TERRORISM

By Elaine Lafferty and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

The U.S. State Department's bureau of diplomatic security has turned to a curious spokesman in its attempt to stop worldwide terrorism. Besides placing macabre, slasher-movie-style newspaper ads in the International Herald Tribune offering up to $2 million for information about assaults on American citizens abroad, the State Department has enlisted none other than bad-boy actor CHARLIE SHEEN to lend encouragement in a series of public-service ads at its www.heroes.net Website. "Are you the next hero?" asks Sheen, whose unheroic scrapes with the law have included serving as a prosecution witness in the HEIDI FLEISS tax-evasion case (Sheen admitted spending more than $50,000 on "sexual services" arranged by Fleiss) as well as making a more recent court appearance in which he pleaded no contest to charges he attacked his former girlfriend.

--By Elaine Lafferty and Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles