Rumsfeld: Sept. 11 Was 'First Salvo'

Evidence found in Afghanistan indicates that the Sept. 11 attacks were only the "first salvo" in a terrorist assault on the United States, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in an interview with a German magazine released Saturday.

"We have discovered evidence in caves and tunnels in Afghanistan that attackers were planning new strikes," Rumsfeld was quoted as saying in Focus, a German news weekly. "Sept. 11 was only the first salvo in the terrorists' war against America."

He didn't give details of other planned attacks, or say when or where the evidence was found.

In Sarajevo on Saturday, a high-ranking Bosnian official said Al-Qaida terrorists planned a devastating attack on Americans in Sarajevo after meeting in Bulgaria to identify European targets.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that intelligence reports on the meeting in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, prompted a special government session Thursday night to discuss threats against the U.S. Embassy and embassies of European countries. He did not name the countries.

At the Sofia meeting, members of al-Qaida decided that "in Sarajevo something will happen to Americans similar to New York last September," said the official. He did not say when the al-Qaida meeting was held or who attended.

The U.S. Embassy in Bosnia shut down to the public on Wednesday after receiving word of a possible terrorist threat. The embassy closed entirely on Friday, and the next day Bosnian special police forces were seen around the compound along with normal U.S. security units.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jo-Anne Prokopowicz said the embassy will remain closed over the weekend and that security measures would be reviewed before deciding whether to reopen Monday.

Officials at the Pentagon said they had no information about a specific al-Qaida threat in Bosnia.

At Ground Zero, the remains of ten people, including two firefighters, were pulled from the debris on Saturday. The recoveries came after six people, including four firefighters, were pulled out overnight.

A civilian EMS worker and a Port Authority officer were among those recovered overnight, said Fire Department spokesman Robert Calise. None of the remains were immediately identified.

The flag-draped stretchers were seen being carried away from the site. Firefighters and rescue workers saluted the remains as they were escorted out.

Calise said all of the remains were found in a section of the tightly compacted rubble where the center's south tower stood, an area where officials had said they expected to find many human remains.

The section became compressed during the recovery effort as it was repeatedly run over by vehicles using it as a makeshift entrance to the site.

It was largely unexcavated until recent weeks, when a 500-foot metal ramp was completed, offering an alternative entrance for vehicles at the site.

The firefighters were among 343 missing in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. The remains of about 160 have been recovered and identified.

Earlier in the week, workers retrieved remains of as many as 11 firefighters from the rubble of the south tower, including one of the department's highest-ranking victims of the attack, Assistant Chief Donald Burns. He had been setting up a command post when the tower collapsed.

The New York Daily News reports that some New York firefighters may never fully recover after working in the smoke and dust at the site of the World Trade Center collapse.

The newspaper says in its Saturday editions that fire department doctors tested more than ten-thousand firefighters involved in rescue and recovery efforts.

One doctor told the newspaper more than 100 firefighters have breathing problems so severe they'll probably need to work desk jobs for the rest of their careers. Another 17-hundred have minor breathing trouble.

Firefighters have reported asthma, persistent cough, and diminished lung capacity since working at Ground Zero.

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