NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, March 7, 1994
7
Serb planes bomb Muslim area
The Associated Press
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Syrb aircraft bombed a Muslim area of northern Bosnia yesterday, less than a week after NATO jet fighters shot down four Serb warplanes on a similar sorte, Bosnian and Croatian broadcasters reported.
Officials of NATO and the United Nations said they had no immediate information on the reported attack. NATO is enforcing the United Nations-mandated no-fly zone over Bosnia; a bombing raid would be a flagrant violation of the zone.
Bosnian radio and Croatian TV said the planes targeted Maglaj's only bridge, which spans the Bosna river. Croatian TV said the bridge was destroyed.
Magalja, about 40 miles north of Sarajevo, is surrounded by besieging Serbs who have refused past United Nations requests for access. Magalja's inaccessibility makes independent investigation of the
If confirmed, the bombing would be another challenge to NATO's newly demonstrated resolve to punish warring parties in the former Yugoslavia.
claimed bombing impossible.
The Bosnian Serbs appeared conciliatory in the wake of the confrontation. But there are signs that they are once again testing NATO resolve.
Two U.S.-plotted F-16 fighters downed four Serb Galeb planes in central Bosnia Feb. 28, U.N. officials said the Serb planes were attacking Bosnian government targets.
U. N. officials said Saturday they had found six Serb howitzers in the immediate vicinity of Sarajevo, in apparent violation of a NATO ultimatum that all heavy weapons around the besieged Bosnian capital be withdrawn or put under U.N. control.
Although the Serbs denied the howitzers violated the ultimatum, U.N. officials said the Serbs had agreed to withdraw the weapons.
On Saturday evening, Serb forces fired on French U.N. troops near Sarajevo's Jewish cemetery, in what U.N. officials said was a deliberate attack on peacekeepers.
One French soldier was slightly injured, U.N. spokesman Maj. Rob Annink said. French troops returned fire.
It was the second incident in three days involving French peacekeepers at the contested hillside cemetery in southern Sarajevo. On Thursday, French troops returned fire when Bosnian Serb snipers shot at them.
With the cease-fire between Serbs and Muslim-led government forces under strain, the U.N. chief representative in the former Yugoslavia, Yasushi Akashi, flew to Sarajevo yesterday. He and the U.N. commander for Bosnia, L. Gen. Sir Michael Rose, left for nearby Pale for a meeting with Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic.
Legislature scrambles to meet its deadlines
TOPEKA — The Legislature enters the second phase of the 1994 session this week, after lawmakers scrambled to meet its first main deadline.
The Associated Press
Both the House and Senate spent a good deal of time debating bills on the floor last week to meet the Wednesday "turnaround" deadline. That means the Senate had to act on most of the Senate bills and the House had to act on most of the House bills.
The Legislature enters the ninth week of a 13-week session. It plans to take its first adjournment on April 1, consider budget bills in a two-day return April 7-8 and then conduct its traditional wrap-up session April 27-29.
Now each chamber will take up the other's bills, and the focus this week again will be on committee hearings and action.
So far, the only major piece of legislation both houses have acted on is a death penalty bill. However, the House and Senate versions of that bill are far apart.
The Senate and the House will
consider a compromise this week on how to implement a 1992 property classification amendment that would give country clubs a break.
Senate and House negotiators reached an agreement last week that would assess the golf courses owned by country clubs at 12 percent, while the clubhouses would be assessed at 30 percent.
The House Federal and State Affairs committee will hold hearings on proposals to submit to voters constitutional amendments to limit lottery games legal in Kansas to those in existence before Jan. 1, 1994, and to allow casinos to open — the opposite positions on the gambling issue.
The Senate Judiciary Committee also will take up the "Three strikes, you're out" bill that the House passed last week. Under that proposal, a person who is convicted of three violent felonies would be sentenced to life in prison without parole.
The climate at the Legislature, which is focusing on crime, will make it difficult for the Senate to reject such a measure.
Tapes reveal plot to kidnap Kissinger
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The alleged mastermind of a plot to bomb the United Nations said he was told to kidnap Henry Kissinger as trade bait to free those charged in the World Trade Center bombing, according to secretly taped conversations.
Several hundred pages of transcripts give the clearest view yet of an alleged conspiracy that prosecutors say included the bombing. Fifteen men will stand trial in the conspiracy case in September.
Four men were convicted Friday for the trade center bombing. They face up to life in prison without parole at their sentencing May 4.
The conversations secretly were recorded by Emad Salem, a government informant who is expected to be the prosecution's star witness in the coming trial.
According to transcripts:
A plot to assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak outside the Waldford Astoria Hotel was thwarted when the FBI learned of the plans.
Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a 55-year-old blind Egyptian cleric who prosecutors say inspired and authorized the conspirators, told the men "to inflict damage to the American Army."
Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, the conspirator's alleged mastermind, wanted to kill a man because he thought he was an FBI informant. That man, Abdo Mohammed Haggag, is expected to testify against the other defendants.
Siddiq Ali suggested sniper attacks on Jewish leaders in Manhattan, including state Assemblyman Dov Hikind, who at one point had pushed to have Ela Siyayid Nosair retried in the killing of extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane.
■ When the defendants were arrested in the trade center case, Siddig Ali suggested to Salem that they could kill some FBI agents in retaliation. He also said that if the defendants were sentenced to life in prison, "we'll hit them with missiles, and we will take hostages."
In published reports last year, lawyers who had viewed the transcripts before they were filed in court were quoted as saying Salem and Slddig Al had discussed abducting former President Nixon and former Secretary of State Kissinger.
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