W O R L D

Taliban refuse to hand over Haq’s body to kin
Buried in Jalalabad
Peshawar, October 28
The Taliban militia refused to let the family of executed Afghan resistance commander Abdul Haq take his body back to Pakistan for burial, his associates said today. Instead the Taliban insisted that the body stay in Afghanistan, said Abdul Haq’s personal secretary Abdul Rahim Zalmai.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, left, and Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, right, both strike the same pose during a joint news conference in Islamabad on Sunday. — AP/PTI

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) embraces mayoral candidate Mike Bloomberg (L) at a press conference on the steps of City Hall in New York on Saturday. Giuliani endorsed Bloomberg's bid for Mayor at the Press conference. The election will be held on November 6. Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian in the West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday. Former US Senator George Mitchell said the numbers of people killed in the latest escalation of Israeli-Palestinian violence were "shockingly high" and urged the international community to take urgent steps to persuade the two sides to return to peace talks. Bangladesh's new Prime Minister Khaleda Zia addresses the maiden session of the eighth Parliament in Dhaka on Sunday. The Opposition Awami League, led by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, boycotted the first session in protest against what it called a rigged election. — Reuters photos

Bush’s ability to fight terror doubtful: poll
New York, October 28
Americans are doubtful about the Bush Administration’s ability to fight terrorism at home, even as an overwhelming majority supports US military action against Afghanistan, a latest opinion poll has revealed.

Memories of Michni post Where AK-47s were sold on rehris November 29, 1997. This date came to mind as one surfed the Internet, switched TV news channels, flipped through news magazines and newspapers. All one saw, heard, read (even talked) was war, terrorism and coalitions against an elusive foe ensconced somewhere in the forbidding terrain of Afghanistan. Much has changed since September 11.

Taliban refuse to hand over Haq’s body to kin
Buried in Jalalabad

Peshawar, October 28
The Taliban militia refused to let the family of executed Afghan resistance commander Abdul Haq take his body back to Pakistan for burial, his associates said today.

Instead the Taliban insisted that the body stay in Afghanistan, said Abdul Haq’s personal secretary Abdul Rahim Zalmai.

The resistance commander was buried in his family’s home village at Sorkh Rod near the eastern city of Jalalabad, he said.

“He was buried by our people,” said Zalmai, speaking in this border city, which Abdul Haq had made his base.

He added that no reason was given for the decision not to let the body be taken to Peshawar for burial as planned by the family.

The hero of Afghanistan’s resistance to the 1979-89 Soviet occupation and a leader of the dominant Pashtun tribe was captured in Afghanistan on Friday and executed by the Taliban who accused him of being a US spy.

His family had been told that his body would be brought back to Peshawar in Pakistan for burial.

But his brother, Haji Din Mohammad, told the Pakistan-based AIP that he had learnt that Abdul Haq and one of the two associates executed with him had been buried in the family’s native village of Sorkh Rod, south of the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Abdul Haq’s family had wanted him to be buried in Peshawar alongside his wife and son, who were killed there in 1999 in what is suspected to have been a Taliban-ordered assassination.

DUBAI: The execution of Abdul Haq by the Taliban is being viewed as a major intelligence disaster and a huge blow to the efforts to gain Pashtoon support against the Taliban regime.

Intelligence sources said that the elimination of the influential Pashtun commander showed that Taliban was still very much in control.

“Taliban intelligence remains effective and the American bombings have not decimated their strength,” an analyst was quoted by the Gulf News.

The incident would swing the balance in favour of those American strategists who would like to launch a full-scale ground offensive against the Taliban, he said.

Haq had walked into an elaborate trap laid for him by the Taliban intelligence in eastern Afghanistan. Friday’s execution of Haq, along with two of his close associates, showed that the Taliban were successful in double-crossing Western and Pakistani intelligence operatives, Khaleej Times said.

Some Western and Pakistani analysts had thought that Haq would have been an ideal candidate to replace Mulla Mohammed Omar as a forward-looking leader of Afghanistan.

Official sources, who closely followed Haq’s activities at his house and at another safe house in Peshawar, have said that he had kept this visit to Afghanistan so secret that they only came to know about it only two days after he crossed the border into Afghanistan from the tribal area of Terimengal in northern Pakistan.

Now it has been confirmed that Haq had held detailed meeting with former Mujahideen commanders like Malik Zareen Khan. He was also in touch with the former Afghan General Jua Achak who had desired to lead an armed rebellion against Taliban in southern Afghanistan. AFP, UNI

US ‘neo-Nazis’ behind anthrax attacks
Ed Vulliamy

New York, October 28
Neo-Nazi extremists within the USA are behind the deadly wave of anthrax attacks against the USA, according to latest briefings from the security services and the Justice Department. Experts on “survivalist” groups and extreme-Right “Aryan” militants have been drafted into the investigation as the focus shifts away from possible links with the September 11 terrorists or even possible state backers such as Iraq.

“We’ve been zeroing in on a number of hate groups, especially one on the West Coast,” a source at the Justice Department said Observer yesterday. “We’ve certainly not discounted the possibility that they may be involved”, the source said.

The anthrax crisis, which grew last week, had by Friday night spread to mailrooms at the CIA headquarters, the Supreme Court and a hospital. Yesterday, three traces of anthrax were found in an office building serving the US Capitol.

The Justice Department said: “These are groups organised into militia and “survivalist’’ movements — which pull out of society and take to the hills to make war on the government, and who will support anyone else making war on the government.”

Investigators are examining threatening letters sent to media organisations — some dated before the September 11 attacks — which did not contain anthrax but similar messages and handwriting style as those which later did. The theory is that the anthrax attacks were planned — and the killer germ was obtained and treated — long before the carnage of September 11.

Speaking to The Observer yesterday, the Justice Department official said: “We have to see the Right wing as much better coordinated than its apparent disorganisation suggests. And we have to presume that their opposition to government is just as virulent as that of the Islamic terrorists, if not as accomplished”.

“But that is, in its way, one of the most compelling possible leads in the anthrax trail — that it is not really Al-Qaeda’s style, but rather that of others who sympathise with its war against the US Government and media,” the official added.

The official said the investigation had, in the past week, drafted in special teams from the Civil Rights division of the department to reinforce the international terrorism teams. The US neo-Nazi Right is motivated above all by its loathing of the federal government, which it believes is selling out the homeland to a “New World Order” run by Masons and Jews.

The anthrax investigation is zooming in on possible connections between these neo-Nazis and Arab extremists, united by their mutual anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel. Such alliances have been common among neo-Nazis in Europe, but have played a lesser role in the USA. However, monitoring of the hate groups shows they are now embracing Al-Qaeda’s terrorism as commendable attacks on the federal government.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles said that at a meeting in Lebanon this year, US neo-Nazis were represented alongside Islamic militants. “There’s a great solidarity with the point of view of the Bin Ladens of the world,” said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Centre, which monitors the far Right. “These people wouldn’t let their daughters near an Arab, but they are certainly making common cause on an ideological level. They see the same enemy: American culture and multiculturalism,” he says.

Neo-Nazi websites, including the largest umbrella organisation, the National Alliance, show support for Al-Qaeda. Billy Roper, the alliance’s membership coordinator posted a message within hours of the September 11 attacks, reading: “Anyone who is willing to drive a plane into a building to kill Jews is all right by me. I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude.” Another group, Aryan Action, praised the attacks of saying: “Either you’re fighting with the Jews against Al-Qaeda or you support Al-Qaeda fighting against the Jews.”

The shift in the investigation echoes that which followed the USA’s other infamous terrorist attack: the destruction of the federal government building in Oklahoma City in 1995. The bombing was initially thought to be the work of Arab extremists, but turned out to be the work of Aryan supremacists. The Observer

Bush’s ability to fight terror doubtful: poll

New York, October 28
Americans are doubtful about the Bush Administration’s ability to fight terrorism at home, even as an overwhelming majority supports US military action against Afghanistan, a latest opinion poll has revealed.

While 88 per cent still approve of the military action against Afghanistan, only 48 per cent of them feel the administration has a well thought-out plan for fighting bioterrorism and other threats at home, according to the poll conducted by Newsweek.

Seventyfive per cent say there is a well thought-out plan for using military force to fight terrorism overseas, down slightly from 78 per cent last week.

President George W. Bush still enjoys overwhelming confidence of the people with 85 per cent approving his handling of the job. But the poll shows somewhat declining trend as last week his approval rating was 88 per cent.

Only 26 per cent people feel Osama bin Laden will be captured or killed, and 42 per cent think the military action will remove the Taliban regime from power.

Less than half (43 per cent) say the government has given reliable information to public about the anthrax cases and the threat to health. However, a majority of them are confident that the national and the local governments are prepared to prevent many deaths from a terrorist attack using chemical or biological weapons.

A large section of the respondents (65 per cent) say government officials made a mistake in underestimating the risks involved in handling contaminated mails. A total of 1,005 adults were interviewed on October 25 and 26 for the poll. PTI

Memories of Michni post
Where AK-47s were sold on rehris
P.P.S. Gill
Tribune News Service

November 29, 1997. This date came to mind as one surfed the Internet, switched TV news channels, flipped through news magazines and newspapers. All one saw, heard, read (even talked) was war, terrorism and coalitions against an elusive foe ensconced somewhere in the forbidding terrain of Afghanistan. Much has changed since September 11.

Despite the “live” coverage of Operation Enduring Freedom, the omnipresence of media, the images flashing across the computer and TV screens, e-mail messages, despatches from the frontlines, endless analysis, etc. have virtually caused a blackout of other news. Even of what one is witnesses does not present a true picture of what is happening nor predicts how it will eventually end.

Let’s revert to November 27, 1997. It was a bright sunny day with cold wind blowing across the Khyber pass. This correspondent had stood at Michni post on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border along with a posse of foreign correspondents surveying the hostile, terrain. The place has been of strategic importance throughout the history of civilization. Name an invader who has not marched across this pass.

The North-West Frontier Province, with Peshawar as capital, is in the news these days. It was here that day one rubbed shoulders with Afghan refugees in camps set up by Pakistan. It was on the Peshawar streets one also saw Kalashnikov assault (AK-47 ) rifles and hand-grenades being sold on “rehris”. The area around Peshawar — Shahkot and Darra (Kohat pass) —have been famous for “copying” and manufacturing AK-47s and Russian pistols.

The Governor of NWFP said in view of the poor economic conditions of the tribesmen manufacturing of such weapons was a “cottage industry’’. In the wake of the war on Afghanistan, Peshawar has an even larger concentration of Afghan refugees.

With reminiscences of that visit, waves of emotion come to mind as one browses through war reports. Will the world onslaught on Taliban help combat terrorism? These tough people in baggy “salwar-kameez” are natives of a land that bears deep scars of many a war. Violence has remained in their backyards for centuries, right from the time of Genghis Khan and since the British gave Afghanistan freedom in 1919.

The future of people, against whom the USA and its allies say the present attack is not intended, is as uncertain as the rest of the world is vulnerable to terror. The ripples from Afghanistan will travel across the globe, particularly, affecting countries that encircle it — Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajiksan, Iran, Pakistan — beset as these are with their kind of Islamic unrest.

Reports of fear of bio-terrorism, use of chemical and biological means, the photographs of people in masks, the mailing of anthrax, fear of mass food poisoning through salmonella or e.coli or release of nerve gases like sarin or VX, sends a chill down the spine.

Standing atop Michni post (witness to key historical events) that day such thought never crossed the mind that in less than four years echo of the pounding of bombs would change the geo-political alignments and daily new strategies would be evolved to tackle a new “enemy”.

The Muslim population, world-over, is 1.2 billion. The war may be against “terrorism’’ not “Islam”. Yet the war-cry of “jehad” has been sounded. What the future holds for the world, where history is in the making, is unknown.

British helicopter crashes

Muscat, October 28
Two British soldiers were injured yesterday when their helicopter plunged into the sea off eastern Oman, a British military spokesman said today.

“I can confirm that a Lynx helicopter from Britain’s Royal Navy ditched into the sea yesterday. The two British soldiers on board escaped with minor injuries,’’ he told Reuters.

He said the helicopter fell from the sky off Masirah Island, the site of one of Oman’s biggest airbases.

“It is not known what had caused the crash but it is (being) investigated,’’ the spokesman said. He did not elaborate. Some 23,000 British troops have been using Masirah Island during month-long military exercises expected to last until the end of October. Reuters

No Taliban peace plan to end strikes

Islamabad, October 28
The Taliban have not evolved any peace plan to end the US-led military strikes against Afghanistan, the militia’s ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, has said.

Mr Zaeef also claimed that the three week-long American aerial bombings had resulted in human catastrophe with scores of injured persons dying without medicines and lack of food.

“The situation in Kabul is very pitiable. There is acute shortage of medicines and food. The injured persons are dying due to shortage of medicines,” he told reporters here on his return from Afghanistan last night.

He said “...yesterday’s bombing of the ICRC warehouses in Kabul is a clear example of the US intentions to target civilian areas,”. This was the second time that the US jets had hit a well marked Red Cross building, he added.

Mr Zaeef, who had been to Afghanistan twice during the past two weeks, said he had visited Kabul and Jalalabad to discuss the current situation with Taliban leadership and denied having carried any peace plan to end the military strikes against Afghanistan. PTI

Pak to support USA ‘till aims met’

London, October 28
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said he was determined to continue his support for the US-led military campaign in Afghanistan until the coalition’s aims were achieved, a British daily reported yesterday.

“Any military campaign has to set objectives and those objectives need to be attained,” General Musharraf told The Times.

“You can’t cut a military campaign mid-way without achieving them. Then it would be failure,” Pakistan’s military ruler added.

More than six weeks into the crisis General Musharraf appeared to be holding firm despite continuing unrest from Muslims in his own country who support Osama bin Laden.

However, the crucial ally of the USA warned that as the campaign continued the greater would be the toll of civilian casualties and the more public support. AFP

USA to back India for presence in S. Asia

Washington, October 28
The USA intends to maintain a strong security presence in the South Asian region and will aggressively “support New Delhi in asserting its national interests in the subcontinent,” a US think tank has said.

“The USA expects to maintain indefinitely a strong security presence in the region. It would like this presence to be regarded favourably by India, and it would like India to understand and preferably share its view of how to strengthen the security in the region around the Indian Ocean,” said Stratfor, a web outlet which specialises in strategic issues.

Another think tank, the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), notes that India and the USA can build the recent good feelings into something more substantial such as strategic cooperation in the area of security in the Indian Ocean.

“The safety of the sea lanes,” said CSIS in a new study, “is of vital long-term importance to both countries. In recent years, the Indian Navy has come to regard the USA as an inevitable, some say even benign presence in the area, and has become the primary advocate within the Indian security establishment of an active dialogue with the USA on the sea lanes.” PTI

USA ‘ready’ to attack Iraq

London, October 28
Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said in an interview with a British newspaper today that the USA and Britain planned to launch 1,000 missiles at 300 Iraqi targets in a bid to topple President Saddam Hussein on the pretext of waging war against terrorism.

“We know that they are preparing for such an attack,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. “We know that it is just a matter of time. When they decide to attack Iraq it will be for their own agenda because they want to replace this government which is independent and will not bow. It will not be because of what is happening in the USA.” AFP

Take more refugees: UNHCR

Chaman (Pakistan), October 28
Against a backdrop of Afghans caught in a no-man’s- land, the head of the United Nations Refugee Agency urged Pakistan today to accept those fleeing US air strikes against the ruling Taliban militia.

“We hope that the officials will become a bit more flexible on that,’’ Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said of the authorities’ preventing thousands of Afghans from crossing into Pakistan through this dusty border post.

Many of the families pressed up against the barbed wire fences on the Afghan side come from the kandahar area which has been a target of US air raids.

Pakistan has prevented all but the sick or elderly from entering but some 50,000 Afghans are thought to have slipped across illegally.

U.N. officials are concerned the Taliban might try to conscript any men in the camp. “The UNHCR is very concerned because we don’t know the situation and there are fears that this camp could be used to force young people to fight,’’ Lubbers said. Reuters

Gunmen kill Israeli

Jerusalem, October 28
Suspected Palestinian gunmen shot dead an Israeli woman and wounded at least 12 others on Sunday in a rampage in the northern Israeli city of Hadera, and were then killed themselves by the police, officials said.

Ambulance officials said an Israeli woman was killed in the shooting, on a main road in the busy shopping area.

They said the police shot dead two Palestinian gunmen. Reuters