2 - The Michigan Daily - Tuesday, April 2, 2002 s NATION/WORLD Synagogues burned across Europe NEWS II sBiEF HEDINE FO* AOND SMR MARSEILLE, France (AP) - Thousands of Jews held prayer services yesterday near the charred remains of a synagogue, bringing an emotional close to a weekend that forced France and other European countries to confront the specter of anti-Semitism linked to Mideast tensions. In Brussels, a synagogue was damaged by gasoline bombs, and police in Turkey heightened security at religious sites amid fears that vio- lence in the Middle East could take its toll on European communities. France deployed riot police at Jewish religious sites and schools nationwide after the arson attack late Sunday at Marseille's Or Aviv temple. The fire destroyed the 20-year-old synagogue, leaving it a blackened mass of wood and metal. "We are a peaceful community," said Zvi Amar, a Jewish leader in Marseille, France's sec- ond-biggest city. "We don't understand why they are attacking us" More than 3,000 people marched in silence to a cemetery near the burned synagogue. There, they recited prayers of mourning and buried remnants of the temple's five holy Torah scrolls, which were destroyed in the fire. "I feel a very deep sadness," said Gerald Charbit, a member of the congregation. But he added: "We are going to rebuild." Authorities would not comment on the cause of the fire and said they did not have any suspects. LCI television reported the building was doused with gasoline and set ablaze. The attack was the third on a synagogue in France over the Passover-Easter weekend and it embarrassed the government, which has tried to play down accu- sations that anti-Semitism is a growing problem in the country. President Jacques Chirac visited a synagogue in the northern port city of Le Havre yesterday to show his solidarity with the Jewish community. "These acts are unimaginable, unpardonable and unspeakable and should be pursued and condemned as such," he said. "They infuriate France and the French." In neighboring Belgium, authorities said attackers threw gasoline bombs through the windows of a Brussels synagogue late Sunday, causing a small fire. There were no injuries or major damage. The Belgian government promised swift action to find the arsonists and increased security at Jewish sites. "Under no circumstances can the situation in the Middle East be used as a pretext to perpe- trate such acts of violence and of intolerance against a community that has always been inte- grated in our country," Foreign Minister Louis Michel said Vandals in the Russian city of Kostroma scrawled a large black swastika across a synagogue Sunday night, the latest in a series of anti-Semitic incidents in the region, NTV television reported. Jewish leaders in France have complained the gov- ernment's foreign policy is too pro-Palestinian and has in the past encouraged attacks on Jewish targets from among the country's Muslim population. Islam is France's second-largest religion after Roman Catholicism. ISLAMABAD, Pakistan Al-Qaida operations chief captured A man captured in Pakistan last week has been positively identified as Abu Zubaydah, the chief of al-Qaida operations outside Afghanistan and the highest- ranking lieutenant of Osama bin Laden taken alive since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to U.S. and Pakistani officials. American officials took custody of Zubaydah and some of more than 20 other suspected al-Qaida operatives from Pakistani authorities Sunday and were preparing to fly them to an undisclosed U.S. military facility, according to senior U.S. and Pak- istani intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Zubaydah was taken prisoner along with the other al-Qaida suspects and about 40 Pakistanis early Thursday from more than a dozen private homes in the east Pakistani cities of Faisalabad and Lahore. He was shot in the groip and thigh while trying to escape the Pakistani police and U.S. agents swarming over a home that he shared with seven or eight other Arab men, according to one Pakistani intelligence official. U.S. intelligence agents targeted the homes "after multiple weeks of planning," one U.S. official said. The Pakistani official said the homes were identified after US. intelligence intercepted a telephone call from Afghanistan to a residence in Faisal- abad, an industrial city some 200 miles from the Afghan border. The Pakistani offi- cial said he did not know who placed the call. 40 The burned main entrance of the La Duchere synagogue is seen Saturday in Lyon, southeastern France. Vandals crashed two cars through the main entrance. A book published last month by a leading French anti-racism group and Jewish students chronicled about 400 recent attacks against Jews and Jewish sites around the country. The French government argues that its policy is evenhanded. Earlier this year intellectuals debated the extent of the problem - and whether the attacks were anti-Semitic or com- mon criminal acts. ALEXANDRIA, Va. Proof of murder not needed to try Lindh Bush urges Arafat to stop bombings WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush appealed yesterday for Palestin- ian leader Yasser Arafat to order a halt to the suicide bomb attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Suicide bombing in the name of religion is nothing but terror, Bush said. But the president stopped short of applying to Arafat his oft-repeated statements that those who harbor ter- rorists are terrorists. He said the Pales- tinian leader is excepted because of his past efforts to negotiate peace. "There will never be peace so long as there is terror, and all of us must fight terror. I'd like to see Chairman Arafat denounce the terrorist activities that are taking place, the constant attacks," Bush said during a meeting with New York's governor, ndNew York City's mayor. As for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Bush urged him to "keep a pathway to peace'open" while protecting his nation, and said he believes Sharon remains committed to the Tenet and Mitchell plans for security and peace negoti- ations. ' "It's important for Israel to under- stand that," Bush said. "They've signed onto the Tenet agreement, they've signed onto the Mitchell plan, and that is the pathway to peace." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused Iran, Iraq and Syria of foment- ing terrorism in the region. And he joined Bush in suggesting that Islam is being perverted by those who use their religion to justify killing civilians. "Murderers are not martyrs," Rums- feld said. "A whole generation of young people is being taught some- thing that is totally inconsistent with that religion." He specifically accused Iran of funneling arms to Lebanon for use by terrorists and criticized Iraq for offering payments of up to $25,000 to the families of Palestinian sui- cide bombers. Bush spoke as members of the Senate turned up pressure on him to get more directly involved in the Middle East peace process. He said those critics "must have not been with me in Crawford (Texas) when I was on the phone all AP iPHU President Bush talks with reporters yesterday in the Oval Office about what his ideas for peace in the Middle East. morning long" talking to leaders in the region. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Bush would step in himself to hold face-to-face meet- ings "if it becomes the president's judgment that that is the final step that would achieve something that leads to peace." Islamic leaders ask for U.N. sanctions KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Islamic countries at a major meeting on terrorism were split yesterday about whether to condemn Palestinian suicide bombers as terrorists, but were united in condemning Israel's widening offensive into Palestinian territory. The delegates passed a unanimous resolution accusing Israel of "dragging the region toward an all-out war" and calling for U.N. sanctions to deter Israeli military action. Fault lines appeared immediately as the Palestinian representative dis- agreed with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, the meeting's host, who said that suicide' bombers killing Israeli civilians should be con- demned. "It is not necessary to condemn.he suicide bombers, because we have to take into consideration the reasons behind somebody willing to lose his life," Palestinian Foreign Minister Farouk Kaddoumi told reporters at the conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories is "the highest and worst kind of terrorism, and the human being, if he sacrifices his life - there must be a reason," Kaddoumi said. "The reason is state terrorism." Deputy Foreign Minister Ivica Misic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, chief of his country's anti-terrorism team, dis- agreed. "I don't care about race or religion," Ivica said. "I agree that if a person kills or harms a civilian he is a terror- ist, no matter how noble his struggle may be." Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said later that Mahathir's comments should not be taken out of context, and that the Malaysian leader believed the suicide bombers acted in response to Israeli aggression. MIDEAST Continued from Page 1 Palestinian officials said that Israeli soldiers used 60 Palestinian civilians as human shields in front of the tanks before the assault. Army spokesman Olivier Rafowicz "categorically denied" the charges. Israel banned reporters from the scene, and there was no independent confirmation. In a statement, the Israeli military said many "leaders responsible for the recent wave of terrorism" were holed up in the building and had ignored an ultimatum to surrender. Since the latest Israeli offensive began Friday with an assault on Yasser Arafat's compound in Ramallah, Israeli forces have arrested about 700 suspect- ed militants, said military spokesman Brig. Gen. Ron Kitrey. Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told MSNBC that Israel does not plan to occupy the Palestinian areas. "We are in the territories for three or four weeks. We don't intend to occupy the places," Peres said, adding that Israel does not intend to dismantle the Palestinian Authority or harm Arafat. Snurred hv wawv of blAdv uiide Prosecutors do not have to prove that American-born Taliban John Walker Lindh personally killed CIA agent Johnny Micheal Spann or other Americans, but only that he participated in a broad conspiracy with the Taliban, a federal judge said yesterday. Responding to defense requests for thousands of documents related to Lindh's captivity in Afghanistan, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis noted that the young man is charged with engaging in a broad conspiracy. "You are not required toshow that he shot at Americans," the judge told prose- cutors at a hearing on a variety of requests for information by Lindh's attorneys. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Davis told the judge "there is no allegation of per- sonal involvement" by Lindh in the killing of Spann, a CIA agent who was slain during a prison uprising in Afghanistan at which Lindh was present. Lindh's lawyers have said their ,client was held under horrific conditions after his capture in Afghanistan, and they have argued that any statements he made during that period should not be admissible. In papers filed last Friday, the government denied this, saying that his food and medical care equaled that of U.S. soldiers. 0 VIEQUES, Puerto Rico U.S. Navy resumes Puerto Rico bombing U.S. Navy planes began dropping inert bombs yesterday on the firing range here for the first time since October, as mili- tary police handcuffed and detained five women who entered Navy land. Although the protests surrounding what is expected to be three weeks of war exercises have been muted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, small bands of demonstrators have launched protests on the outlying Puerto Rican island since this weekend, erecting barricades and holding vigils. Outside the Navy's Camp Garcia yesterday, one pro-statehood demonstrator carrying a U.S. flag was showing his support of the Navy when a woman raced toward him and punched; him in the face. Within minutes, a crowd opposing the Navy's presence surround- ed and began beating him. 3 Police pulled the crowd off the man and took him away to the police station for his own protection, Police Col. Cesar Gracia said. KARACHI, Pakistan Pearl kidnappers ask court for public trial Four men accused of kidnapping and killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl are challenging the government's decision to try them behind prison walls, arguing yester- day that a closed trial violates Pak- istani law. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, accused of masterminding the Jan. 23 kidnapping, and three accom- plices are scheduled for trial April 5 before an anti-terrorism court on charges of murder, kidnapping and terrorism. Citing security reasons, the government ordered the trial be held at the jail. In a written application, the four urged that the high court here in Sindh province order the trial to be held in an open courtroom. Two high court judges will hear the motion Thursday - a day before the murder and kidnapping trial starts in Karachi's Central Jail. WASHINGTON Three-strikes law under tough scrutiny The Supreme Court said yesterday it.will use the cases of two petty thieves sentenced to at least 25 years in prison for shoplifting videotapes and stealing golf clubs to decide how far states can go in applying tough three-strikes-and-you're-out sentencing laws. The court's answer could settle whether states violate the Constitution's ban on cruel or unusual punishment when they use the laws to win long sen- tences for minor offenses that otherwise might result in just a few months behind bars. The court agreed to hear two cases from California, which has the coun- try's strictest three-strikes law. Forty states lengthen sentences of repeat criminals; 26 of the 40 have a three-strikes provision. - Compiled from Daily wire reports. a 6 The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University of Michigan. Subscriptions for fall term, starting in September, via U.S. mail are $105. Winter term (January through April) is $110, yearlong (September through April) is $190. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscrip- tions must be prepaid. The Michigan Daily is a member of The Associated Press and The Associated Colle- giate Press. ADDRESS: The Michigan Daily, 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1327. PHONE NUMBERS (All area code 734): News 76-DAILY; Arts 763-0379; Sports 647-3336; Opinion 764-0552; Circulation 764-0558; Classified advertising 764-0557; Display advertising 764-0554; Billing 764-0550. 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