FIGHTING TERRORISTS An update

The latest developments in the war on terrorism:
GUANTANAMO DETAINEES
Detainees in the war on terrorism are fighting for access to American courts, contending they should not be held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without seeing a lawyer and without being charged with a crime.
The Bush administration was arguing in a federal appeals court here today that 12 Kuwaitis, two Australians and two British Muslims captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks are "unlawful combatants."
Siding with Justice Department lawyers, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled four months ago that the Guantanamo detainees have no right to court hearings, meaning the military can hold them indefinitely without filing charges. The Justice Department and Kollar-Kotelly are relying on a 1950 Supreme Court ruling involving German nationals in World War II convicted before a military commission and held in a prison in Germany.
Like the Germans, the Guantanamo detainees "are 'actual enemies, active in the hostile service of an enemy power'" and they lack standing in U.S. courts, the Justice Department said in recent court papers.
The two cases are completely different, lawyers for the detainees and their families responded.
WARLORDS BATTLE
The forces of two rival warlords battled for a third day in western Afghanistan today, pounding each other's positions with tank and artillery fire. Ethnic Pashtun commander Ammanullah Khan accused Ismail Khan, the Tajik governor of Herat, of launching attacks Saturday on several small villages at Zer-e-Koh, about 15 miles south of Shindand air base, where U.S. soldiers are located.
Intense artillery exchanges continued this morning. On Sunday, U.S. Special Forces patrolling just south of the town of Shindand came under fire from unidentified Afghan assailants, prompting them to call in the first reported airstrike from a U.S. B-52 bomber since the summer.
The B-52 dropped seven 2,000-pound satellite-guided "smart bombs" after the Special Forces were trapped by heavy weapons fire, including rockets and mortars fired from armored vehicles, said Col. Roger King, a spokesman at Bagram Air Base, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan. It was unknown who fired on the Americans.
TERROR TRIAL
Four men believed linked to Al-Qaida went on trial in the Netherlands today on charges of plotting attacks on U.S. targets across Europe, the first terrorist case before a Dutch court since crackdowns after Sept. 11.
Two Algerians, a Frenchman and a Dutchman are accused of running a terrorist support network out of a Rotterdam apartment to assist in strikes against the American Embassy in Paris and a military base in Belgium where U.S. munitions are stored.
Prosecutors said the suspects were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, membership in a criminal organization and forging documents, passports and credit cards.
The alleged Dutch cell was uncovered as police carried out a Europe-wide sweep two days after the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington. Three of the four men were arrested Sept. 13, 2001.
In a rare courtroom appearance, the head of the Dutch Internal Security Service sparred with judges over what information he could disclose. He declined to answer some questions without prior approval from the internal affairs minister.
"I call on my obligation to remain silent," said Siebrand van Hulst when pressed by defense lawyers for details about secret service operations.
Source: Associated Press