Clark in war talks with US President

By JOHN ARMSTRONG AND AGENCIES

SHANGHAI - Prime Minister Helen Clark discussed the terrorism crisis with United States President George W. Bush yesterday as the war in Afghanistan entered a "fierce and bloody new phase".

The pair met informally at the Apec leaders summit in Shanghai, where the US last night secured strong backing for the global campaign against terrorism from leaders across the Asia-Pacific region.

Helen Clark said the President had been very appreciative of New Zealand's offer of SAS troops to the multinational coalition.

The meeting, lasting several minutes, occurred during the leaders' retreat at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum and came after a longer session between Helen Clark and US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday.

The Prime Minister said Mr Bush was conscious that he had to perform a balancing act between ensuring security and maintaining confidence in the economy.

"They don't quite know what will come next."

But the Administration still had to keep the American public confident "to invest, to travel and consume and to do the things which keep the economy going around".

The meeting was a further sign of the warming of relations between New Zealand and the US.

Referring to New Zealand's anti-nuclear law, Helen Clark said there had been "baggage" in the relationship. But she and the President were new leaders.

"We have both got a capacity to move beyond it."

The two leaders had also discussed prospects for a New Zealand-US free-trade agreement and the President had been "very positive".

Helen Clark said that once the Congress had granted the necessary fast-track negotiating authority to the Bush Administration, New Zealand was keen to be "the first cab off the rank".

She also met Chinese President Jiang Zemin briefly before the leaders' formal photograph.

US special forces upped the ante in Afghanistan at the weekend with a daring hit-and-run night attack against Taleban positions near the city of Kandahar.

Defence officials warned that the attack was the beginning of a "fierce and bloody" phase aimed at killing supporters of Osama bin Laden.

More than 100 Army Ranger paratroopers and other helicopter-borne Special Forces troops, backed by heavily armed AC-130 gunships, parachuted out of the darkness to strike the compound of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taleban leader, and seize an airfield.

Pentagon officials hailed the attack as a success.

They claimed to have gained useful intelligence and to have destroyed a bridge near Omar's home, which also served as a command and control centre.

But Al Jazeera, the Qatar-based satellite station favoured by the Taleban, reported that 20 people had been killed during five hours of fighting and the Americans had been repelled.

In an unrelated incident, two US troops were killed when their helicopter crashed in Pakistan near the Afghan border in what the Pentagon called "an aircraft mishap".

Although the military gains of the attack may have been relatively small, officials greeted the lightning assault as a confidence boost for the US military and the American people.

Meanwhile, disruptions caused by anthrax scares in the US and around the world continued yesterday.

A swab taken from the mailroom of the US House of Representatives in Washington proved positive for anthrax.

In New Zealand, police on Saturday made their first arrest after a spate of anthrax scares and hoaxes that have plagued the country for the past few days.

They charged a 42-year-old Manawatu man with wasting police time by sending an envelope with powder through the post.

In a declaration after their meeting, Apec leaders avoided mention of the military strikes against Afghanistan to ensure the strongest possible consensus in their statement on counter-terrorism.

The main recommendation urged Apec's 21 members to ratify UN conventions to dry up the covert funding of terrorist groups such as bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

Helen Clark said Mr Bush would be satisfied with the statement, since there was little point trying to get members such as Malaysia and Indonesia to endorse the military strikes on a fellow Muslim nation.

Full coverage: Apec 2001

Apec China 2001 official site