U.N. council passes anti-terror resolution

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NEW YORK -- The U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a tough new anti-terrorism resolution yesterday aimed at stemming attacks against civilians by denying terrorists safe havens, weapons, financial resources and freedom of movement.

The resolution calls on all nations to prosecute or extradite persons or groups affiliated with terrorist activities and sets up a working group to consider imposing measures similar to those already in place against members of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

"The statement is that under any and all circumstances, the intentional targeting of civilians is wrong, bombing schools, bombing places of worship, car bombs driven into crowds of children, taking hostages, beheading people, the targeting of people who are noncombatants, civilians is wrong, and it's criminal," U.S. Ambassador John C. Danforth said.

"That is a big principle, and we sort of, you know, pussyfooted around this for a long time," Mr. Danforth said after the vote.

The vote came at the end of a week that has seen scores of civilians killed by Islamic militants in Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq.

In their public remarks yesterday, council diplomats denounced such acts of terrorism around the world.

Russian Ambassador Andrei Denisov, whose government submitted the resolution, partly in response to last month's massacre of more than 330 people, more than half of whom were children, at a school in southern Russia, said all terrorist acts are a crime "and should be given the harshest punishment."

The council response, he said, "further strengthens the essential coordinating role of the United Nations in the international campaign against the terrorist threat."

The document was circulated with the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Romania as co-sponsors.

The resolution includes potential landmark language that could eventually define terrorism -- thus breaking a stalemate in the world body, where Muslim nations have demanded an exemption for so-called "freedom fighters."