No evidence of link with al-Qaida or international terrorism

TOP US officials said yesterday authorities were investigating but had found no evidence to link a string of deadly sniper attacks in the Washington area to international terror groups.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell, appearing on Fox News yesterday, said it was conceivable but unproven that the attacks were connected to the al-Qaida organisation Osama bin Laden, which the United States has blamed for last year’s September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

“Obviously, it’s conceivable, but I have seen no evidence to tie this terrible series of attacks in the Washington area to al-Qaida,” Mr Powell said. “We’re looking for every possible connection, but, so far, I’ve not seen anything that does tie it to al-Qaida.”

Mr Powell and other officials spoke following what appeared to be a 12th attack by the gunman who has encircled the nation’s capital since October 2 with random shootings that have killed nine people and injured two.

A shooting on Saturday night in Ashland, Virginia, prompted another massive manhunt and dragnet of highways. Hundreds of local, state and federal officials are pursuing the killer, who appears to pick victims at random and has struck in Washington and neighbouring suburbs in Maryland and Virginia. US president George W Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, told TV’s Face the Nation officials were vigorously looking for a link between the sniper and terror groups but had found none: “There’s no evidence to this point that this is the work of an international terrorist organisation. We are of course keeping open that possibility and we’re going to turn over every rock to see if it might in fact be, but there is no evidence at this point that this is internationally driven in any way.”

Senate majority leader Tom Daschle told the Fox programme he was frustrated by the case and suggested the FBI and federal authorities do more to help solve it. “Whether or not it’s international, it is terror,” the South Dakota Democrat said. “It is striking at the hearts and minds of people in this whole area, changing the way we live and the way we act and the way we think. We need to meld forces here and do all that we can to ... apprehend this criminal. It is not only a concern for our children and our families and the way we live, but a frustration about our inability, with all the resources we have in law enforcement, not to be able to ... find him.”