America anticipates defense against terrorism

by CatherineDilworth assistant news editor

America's defense against future terrorist attacks could include pre-emptive strikes against countries that help terrorists. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz offered no details about where or when such attacks might occur. "We'v.e already lost. enough Americans. We're not going to !qse any more by hesitating," Wolfowitz told a group of defense contractors Tuesday.

Pentagon officials have said repe~tedly that no decision has been made about when or where the next U.S. action will be.

Speculation in recent days has focused on Iraq, which President Bush named last month as part of the "axis of evil" with North

Korea and Iran. Wolfowitz is viewed widely as one of the strongest voices within the Bush administration in favor of military attacks intended to overthrow Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein.

Documents found in Afghanistan have left U.S. military officials surprised at the size and sophistication of a group in Southeast Asia linked to the alQaeda terror network.

The group, Jemaah Islamiyah, is an extremist Islamic network that shares al-Qaeda's antiAmerican ideas. It has connections in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines. Some Jemaah Islamiyah fighters were sent for training in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

"It's a lot larger or more robust than we thought," the Pentagon official said, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity

A crackdown in December and January by several governments in the region exposed a plot by Jemaah Islamiyah to attack U.S. naval and other facilities in Singapore. Some information on the plot was gleaned from evidence discovered by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

People also were detained in Malaysia and the Philippines about the plot. Officials said they found large caches of explosives in those countries. There are no signs that al-Qaeda's surviving senior· leaders are headed to that part of the world, or any other, for the moment.

Wolfowitz said he worries that Americans are beginning to act as if the threat from terrorism is over.