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Thursday,
December 27, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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US troops
prepare for fresh thrust into caves
China counsels India, Pak to talk
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Al-Qaida
men keep siege of hospital Kabul, December 26 Arab militants, believed to be members of the Al-Qaida network, remained barricaded today with weapons and explosives in a hospital in the southern city of Kandahar, a local official said. The Arabs, who occupy the female section of Mirwais Hospital, have threatened to blow themselves up if attacked, an intelligence officer in the provincial government told newsmen by satellite telephone.
Canadian on US most-wanted list
Nepal to
open 103 peaks for tourists Israeli, 2 Arab
gunmen shot on Jordan border
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US troops prepare for
fresh thrust into caves Kabul/Washington, December 26 Yet whether he is alive or dead — as Western officials say he may be — fear of new threats emerging since the USA declared its “war on terrorism” cast a cloud over Christmas holidays many hoped to enjoy as an antidote to the shock of the September 11 attacks. President George W. Bush headed for his Texas ranch for next week’s New Year festivities and to recharge his batteries for what he has said will be a “war year” in 2002. Though his motives were unclear, media reports on Wednesday said that the man who allegedly tried to blow up a transatlantic airliner on Saturday with explosives concealed in his shoes was a Londoner who converted to Islam and who, U.S. investigators believed, could be part of a wider plot. Air travellers now face security checks on their footwear. Elsewhere, Yemen expanded a week-old search for suspected backers of Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network, which the USA accuses of mounting the September 11 attacks which killed 3,000 people. And Somali leaders denied their war-divided country, where Saudi-born bin Laden once lived, was a haven for Al-Qaida militants. Somalia is one of a number of states that have been named as possible new targets for US action in its campaign. Iraq, another potential target, said its Foreign Minister would visit its neighbour Iran early next year to discuss putting the legacy of a ruinous war in the 1980s behind them. The chief of NATO ally Turkey’s general staff warned that any US action against Iraq would create wider problems for Ankara. It could encourage Kurds in northern Iraq to set up a separate state that might abet Kurdish rebels inside Turkey. “Operations are imminent”, one US defence official said in Washington on Monday of plans to search the caves and tunnels of eastern Afghanistan that were once Bin Laden’s stronghold. The US Central Command had said yesterday plans were still in hand for a fresh thrust into the caves. But by Wednesday a Christmas pause appeared still to be in effect. One option in Tora Bora is to use experimental “thermobaric” bombs to blast the air out of the underground mountain warrens, suffocating anyone still holed up inside. In Afghanistan, the country’s new interim leader, Hamid Karzai, pressed on with the task of extending his authority across a fractious nation shattered by war. His government, set up by a UN peace deal, met for the second time on Wednesday. In a signal of confidence, Afghan refugees started returning in numbers from Quetta and other Pakistani areas through the border town of Chaman, many of them buying televisions — banned by Bin Laden’s Taliban protectors — at markets on the way. A Pakistani official said 800 families crossed on Tuesday. Security was tight around the Cabinet meeting in the Presidential Palace in the heart of Kabul and few details were available. “The Cabinet meeting discussed security,” said one Defence Ministry official tersely. Security is a prerequisite for a government that must grow food in a land ravaged by three years of drought, where women have no jobs, children barely receive an education, 16 out of every 100 babies die at birth and life expectancy is just 43. Karzai, sworn in on Saturday following the demise of Bin Laden’s Taliban protectors, has said US forces may remain in Afghanistan for as long as it takes to find him. Karzai has moved quickly to establish support for his 30-member cabinet, whose challenge lies in building consensus in a country where years of war has fractured a devastated land into a patchwork of areas run by ethnic warlords and tribal barons. In the Pakistani border town of Parachinar, a frozen body found in mountains on the Afghan-Pakistani border and buried on Monday carried French identification documents, and was believed to an Al-Qaida fighter. Reuters Television showed the body, as well as a French identity card in the name of Herve Djamel Loiseau, a French passport, an air ticket from London to Lahore dated March 11, 2000, and Pakistani and Afghan banknotes, all found on the body.
Reuters
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China counsels India, Pak to talk Beijing, December 26 “We have paid attention to concerned reports. We appeal to the concerned sides to exercise restraint and maintain calm, from the point of view of protecting the overall peace and stability in South Asia,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue told PTI here. “We also urge the concerned sides to hold peaceful talks and dialogue for solving the long standing disputes,” Ms Qiyue said. Asked to comment on India’s recent decision to recall its High Commissioner to Pakistan as a sign of protest against Pakistan for not taking comprehensive action against Pakistan-based terrorist groups involved in the attack on Parliament, Zhang said China had also taken note of this development. “We have paid attention to concerned reports,” she said. China was consistently concerned with the development of the situation and hoped that both India and Pakistan could exercise restraint and protect the overall peace and stability in South Asia, Zhang said separately.
PTI |
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Shun hostility: Kabul
Kabul, December 26 Indirectly referring to the Kashmir issue, Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said. "The issue cannot be resolved by force. It is a matter between the two countries and we want the issue to be solved in a peaceful and non-violent manner." Asked whether the present government recognised the Durand line as the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said: "It is a dispute but the interim government will not raise it. The government that will be constituted after Loya Jirga would take a decision on it."
PTI |
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UK pressures Pak to find terrorist London, December 26 The British are piling on pressure on Pakistan along with Washington to act against the three terrorists released after the hijack of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 in December 1999. The move is reported to have led to the detention of Masood Azhar, another terrorist released after the hijack. Azhar is said to have been detained December 25. The strong action taken by the Pakistani authorities against Azhar follows what an official in London described as “serious arm-twisting” of the Pakistani government through diplomatic channels. The British Government is particularly keen to pursue Sheikh Syed, once a student at the London School of Economics. He is the most wanted of the three terrorists released after the hijack following reports that he was a core member of a group that despatched $100,000 to Mohammed Atta, the suspected ringleader in the September 11 attacks. The British are keen on pursuing Sheikh Syed to interrogate him on the network in Britain that has been supporting terrorist acts abroad. “These operations are under strict watch now and Sheikh Syed would be a key figure who could point to networks in Britain,” an Indian official liaising with the British authorities told IANS. Syed is now seen as a senior and influential leader within Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network.
IANS |
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Al-Qaida men
keep siege of hospital Kabul, December 26 They are only allowing an Afghan doctor into the ward to treat their wounds. He said there had been no negotiations with the militants because they were not willing to talk. “We are waiting for them to consume all their food and whatever else they have in a few days — after that they will definitely surrender,” he said.
AFP |
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Canadian
on
US most-wanted list Washington, December 26 The list, circulated in recent days by an anti-Taliban militia in Jalalabad, named nine Arabs — five Saudi-born and four Egyptian-born — as the most wanted Al Qaida members, the Peshawar, Pakistan-datelined report said. The final name was that of Ahmad Sa’id al-Kadr or Abu Abdurrahman, 53, an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen who operated Afghanistan operations of Human Concern International, a Canadian-headquartered charity, the Post said.
Reuters |
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Bush fires mar Australians’ Xmas Sydney, December 26 There were no reports of death or serious injury although dozens of firefighters have been treated for smoke inhalation and irritated eyes. The New South Wales state government declared disaster areas in regions to the West and North of the country’s main city Sydney and near the coast where the worst of the fires are located. A line of fire stretches almost unbroken along a 25-km (16-mile) front some 15 km (9 miles) from Sydney’s southern suburbs. Acting premier Andrew Refshauge said the areas were likely to be expanded with fire authorities expecting the crisis to continue for up to 10 days. More than 100 fires across New South Wales closed road and rail links and brought down powerlines leaving around 12,000 properties without electricity. Rural Fire Service spokesman John Winter, estimating between 60 and 80 properties had been destroyed. The fires began two weeks ago with lightning strikes in remote areas but officials say the fires were spread in some cases by arson. NSW Rural Fire Commissioner Phil Koperberg said some progress had been made in tracking those responsible. More than 5,000 firemen and volunteers were today battling bushfires that threatened to encircle Sydney and Canberra. Mr Koperberg said a slight respite in the weather was expected tomorrow but conditions would worsen by Friday or Saturday. Prime Minister John Howard pledged to throw military resources into the battle. Meanwhile, Australians celebrated Christmas with extreme weather from searing heat in the outback and crocodile-infested tropical North, raging bushfires down the east coast to snow and hail on the southern island of Tasmania. “Australia’s climate is one of extremes, parts bake and other parts in the South freeze, that’s summer in Australia,” Stan Ciach, senior meteorologist with the National Meteorology and Oceanographic Centre, said today. While no lives have been lost in the fires, an estimated 5,000 sheep were killed in one massive blaze which burnt 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) in the west of the state. Some Sydney residents returned to their smouldering homes — twisted heaps of metal and charred timber — to salvage what they could after fleeing their christmas day celebrations. In the southern state of Victoria, a hail storm tore roofs off houses on Christmas Day and caused millions of dollars worth of damage to the state’s vegetable farms.
Reuters, AFP |
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Nepal to open 103
peaks for tourists Kathmandu, December 26 A Tourism Ministry official said the move followed similar moves by India, Pakistan and China. “India and Pakistan have opened up new peaks to attract adventure tourists and China too has opened border peaks in Tibet to foreigners. If Nepal does not open new peaks, adventurers will go to these countries,” the official said. The 103 peaks, which take the total number of mountains opened to expeditions to 263, are all below 8,000 meters. Of the 160 peaks previously opened to climbers, the Nepal Mountaineering Association had scaled only 18 peaks. Nine new peaks were opened to climbers in spring this year and 18 in 1998 coinciding with the Visit Nepal Year. But this year, despite the government’s attempts to boost tourism, no Indian expedition team applied to climb any snow-capped mountain in Nepal. And to make matters worse, for the first time in 28 years, no expedition team showed an interest in climbing the Mount Everest, the world’s highest
peak. IANS |
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Israeli, 2 Arab gunmen shot on Jordan border Jerusalem, December 26 Israel also lifted its suffocating blockade of the West Bank town of Jericho late yeseterday, opening a checkpoint in the south of the city which had stopped residents from travelling to Jerusalem. In a further encouraging sign, the Palestinian leaders lip-voted to continue high-level talks with Israel despite the Jewish state declaring Arafat “confined to quarters” in Ramallah till he rids the West Bank town of “terrorists.” It said a routine patrol in the area, where Israeli farmers also lease land on the Jordanian side of the border, was ambushed on the Israeli side of the border, leaving two soldiers wounded. It said the fire came from within Israel.
AFP |
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Refugees block tunnel entrance Calais, France, December 26 The British police, which joined the hunt with sniffer dogs, said the French guards had tracked down and detained all refugees. “None of them got into Britain,” said a police spokesman, adding that the tunnel was due to reopen. No one was injured in the incident, the latest in a long-running series of attempts by refugees to reach Britain where they believed they would win permanent entry and a better life. Train traffic through the tunnel dries up on Christmas Day, which would have given the refugees a better chance of walking 40 or 50 km through it undetected. The refugees detained by the French authorities were taken to the Red Cross centre in nearby Sangatte to join about 1,000 other illegal immigrants housed there.
Reuters |
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5 crewmen
inhale toxic fumes, die Kuala Lumpur, Dec 26 |
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8 get death sentence Hong Kong, December 26 |
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