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Monday,
November 5, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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60 chosen for Afghan council of national unity ISI knew of Karzai mission Jamaat leader under house
arrest
Laden’s appeal act of desperation:
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Anthrax at another NJ mail centre
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Ban to boost spirits: LeT
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60 chosen for Afghan council of national unity Gulbahar (Afghanistan), November 4 Said Hussein Anwari, a representative of the minority Hazaras in the Opposition United Front, told newsmen that the nominations included representatives from all the main ethnic groups in Afghanistan. “Yes, we have decided on the 60 representatives,’’ he said outside his home in the town of Gulbahar. “There are Pashtun, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazaras, everyone.’’ The list is a result of a deal with the exiled king, deposed in a coup in 1973 and now living in Rome, who has called for a 120-member council that would be the first step toward holding a loya jirga, or grand council of tribal leaders on a future administration of a post-Taliban Afghanistan. The two sides are hoping to meet in Turkey early this month to agree a final list of the 120 members who will make up the council. Anwari declined to give a breakdown of the Northern Alliance list, but a spokesman said the opposition had proposed 15 Pashtun, 15 Uzbeks and shia Hazaras and 30 Tajiks and other groups. Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group by far is the Pashtuns, but the opposition, also known as the Northern Alliance for the location of its tiny redoubt, is made up mainly of Tajik and Uzbek minority groups. The opposition has fought the hardline Islamic Taliban militia since it swept into Kabul and took power in 1996. The Taliban have drawn their strength mainly from the Pashtuns, living in the southern part of the country. “We believe this is the final list, and it is unlikely to be changed now,’’ Anwari’s spokesman said. Anwari together with Interior Minister Mohammad Yunus Qanuni and Pashtun representative Haji Qadeer, brother of Mujahideen veteran Abdul Haq executed by the Taliban last month, had drawn up the final list of 60 candidates at a meeting yesterday. They had to be approved at a meeting today that would include President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Defence Minister General Mohammad Fahim. But the selection has taken far longer than expected, amid doubts that the opposition and the ex-king can hold Afghanistan together during the interim period between the Taliban and a new, elected government. The US attacks on the fundamentalist ruling militia entered a fifth week today and how to fill a vacuum left if the hardline movement is defeated is proving a major problem. Many Pashtuns in Pakistan, the leading backer of the Taliban before the September 11 attacks, are opposed to the division of power between the opposition and the king. The opposition is deeply unpopular in the south, partly because of atrocities some of its commanders committed in the capital, Kabul, during four years of internecine fighting before the emergence of the Taliban. And leading politicians and commanders within the united front are also believed to be uneasy about a role for the ex-king — a Pashtun. There would also have to be a division of power between the former monarch, who now lives in Rome, and Rabbani who holds Afganistan’s seat in the United Nations. Qanuni told newsmen yesterday that elections in Afghanistan could be held as soon as six months after the fall of the Taliban, but he warned it could take much longer.
Reuters |
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ISI knew of Karzai mission Peshawar, November 4 He had entered Afghanistan nearly a month ago, travelling from Quetta across the rocky mountains that line the frontier and, on remote tracks too rough even for a four-wheel-drive jeep, deep into the rugged hills of the central Oruzgan province. There, in the desperately poor ancestral homelands of his branch of the Pashtuns, he began trekking from village to village, rallying for the attack he planned to launch against the ruling Taliban to clear the way for a return of the exiled King. But last Thursday, it was the Taliban who attacked him. Halfway through a traditional “jirga” — the debate by which a consensus among tribal leaders is reached — in Dehrawut village the alarm went up. Fighters from the Islamic militia were entering the town. Karzai and his men escaped after a fierce gunbattle during which, according to US military officials, US jets acting on a pre-arranged plan fired missiles at their opponents. Karzai is now in hiding, working his way across the hills towards the safety of opposition-held territory or back to Pakistan. He last spoke to his family at 11.10 p.m. on Friday. They were optimistic that he would make it unscathed. But his plan failed. Now, for the first time, the efforts of the USA to trigger the collapse of the Taliban from the inside have been laid bare. While B52s and F14s have rumbled and howled through the clear skies over Kabul and Kandahar, a quieter conflict has been taking place, pitting the intelligence services of the US-led coalition against those of the Taliban. It is being fought in the air-conditioned lounges of the luxury homes of the top Afghan commanders, in the panelled chancelleries of foreign ministries, in dark corners of filthy bazaars and in rooms with mud floors in timber-roofed Afghan huts. But, though there is no obvious battlefield, it is a war as fiercely fought as its more overt counterpart. Though on the map Afghanistan divides nicely — in the north there is the opposition alliance, largely composed of Afghanistan’s ethnic minorities, across the rest of the country are the Taliban, largely drawn from the Pashtun tribes — the ground reality is far more complex. It is a shifting three-dimensional jigsaw of tribal, religious, ethnic and political allegiances, both national and international. But where conventional military planners see challenges, less conventional operatives see opportunities. The warriors in the secret war are the spies of several nations, ranging from Turkey to India, all vying for some advantage in the new “Great Game”. The biggest players are the Pakistanis. With their large Pashtun population and sense of strategic insecurity, they are determined to secure a government in Afghanistan that is to their liking. This is partly for commercial reasons — to access the big untapped markets, and oil and gas reserves, of Central Asia. Partly it is because Pakistani military planners, fearing an attack from India, say that “strategic depth” — i.e. somewhere to retreat to — is essential. Islamabad’s ISI has unparalled connections in the southern, Taliban-held parts of Afghanistan. As the ISI was instrumental in creating the hardline Islamic militia, it has contacts at the heart of the Taliban leadership and thus any putative breakaway faction. Islamabad has also traditionally been close to Saudi Arabia. Both are Sunni Muslim countries who have always been keen to restrict the influence of Shia Muslim Iran. Without the assistance of the two states, the Taliban would never have grown so swiftly. Iran, predictably, has backed the opposition to the Taliban, funnelling aid to the Persian-descended Shia Muslims in the west of Afghanistan. Uzbekistan has helped General Abdul Rashid Dostum, himself an Uzbek, with funds and weapons. It too is worried about Pakistani and Saudi influence. So is Tajikistan which has helped the Tajik forces who have been holding out against the Taliban in the north and east of Afghanistan. Bigger players are based further
a field, with Russia and China both concerned about the Taliban’s potential for spreading Islamic extremism into their own territory. Turkey has a natural affinity with the Turkic-descended Uzbeks. They sent 90 military advisers to Afghanistan last week who are to fight alongside Dostum. A secondary aim of the Turks, and the Uzbeks, is to counter the Persian and Iranian influence in the region. India, which has sent money and a military delegation to the Afghan opposition, just wants to make sure that Pakistan doesn’t gain — whatever it takes. “The idea of anybody committing sizeable quantities of ground troops is anathema. It’s a road to diplomatic and military disaster. Instead they do it with secret supplies and spooks,” a Western diplomat in Islamabad said last week. The overall losers, of course, are the Afghans. The Taliban’s fearsome intelligence agency is known as the Istakhbarat. For the past three years it has been run by Qari Ahmedullah, the hardline former Interior Minister. He reports directly to Mullah Omar, the reclusive one-eyed cleric who leads the Taliban from Kandahar. Analysts say that Karzai’s trip would have been impossible without the involvement of the ISI. Its policy, according to Western diplomatic sources, is this: “If we can get rid of Bin Laden and his Arabs and possibly Mullah Omar but keep everything else like it is now, we’ll be happy.” The last thing the ISI want is the Northern Alliance, backed by the Indians, the Russians, the central Asian republics and the Iranians, making big gains at the Taliban’s expense. Whatever happens, it is likely to be too late for the followers of Hamid Karzai. The Taliban claimed yesterday that they had hanged three tribal leaders who had backed his rebellion in Kandahar. Often the only visible evidence of the secret war are the corpses.
The Observer, London |
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Jamaat leader under house arrest Peshawar, November 4 The police was posted outside his residence last night with orders to prevent him leaving, his Jamaat-e-Islami party said in a written statement. Ahmed was scheduled to lead a major rally in the northwestern tribal district of Bajaur to protest against the US bombing in Afghanistan and the Pakistan Government’s support for the campaign. He said today his house arrest would not halt protests against Pakistan’s support for US air strikes on Afghanistan. “Our protests will continue. There will be no change in our programme,” he said. “They have allowed thousands of armed people to pass through Bajour and enter Afghanistan but they are not allowing our unarmed workers to hold a peaceful rally,” Ahmed said. Ahmed, who has already been barred from entering southern Sindh and southwestern Baluchistan provinces, dismissed his house arrest as “provocative and illegal”. On Friday, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader told a rally in the northwestern town of Mardan that Pakistan’s generals should force General Musharraf from power “the sooner, the better.” Meanwhile, the government of the North-West Frontier Province, a region with close links to Afghanistan, yesterday barred 27 prominent muslim activists — most of them clerics — from entering its territory for 30 days. The regulation appeared aimed at curbing pro-Taliban unrest along the border among Pashtuns.
AFP, AP |
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Laden’s appeal act of desperation: USA Dubai, November 4 “Rise in support of your religion. Islam is calling you,” said Bin Laden, the USA’s prime suspect for the September 11 attacks. Clad in a traditional head-dress and a military camouflage jacket with an AK-47 assault rifle propped at his side, Bin Laden made several references to the Koran as he appealed to the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. He appeared in footage broadcast by the Arabic satellite channel Al-Jazeera yesterday. It was his second televised statement since September 11. White House spokeswoman Anne Womack dismissed Bin Laden’s remarks as an act of desperation." This is more propaganda that shows how isolated Bin Laden is from the rest of the world,” she said. Arab television stations immediately featured reaction to Bin Laden’s comments from Islamists and analysts. “The USA has the right to seek the perpetrators of the attacks”, said Mohammad Salim al-Awa, a Cairo-based Islamist interviewed on Al-Jazeera. “But it has no right to fight the whole world as it wishes and to attack Afghanistan with aircraft and bombs and to kill innocent civilians”, he said. Meanwhile, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson said in remarks broadcast today that it was not clear if Osama bin Laden was the only perpetrator of the September 11 attacks. “We don’t know if he was the only one responsible...because it was a complicated operation,” he said in an interview with Al-Jazeera satellite television station.
Reuters |
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Anthrax at another NJ mail centre found Washington, November 4 The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services announced yesterday that one of the environmental samples taken by the FBI in the Bellmawr Mail Distribution Centre last Wednesday tested positive. Bellmawr, a suburb of Camden, New Jersey, is located just across the Delaware river from Philadelphia, which means that after outbreaks in New York and Washington, anthrax had now penetrated a third major metropolitan area. All employees of the facility have been offered a 10-day course of antibiotics as a precaution, the department said. Health officials focussed their attention on the Bellmawr centre after a Delaware resident who works there came down with skin anthrax, a less deadly form of the disease. The patient, whose identity has not been released, is said to be recovering. The Bellmawr case brings to three the number of New Jersey postal facilities affected by anthrax. Earlier, traces of the deadly bacteria were discovered at the main Princeton post office and at a mail processing centre in Hamilton township, near the state capital of Trenton. As New Jersey postal workers anxiously swallowed antibiotics, investigators in Washington pored over a suspicious letter discovered on Friday at the Department of Treasury. Meanwhile, the US Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center has discovered anthrax in its mailroom, CN reported yesterday.
AFP, DPA |
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Anthrax at Pak daily : trader detained Islamabad, November 4 Mohammad saleem was taken into preventive custody for allegedly sending anthrax spores mixed powder to the country’s largest newspaper, Jang, in Karachi last month as a press release, a police official, told reporters in Karachi. Saleem was detained as his name was used in the press release. “We have taken Mohammad Saleem into preventive detention but we are still examining under what law anthrax cases can be prosecuted,” Sheikh said. The envelope, which was opened by a reporter in the newspaper’s editorial room, was later found to be containing anthrax spores. Subsequently the newspaper put most of its staffers on antibiotics and closed some of its main editorial offices in Karachi to sterilise them.
PTI |
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Americans split on bioterrorism plan Washington, November 4 The Newsweek magazine poll published yesterday found Americans were split 46 per cent to 46 per cent on whether the administration had a well-considered plan for fighting bioterrorism threat to the USA. Confidence in the US military strategy overseas, while remaining high, dropped to 72 per cent from 75 per cent the week before and 78 per cent two weeks earlier the poll found. Americans continued to give President George W. Bush high marks for his performance since the September 11 attacks on the USA, with 85 per cent saying he had done a good job. Fiftysix per cent of those questioned said the US military action was going as well as US officials reported, but 33 per cent said it was not. The number of people who believe a largescale ground operation will be necessary to accomplish US goals has risen to 40 per cent, virtually equal to the 41 per cent who think the USA can achieve its aims with special force alone. The Newsweek poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,001 adults held on November 1 and 2.
Reuters |
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Ban to boost spirits: LeT Islamabad, November 4 “Mujahideen do not care for any US embargo on LeT or other jehadi organisation,” its leader Hafeez Mohammed Saeed told a conference in Hafizabad yesterday. “It would increase spirit and enthusiasm among mujahideen to intensify jehad against infidels”, he was quoted as saying by the Lashkar’s official website. Saeed also said the Jewish lobby feared Pakistan’s nuclear capability because it was a Muslim country. They want to spread fear of Pakistan’s nuclear capability so that they could destroy its nuclear installations, he said. PTI |
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In
a new videotaped statement to Al Jazeera, Osama bin Laden
said that any Muslim backing the US "crusade" in
Afghanistan has betrayed the faith
(
Pakistan's
government has appeared in confusion about reported anthrax
attacks.
