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More reserves called up for holiday season homeland duty

A National Guard soldier looks on as a young girl walks through a metal detector at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport.  


(CNN) -- President Bush said Friday he is increasing by 25 percent the number of National Guard and reserve troops available to governors to deploy at airports around the nation.

"We're calling up these Guardsmen and women immediately," Bush said during a White House ceremony. "This increase in security will last through the busy holiday period."

The troops could take on a range of duties including monitoring passengers at baggage-screening locations, guarding boarding gates and air traffic control facilities, providing security in parking garages and monitoring curbside traffic, said White House press secretary Ari Fleischer

The call-up will boost the National Guard presence from almost 7,000 troops mobilized at airports since September 11th to more than 9,000.

Bush said the call-up was only temporary and he urged Congress to quickly reconcile the differences between the airline transportation safety bills passed recently by both the House and Senate.

The administration will ask Congress to provide an additional approximately $65 million to states. The money comes from the $40 billion emergency supplemental package already approved by Congress to deal with the September 11 attacks.

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Latest developments

• Saying that innocent men, women and children are being subjected "to blind wrath, misnamed as a holy war," Iranian President Mohammad Khatami Friday delivered indirect criticism of Afghanistan's Taliban regime, claiming that "an obscure misrepresentation of Islam terrorizes the world." (Full story)

• One day after Bush told Americans "let's roll" against terrorists, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, Ayman El-Zawhari, criticized Bush for ignoring what he termed the root of the terrorist attacks: America's 50-year support for Israel. Appearing on videotape Friday broadcast by the Al Jazeera television network, El-Zawhari also said al Qaeda would fight the U.S. military until the last American soldier is out of Muslim territory. (Full story)

• U.S. officials told CNN it looks as if Northern Alliance forces will win control of the strategic northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, but don't control the city yet. Northern Alliance Gen. Rashid Dostum said Friday his troops had entered and gained control of the strategic Taliban stronghold. (Full story)

• Three people were killed Friday in southern Pakistan in protests against President Pervez Musharraf's support of the U.S.-led war against terrorism. The demonstrations come as Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee met with President Bush and assured him of "India's complete support" of the campaign against terrorism. (Full story)

• As part of its broad investigation into terrorism, the Department of Justice has decided to monitor communications between some federal detainees and their lawyers. That move -- which critics say is at odds with the long-recognized attorney-client privilege -- is necessary to help "prevent further terrorist acts," the department said in a statement released Friday. (Full story)

• The three anthrax-tainted letters postmarked Trenton, New Jersey -- at the heart of a post-September 11 outbreak of biological terrorism -- were all but certainly written by the same person -- probably a male loner who may work in a laboratory, FBI officials said Friday. They said the author -- if employed -- was likely to be in a position requiring little contact with the public. (Full story)

• The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services said Friday that "several postal facilities in the Trenton area have tested positive for the presence of anthrax." Spokesman David Jamison said that cross-contamination with other sites is suspected. A U.S. Postal Service official confirmed to CNN that "small traces were detected with minimal surface contamination" in four facilities but it "should have not much impact at all on the operations of these four facilities."

• The aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis and the warship's battle group stationed in San Diego, California, have been ordered to sail Monday to the Arabian Sea, more than a month ahead of their scheduled January deployment, Pentagon officials said. The Stennis will join three aircraft carrier groups near the coast of Pakistan to conduct air operations against targets in Afghanistan. (Full story)

• Suspected terrorist hijacker Mohammed Atta contacted an Iraqi agent to discuss a terror attack on the Radio Free Europe building in the Czech Republic capital of Prague, Czech Prime Minister Milos Zeman told CNN Friday in an interview. (Full story)

• The U.S. government is considering a new security measure that would make it mandatory that each checked piece of luggage is matched with a passenger. So-called bag matching, meant to foil terrorists like those who planted a bomb on Pan Am Flight 103 and then got off before it exploded, currently is required only on international flights. (Full story)

• Three Japanese warships departed for the Indian Ocean early Friday to provide non-combat support to the U.S.-led war on terrorism. It will mark the first time since World War II that Japanese forces will operate outside of Japanese territory. (Full story)

• Colombia's history with drug traffickers and rebels makes it especially committed to the fight against terrorism, the South American nation's president said Friday in Washington. "We have suffered for ... years, and that's why we are committed," President Andres Pastrana said at a meeting with Attorney General John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Agency chief Asa Hutchinson.



 
 
 
 



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