Fla. Cops Search After New Overheard Threat

— -- Alleged Threat Sparks New Florida Search

F O R T L A U D E R D A L E, Fla., Sept. 16 — The FBI and police in South Florida are looking for six men who were allegedly overheard threatening in Arabic to "blow things up."

Royal Palm Beach Gardens Police asked Broward County law enforcement officials this morning to put out a "be on the lookout for" warning, known as a BOLO.

The six men, apparently of Middle Eastern descent, were driving a green GMC cab truck and a purple Ford pick up. Officials said they were already on high alert at the Fort Lauderdale airport, so there no need for additional precautions.

An FBI official told ABCNEWS they did not know the whereabouts of the men, and that they were investigating the person who supplied the information, whose identity was not disclosed.

— ABCNEWS

Three Held for Remarks Want Names Cleared

D A V I E, Fla., Sept. 16 — The three Muslim medical students detainedafter a woman said they were discussing terror plans told reportersthey want to clear their names and study to become doctors, but aMiami hospital where they were supposed to train no longer wantsthem.

The head of Larkin Community Hospital in Miami said Sunday hehad received more than 200 e-mails after the incident, somethreatening.

"Obviously, nothing is final," said Dr. Jack Michel, presidentand chief executive officer of Larkin. "Our primary objective isto take care of patients. I don't know how that could be done withall this media coverage."

He said the medical school where the men are studying, RossUniversity, had agreed to transfer them to a different trainingprogram.

Kambiz Butt, 25, said Sunday that he and Ayman Gheith, 27, andOmar Choudhary, 23, want to continue their education in the UnitedStates.

"We're medical students. We are not terrorists," Butt said,flanked by Gheith and Choudhary. "Our concern in life is to becomedoctors. We want to help people. We do not want to hurt."

Butt, the only one of the students to speak at a newsconference, said they were worried about their futures but have noresentment toward the woman who told authorities she overheard themdiscussing terrorist plans Thursday at a restaurant in Calhoun, Ga.They were detained for 17 hours, but were not charged with anycrimes.

"We're in a state of shock and we are scared," Butt said."But I'd like to tell the American people that we are not athreat."

The woman who called authorities, Eunice Stone of Cartersville,Ga., said she heard the students talking about blowing up buildingsand laughing about the Sept. 11 attacks. She also said she heardthe students saying that a terrorist event was looming on Sept. 13.

"Not once did we mention 9/11. Not once did we mention anythingabout 9/13, nor did we joke about anything of that sort," Buttsaid. "She was probably just eavesdropping on our conversation andmight have heard a few key words that she misconstrued."

Butt said he believes Stone was attempting to be "a patriot forAmerica."

Stone stood by her report of what she heard and said she woulddo the same thing again.

"I am not a racist, and I am not ignorant," she told TheAtlanta Journal-Constitution. "I was just trying to do what'sbest."

Brett Newkirk, one of four attorneys representing the students,called the situation "an incident of misunderstanding."

"They are Americans, just like any other American, who areproud to be American, who want to fulfill the American dream, andwho were on the road to doing that when the American nightmarehappened to them," Newkirk said.

David Kubiliun, another attorney for the men, said all three areU.S. citizens. Gheith is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Jordan.

The three students were in two cars and en route to Miami onFriday when authorities stopped them on Interstate 75 after one ofthe vehicles allegedly went through a toll plaza without paying.Newkirk denied they had not paid.

Officials at Ross University, which is based in New York Citybut has a campus on the Caribbean island of Dominica, did notimmediately return calls for comment on Sunday.

—The Associated Press

Pentagon Presses Terror Hunt in Yemen, Bin Laden’s Home

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 16 — The Pentagon is stepping up the hunt foral Qaeda fighters in Yemen, ancestral home of Osama bin Laden,which remains a terrorist hornets' nest despite efforts of U.S. andYemeni authorities over the past two years.

The Defense Department has sent a team to the remote, ruggedMiddle East country to recommend ways the United States can helplocal forces catch al Qaeda fighters, including some who fled theU.S. war in Afghanistan, and their supporters, officials said.

Little visible progress against terrorists has been made inYemen in recent months, although the CIA has offered intelligence;the FBI turned over a list in February of al Qaeda network suspectsbelieved in Yemen; and U.S. special forces have trained localforces in counterterror tactics for some weeks this summer.

"In Yemen we're still at an early stage," Deputy DefenseSecretary Paul Wolfowitz said.

"We're hopeful that they will become more energetic in pursuingsome very dangerous people whom we know are in remote parts of thatcountry," he said in an interview last week with AP Radio and APTelevision News.

On the southern Arabian Peninsula across from the Horn ofAfrica, the homeland of bin Laden's father long has been a base ofand transit point for terrorists. At the same time, many Yemenispay allegiance more to local chieftains than to the centralgovernment.

Yemen's place in the lineup of terrorist havens was illustratedagain Friday, when Pakistani authorities said they had captured 10alleged members of al Qaeda, at least eight of them Yemenis,including suspected Sept. 11 operative Ramzi Binalshibh.

Though the U.S. government will not talk about the nationalitiesof the hundreds of prisoners at its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, jail forterror suspects, other sources have said that about 70 are Yemenis.

It also was in Yemen that 17 American sailors died in October2000, when terrorists believed linked to al Qaeda bombed the Navy'sUSS Cole as it refueled in the port of Aden. The attack set off aflurry of joint investigations involving FBI agents with Yemenipolice.

With al Qaeda operatives believed at work in some 60 countries,some of whose governments are willing hosts and some not, Yemen isan example of those nations with terrorists that might like to stopthem but need help, Pentagon officials said.

Yemen was the third place — after the Philippines and Georgia, aformer Soviet republic — to which the Pentagon sent special forcestraine38 p.m. L 0.4.

—The Associated Press