World News 24-12-1999 US Post Office Fears Christmas Parcel Bombs who: US Post Office what: Warns of terrorist letter bomb campaign when: Yesterday snippet: "People in the US and Britain are being warned to be on their guard amid fears that Islamic terror groups may have sent parcel bombs in the run-up to Christmas and the millennium," reports the BBC. The American post office has received what they describe as "credible and specific information" from an unspecified foreign intelligence source. "While refusing to specify where the threat came from," says The Guardian, "Scotland Yard last night confirmed that Britain could be a target of Islamic dissidents linked to Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant based in Afghanistan." "Yesterday`s warnings came days after the arrest on the US-Canadian border of Ahmed Ressam, 32, an alleged Algerian terrorist who was stopped driving a car loaded with explosives," reports The Scotsman. Ressam appeared in court yesterday and denied charges of smuggling explosives. "If that incident had set nerves on edge, the new scares left the US on the verge of mass hysteria." Bill Clinton sent out a message to the American people yesterday that the government was taking "extraordinary measures" to protect them from terrorist threat. But there are still fears, says the BBC, that there will be end-of-millennium violence by "fringe groups seeking to act out Biblical prophesies of a final battle between good and evil". [... more]

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