CNN has learned that Pakistan will threaten massive military action led by the United States unless Kabul complies. U.S. President George W. Bush has characterized bin Laden as the "prime suspect" in Tuesday's hijacking attacks that left thousands of people dead or missing, toppled New York's World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.

The head of Pakistan's intelligence is likely to travel to Afghanistan in the next 24 hours carrying this message to the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. (Full story)

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC that in the moments after it became apparent that the United States was under attack, Bush authorized the military to shoot down any unauthorized civilian aircraft heading toward the White House or the Capitol. (Full story)

In New York, several blocks from the ruins of the World Trade Center, a passport authorities said belonged to one of the hijackers was discovered a few days ago, according to city Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik. That has prompted the FBI and police to widen the search area beyond the immediate crash site. A second person whom authorities were seeking as a material witness in the attacks was arrested Saturday and held in FBI custody in New York, a Justice Department official said. (Full story)

Latest developments

• British Prime Minister Tony Blair has told CNN that the international community gives its full backing to the fight "between the civilized world and fanaticism." (Full story)

• Russian troops of the 201st division deployed in Tajikistan have been placed on higher alert, according to Interfax news agency. The Russian foreign minister could not confirm the report, which quotes Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. The order was given, according to the report, "taking into account the developing situation in the region".

• U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft calls on Congress to amend federal laws so that people convicted of helping terrorists would receive sentences similar to convicted spies.

• As Americans attended worship services on Sunday, Pope John Paul II offered prayers to the United States and urged those affected by the terrorist attacks to show restraint and commit themselves to peace. (Full story)

• In a suspected racially motivated act of violence, a man was questioned by police in Mesa, Arizona, Sunday morning in connection with the Saturday shooting death of an Indian immigrant. (Full story)

• The Washington Post reports the Federal Aviation Administration alerted the national military air defense command that a hijacked jet was hurtling toward the Pentagon 12 minutes before the plane hit, but apparently no one relayed that message to Pentagon security so they didn't evacuate building.

• The computer and telecommunications systems of the New York Stock Exchange passed test-runs Saturday and Sunday, clearing the way for the resumption of U.S. stock trading on both the NYSE and NASDAQ Monday for the first time since Tuesday's terrorist attack. (Full story)

• A motel owner in Deerfield Beach, Florida, said Saturday he found Boeing aircraft manuals, aeronautical maps and martial arts books in a Dumpster after a man who is believed to have helped hijack one of the planes involved in the attacks checked out of the motel.

• During his weekly radio address, Bush told the nation that "those who make war against the United States have chosen their own destruction" and that the nation's response to the attacks would "be sweeping, sustained and effective." (Transcript)

• The Pentagon on Saturday dubbed the U.S. military's increased role in homeland defense and support for civil authorities "Operation Noble Eagle." The operation includes Navy ships protecting both coasts; fighter overflights protecting airspace over the Northeast Corridor; and the call-up of 35,000 reserve troops to aid with those missions and assisting in recovery efforts in New York and Washington.

• New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on Sunday raised the number of people unaccounted for after Tuesday's destruction of the World Trade Center to 5,097. Giuliani said 180 were confirmed dead, 115 of whom have been identified. New York firefighters -- who suffered heavy casualties in the attacks -- held services for three of their slain comrades, including Fire Chief Peter Ganci. (Full story)

• In Washington, the Pentagon lowered the estimate of those unaccounted for in that attack to 187, including 64 aboard the American Airlines jet that crashed into the building. Authorities also, for the first time, released the name of one of those killed -- Aerographer's Mate First Class Edward Thomas Earhart, 26, of Salt Lick, Kentucky. Buses brought several family members of the Pentagon victims to the scene Saturday, where they laid flowers and balloons at the site.

• The foreign ministry of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said it would consider forming an invasion force to attack any neighboring country that aided the United States in the use of military force against Afghanistan. Afghanistan is considered a possible target for any retaliation because terrorist suspect bin Laden reportedly operates from the Afghan mountains. (Full story)

• In Iran, leaders have been locked in long meetings to examine the developments and draw up a strategy for dealing with the crisis in the United States and elsewhere in the wake of Tuesday's attack.

• On Saturday, Iran ordered security forces to close its 900 kilometer (559 mile) border with Afghanistan. (Full story)

• Sources close to the government say up to 10,000 Afghans may have entered Iran in the past few days as fears grew of an imminent U.S. attack against targets in the country. Iran is already home to at least 2 million Afghan refugees who fled warfare in their country over the past 22 years.
 

"CNN has learned that Pakistan will threaten massive military action led by the United States unless Kabul complies."

Um... Pakistan will threaten US retaliation?

Pakistan: "You guys better give up bin Laden!"
Afghanistan: "Or what?"
Pakistan: "Or we'll invade you!"
Afghanistan: "Yeah? You and what army?"
Pakistan: "Um... The US army!"
US army: "Buh?"
 

Speaking of which, is today a holiday? It's after 5 and my mailman hasn't shown up yet.
 

The goal of the U.S. should be to invade, grab bin Laden, and get the hell out. Obviously, that's a bit oversimplistic, with other goals probably including helping the Northern Alliance overthrow the Taliban ...
 

Afghanistan's similarilities to Vietnam run so deep that "compare and contrast" essays on them are rather hard to do, because the contrasting part usually means resorting to saying stupid things like the Viet Cong weren't Islamic.

[ September 17, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]

quote:

---

Taliban Says to Engage in Holy War Against U.S.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's ruling purist Taliban movement has announced a jihad, or holy war, against the United States, according to a broadcast on the Taliban's Voice of Shariat radio monitored by the BBC.

``I would like to tell my people that our jihad will be formally resuming against the Americans,'' the deputy chairman of the Taliban Council of Ministers, Mullah Mohammad Hasan Akhond, said in a speech broadcast late on Monday.

Akhond said it was unimaginable that the ``terror attacks'' against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been committed by the Taliban or by Osama bin Laden.

``But the USA and all imperialists in the world, Jews and Christians and their supporters are intending to destroy the Islamic order which has been established at the cost of your blood under this pretext,'' Akhond said.

---

I'm still not ruling out the restricted use of Mr. Neutron.
 

As for actual neutron bombs, I don't think we posses any in active inventory, save a few test models. That and we'd get blasted for human rights by using one.
 

[ September 18, 2001: Message edited by: The_Tom ]

I KNEW I could getcha on that one...

But since you've brought up the Neutron Bomb, the idea behind it is that because it irradiates a much smaller area, there is less likelihood of fallout affecting neighboring countries.

Still, I wouldn't use it in this situation. FAE and similar weapons should do nicely.