Thursday December 16 12:10 AM ET U.S. Girds for Feared Y2K Violence By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - U.S. officials are preparing for the possibility that the much-heralded Year 2000 computer bug may turn out to be the least of their problems on New Year's weekend -- overshadowed by political, cult or racial violence.

As officials grow more confident that U.S. infrastructure will emerge relatively glitch-free, they appear increasingly concerned about those who might try to wind up the century with a kind of bloody exclamation point.

The chairman of a Senate panel that studied the Year 2000 technology challenge, Robert Bennett, said the United States and its allies should be on guard for both physical and computer-generated attacks timed to coincide with the new year.

``We think there may be terrorist groups planning to ride in on the Y2K wave,'' the Utah Republican, who receives intelligence briefings, told Reuters. ``There is the potential for these groups to commit acts that may be mistakenly attributed to Y2K.''

Apart from any risk from overseas, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has warned local police of the danger of violence by cults seeking to spark an apocalyptic battle and by those fearing a supposed conspiracy to impose world government.

``In the final analysis, while making specific predictions is extremely difficult, acts of violence in commemoration of the millennium are just as likely to occur as not,'' the FBI said in a ``strategic assessment'' last month.

Last week the State Department said it had ``credible information'' that guerrillas were planning attacks on U.S. citizens including at festivities to usher in the 21st century.

``The information indicates that attacks could be planned for locations throughout the world where large gatherings and celebrations will be taking place,'' said the advisory -- the fifth ``worldwide caution'' of its type since Aug. 4.

The Pentagon said on Tuesday U.S. forces were taking ``a number of appropriate actions'' to defend themselves against the threat cited by the State Department.

They will be ``very well-postured in every conceivable way to deal with any threats that occur around the change of the year,'' Defense Department spokesman Kenneth Bacon told reporters.

``We have a lot of intelligence focusing on events that could occur around the turn of the year, and I think commanders are very determined to be aggressive in force protection,'' he said.

The United States has told the ruling Taliban militia of Afghanistan that it would hold them responsible for any anti-U.S. attacks by followers of Saudi exile Osama bin Laden.

It served notice on the Taliban on Monday after the arrest in Jordan of 13 people, including alleged bin Laden followers, on suspicion of planning guerrilla attacks. A U.S. official said on Wednesday that suspected guerrilla plotters had been arrested elsewhere in the Middle East as well.

Bin Laden, who lives under Taliban protection, has been indicted by a New York grand jury in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 220 people.

Susan Lloyd of the FBI's Washington field office -- which set up a special counterterrorist unit on Sept. 15 -- said she had no ``hard intelligence'' of any attack planned in Washington.

But she added: ``We'll have people on standby in various locations around the city in order to better respond if there is a terrorist incident'' during the big New Year's Eve bash that President Clinton is to address on the national mall.

Although mainly devoted to domestic threats, the FBI study said Israeli officials were extremely concerned about possible violence in Jerusalem, a holy city for Christians, Muslims and Jews.

White House officials have set up an ``information coordination center'' to track Y2K events, including any violence that might prompt a federal response.

``The unique thing about Y2K is we're going to have things going on internationally and domestically possibly at the same time, and we will have more of them going on than normal,'' Clinton's Y2K aide, John Koskinen, said Monday.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991216/ts/yk_violence_1.html

-- LOON (blooney10@aol.com), December 16, 1999

Answers

LOON, Snodgrass below beat you to this post!

-- Daysy (D@isy.com), December 16, 1999.