| President Bush designated six suspected al Qaeda terrorists as eligible for trial before military tribunals yesterday, bringing the United States to the brink of its first prosecution of enemy prisoners since the aftermath of World War II. Government officials who announced the president's action declined to name the six men, to describe the timeline for moving their cases forward or to say where they might be tried, though some officials said the site almost certainly will be the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "There is evidence that the individuals designated by the president may have attended terrorist training camps and may have been involved in such activities as financing al Qaeda, providing protection for Osama bin Laden, and recruiting future terrorists," the Pentagon said in a statement released late yesterday. "The president determined that there is reason to believe that each of these enemy combatants was a member of al Qaeda or was otherwise involved in terrorism directed against the United States." |