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FBI: Airport weapons incident likely not terrorism

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Subash Gurung was interviewed by CNN affiliate WLS-TV after being arrested at O'Hare International Airport.  


CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- There is no indication of any terrorist activity in a weekend incident in which a man tried to board a United Airlines flight armed with nine knives, a can of tear gas and a stun gun, federal investigators suggested Monday.

Subash Gurung, 27, passed through a security checkpoint Saturday at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, with most of his weapons, officials said.

The weapons, which came to light during a routine baggage check before Gurung boarded a flight, prompted officials to suspend eight security workers, including a supervisor.

It also drew an angry response from Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who recommended that United Airlines be fined and that security personnel be given more training.

"When there are screwups, there's going to be a sting," Mineta told a Chicago news conference Monday.

Gurung appeared in court Monday on a federal charge of attempting to carry a weapon on an aircraft. He remained jailed, pending a preliminary hearing Thursday. If convicted, he faces a maximum 10-year prison sentence and a $250,000 fine. (Full story)

In the U.S.-led retaliation for the terror attacks, Taliban forces were leaving their southern Afghan stronghold of Kandahar on Monday as U.S.-led airstrikes intensified.

After a quiet day Sunday -- allied planes dropped a single bomb southeast of the city -- CNN's Kamal Hyder reported heavy bombardment of rural districts around Kandahar as well as military targets to the northeast, southeast and west.

There were reports of further attacks overnight on the Kajaki Dam area, where a hydroelectric plant is located that provides power to Kandahar.

Taliban frontline positions north of Kabul also were hit Monday, and there were reports of intense fighting near the strategic northern city of Mazar-e Sharif.

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Latest developments

• The U.S. military has reportedly bombed Taliban front lines with 15,000-pound bombs called BLU-82 "daisy cutters," which are believed to be the world's largest conventional bombs, The Associated Press reported. The bomb creates a mist of ammonium nitrate and aluminum, which ignites in an explosion that incinerates everything within up to 600 yards, the news service reported.

• Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said Monday that airstrikes have virtually destroyed the al Qaeda terrorist network's "known infrastructure" and that al Qaeda is "not free to operate in Afghanistan at this point." He also said that in some areas Taliban fighters have not returned fire on opposition forces in several days, a possible indication that they are "either hunkered down ... or they're not able to fire."

• Taliban members have begun leaving Kandahar and are now staying in groups of two to five people because they fear larger concentrations will be hit, CNN has learned.

• As part of its psychological warfare against the Taliban, the U.S. military is dropping leaflets over Afghanistan showing a picture of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in a set of crosshairs. The leaflet also shows a close-up photograph of the license tag from Omar's personal vehicle, also set against crosshairs. An unmanned drone has been tracking Omar and took the photographs, Pentagon sources said.

• The Pentagon hopes to use three bases in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan to launch attack and supply missions in Afghanistan. The bases are closer to Afghanistan and would allow U.S. pilots to hit their targets more quickly, burning less fuel, and would give resupply missions a shorter turnaround time, a U.S. military spokesman said. (Full story)

• American support for the U.S.-led military action remains high, according to a CNN/USA Today poll conducted between November 2 and 4. The poll found 71 percent of Americans strongly approved of the campaign, 15 percent moderately approved and 11 percent disapproved. Only 27 percent of the people surveyed were very satisfied with the amount of progress in Afghanistan, 52 percent were somewhat satisfied and 18 percent were not satisfied with the progress.

• The Taliban claimed 10 civilians were killed and 15 were injured in a raid on the village of Aq-Kupruk, south of Mazar-e Sharif, but there was no way to verify the claim independently. Commanders with the opposition Northern Alliance had said over the weekend that they captured large portions of Aq-Kupruk and that hundreds of Taliban fighters had either defected or been captured.

• The latest raids came as the Northern Alliance announced it was preparing to launch a "multipronged attack" against Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan. (Full story)

• After meeting with officials in India on Monday, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied suggestions that the military campaign in Afghanistan will drag on for years, saying strikes were getting more effective. (Full story)

• A 21-year-old Jordanian man pleaded not guilty Monday to charges of perjury. Osama Awadallah, a permanent U.S. resident who has lived in San Diego, California, for three years, is accused of lying to a federal grand jury about his knowledge of two men whom the Justice Department identified as suspected hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77, which slammed into the Pentagon on September 11. (Full story)

• The war in Afghanistan is not a battle between Christians and Muslims despite Osama bin Laden's efforts to portray it as religious conflict, Egyptian Foreign Minster Ahmad Maher said Sunday. Instead, he said, the fight is between bin Laden and the world. Maher's response followed bin Laden's assertion that foreign ministers of 10 Arab nations betrayed Islam by not quitting the United Nations to protest the military campaign in Afghanistan.

• A senior Taliban official said an American aid worker arrested two weeks ago in Afghanistan has died of natural causes, The Associated Press reports. The State Department reportedly had no comment on the report -- other than to say that it has never confirmed that an American was in custody in Afghanistan. CNN has not confirmed the report.

• Taliban authorities are holding a Pakistani-American free-lance journalist, who was arrested a week ago on suspicion of being a spy. Taliban sources said the man was taken to Kandahar for interrogation, but he became ill and was transferred to a hospital in critical condition. The sources said the man may have overdosed on medication that he had been taking.



 
 
 
 



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