World airlines face shutdown

By Geoffrey Thomas, Gay Alcorn, Christopher Kremmer and agencies

The fallout from the terror attacks on the United States intensified last night as the Taliban defied international pressure to hand over Osama bin Laden and the global airline industry faced shutdown within days.

The insurance industry insists that unless governments agree to underwrite the risk for acts of terrorism and war, airline liability will soar.

All airlines, including Qantas, have been served with notices from the insurance industry advising that from September 24 its liability for any single accident related to terrorism will be limited to $US50 million ($101 million).

Senior airline executives say that no airline can take the risk and that all planes would be grounded unless governments acted quickly.

The insurers of American Airlines and United Airlines already face claims of more than $100 billion over the World Trade Centre attack.

The US airline industry, which is poised to lay off 44,000 workers, has won assurances of billions of dollars in help from Congress and the Bush Administration.

As the Taliban appealed to the US for "patience" in the handover of bin Laden, the prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush Administration stepped up preparations for military strikes against Afghanistan.

Adding to the tension were reports of further planned attacks similar to those in New York and Washington.

Germany's Stern magazine, quoting a report by the country's Federal Crime Office, said Arab terrorists were planning an October 1 attack on NATO's Brussels headquarters.

Japan's Transport Ministry said the US Embassy had told it of a possible attack on the US Yokota Airbase, 33 kilometres south of Tokyo, with a small chartered aircraft.

Despite international concern about the risks of a widening regional conflict and high casualties, the Prime Minister confirmed that Australia would commit troops if asked.

Mr Howard acknowledged the terrorist threat from bin Laden cells in Australia. He said Australia was higher on the risk scale than other countries, but there was no point in being a less than 100 per cent ally.

In Pakistan, Muslim political groups opposed to US military action are mobilising the public for a general strike tomorrow.

It will be a warning to the military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, of the danger of drawing too close to the Americans in the crisis.

Observers say a team of senior US officials will arrive in the Pakistan capital, Islamabad, soon to ask for the use of airbases to launch commando raids into Afghanistan.

The US is holding out the prospect of a broad aid program for Pakistan in return for its help.

President Bush meanwhile intensified efforts to "rally the world" in support of military strikes as international leaders demanded concessions in return for co-operation.

The Administration pledged a "carrot and stick" approach to persuade nations that it was in their interest to give support.

The leader of the world's largest Muslim country, Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri, meets Mr Bush today and the US expects her to express strong support to reassure Muslim nations that the war is on terrorism, not Islam.

But it is understood that Jakarta wants the resumption of military links with the US in return for stepping up intelligence gathering and cracking down on terrorist cells in Indonesia.

Other countries such as Pakistan and Sudan have demanded an end to US sanctions in return for backing the coalition, although the US insists that no deals have been done.

At a high-level meeting in Islamabad on Tuesday, General Musharraf was reported as saying that he was under intense pressure from the US, whose leaders had bluntly asked him whether Pakistan was a friend or foe.

"Pakistan is passing through the most crucial moment in its history," he told the scholars, former army chiefs and diplomats. "I want to develop national consensus on this important issue."

A Pakistani delegation which met the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, on Monday in the southern city of Kandahar strongly criticised warnings by Taliban officials of unrest in Pakistan if the US attacked Afghanistan.

Following reports from Afghanistan that the Taliban wanted to negotiate conditions for the release of bin Laden, the United Nations reiterated that under Security Council resolutions he must be handed over unconditionally.

As US warships were being stationed in the Arabian Sea off Pakistan, staff were evacuated from the US consulate in the frontier city of Peshawar and Americans were warned to leave Pakistan. Similar warnings preceded the US missile strikes on Afghanistan in August 1998. Australia and other Western countries also began moving the families of diplomats and non-essential staff out of Pakistan.

The FBI, meanwhile, is investigating whether terrorists plotted to hijack two other commercial flights on the day that four planes were used in the US attacks.

"We think there were other teams out there," one senior official said. "Maybe they got cold feet."

In Detroit, the first criminal charges were laid against three men with false immigration papers and airport diagrams.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/20/world/world1.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 19, 2001

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American air lines laying off 20,000.

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-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), September 19, 2001.