M A I N   N E W S

US crackdown on Bin Laden financial network

Washington, November 7
In a worldwide crackdown, the Bush administration today froze assets of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden’s hawala or informal banking and financial networks in at least nine countries, including the USA, Canada and the USA.

The names of 62 entities and people were added to a list of suspected terrorist associates targeted by Mr Bush in an executive order signed last month.

The new list of targeted entities, provided by the Treasury Department, covers groups and people affiliated with two suspected Bin Laden financial networks - Al Taqua and Al-Barakaat.

Both are informal and largely unregulated money exchanges, often called hawalas, that authorities believe funnel money to Bin Laden’s terrorist network Al-Qaeda through companies and non-profit organisations they operate.

Hawalas are believed to be utilised by patrons of cross-border terrorism in Kashmir and in terrorist activities outside Kashmir in other parts of the country. Sri Lanka has long complained of such activities to finance the civil war there. Osama bin Laden is believed to own not only a hawala but also several honey shops and other businesses, legitimate and illegitimate. PTI

USA to double ground forces
Northern Alliance gains ground

Washington/Rabat (Afghanistan), November 7
The USA hit Taliban troops from the air and vowed to double the number of special forces in Afghanistan, while President George W. Bush warned the rest of the world, “you’re either with us or you’re against us.”

Mr Bush also said for the first time that Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network sought nuclear weapons and called on European allies to fight what he called a threat to “every nation.”

Speaking via satellite to a Warsaw summit, Mr Bush yesterday told Eastern European nations, once under the yoke of Soviet domination, that their “freedom is threatened once again” — this time by Bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the September 11 aerial assaults on New York and Washington.

US Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said special forces troops on the ground in Afghanistan had more than doubled from fewer than 100 announced last week. More were preparing to go in when weather permitted to help pinpoint bombing targets.

Mr Rumsfeld said ground troops were spotting Taliban targets near the front line with the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance and supplying the opposition with weapons, ammunition and food.

He said sorties by US warplanes had reached 120 a day in the campaign to topple the Taliban and Bin Laden.

In the air war US B-52 bombers pounded frontline positions of the Taliban facing the opposition Northern Alliance north of Kabul today, sending up huge columns of smoke and hitting Al Qaeda posts, witnesses and commanders said.

At least five waves of B-52 bombers flew over the front line, on the first round dropping huge single bombs and then pounding the entrenched Taliban positions with strings of smaller blasts, said Reuters photographer Yannis Behrakis.

“They have hit the right places,” said Northern Alliance commader Asil Khan as he watched the raids.

Meanwhile, Afghan opposition forces entered the Taliban controlled district of Sholgera early today, inching closer to the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, an opposition spokesman told AFP.

“We have now entered the outer parts of Sholgera,” Qari Qudratullah, a spokesman for opposition commander Atta Mohammad said.

“Our Mujahideen (holy warriors) are advancing. We are hoping to capture Mazar-i-Sharif as soon as possible,” he added.

In London a former Defence Secretary and three other British peers on Wednesday warned that continued bombing of Afghanistan could destabilise Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt and put Pakistani nuclear weapons into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists. AFP