2 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, April 5, 2002 NATION/WORLD I Afghan authorities thwart couD NEWS IN BRIEF v 1 KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Afghan authorities said yesterday they have uncovered a plot against the fledgling government, arresting hundreds for allegedly planning "terrorism, abductions and sabo- tage," and seizing weapons and documents in sweeps throughout the capital. The government said the operations against men linked to former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmat- yar thwarted the greatest threat yet to Hamid Karzai's interim administration. But the arrests are also likely to inflame tension between Hekmatyar's largely Pashtun followers and the northern alliance, which is dominated by ethnic Tajiks and controls key min- istries. "They wanted to launch a coup d'etat against the government," said Mohammed Naseer, security director at the Kabul governor's office. He said the plotters also wanted to disrupt the loya jirga, a political gathering planned for June to select a new government. Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni said most of those arrested were members of Hekmatyar's Hezb- e-Islami party. Whether the suspects actually hoped to overthrow the government was under investiga- tion, he said, but "it was a plot including terrorism, abductions and sabotage." He said authorities had seized explosives and remote control devices and found "written documents indicating that they would carry out these acts." He did not elaborate. "There were a series of attacks planned against a number of prominent Afghan individuals, including Chairman Karzai and the former king," Mohammad Zaher Shah, who is due to return to Afghanistan from Italy this month, Qanooni said. He added that authorities had evidence the men planned to attack foreigners. In Pakistan, a senior leader of Hezb-e-Islami, Qut- buddin Hilal, said those arrested were former - not current -members of the group. Pashtun leaders may interpret the arrests as an attempt to stifle their moves toward Pashtun unity in advance of the loya jirga, but Qanooni said nobody was arrested "on the basis of political disagreement." When asked if the majority of those arrested were Pashtuns, Qanooni said only: "Let's not turn it into an ethnic issue." Qanooni said more than 300 people had been arrested, and that 160 were still being held yesterday. A Western official in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity, said only 10 were being held on suspi- cion of serious offenses, including terrorism. WASHINGTON Afghan detainee says he is a U.S. citizen Pentagon and Justice Department officials are discussing what to do with a prisoner captured in Afghanistan who they believe was born in America and is a U.S. citizen. * The man, Yasser Esam Hamdi apparently was born in Louisiana, where his Saudi parents were then working, and then returned with them to Saudi Arabia when he was a toddler, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said yesterday at a Pentagon briefing. "We think he will have American citizenship," Clarke said. "It does just point to how unconventional this war is. ... We are looking at each of these detentions very, very carefully and very methodically." If Hamdi should prove to be the second U.S. citizen captured during the Afghanistan campaign, he could be moved from the detention center at a US. Navy base in Cuba where suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are held. That also would prevent his trial by special military tribunal, set up under an exec- utive order by President Bush to try terrorism suspects who are not U.S. citizens. The Justice Department found the birth certificate that appears to back up the man's claim to have been born in Baton Rouge, La., Defense Department. spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday. WASH INGTON Wh~ite House airspace violated many times Teens sentenced for Dartmouth murders HAVERHILL, N.H. (AP) - The shocking details of how two bored teen-agers butchered husband-and- wife Dartmouth College professors in their home in a plot to steal their ATM cards spilled out in court yes- terday as the case ended with both youths sentenced to long prison terms. Robert Tulloch, an 18-year-old former high school honor student, dropped his insanity defense, pleaded guilty to murder and received the mandatory sen- tence of life without parole in the stabbing deaths of Half and Susanne Zantop. His best friend, 17-year-old James Parker, was sen- tenced later in the day to 25 years to life as an accomplice to murder, bringing an end to a case shocking in its savagery and senselessness. Parker had struck a plea bargain in December and agreed to testify against Tulloch. "I'm sorry," Parker said, crying in the courtroom. "There's not much more I can say than that. I'm just really sorry." Tulloch calmly gave mostly yes-and-no answers to the judge's questions and offered no explanation or apology. At the hearing for Tulloch, prosecutor Kelly Ayotte described how the two teen-agers went from stealing mail to committing murder as part of a scheme to make a lot of money and run off to Australia. She recounted how they made abortive attempts at four other houses before they talked their way into the pro- fessors' Hanover home on Jan. 27, 2001 by posing as students taking an environmental survey. The teen-agers were packing foot-long commando . O