Word: terrorist
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Washington insists it is watching not only bin Laden's cells but also dozens of other potentially dangerous groups from its special Counter Terrorism Center in Virginia. Though the best way to track these groups would be to infiltrate them, that poses a nearly insuperable problem. "Terrorist cells are frequently very small groups of people who are all related to each other," says a CIA defender. "You don't just suddenly make yourself a cousin of somebody...
What's scary is the unknown terrorist. Last week's case of Administration anxiety came largely from the sudden appearance of a 32-year-old Algerian named Ahmed Ressam. Trying to sneak into the U.S. from Canada, he was caught by luck as much as diligence. The 3,000-odd-mile northern border of the U.S. is as porous as Swiss cheese. Some checkpoints are screened only by video camera. The one at Port Angeles, Wash., where Ressam was arrested, might have seemed like a sleepy, lax place to cross into the U.S. But around...
...what is? The Administration wants to be seen doing something, but any real counterterrorism must of necessity be kept secret. Part of the noise is psywar to put terrorist wannabes on notice, part is Washington's habitual CYA--cover your you-know-what. Says a senior U.S. official: "We don't want to get caught with our socks down again [as in Kenya and Tanzania]. If we warn people and nothing happens, they may be a little ticked off, but that's better than saying nothing if there's a chance something bad is going to happen...
...There has to be something better to do than Partying Like It's, well, you know. Doesn't there? For the three sane people in the U.S. who are NOT going to be spending their evening as clay pigeons in the terrorist crosshairs, er, crossroads of the world, Couch Potato offers these millennial movies...
...Heightened fears of terrorist strikes at the New Year have prompted a worldwide preemptive clampdown on suspected terrorists. A joint NYPD-FBI anti-terrorism task force arrested four men in Brooklyn Thursday on charges contained in a sealed indictment. One of the men has been linked with Ressam by phone records. U.S. officials have also supplied information to help governments abroad round up hundreds of suspected terrorists. Unless specific evidence emerges as a basis for trial, most are expected to be released early in the New Year. France used similar sweeping preemptive arrests in 1998 to successfully forestall GIA plans...