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Tuesday,
December 18, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Pashtun
forces out to corner Omar at Helmand
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PA split
over PM’s offer
Self-defence
classes for UK clerics
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Pashtun forces out to corner Omar at Helmand Kandahar, December 17 Mullah Omar had retreated to mountains and caves around Baghran village in Helmand province, about 160 km northwest of his former powerbase, accompanied by diehard Taliban and Al-Qaida fighters, Kandahar Director of Intelligence Haji Gullalai told newsmen. “Mullah Omar has gone to Baghran,” said Gullalai, a top anti-Taliban commander who helped lead the attack on Kandahar that was the Taliban birthplace and their powerbase until just 10 days ago. He was appointed intelligence chief by a “shura”, or council of tribal elders, last week. “We believe Al-Qaida has done something there,” he said, referring to the network set up by Osama bin Laden that has burrowed cave complexes into Afghan mountains as hideouts from US bombing. “At the moment we are concentrating on stabilising Kandahar but after two or three days we will arrange troops to attack the districts in the northwest,” he said. “We will take Baghran and then try to surround him.” Gullalai said he did not know Bin Laden’s whereabouts but was “100 per cent” sure Mullah Omar was in Baghran. “We have men with him who are Taliban but are friendly to us,” he said, in the former Kandahar headquarters of Khad — the Afghan intelligence agency run by the Communist regime in the 1980s. Taliban fighting with Mullah Omar would be given a chance to surrender or else must face the consequences, he said. Al-Qaida fighters would be tried in Afghanistan and then handed over to the United Nations, if requested. And what of Mullah Omar’s fate? “He will be hanged,” said Gullalai. “He sold out the country, he sold out our people, he sold out Islam,” he said. “He has no place to hide.” The USA had not started to bomb Baghran but would provide aerial support for the attack, he said. It will be helping because the Afghan air force is finished,” he said. “But it will not provide ground forces.” A “shura” would meet in the next two days to decide on the strategy for the attack and how many men would be involved, he said. Meanwhile, shuffling and shell-shocked after three weeks of terrifying bombing, 19 Al-Qaida prisoners were humiliated today by being paraded before the world’s press. Commanders of anti-Taliban Mujahideen are keen to show they have won the war against Osama bin Laden’s network in the Tora Bora mountains of eastern Afghanistan. But although they say there is no more fighting in the dusty ridges, the frontline remains strictly off limits. So commander Haji Zahir decided to show off his prisoners — the first to be displayed in public — to prove he is winning. They were paraded in a roped-off area of the dusty square in the village of Mia, some 15 km north of the frontline, shaded by tall trees and surrounded by mud walls, mud houses and a mud-and-timber
mosque. Reuters |
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Al-Qaida men on the run Tora Bora (Afghanistan), Dec 17 About 200 foreigners from Al-Qaida were killed in nine weeks of attacks. Hundreds more were believed to be on the run, and there was no word on Bin Laden’s whereabouts . Airstrikes were less intense today than in the previous weeks, but bombs still exploded deep in the forests on the snowcapped mountain range. Eastern alliance fighters said misdirected US bombs killed three of their fighters overnight, repeating charges leveled earlier in the fighting that the Americans weren’t taking enough care to avoid hitting their allies. But alliance fighters said US special forces were working with them as they searched the caves and tunnels left behind by fleeing Al-Qaida troops. Auzubillah, a commander of the tribal eastern alliance said his forces clashed early today with retreating Al-Qaida fighters, killing two of them and capturing five. He reported finding ammunition and food stores in abandoned caves. In footage taken by Associated Press Television News, the captors said the group included two senior Al-Qaida commanders, whose names weren’t given. In Kabul two Marines on Monday raised the Stars and Stripes flag at the US Embassy for the first time since 1989. The Marines hoisted the same flag on the same flagpole from which it was lowered in January 1989. The mission had closed due to security fears before the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan later in 1989. Meanwhile in Bagram US Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said rebuilding Afghanistan into a stable nation wouldn’t be easy, but the US wants “to be as helpful as we can.” Rumsfeld, making the first trip by a top US official to this country newly freed from the rule of the Taliban militia, met with the interim Prime Minister, Hamid Karzai, yesterday at an airfield bearing the scars of decades of
war. AP, AFP |
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Sikhs pray
for Sept 11 victims IT was an evening to remember in Washington. On Tuesday, December 11, three months to the day, after the September 11 tragedy, Sikh leadership of all ages from across the USA and Canada gathered under the dome of U.S. Capitol Building for the first annual “One Nation United Memorial Programme” sponsored by the Washington-based Sikh Council on Religion and Education. They came to remember, to pray and to stand together as a community. They were not alone. Senators, members of Congress, government officials and top leadership from commerce, labor and the interfaith communities turned out to show their support and solidarity. The lawmakers and Capitol Hill staffers represented both major American political parties attended the standing-room-only event. Some of the many luminaries included: Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Richard Durbin, Senator Jeff Bingaman, and Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. Also attending was Congressman J.D. Hayworth, whose district includes Mesa, Arizona , where Mr Balbir Singh Sodhi’s life was taken. A memorial service was held and tributes were paid to the victims of the September 11 attack and its aftermath, and Balbir Singh Sodhi, the first person to be killed after the September 11 tragedy in a Mesa, Arizona hate crime. His son and brother, were in attendance and participated in the solemn ceremony. In addition, fire fighter Bill King, a member of NYFD engine No. 6 was present and remembered his fallen comrades. |
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Jewish area attacked; Arafat ignored Jerusalem, December 17 The mortar round was fired at the settlement of Rafat Yam yesterday, but did not cause any injuries, the sources said. The attack came less than three hours after Arafat made a televised address vowing to crack down on extremists who refused to respect his order to observe a ceasefire with Israel, and accused them of giving Israel’s government an excuse to step up their military operations against his administration. “I am calling once again for a halt to all operations, particularly suicide attacks which we have always condemned,” Arafat said in his address marking the end of the holy Muslim month of Ramazan. He said such attacks served as a pretext for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to increase attacks on Palestinian territories and against his administration in particular. “I know what Sharon is aiming at,” he said, accusing the Israeli leader of wanting “an escalation of his war on our villages and towns, occupying our land, carrying out assassinations.” Israel cut off all contact with the Palestinian leader on Thursday, declaring him “irrelevant,” after a string of anti-Israeli attacks. Israel and the USA responded warily to Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s call for an end to suicide bombings and armed attacks on Israelis. The European Union took a more optimistic line, saying Arafat’s speech to the Palestinian people on Sunday — made under strong international pressure — appeared to open a new window of opportunity for ending some 15 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The White House said Arafat’s speech held “constructive words, but what’s important is that they be followed up by concrete action’’. GAZA CITY: Residents in Gaza City had little time for besieged palestinian leader yasser arafat’s appeal yesterday for an end to armed attacks against israel, vowing instead that the intifada must go on. His entreaties failed to win over Gaza residents, among the hardest hit during the near 15-month Intifada. Nasser, a teacher of French, said he did not believe that the speech from the man who embodied Palestinian nationalism would be heeded by his people. “No-one trusts him anymore, and more and more people think he works for the Israelis”, he said.
AFP, Reuters |
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PA split over PM’s offer Colombo, December 17 More then 20 MPs, including three former senior ministers, were reported to have decided to accept the premier’s offer despite PA’s executive committee rejection. Although the executive committee of the PA, that met on Saturday, decided not to accept the offer of the premier, the PA stalwarts such as former ministers Richard Pathirana and A.H.M. Fowzie have decided to accept the Cabinet portfolios in the UNF-led government. The PA faction favouring the national government was trying to persuade former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar to join the proposed government for finding a lasting solution to the ethnic conflict. According to sources, the two former ministers have strongly lobbied several newly elected MPs of the PA and other senior members to accept the offer.
UNI |
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N-reactor stormed Sydney, December 17 A four-wheel-drive vehicle was used to block gates while two trucks carrying about 30 protesters dressed as nuclear waste barrels, ran into the grounds of the Lucas Heights plant, Australia’s only nuclear reactor. A team of protesters scaled a radio tower and another group of six climbed to the top of the reactor facility. Greenpeace campaigner Stephen Campbell said activists were protesting against the safety of a proposed replacement nuclear reactor for Lucas Heights. “A new reactor is unnecessary,” Campbell said.
AFP |
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Self-defence
classes for UK clerics London, December 17 Research for the Manufacturing Science and Finance (MSF) union, which represents 1,500 clergy, showed seven out of 10 members had experienced some form of violence. “Most clergy receive no training at all in dealing with violent people so we are making a start with our own self-defence classes,” said Reverend Bill Ward, head of MSF’s clergy section.
AFP |
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