STOCKHOLM: A Swedish man of Tunisian origin, arrested on suspicion he was about to hijack a plane, was planning to crash the aircraft into a US embassy in Europe, Swedish intelligence and police sources said yesterday.

A top police official said the man had taken flying lessons in the United States - adding to fears of copycat attacks as the first anniversary of the September 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington approaches.

However, intelligence sources and police were at odds over the incident, which began when a gun was found in the man’s hand luggage as he boarded a flight to Britain from Vasteras, west of Stockholm. One police official flatly denied the embassy plan.

A highly-placed intelligence source said police were hunting four more men, including an explosives expert, who were believed to have worked on the plan with the suspect, aged 29.

“We know for sure that the plan was to crash the plane into a US embassy in Europe,” the source said.

The report was certain to unnerve Western governments who have already ordered extra security precautions ahead of the September 11 anniversary of attacks carried out by hijackers who had learned to fly aircraft in courses in the United States.

But a source in Sweden’s Sapo security police said they had been instructed by the government to play the incident down at a politically sensitive time, two weeks before an election.

Margareta Linderoth, a Sapo official responsible for several departments including the one handling international terrorism, denied that police believed the arrested man was planning to attack an embassy or that four more men were being sought.

“I have never heard that the man has planned to do what you say he has,” she said. “We are not looking for four other men.”

Linderoth told Swedish radio that the suspect had taken flying lessons in the United States but had not completed his training. It was possible he had qualified since then, she said.

Another Sapo source said the security police were working on the theory that the group were planning to crash at least one plane, and possibly more, into a US embassy. They did not know which embassy had been targeted.

The man’s lawyer, Nils Uggla, said his client denied that he had anything to do with terrorism or any attacks.

Asked why his client had a gun, Uggla said: “He has given an explanation to me and to the police and I am forbidden to give you the explanation.”

Swedish police do not believe the arrested man or anyone he was working with were part of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group, blamed by Washington for the September 11 attacks. Instead they believe a copycat attack was being planned.

The suspect was moved to a high security prison and was expected to be charged tomorrow with hijacking or illegal possession of a firearm.

In Washington, a State Department official said US embassies in Europe had not been put on higher state of alert as a result of the incident.

Passengers on the plane, operated by the Irish budget airline Ryanair, included people travelling to an Islamic conference in the English city of Birmingham.

A Sapo source said they had been questioned but had no connection with the suspect.

Abu Khadeejah, one of the organisers of the Islamic conference in Birmingham, said on Friday that neither he nor other conference officials knew the arrested man. - Reuters

JENIN: Israeli helicopter gunships killed five Palestinians, including two children, in a missile strike yesterday, shaking US efforts to broker Palestinian security reforms in the hope of producing a truce.

Two Apache gunships attacked at Tubas village near the West Bank city of Jenin, one of their missiles obliterating a car and its three occupants, Tubas Mayor Diab Abu Khezaran said.

Medical officials identified them as an activist linked to the Fatah movement, as well as two 15-year-old boys. A second missile apparently overshot and struck a nearby house, killing a boy, 9, and a girl, 10, and wounding seven others.

“What is the sense of hitting a building with no militants or wanted men inside, only civilians?” Abu Khezaran said.

Rafaat Daraghmeh, 26, who belonged both to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed offshoot of the Fatah movement, was killed when the helicopters hit his car with a missile, Palestinian security sources said. The bodies of Daraghmeh, and those of the two boys were found badly charred inside the vehicle.

Hours after the air strike, a Palestinian gunman raided a settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli security sources said, wounding a married couple before being shot dead.

Fresh from what he termed a “fruitful” meeting with US Deputy of State David Satterfield on Palestinian security reform, Palestinian Minister of Planning and International Co-operation Nabil Shaath denounced the Tubas “crime”.

“It is a repetition of previous assassination crimes conducted by Israel aimed at escalating the military situation to avoid sitting at the negotiating table,” Shaath said.

The Israeli army called Tubas a blow against those planning imminent attacks, and expressed regret at the innocent casualties. An Israeli security source said a militant was believed to have bolted the car before the missile struck.

Also yesterday Israeli troops in Ramallah arrested Hassan Yousef, a senior Hamas political leader. The Hamas group vowed anew to continue its resistance.

Satterfield is reported to be trying to bring Palestinians and the United States closer to implementing security reforms regarded as crucial by Israel and Washington to reviving political talks on a Palestinian state.

A US embassy spokesman voiced regret at the innocent deaths in Tubas, but said Satterfield’s mission would continue.

Earlier, Palestinian Interior Minister Abdul Razzak al-Yahya said there was “positive feedback” from the US envoy on sending experts and equipment to restructure security services.

He did not elaborate, but Arafat announced in August after high-level Palestinian-US talks that foreign experts - including Americans would help overhaul the Palestinian security apparatus and train its personnel.

Israel demands reform of the Palestinian Authority as a prerequisite to a resumption of peace talks which stalled in 2000. Shaath told reporters that in his meeting with Satterfield he had made clear that “we need to get out of the impasse, end the occupation. We want to go back to peace negotiations leading to an independent Palestinian state.”

On a different diplomatic front, European Union foreign ministers yesterday endorsed a Middle East peace plan envisaging the creation of an independent Palestinian state in June 2005, with the consent of Israel and moderate Arab states.

The plan would require a restructured Palestinian security service, as well as Israel’s withdrawal from reoccupied Palestinian self-rule areas. - Reuters

Eight others were acquitted over the incident which shocked this Islamic nation of 145mn and sparked an international outrage.

A 30-year-old divorcee was raped for more than an hour in a hut in the Punjab village of Meerwala, some 60km east of here, to atone for her younger brother’s alleged affair with a sister of one of the accused rapists.

“Six people have been condemned to death and each has also been fined 40,000 rupees (about $670). The six include all four rapists and two members of the tribal council which ordered the rape,” police official Latis Chandio said.

The men condemned for carrying out the rape were named as Mohamed Fayyaz, Allah Ditta, Abdul Khaliq and Ghulam Farid. The tribal council members also sentenced to death were identified as Faiz Mastoi and Ramzan Bachhar.

Hazoor Baksh, brother of the victim, said he was happy that justice had been done.

“We are grateful to God. The oppressors have met their end - this is truly justice,” he said, but added that all 14 accused should have been punished.

“These aare due to police negligence. They all should have been punished as they were part of the (tribal council) which ordered the gang-rape. But still we have no regrets,” Baksh said.

Senior defence counsel Malik Saleem said the convictions would be appealed.

“The president of the country announced cash compensation of 500,000 rupees (about $8,500) for the complainant before waiting to see whether the allegations were right or wrong,” he said.

“This judgment has been delivered under duress. The judge was clearly under pressure from the media, the government and the Supreme Court.”

Prosecutors had demanded the death penalty for all 14 accused, including the four men charged with raping Mukhtiar Mai and 10 members of the informal village council charged with abetting the June 22 attack.

The convicted attackers belong to the powerful Mastoi clan which have allegedly engaged in intimidation of Mai’s family and prosecution witnesses.

The rape victim, Mai, told journalists at her guarded home that she wanted her attackers punished by death.

But Mai’s brother, Hazoor Baksh, said his family was living in fear. - AFP

FRANKFURT: Germany’s air fares war is going full-throttle, with Lufthansa’s new no-frills subsidiary GermanWings planning to offer one-way tickets for under $5 (QR18) from Bonn to London, Paris and Milan, according to a magazine.

The report in Focus news magazine says the rock-bottom fares come in response to last week’s announcement by Hapag-Lloyd’s TUI air carriers for flights out of Bonn to European capitals for as little as $10 (QR36). - DPA

SANAA: Security officials said yesterday that police were investigating a stabbing attack on a 55-year-old German tourist while he was strolling in the old quarters of the capital, Sanaa.

The officials said unknown assailants attacked the German on Friday evening “as he was strolling in one of the streets of the old historic quarters of the city by himself, and stabbed him several times in the back”. The man was given first aid then taken to the hospital where he was recovering.- DPA

ELSINORE: The European Union yesterday pressed Iraq to re-admit UN weapons inspectors “immediately” and warned that diplomacy and not war must resolve the conflict with President Saddam Hussain.

Europeans, many of whom have been alarmed by US Vice President Dick Cheney’s war talk last week, sought to take the initiative by cooling tempers which have flared in recent weeks.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said no decision had yet been made about what action to take, but doing nothing about the present situation in Iraq was not an option.

“The issue of weapons of mass destruction is an issue where the world cannot stand by and allow Iraq to be in flagrant breach of all the United Nations resolutions.

“Doing nothing about Iraq’s breach of these UN resolutions is not an option,” said Blair, according to the Press Association news agency.

EU foreign ministers, meeting in the Danish town of Elsinore, meanwhile called for calm.

“I think we should all have a cool look at what’s happening,” said EU external relations commissioner Chris Patten.

“We all recognise what a threat to regional stability Saddam Hussain is, but it’s going to take some cool heads to plot the right way forward,” he added.

The Iraqi issue clouded a two-day meeting of EU foreign ministers, even though the agenda was officially focussed on EU enlargement and the Middle East.

German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, whose government is struggling for re-election in three weeks’ time, was among the most outspoken critics of attacks on Baghdad.

“It would be a serious mistake to wage war against Iraq,” he told reporters. “There was a great deal of concern around the table.”

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose government has until recently been seen as one of the key supporters of the US administration, also appeared to backtrack from war talk, saying the first priority was weapons inspectors. - Agencies

LONDON: Hundreds of people gathered outside the London home of the late Princess Diana yesterday, laying bouquets of flowers and pinning pictures and messages to the palace gates to mark the fifth anniversary of her death.

Foreign tourists mingled with British fans of the princess outside Kensington Palace, in the heart of the capital.

Some wrapped Union Jack flags around nearby lamp-posts and many left pictures of the photogenic princess, who died in a car crash in Paris on August 31, 1997.

Wellwishers also left flowers at the spot in the French capital where she died and at her family house in Althorp, in central England, where she is buried.

There were no official ceremonies to mark the anniversary and the Royal Family were out of London at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands.

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman said Diana would be “mentioned in prayers” during a church service today which the Royals will attend. - Reuters

Staff Reporter

THE Roads Division at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Agriculture is to build a 50-km Doha Expressway, an ambitious road project that will connect Wakra-Mesaieed in the south to the northern regions outside the capital.

Part of the Qatar Primary Routes Project, the road includes a six-lane urban expressway and and an eight-lane rural expressway that will enable smooth traffic movement from Wakra-Mesaieed to the northern parts of the country.

Beginning at Mesaieed, the Doha Expressway will pass through Wakra and then intersect D Ring, E Ring and F Ring roads in Doha before linking with the North Road.

The government has invited pre-qualification tenders from international contractors.

A Roads Division official said international standards will be applied for the design of grade-separated interchanges, bridges and underpasses that will form part of the expressway. An interchange is a road junction designed in such a way that traffic streams do not intersect.

“The highway will facilitate north-south traffic movement and connect the new Doha International Airport with the Qatar Highway Network as well as improve traffic flow and cargo transportation between the major roads,” the official said.

Meanwhile, Athens-based Joannou & Paraskevaides has been awarded the contract for building of the Salwa and Immigration interchanges.

Worth a total QR363mn, the contracts are the largest road awards by the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Agriculture for over a decade, a MEED report says.

The larger of the two contracts is for the Immigration interchange. Valued at QR204mn, it is scheduled to be completed in 16 months.

The Salwa interchange contract is valued at QR161.3mn and will take 18 months for completion.

The other major road projects under different stages of implementation are the $190mn Salwa highway upgrade, $190mn Dukhan highway project and the $330mn North Highway scheme.

JOHANNESBURG: Nego-tiators at the Earth Summit under pressure to agree on a blueprint for the future of the planet agreed yesterday on innocuous wording on global warming as 15,000 demonstrators marched from a decaying township to demand action on reducing poverty and improving the environment.

Two separate marches took place in a carnival atmosphere, with activists cheering as speakers denounced US President George W Bush as a “terrorist”, branded Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon “a war criminal” and railed at South African President Thabo Mbeki for failing to help millions of his citizens get jobs, land or basic services.

The negotiators’ compromise on the Kyoto Protocol appeared to be a concession to the United States after President Bush’s rejection of the pact last year, arguing that it would hurt US industries and was too soft on countries such as China and India. - AFP