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Friday,
December 21, 2001, Chandigarh, India 
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NEWS ANALYSIS |
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ISI
detains Taliban’s security chief
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Saudi
princess held for theft
Maoists
attack Nepal minister’s residence
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Don’t expand war to Iraq, Annan warns USA United Nations, December 20 But simultaneously, the world body was critical of Iraq too, pointing out that it had made no movement to allow UN weapons inspectors back into the country and urged it to allow them in as demanded by the Security Council. Media reports have often said Iraq President Saddam Hussein might still be trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. The inspectors are expected to ensure that he does not do so and set up a monitoring system. A report by them that Iraq does not possess the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction and does not have them is a key condition to lift the more than decade-old sanctions against it. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, replying to questions at his year-end press conference, said he had indicated on several occasions that it would be “unwise” to attack Iraq now. “I have not seen any evidence linking Iraq to what happened on September 11. Of course, any attempt to do that can exacerbate the situation and raise tension in a region that is already under strain because of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” At the same time, he said, Iraq had to begin responding to the Security Council’s resolutions and allow inspectors to go back into the country. “When I saw the Iraq Foreign Minister here during the general debate, he repeated the Iraqi position and had nothing new to tell me. But I think there is pressure on Iraq to respond to the council’s request to return the inspectors,” Mr Annan said. To a question, he said the discussion about extending the war on terrorism was going on outside the USA and the Security Council. “This is not a Security Council decision, such as that concerning the Afghan operations or the decision to bring the Al-Qaida to justice. This is the discussion that is taking place mainly in Washington and of course other governments have also taken part,” he added. “I have indicated that I think in the longer term, on a broad basis, we need to focus on using resolutions that the Security Council has passed,” he said. “Obviously, if we were to get into a situation where it became apparent that the perpetrators being sought out in Afghanistan had moved from Afghanistan to country X, what the reaction should be is a bridge that we will have to cross when we get there. I do not know what action the council will take and how it will react, but I prefer to cross that bridge when we get there rather than speculate.”
PTI |
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NEWS ANALYSIS WHEN Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf condemned the terrorist attack on the Parliament House in New Delhi on December 13, his military spokesman Maj-Gen Rashid Qureshi sought to trivialise this tragedy by suggesting that India itself might have stage-managed it. He did not stop at this: he offered a joint enquiry into India’s charge that the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad with the backing of the ISI were behind this incident. And, lastly, he asked for proof of these two organisations’ involvement in the December 13 felony just as Taliban leader Mullah Omar had been asking the USA to prove
Osama bin Laden’s role in the 1998 bombing of its two embassies in East Africa and then in the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on September 11. This kind of reaction shocked and disillusioned Indians, especially a large section of the intelligentsia, who had been watching with great admiration General Musharraf’s steps to rein in the activities of terrorists who called themselves jehadis. His government first banned the display of arms in public; seized unauthorised arms; banned public collection of funds for jehad; promulgated an ordinance to streamline madarsas; arrested top leaders of politico-religious parties who opposed the USA-led operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and froze the accounts of militant organisations, including Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad, because the USA considered them terrorist outfits. The Indian intelligentsia was under the impression that by joining the US-led international coalition against global terrorism General Musharraf had found a great opportunity to rid his country of the menace of terrorism and of the so-called jehadi organisations which have been posing the greatest threat to Pakistan’s political and emotional stability besides giving that country a bad image abroad. In India there is no doubt about General Musharraf’s sincerity about this goal. But at times our assessments about Pakistan are emotional. We have to clearly understand the psyche and compulsions of Pakistani rulers, especially the military rulers who must have an enemy next door for their self-sustenance. For the past more than 50 years school children have been taught that India is Pakistan’s eternal (azali) enemy. Strategists like former ISI chief Hamid Gul openly say this image of India is essential for Pakistan’s integrity and survival. The September 11 incidents and Pakistan’s subsequent support for the war against global terrorism should have brought India and Pakistan closer to each other. But no. When Pakistan agreed to support the international coalition India expressed its happiness. But in his September 19 address to the nation, General Musharraf made India a special target of attack. Subsequently, he said he joined the global coalition for the sake of Kashmir. This was clearly an assurance to jehadi groups active in Kashmir that anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan would not affect their activities. Thus, during the post-September 11 period Pakistan started treating jehad in Afghanistan and elsewhere as terrorism but not so in Kashmir. The Pakistan government disowned hundreds of Pakistanis from Sindh, Punjab and the Frontier Province who went for jehad to Afghanistan against the USA. But it welcomes jehadis in Kashmir and calls them “freedom fighters” in an attempt to confuse the world public opinion about terrorism and freedom struggle. Reports from Pakistan say that the military government wants jehadi groups to move to the occupied Kashmir to launch their activities from there instead of from the soil of Pakistan. This is a half clever move because after the September 11 tragedy the world knows more about Pakistan’s role in terrorism than India can talk about. This is clear from the large-scale arrest of Pakistanis in the USA. There are about 1,500 Pakistanis under detention in the USA alone. The October 1 attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly building and the December 13 incident both prove that anti-India terrorists are not affected by Pakistan’s commitment to the international coalition. Recent radio discussions show that Pakistani scholars and experts are worried about their government’s dual policy on terrorism. Pakistan cannot be free of the menace of terrorism if the government in Islamabad continues to support jehad in Kashmir, they say. |
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Pak media pats Musharraf Islamabad, December 20 “Pakistan has done well to remind the world the recent Indian accusations against Islamabad lacked credibility because they are motivated by animus and hostility,” Pakistan daily Dawn said in its editorial today. “It is now becoming increasingly clear that New Delhi is interested more in creating anti-Pakistan hysteria than in establishing the truth behind the attack. What is laughable is that India began involving Pakistan in the attack even before preliminary investigations had begun,” it said. In contrast, it said Pakistan reacted with sober attitude “characterised by self-confidence stemming from justness of its position”.
PTI |
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ISI detains Taliban’s
security chief
Chaman (Pakistan), December 20 A reporter saw plainclothes personnel pick up Aminullah Amin, formerly in charge of security in the border town of Spin Boldak and the southern frontier, in the dusty Pakistani market town of Chaman yesterday. ISLAMABAD:
Two Arab fighters and a Pakistani police official were killed on Thursday in the hunt for suspected al-Qaida fighters who escaped from Pakistani custody, an Interior Ministry official said. KABUL:
All armed fighters, apart from specially deployed police and soldiers, have been ordered off the streets of Kabul with immediate effect, a defence ministry official said today. The order was part of security measures ahead of the inauguration of the interim government. “The security commission has approved an order that no armed persons can walk on the streets and that they should go back to barracks,” a spokesman said. ABU DHABI: Osama bin Laden is not in Afghanistan, said a spokesman for Pashtun field commander Mohammad Zaman, whose detachments were engaged in two-week military action in Tora Bora, a fortified district in the Spinghar mountains, southeastern Afghanistan. Reiterating this statement in Kabul, Mohammad Qassem Fahim, Defence Minister for the Afghan provisional government, said today that Bin Laden and his entourage had probably escaped to Pakistan, Ria Novosti reports. TORA BORA (Afghanistan):
US military planes returned to the skies over Osama bin Laden’s former hideout in eastern Afghanistan as military investigators went through the
al-Qaida’s deserted caves below. For the second day in a row a B-52 bomber flew in circles over the Tora Bora mountain where the al-Qaida leader had a network of caves and tunnels now being investigated by the US and Afghan forces. SANA’A:
Security forces continued to comb eastern Yemen on Thursday for fighters from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network as the death toll reached 22, all but four from the government side, a military official said. Among the 18 soldiers killed in Tuesday’s battle was Maj Saleh
Mulfi, a senior officer in the elite Republican Guard, said the official who asked not to be named.
Reuters, AFP, AP, UNI |
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Emergency
in Argentina Buenos
aires, December 20 A government official, requesting anonymity, said Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo had offered his resignation. News reports said Mr Rua’s entire Cabinet also offered to step down. There was no official confirmation. Meanwhile, the riot police fired tear-gas to disperse tens of thousands of angry Argentines who gathered outside the Casa Rosada government house in a spontaneous outburst against the government’s handling of the economy. Thousands more stood on their balconies or hung out their windows, clanking pots and pans. Hours earlier, Mr Rua defended his emergency decree in a nationally televised address, saying that it was needed to quell unrest that convulsed much of the capital, Buenos Aires, and many of Argentina’s largest cities. The development followed a Cabinet meeting called by Mr Rua to respond to the frenzied violence. Six persons died, some from gunshot wounds, and more than 100 were reported injured during yesterday’s violence, which marked a troubling new chapter in the crisis that has tormented Argentina for four years. Authorities reported more than 320 arrests.
AP |
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Saudi princess held for theft Washington, December 20 The maid of Princess Buniah al-Saud, a 41-year-old niece of Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, said her employer beat her up, smashed her head against a wall and pushed her down a flight of stairs in their apartment. Neighbours called the police after the maid, Memet Ismiyati, came crying and injured from the building, according to a BBC news report. After being arrested and held for one night in prison, the princess was released on a bail of $ 5,000 and ordered to surrender her passport. She is being charged with aggravated battery, which can carry a 15-year prison sentence, as well as theft and dealing in stolen property. The police said several items, including a large-screen television, were missing from the apartment, which was leased to the princess by her chauffeur Mohammed El Biyadi. The goods were later found in the homes of neighbours, who told the police they had bought them from Princess Buniah. “Apparently the princess had sold pretty much all contents of that apartment,” said police spokesman Jim Solomons. “She was, in fact, planning to leave the country.” The princess, who denies the charges, spent her night in prison at Orange County Jail. According to the US Immigration Services, the princess is not entitled to diplomatic immunity because she was not in the country fulfilling a diplomatic function.
IANS |
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Israel pulls out of West Bank areas Nablus (West Bank), December 20 The troops abandoned positions at two military posts and left four Palestinian houses they had taken over, but remained at one post in a Palestinian-ruled area southwest of Nablus, officials said. Israel offered on Wednesday to loosen its military grip on Nablus, the biggest Palestinian city in the West Bank, to give Palestinian President Yasser Arafat an incentive to crack down on militants after almost 15 months of Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israeli tanks also pulled out from two areas in the Palestinian-ruled city of Ramallah in the West Bank. JERUSALEM: The Palestinian police and gunmen clashed today in the Gaza Strip, injuring five persons, when the police tried to arrest a leader of the militant group Hamas as part of a crackdown. The fighting came hours after Palestinian and Israeli security commanders resumed coordination meetings in a sign that Israel was softening its policy of breaking off contact with the Palestinian Authority after a string of attacks. Also, for the first time, the Palestinian Authority announced that 15 members of its security service had been detained for defying Mr Yasser Arafat’s order to stop attacks against Israel. Security officials said they belonged to groups affiliated with Mr Arafat’s Fatah.
Reuters, AP |
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Maoists
attack Nepal minister’s residence Kathmandu, December 20 Minister of State for Water Resources Narayan Sharma Paudyal’s house at Gunjanagar, Chitwan, was totally destroyed in the explosion which occurred at around 10 pm last night, the radio said. Details about the incident and the loss of life and property were not immediately known. After the mobilisation of the army since the declaration of the emergency on November 26, the Maoists have targeted Nepali Congress leaders and workers. The Maoists had also attacked the vehicle of a Nepali Congress leader Lila Koirala in Janakpur but no one was hurt in that incident. Meanwhile, Maoist Palpa district commander was killed by the army in Koldanda yesterday.
UNI |
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The
New York Police Department has released a video footage of
(
Defence
