tasks from diplomacy to combat carried out by U.S. Army spe cial operations forces. The 30-year-old West Point graduate from Honolulu told of the bond built with the Afghan fighters, their ferocious and chaotic fight to save the town of Tarin Kot and his grief for comrades killed and injured by a stray U.S.

bomb that ended their work, suddenly and violently, last week. The deaths of Master Sgt. Jefferson Davis and Sgt. 1st Class Dan Petithory, two members of his team, and Staff Sgt. Cody Prosser, a member of another U.S.

team have turned his world "to gray," Amerine said. He decided to talk to reporters an unusual move by secretive special forces personnel because he wanted to put the record straight. "I do not want my men remembered as a detachment that was taken out by an errant bomb," he said. "They cannot be remembered that way. They are the best that America has to offer." Their finest hour in Afghanistan came on Nov.

16, about 60 miles north of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar a battle that cemented the bond between the Americans and the Afghans. "We had to prove ourselves to them," Amerine said at the U.S. military hospital in Landstuhl. "You need to develop trust, you need to develop the bonds of brotherhood that soldiers have known since the beginning of time." "We did that by being shot at together, by being together when things were being blown up around us." Soiciler nts front lime struggle Immigrant interview deadline passes Some with expired visas yet to respond DETROIT (AP) When Ali Hussein Nasser sat down with federal authorities for 20 minutes of questioning this week, he wasn't intimidated, even though he knew he was one of 5,000 men targeted in a nationwide terrorism probe. "I want to protect America," Nasser, a native of Lebanon who works in his cousin's fruit market, said Monday.

"I love America. I feel the freedom, and I'm ready to help." But while the questions didn't bother Nasser, who is here on a family visa, other men whose visas have expired fear the interviews will lead to deportation. Attorney Mohammed Abdrabboh said more than half his 30 clients with expired visas didn't respond. "They're in a panic. Big-time panic," Abdrabboh said.

He said he wants assurance that his clients will be protected from deportation if they appear for interviews. "It's just a wait-and-see game now," Abdrabboh said. "We'll see the government's true intent shortly." U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins said Tuesday that 503 letters were mailed, mostly to Middle Eastern men in eastern Michigan who were being sought for questioning. He said 242 men have had interviews scheduled, 104 letters have been returned with incorrect addresses, and five respondents declined to be interviewed.

Authorities will attempt to personally contact those who have not responded, Collins said. It was unclear what will happen to the men who haven't responded. The deadline for responding to the letters had already been pushed back from Dec. 4 to Monday. Collins said he did not anticipate extending it again.

The U.S. Justice Department announced in mid-November that it wanted to talk to about 5,000 young men, ages 18-33, who had entered the United States from countries where terrorists are known to operate. The names, compiled from immigration and State Department records, were sent to federal prosecutors, who were told to interview the men. The Justice Department said that the men weren't suspects but that they could be helpful in the investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

No national deadline was released for the interviews, described as voluntary. Representatives from nine civil rights and Arab advocate groups asked Collins on Friday not to prosecute the men for visa violations if they came forward for questioning. Collins said immigration status isn't the purpose of -the interviews, but he said if a violation comes up during an interview, "the agent conducting the interview is authorized to turn that information to INS." Nationally, civil rights groups have also questioned the government's decision to cast such a wide net, saying innocent people could be harmed. The interviews have been taking place across the country. Gary Althen, director of the University of Iowa's Office of International Students and Scholars, said Monday that at least three students there had been questioned, and others were nervous about what the interviews could mean for their futures.

Mohamed Adlouni, a 22-year-old student at the University of Texas, said Monday that he agreed to an interview after an investigator left a business card at his home He said three men showed up last week to talk to him. They asked him if he knew of any plans for terrorism, if he knew anyone who could make anthrax and if he had ever been to a terrorist training camp, he said. All his answers were "no." "It was like they were asking me if I had ever gone to soccer camp," Adlouni said. "I wasn't offended." IS cert with bin Laden associates to carry out the attacks, the attorney general alleged. The indictment said Mous-saoui's activities mirrored those of the 19 hijackers he attended flight school, opened a bank account with cash, joined a gym, purchased knives, bought flight deck videos and looked into crop dusting planes.

The indictment charged Moussaoui "with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida to murder thousands of innocent people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11." Moussaoui faces arraignment Jan. 2 on six charges of conspiracy: terrorism, aircraft piracy, destruction of aircraft, use of weapons of mass destruction, murder and destruction of property. Olivo of Stroudsburg, looks Program set off Tuesday but was halted before it could deliver its cargo. A World Food Program official in Termez, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the wheat had not reached the Afghan warehouses.

Aid workers say the bridge can be key to speeding up deliveries to the estimated 3 million Afghans dependent on foreign aid to survive the winter, but only if it functions regularly. "Winter is already upon us. We need to have stronger guarantees about the bridge," said Rupa Joshi, a UNICEF spokeswoman. Scene a national by Joey The Moment," playing "It's nice out of their added Associated Press ON SITE: Joseph Dagan of the Bronx, left, a truck driver working at ground zero, attends the memorial service held on Tuesday, the three-month anniversary of the World Trade Center terrorist attack in New York City that was held at ground zero. New York police, firefighters remember Sept.

11 victims NEW YORK (AP) On a gray day exactly three months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, firefighters, police officers and construction workers paused at the site of the World Trade Center for an interfaith prayer service. As generators and engines hummed in the background, Muslim, Jewish and Catholic leaders stood on a stage decorated with poinsettias and a menorah, reciting prayers for the dead, the survivors and the recovery workers. A faint smell of smoke lingered in the air over the rubble. Some of the recovery workers, many of whom work 12-hour days at the site, were visibly moved by the ceremony.

One man, wearing a police emergency helmet and a yellow raincoat, buried his face in his hands. About 200 workers gathered for the remembrance, removing hard hats decorated with American flags as the service began with a vocal rendition of "Let There Be Peace on Earth," sung by Broadway performer William Michael. People gathered across the country and around the globe Tuesday at 8:46 a.m to mark precisely three months since the first jetliner slammed into the trade center. Flanked by Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, the Rev.

James Loughran presented an invocation at the site of the attack. Prayers were recited, by Imam Tariq Shahid and Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, a Fire Department chaplain. Around them were the pit and two-story iL, v. i i MEMORIAL: Kathleen of St. Paul's Chapel in New York on Tuesday, a few World Trade Center.

Olivo's sister, Mary Melendez, who worked on the 96th floor of Tower Two, died in anthem played on the trumpet Morant. A quartet sang "This is followed by bagpipes "Amazing Grace." that people are taking time days to say prayers for us," ironworker Michael Raiola, 27. rubble pile; perhaps 10 rusty and decrepit steel forks that once were the north tower; and Building Six, the only structure still mostly standing, now completely burned with several floors missing. Music was woven throughout the service, including a jazz rendition of the AMERICA UNITED on 'Friendship Bridge alters Officials doubt passage's reliability TERMEZ, Uzbekistan (AP) Eager to reopen aid offices shuttered for months because of war, international aid workers headed back into northern Afghanistan on Tuesday across the long-closed Friendship Bridge. But a shipment of wheat that was supposed to accompany them never made it to its destination, according to a U.N.

official. It was not clear whether it was stopped on the Uzbek or Afghan side. Ad The glitch fueled doubts the Soviet-era bridge will quickly become the gateway for delivering aid to desperate Afghans. The Friendship Bridge across the muddy Amu Darya River opened Sunday for the first train crossing in four years. The sole bridge connecting the two nations, it was closed in 1997 because of fighting in Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan had been reluctant to reopen it because of worries about incursions by Islamic militants. The train carrying 296 tons of wheat from the World Food 'ftis Associated Press 'America United' temporary license plates, seen Tuesday, are being issued by the Secretary of State's office in Springfield. The $100 speciality plates can be displayed between Jan. 15 and March 15, 2002. Proceeds benefit the families of New York firefighters and police officers..