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Monday,
December 17, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Last Al-Qaida
position has fallen: commander CIA
masterminded Laden tape? Anthrax spores match US Army stocks New
political equations in B’desh |
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Maoists bomb
telecom tower Asif
Zardari gets bail 
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Last Al-Qaida position
has fallen: commander Kabul, December 16 “We have cleared Al-Qaida from our land. We did the job,” declared Haji Mohammed Zaman, the military commander in the eastern Afghan province of Jalalabad, where US fighters and special forces along with anti-Taliban forces, had waged a ferocious battle against Al-Qaida fighters. Answering a question from reporters near Tora Bora, Zaman said he had no information about the whereabouts of Bin Laden who, along with 300 to 1,000 fighters, was believed to be trapped in the valley from three sides and pursued by American and anti-Taliban troops. The valley is situated south of Jalalabad city and close to the Pakistan border. A local Afghan spokesman told the BBC that 50 Al-Qaida fighters took the route to Pakistan on donkeys through high mountain passes. Earlier, B-52 bombers pounded the suspected hideouts of Bin Laden and his followers in the Tora Bora mountains with increased intensity as anti-Taliban forces hopped from cave to cave and tunnel to tunnel. Mr Rumsfeld said the bombing of Bin Laden’s suspected hideouts had been so intense that one plume of smoke travelled as far as two kilometres. The US Defence Secretary was told to keep himself confined to the tarmac of the air base which has not been totally cleared of mines. The precaution came after three US Marines were wounded during a mine-clear operation at Kandahar airport. WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said it was hard to prevent Taliban and Al-Qaida men from escaping into Pakistan although Washington would try to prevent that. “There are hundreds of tunnels from Afghanistan into Pakistan. At the moment, the Pakistan units on their border are regular army. They are trying very hard to block those attempting to flee into Pakistan but the border “is so long and so porous and so mountainous and so rugged. And there are so many passes. And you can walk across or go by mule or donkey or bribe your way through,” Mr Rumsfled told
Washington Post.
PTI |
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Al-Qaida planned
to bomb London London, December 16 The chilling blueprint for the attack is contained in a notebook discovered by London-based newspaper The Observer among piles of other documents in the camp. A scribbled note on top of one of the pages suggests that the intended target was Moorgate in the centre of London’s financial district. The discovery of the notebook comes after the USA released a video showing a giggling Bin Laden boasting of how he had planned the suicide hijackings on September 11. The notebook is the first hard evidence, however, that London was also an intended target of the Al-Qaida.
The Observer, London |
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CIA masterminded Laden tape? New York/London, December 16 On the screen flickered a blurred picture: a tall, grey-bearded man in a white turban talking in Arabic to a number of other similarly attired associates. These fuzzy, broken images were the “smoking gun” — Bin Laden’s long-awaited, albeit apparently unwitting, personal confession. According to the American authorities, who solemnly released the tape last week, it had been found nearby: in a ruined building once used by Arab fighters from Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida organisation. It had been seized when Mujahideen fighters entered their city a few hours after the Al-Qaida’s Taliban protecters had left. That, the viewers knew, was certainly possible. By the morning after the “liberation” of Jalalabad, fighters loyal to commander Hazrat Ali had seized safehouses and training complexes linked to the Al-Qaida. Ali has cooperated with the Americans and the story that he had passed the tape on to the CIA was very plausible. But then doubts began to surface. Why had Bin Laden broken his tight security to talk? Why had he not used one of his normally favoured media outlets? Was the tape genuine? Was this indeed Bin Laden at all? The tape was certainly damning. It showed Bin Laden laughing and boasting about the September 11 attacks as he talks to his interviewer, a Saudi cleric who has travelled through war-racked Afghanistan to see him. Bin Laden, flanked by two key aides, describes how the planes did far more damage to the World Trade Center than he ever imagined. “We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy... that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors,” he says. “I was the most optimistic of them all.” Bin Laden also indicates that the men who carried out the plot knew that they were on a “martyrdom operation” but did not have details of the mission until the last minute. This weekend, as the debate the tape has provoked continued across the Islamic world, several intelligence sources have suggested to The Observer that the tape, although absolutely genuine, is the result of a sophisticated sting operation run by the CIA through a second intelligence service, possibly Saudi or Pakistani. “They needed someone whom they could persuade or coerce to get close to Bin Laden and someone whom Bin Laden would feel secure talking to. If it works, you have got the perfect evidence at the perfect moment,’ said one security source. “It’s a masterstroke.” The focus of suspicion is the Saudi dissident preacher who appears to have taped the interview, conducted according to the timecode on the video on November 9 in what appears to be a guest house in the Afghan city of Kandahar. Though unidentified in the one-hour recording, security sources have told The Observer that the interviewer, who appears to be disabled from the waist down, is Ali Saeed al-Ghamdi, a former assistant professor of theology at a seminary in Mecca. Al-Ghamdi is a marginal figure who tried to make a name for himself through inflammatory, anti-Western speeches before being banned from preaching in 1994, said one Saudi close to the government.Experts told The Observer that the tape bore a marked resemblance to secretly filmed evidence used by the FBI against major American mafia figures in recent years. And though US security officials said there was “no confirmation” that the tape was made by an “intelligence source”, a Pentagon official confirmed to The Observer that “curious circumstances” surrounded Al-Ghamdi, who appeared to be aware of the taping.
The Observer, London |
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Anthrax
spores match US Army stocks
Washington, December 16 Although many laboratories possess the Ames strain of anthrax involved in this fall’s bio-terrorist attacks, only five laboratories so far have been found to have spores with perfect genetic matches to those in the Senate letters, scientists conducting the tests were quoted by the Washington Post as saying. And all these labs can trace back their samples to a single US military source — the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease
(USAMRID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland. PTI |
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New political equations in B’desh Dhaka, December 16 In a bid to unite secular forces, political parties and individuals, the Awami League has initiated a programme to hold a national convention on “Prevention of Acts Against Humanity” on January 17 and 18 in the capital city Dhaka. Already an organising committee has been formed with Mr K.M. Sobhan, a retired high court judge and a known intellectual, as its convener. The Awami League chief and former Prime Minister, Mr Sheikh Hasina, has already separately met leaders of the 11-party Left Democratic Front (LDF) to seek their cooperation in her efforts to unitedly fight the communal forces which have unleashed attacks on Hindus to punish them for their perceived support to the Awami League. The convention and the move for a united movement may lead to fresh political polarisation in Bangladesh, according to many local newspapers, including the Bangladesh Observer, and Janakantha. The negotiations initiated by the Awami League chief was being pursued by other leaders, but the response is not yet clear. Ms Hasina is in the USA at the moment and will return on January 30. The left forces are likely to participate in the national convention. Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) Secretary General Hasanul Hoque Inu has accepted the responsibility given to him by the Awami League chief to negotiate with the LDF. Mr Saber Hossain Chowdhury, political adviser to Ms Hasina, has already contacted General Ershad who left for London immediately after the poll. Reports in local dailies indicate that the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) is hesitant to join any alliance with the Awami League at the moment. The political polarisation in Bangladesh was always slightly peculiar. In the mid-eighties , the smaller parties in the LDF, in its new avtar, were components of the 15 party alliance led by the Awami League and had participated in agitations against the military ruler General Ershad. They were party to the decision to participate in the 1986 general election. The Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) and National Awami Party (NAP), components of the eight-party alliance, shared seats with the Awami League. The CPB won five seats and the NAP two seats. All their candidates contested the election on the Awami League poll symbol — the boat. Again in 1991, before the general election, the CPB launched a Left front to contest the poll. Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), a breakaway faction of the Awami League , a component of the CPB-led alliance, in the last moment switched over to the Awami League. The Left front lost all seats. With highest the number of seats won and support of 18 Jamat-e-Islami legislators, the BNP formed the government. They won 140 seats. The Awami League and its allies won 100 seats only. In the 1996 poll, the Awami League refused to share any seat with any ally sensing the possibility of a victory. They won 147 out of 300 seats . That paved the way for their return to power after 23 years after the brutal assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975. With the support of 35 JP legislators, the Awami League formed the government. The Awami League-JP alliance fell apart at the time of the poll on October 1 this year and the Awami League was almost routed. They could secure victory in only 62 seats. The JP (Ershad) won 14 seats; their archrival, the BNP, won a landslide victory winning 192 seats. Meanwhile, the post-poll violence resulted in the death of 266 persons in 25 days , most of them belonging to the Awami League. As many as 213 women were victims of rapes, most of them Hindus. |
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PA closes 13 Hamas, Jihad offices Gaza City, December 16 He said the two-storey police station had nearly collapsed and that the nearby building used by the personnel of the head of preventive security in the Gaza Strip, Mohammed Dahlan, was hit head-on by the missiles. Several nearby homes were also damaged, he added. Nearby hospitals said no one was wounded in the attack. A spokesman for the Israeli army confirmed it had launched a helicopter attack on Palestinian buildings. He said the operation was in retaliation for two mortars fired against Israeli positions earlier in the evening. Earlier in the day, the Israeli army had pulled out of the nearby Palestinian town of Beit Hannun, just to the north of Jabaliya. Meanwhile, 13 offices of the Islamic Jihad and Hamas radical movements in the Gaza Strip have been closed on the order of the Palestinian Authority (PA), according to a Palestinian police official. He said three more Islamic militants’ offices were expected to be closed today. The administration of the two organisations’ mosques will be transferred to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the police official said. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has been bunkered at his Ramallah headquarters in the West Bank since December 3, trapped by an Israeli blockade and under enormous pressure from Israel and the USA to rein in extremists involved in anti-Israeli attacks. JERUSALEM:
A Palestinian was killed by an explosive charge he detonated on the “Green Line” separating Israel from the West Bank near the Palestinian city of Tulkarem, the Israeli police said.
AFP |
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Arafat calls for Arab solidarity
Ramallah, (West Bank) December 16 Mr Arafat, speaking after attending prayers here also predicted that “the day will come when one of our sons or daughters will raise the Palestinian flag over the walls, minarets and churches of Jerusalem”. “In these blessed days, we exhort the Arab and Muslim nations to help us. AFP Maoists bomb telecom tower Kathmandu, December 16 The Nepal Telecommunications Corporation (NTC) tower in Nuwakot district, 90 km northwest of Kathmandu, was destroyed in the attack, the reports said. “The repeater tower of the NTC at Neupanechaur in Nuwakot district was bombed and destroyed by Maoists on Friday night,” Nepali language Naya Sadak reported.
AFP
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Asif
Zardari gets bail Lahore, December 16 |
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