November 20, 2001 Diary: America Strikes Back

Aviation security signed into law
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
The government began taking charge of airport security Monday at the start of the holiday travel season. President Bush signed legislation that will have more screeners peering in passengers' bags and more sky marshals flying on planes.
"Today we take permanent and aggressive steps to improve the security of our airways," Bush said at a ceremony at Reagan National Airport. The new law will put airport screening in the hands of 28,000 federal workers and require inspections of all checked baggage.

Taliban execute disloyal troops
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
In bloody desperation, Osama bin Laden loyalists and other foreign members of a besieged Taliban force in Kunduz are executing Afghan Taliban fighters who advocate surrendering, U.S. and anti-Taliban leaders said Monday.
"People have been found with bullets in their heads, and not in the front," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.

Four journalists feared dead in ambush on mountain pass
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Four international journalists were missing and feared dead Monday after gunmen ambushed a convoy of reporters in a narrow mountain pass on the road to the capital, Kabul.
The six gunmen stopped the cars and led the journalists away, then opened fire, witnesses said.

After the bombs: A kindness offensive
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
By Cal Thomas
Tribune Media Services

The weapon of choice after the hoped-for vanquishing of the Taliban appears to be kindness.
President Bush on Monday invited 50 ambassadors from Muslim countries to the White House for a traditional Iftar meal, breaking the sunrise-to-sunset daily fast of Ramadan. The ambassadors knelt and touched their foreheads to the floor of the East Reception Room. It's unlikely they were praying Lee Greenwood's lyrics for "God Bless the USA."

Rumsfeld hopes reward nets bin Laden
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
The Pentagon hopes Afghans motivated by the Taliban's collapse and millions in U.S. reward money will find Osama bin Laden's hide-out so U.S. troops won't have to hunt cave-to-cave for him, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday.
President Bush said gains by anti-Taliban forces gave him encouragement that the military was closing in on bin Laden. "The noose is beginning to narrow," Bush said.

Northern alliance agrees to talks in Germany
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
(Web Posted Tuesday at 10:32 a.m.) The northern alliance agreed Tuesday to attend a U.N.-brokered power-sharing conference of Afghan factions in Germany, likely early next week. Alliance forces gave the Taliban three days to surrender their last northern stronghold, Kunduz, or face assault.

Teaching new allies in Afghanistan
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
By Swanee Hunt and Cristina Posa
Special to the Los Angeles Times

Since the Taliban overtook Kabul in 1996, Westerners have tended to see Afghan women merely as the victims that they indeed are. Now we must see them as allies.

U.S. accuses 6 countries of possessing biological weapons
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
The United States accused Iraq, North Korea and four other countries on Monday of building germ-warfare arsenals, and said it worried one of them might be helping Osama bin Laden in his quest for biological weapons.

Alliance formally accepts U.N. talks
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
(Updated Tuesday at 5:06 p.m.) The alliance that controls Afghanistan's capital and much of its countryside agreed Tuesday to attend power-sharing talks in Germany next week. A battlefront commander claimed thousands of Taliban fighters had defected from Kunduz, the last bastion of the Islamic militia in the north.

Briefly
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
• Comics coordinate tribute
• Alien pleads guilty to helping hijacker obtain false ID card
• Bush to push tourism
• Airport dasher dodges charges

Bush partakes of Ramadan meal
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
Reaching out to the world's Muslims, President Bush was host to a Ramadan break-the-fast dinner Monday at the White House.

Leahy letter full of anthrax spores
Tuesday, November 20, 2001
(Updated Tuesday at 4:10 p.m.) A sample taken from a plastic evidence bag containing a still-unopened letter to Sen. Patrick Leahy contains at least 23,000 anthrax spores, enough for more than two lethal doses, a federal law enforcement official said Tuesday.