The FBI said it would not comment on any aspect of the case. A formal identification was expected Thursday, police said.

David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby - all former bankers with National Westminster Bank, which is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland - are expected to be extradited Thursday to the United States to face charges of defrauding their ex-employer of $7.3 million.

The three men have denied charges that they attempted to sell a part of the U.S.-based energy company Enron Corp. for less than it was worth. Enron filed for bankruptcy protection in December 2001.

Bermingham - one of the "NatWest Three" - said Coulbeck was among several bank executives who had given statements to U.S. authorities in connection with their case.

He said Coulbeck had been "a thoroughly decent, honest, professional guy and a very experienced banker."

"He was one of a number of NatWest people who made short witness statements. They were not statements as to matters of evidence, they were merely identifying themselves and their roles in the company."

The Royal Bank of Scotland said there was "no evidence" that Coulbeck had been involved in the transaction under investigation.

"There is no evidence that Neil was involved in the approval of the transaction under investigation," bank spokeswoman Linda Harper said. "Neil was highly regarded by his colleagues here in RBS and was a respected, capable and hardworking member of our senior management team. Our thoughts are with the Coulbeck family at this very difficult time."

"Our immediate effort is to locate the caller and ascertain the authenticity of the claim," the official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. "The government is taking it very seriously."

There have been allegations that Islamic militants fighting to wrest predominantly Muslim Kashmir from India have ties to al-Qaida, but Thursday's statement would be the first time Osama bin Laden's network claimed to have spread to Indian territory.

Police Inspector S. Goshal said most of the 350 detentions were made overnight in Malwani, a northeastern suburb of Bombay. They were rounded up only for questioning to help with the investigations, and none have been charged or formally arrested, he said.

Bombay police Commissioner A.N. Roy said those rounded up included known thugs, gangsters and troublemakers who might have information about the culprits.

Investigators were looking into a possible link with Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, an Islamic militant group based in Kashmir, said P.S. Pasricha, police chief of Maharashtra state. Lashkar has in the past employed near-simultaneous explosions to attack Indian cities.

A spokesman for Lashkar, Abdullah Ghaznavi, denied the group was involved.

The purported al-Qaida member, who identified himself as Abu al-Hadeed, appealed to Indian Muslims to take up jihad and said "whosoever has carried out the attacks in Bombay we express our gratitude and happiness." It was impossible to verify his identity or his claims independently.

The train bombings "are a reaction to what is happening to the minorities, especially Muslims in India," the man said in a statement read over the phone to Kashmir's Current News Service.

"We appeal to Muslims in India to fight for freedom and Islam and choose jihad as their way to achieve freedom and establishing Islamic ways," he was quoted as saying.

The Current News Service said the man spoke in Urdu, the language of most Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, though he identified himself with an Arabic name.

"Today a unit of al-Qaida has been established in Jammu and Kashmir which shall henceforth be called al-Qaida Jammu and Kashmir," the man said. "We shall be giving out statements regularly and will soon announce our aims and objectives."

The government, meanwhile, reiterated its commitment to fight terrorism.

"Nothing will deter us from our firm policy to fight this menace till it is wiped out. We are determined to apprehend and bring to justice all those responsible for the evil acts in Mumbai," said a Cabinet statement. Bombay is also known as Mumbai.

The Indian Foreign Ministry demanded Wednesday that neighboring rival Pakistan dismantle all terrorist networks on land it controls - but fell short of directly accusing it for the attacks.

Kashmir is divided between the two countries but claimed by both. The region is largely Muslim, and the militants want a Kashmir independent of Hindu-majority India or joined to Pakistan.

In an interview with The Associated Press in Washington, Pakistan's foreign minister bristled at suggestions that his country bore responsibility for the attacks.

"You can't really blame everything on Pakistan; it's very unfair," Khurshid Kasuri said. "India is a vast country. There are lots of people who have their own agendas, not just in Kashmir."

Bombay, a city of 16 million people, was back on track Thursday with tens of thousands of people jamming the commuter train service that was hit by eight bombs, killing at least 200 people and wounding 700.

"The city has faced attacks in the past. It has always bounced back quickly ... people have to go to work. What else are we going to do," said Ashwini Lolo, an office worker in his 20s, at the Bandra station waiting to board a train.

Daily Variety, a well-connected industry magazine, also said Wednesday that Disney plans to cut its workforce by an unspecified amount in about 10 days.

Disney declined to comment on the speculation. "We are constantly evaluating our business to make it better and more efficient," Disney spokeswoman Heidi Trotta told the Associated Press in a prepared statement.

Daily Variety said the move by Disney continues a Hollywood trend as film studios cut their costs where they can amid rising overheads, production budgets and marketing bills.

Chief executive officer Robert Iger has said repeatedly over the past year that cutbacks were on their way. He has also said he wants to raise profits by cutting back the less profitable Touchstone and Miramax-branded films and concentrate production and marketing efforts on the Disney brand.

"It becomes a much better investment for us when we make a Disney-branded film," Iger told the Associated Press last September. "We're not going to go out of the non-Disney-branded live-action business, but there has been a dramatic shift."

David Miller, managing director of the brokerage firm Sanders Morris Harris Group, agrees. "Most of the street was onto the fact that Disney-branded film returns were greater," he said.

Disney has done well recently with its record-setting movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and it's Pixar-animated movie Cars.

But it has also endured disappointments, including Stick It, Annapolis and The Wild.

Disney shares closed down 34 cents to $29.91 US on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday on a volume of 8.4 million shares.

Prodi's government took office in May after winning the country's April 9-10 elections by a narrow margin. At the time, it reassigned duties among some ministries and created new ones, including the Ministry for Sport and Policies for the Young.

The government last week won a vote of confidence in the Senate, where it has a slight majority, tied to the same decree.

Italian governments resort to confidence votes in the hope of speeding the passage of legislation and closing ranks among coalition lawmakers. If the government loses the vote, it must resign.

To pass, the vote needs a simple majority.

Prodi was sworn in as Italian premier after narrowly beating former premier Silvio Berlusconi in the April general election.

Le Pen was quoted making the mistaken claim that the German Gestapo secret police had prevented a massacre of civilians in France during the war.

In the same article, Le Pen claimed that the German occupation of France "was not particularly inhumane."

His lawyer Wallerand de Saint-Just told AFP it would "very easy" to defend Le Pen on the charges, since the remarks were made informally after an interview with a journalist from the publication had officially ended, and were not meant for publication.

The lawyer added that the comments were not strong enough to constitute an offence.

"The president will pay homage to the man, to the soldier, to the patriot who fell victim to an appalling judicial error. He will also explain how via the Dreyfus affair the republic and its values became rooted in French society," an aide said.

Dreyfus - a Jew from the Alsace region of eastern France which was at the time occupied by Germany - was found guilty in 1894 of passing secret information to the German military attache in Paris and sentenced to life imprisonment at the Devil's Island penal colony.

But it emerged that the evidence against him was false, and for years a bitter row over the "affair" pitted liberal and left-wing supporters of Dreyfus against opponents on the Catholic right - many of whom made no secret of their anti-Semitism.

In 1898 the writer Émile Zola published his famous 'J'accuse' letter attacking the president of the day for siding against Dreyfus, and the next year he was brought back for a second trial and then officially pardoned - though not cleared of the charges.

Dreyfus was not fully rehabilitated and restored to his rank in the army until July 12 1906, when the high court of appeal overturned the original verdict.

Chirac has decided not to heed calls for the remains of the officer to be brought to the Panthéon, the former church in central Paris where the nation's heroes - including Zola - are interred.

At the 1895 ceremony - known as a "parade of execution" - Dreyfus' epaulettes were ripped off and his sword was broken in two to the words: "Dreyfus - you are not worthy of bearing arms. In the name of the president, we degrade you."

The ritual was witnessed by Theodor Herzl, a young journalist who was later father of the Zionist movement that led to the creation of Israel.

Here in Washington Bandar bought up many connected exclusive estates along the Potomac to built a gigantic 'residence', one with more bathrooms than many office buildings.

And now in Aspen the 'home' he built there is on sale as the most expensive ever in the U.S...and maybe anywhere!

Meanwhile the majority of the Arab and Muslim peoples from Iraq to Palestine to Chechnya to Egypt are literally starving and under vicious attack, in many cases from the very governments and multinational arms dealers/makers that Bandar and his kinfolk continually courted and financed.

This amazingly twisted and corrupted world of Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz and his despicable class of super-rich super-spoiled Arabs is also the world from which the Osama Bin Ladens and Aimen Zawahiris have arisen.

It is the world from which Hezbollah and Hamas and the suicide bombers have come forth. And it is the world in which this despicable class has left its civilization and heritage practically defenseless against the combined forces of the Christian Evangelicas and the Jewish/Zionist Neocons. Many now feel, and understandably so, that there is a U.S./Israeli/European onslaught now at their ramparts.