US forces capture terrorist mastermind

An Arab terrorist who killed an American after hijacking a cruise liner has been captured in Baghdad, US officials have revealed.

Abul Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian group that took over the liner Achille Lauro in 1985, was captured on Monday during a raid by special commandos after a tip-off.

The dramatic arrest overshadowed continuing political manoeuvring within and outside Iraq on the next steps forward for the war-ravaged country.

Abbas led a faction of the Palestine Liberation Front, which hijacked the Achille Lauro as it sailed from Egypt to Israel.

Elderly American Leon Klinghoffer was shot in his wheelchair and tossed overboard.

The hijacking ended with the militants surrendering to Egyptian authorities but Abbas was able to flee to Iraq.

Meanwhile on the political front moves were being made for the way ahead for Iraq and world-wide diplomatic relations in the aftermath of the war.

Iraqi tribal leaders, exiles and religious leaders drew up a 13-point plan to rebuild their country from the rubble of war and decades of totalitarian rule.

The guiding principles adopted state the new Iraq must be democratic, non-sectarian and based on the rule of law.

The meeting in Nasiriyah heard delegates demanding to form their own political solutions and not have them imposed by the the US or West.

Tony Blair said he wants the UN to have a “key role” in organising humanitarian relief for post-war Iraq, its political and economic reconstruction and its move towards democracy.

And the Prime Minister will today set out his vision of a future European Union with a much more powerful voice on the world stage, at a meeting of European leaders in Athens.

He will also strive to build bridges with fellow European leaders following the deep rift opened by the war.

The two-day summit in the Greek capital has been called to finalise EU enlargement, but it will be dominated now by post-war issues, including the need for European leaders to “kiss and make up” following the row over the US-led military action to topple Saddam Hussein.

The Prime Minister was to say that it is time to provide a new European figurehead – “someone the White House can call”, as one government official put it.

Mr Blair wants a full-time “president”, appointed from the ranks of present or former European prime ministers, to become the public face of the EU and give it a coherent voice.

On the ground in Iraq there was no major combat during the day, but at least 10 Iraqis were reported killed and 16 injured in a clash between US Marines and a stone-throwing crowd in Mosul in northern Iraq.

The US Central Command in the Persian Gulf said it could not confirm the report.

The US was offering incentives, too. Defence officials said the Pentagon would pay up to 200,000 US dollars (€184,507) for information on the whereabouts of regime leaders.

But lawlessness continued, as looters and arsonists ransacked and gutted Iraq’s National Library, leaving a smouldering shell yesterday of precious books turned to ash and a nation’s cultural legacy gone up in smoke.

They also looted and burned Iraq’s principal Islamic library nearby after having looted the Iraq National Museum of extraordinary treasures of ancient Babylonian, Sumerian and Assyrian cultures, collections chronicling this region’s role as the “cradle of civilisation” millennia ago.