State Dept. Noon Briefing, November 13, 2000

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
BRIEFER: Philip T. Reeker, Deputy Spokesman
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2000 1:45 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)


Q: On Thursday, the arrest of four Kuwaitis had just happened and
Richard didn't have anything, but it was later found out that they
were planning to attack US military installations. Do you have any
follow-up on that?

MR. REEKER: Again, Richard mentioned that that had come out just as he
was briefing. I don't want to comment specifically on the
investigation into the alleged activities, but we certainly are aware
of the arrest of individuals - three, as I understand it - three
Kuwaitis, two in Kuwait and one Qatar - suspected of planning certain
attacks. We are in touch with authorities in both of these countries
and, as you know, there had been threats of possible terrorist attacks
against US targets in the region. We reflected that in the various
public announcements that we had issued over the past month or so.

But I don't have anything that I want to go into specifically on those
since it is under investigation, other than to say that we have
received excellent cooperation from both Kuwait and Qatar on security
matters.

Q: Are all our embassies up and running? No closures at this point?

MR. REEKER: To my knowledge, I don't believe there is anything closed
unless somebody has a holiday in the region.

(The briefing was concluded at 2:25 P.M.)