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Saturday,
December 29, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Al-Qaida remnants to be
‘wiped out in 4 days’
Sept 11 attack response to injustice: Laden |
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India, EU to join hands against terror WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Israel ends blockade of Bethlehem Man with explosives in shoes held Milosevic’s daughter on trial
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Al-Qaida remnants to be
‘wiped out in 4 days’ Kabul, December 28 “The Americans should not stop their bombardment until we have advised them to do so,” said Mr Mohammad Habeel, a spokesman for Defence Minister Mohammad Fahim. “After Tora Bora there has been no massive resistance in front of our ground troops and the US Air Force. “I hope this scattered resistance also will finish in three or four days time,” he said. In the meantime, a spokesman for the US diplomatic mission in Kabul said it had received no request from Afghanistan’s interim government to stop bombing the country. Asked if any request had been made of the diplomatic mission, he replied: “No”. Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Mohammad Habeel had said earlier that Afghanistan was demanding the USA halt its bombing, possibly within days. The US diplomatic spokesman added that he knew of no request made through any other channels. “(I am) unaware of any communication by the Afghan interim government conveying that viewpoint,” the US spokesman, told newsmen. Meanwhile, four rockets struck an Afghan army base in Jalalabad in the first such attack since the eastern city fell to anti-Taliban forces last month, the Afghan Islamic Press said. Quoting unnamed sources, it said no one was injured in the attack yesterday. WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has chosen a US Navy base in Cuba to hold Taliban and Al-Qaida prisoners after they are removed from Afghanistan, Defence Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said. Rumsfeld said the military had made no plans to hold military tribunals at the Guantanamo Bay base. US President George W Bush has authorised military tribunals to try terrorist suspects from other countries, but Defence officials said yesterday Rumsfeld had not decided how, where or even if those tribunals would take place. The base, which the United States of America has held since 1903, is near the US mainland and highly secure. The Cuban military prohibits all access to areas around the base, and the US military patrols its side from behind tall fences topped with razor wire. Guantanamo Bay has drawbacks, too, including its location surrounded on three sides by an island governed by Fidel Castro, who has criticised the US campaign in Afghanistan. But “we don’t anticipate any trouble with Mr Castro in that regard,” Rumsfeld told a news conference. MANILA: A Jordanian man believed to be a member of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida network has been arrested in the Philippines and bomb-making materials seized from his apartment, the police said today. The man, identified as Hadji Yousef Alghoul, was arrested yesterday in Balanga in Bataan province after a three-month surveillance operation carried out with the help of US intelligence operatives, they said.
AFP, Reuters, AP |
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Sept 11 attack response to injustice: Laden Doha, December 28 “Three months after the blessed strikes against world atheism and its leader, America, and around two months after the fierce crusade against the Islam, we must review the impact of these events.” “The latest events have proved important truths. It has become clear that the West in general, and America in particular, has an unspeakable hatred for the Islam. “Those who lived under continuous US raids for the past months are aware of it. How many villages have been destroyed and how many millions (of people) have been pushed out in the freezing cold? “Had America had irrefutable evidence that those who perpetrated this act (the September 11 attacks) were European, such as the Irish (Republican) Army, for instance, it would have had many ways of solving the problem. But on a mere suspicion pointing to the Islamic world, the crusader’s hatred of the Muslim world showed its ugly face.” “Those who stood by the oppressed cannot conceivably kill innocent people, as is being claimed. America used to support all those who fought against the Russians (in Afghanistan), but when the Arab mujahideen stood by the oppressed in Palestine, those innocent children, America was angered and turned against all those who fought in Afghanistan. “Who will deter Israel from killing our children in Tabuk and Al-Jawf (in Saudi Arabia) and the nearby regions in the future? What will the rulers do if Israel ... says that its borders extend to (the Saudi holy city of) Medina? “The events of September 11 were no more than a reaction to the continuous injustice being inflicted on our sons in Palestine, Iraq, Somalia, southern Sudan... and elsewhere.” “Those who perpetrated (the September 11 attacks) were not 19 Arab states. The armies and ministries of the Arab states, which have got used to submissiveness and to the injustice inflicted on us in Palestine and elsewhere, did not move. “They were 19 high school students who shook the American empire, hit the US economy where it hurts, and hit the mightiest military power.” “They gave a harsh lesson to these arrogant peoples, for whom freedom is but for the white race — as to the other people, they must remain humiliated — and who applaud their leaders when they hit us, as happened in Iraq. “Our struggle does not differ from that of our brethren in Palestine, like Hamas. We struggle for the glory of God and in order to end the injustice inflicted on the oppressed in Palestine and elsewhere. “This is the most dangerous and fiercest crusade against the Islam, (but) God willing, America’s end is near. Its end does not depend on whether Osama is killed or remains alive, because this is a time of revival. “Fifteen youths came from the land of the two holy mosques (Saudi Arabia), we pray God to accept them as martyrs...Two from the (United Arab) Emirates, another — Ziad al-Jarrah — from the Levant, and the other — Mohammad Atta — from Egypt. “I stress the importance of carrying on jehad (holy war) against America militarily and economically. America is in decline... the economic drain is continuing but more strikes are required and the youths must strike the key sectors of the American economy. “Let me conclude by (reciting a poem in praise of) those heroes who came from the land of Hijaz (Saudi Arabia), the land of faith... from Najd and from... Mecca, Salem and Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khaled al-Mehdar, and those who came from Medina, who gave up this earth for the sake of God.”
AFP |
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Afghans want US bombing stopped Washington/Kabul, December 28 Washington also risked fading resolve from its crucial ally Pakistan, whose attention has turned to a worsening crisis with India over the disputed Kashmir province. The USA pulled diplomatic strings and urged the nuclear rivals to step back from a standoff triggered by December 13 suicide attack on India’s Parliament. Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry said Bin Laden had escaped to Pakistan with nearly all his al-Qaida fighters to seek shelter with allies there, rendering further US bombing pointless. “Their remaining forces are few in number and may be annihilated in a maximum of three days. Once this is done there is no need for continuation of the bombing,’’ Ministry spokesman Mohammad Habeel told Reuters. “We demand America stop its bombing of Afghanistan after this goal is achieved.’’ Washington : The Pentagon declined on Friday to rule out airstrikes against targets in Afghanistan despite an apparent request from the country’s new Defence Ministry to wind up bombing, possibly within days. “We have very seldom ruled out anything,’’ Mrs Victoria Clarke, chief Defence Department spokeswoman, told reporters when asked about the request. “And we will do what it takes to achieve what it is we’re trying to achieve.”
Reuters |
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India, EU to join hands against terror Brussels, December 28 Describing the India-EU Summit’s joint declaration against international terrorism as a “milestone,” he said such declarations had been made in the past by “individual EU states, but for the EU as a whole this was a new phenomenon.” No similar, joint declaration had been issued at the conclusion of the recent summit meetings between the EU and China, Russia and Japan, he said in an interview. In their declaration, adopted in New Delhi on November 23, at the conclusion of the second India-EU Summit, India and the EU “affirm that international terrorism is a threat to peace and security.” They point out that “open, democratic and multicultural societies are specially vulnerable to terrorist attacks,” and “support the fight against international terrorism, wherever it occurs and regardless of its motives.” Ambassador P.K. Singh noted that the India-EU working group on terrorism had held its second meeting just before the New Delhi Summit. During the meeting security agencies had exchanged information, thus putting “both sides in a better position to tackle any new terrorist threats.” Summit came “at a very critical time in the growth of terrorism” and was “highly successful,” he said. The Summit Joint Communique implicitly “recognised that the West had not been as sensitive to terrorism in other parts of the world as it might have been,” P.K. Singh added. PTI |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN IN the midst of chaos there are a few cool and realistic thinkers in Pakistan who do not hesitate to advise the Pervez Musharraf regime to abandon its
jehad (militancy)-based Kashmir policy in the country’s interest. They see a catastrophic impact on Pakistan if it is not undismantled. Their fears are based on what has happened in Afghanistan where the ISI’s brainchild, the Taliban, had created a condition which could have led to Pakistan’s ruin. Islamabad quickly disowned the Afghan Frankenstein, though under intense American pressure, and joined in the international efforts to put it to sleep permanently before it could devour its creator. But one can be lucky once, not always. Those who are worried about the course Pakistan has adopted unrealistically in pursuit of its false objective in Kashmir have in mind the military regime’s expectations emanating from its forced cooperation with the US-led anti-terrorism coalition in the campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network. According to the editor of Urdu daily Ausaaf, Mr Hamid Mir, the Musharraf regime strongly believed that the U-turn in its Afghan policy would enable it to pursue its militancy-based Kashmir policy which was seen “paying dividends”. But one fails to understand how Islamabad’s strategic analysts ignored the well-known truth that America could go to any extent to protect its interests. Once the USA establishes its foothold in the region, it may do everything possible to cripple religious militancy, the mainstay of Pakistan’s Kashmir policy but highly dangerous for American interests. In fact, it should have started such a move at this stage itself. The December 13 terrorist attack on Parliament House in New Delhi and the heightened diplomatic pressure from India have provided the right opportunity to Washington to warn Islamabad that it is time to say goodbye to militancy as an instrument of state policy. That it is a herculean task to dismantle the awesome jehadi industry is not America’s problem. General Musharraf cannot afford to go against the wishes of Uncle Sam under the circumstances. A strong campaign against the jehadi networks suits Pakistan as much as the USA. This has been crisply explained by Friday Times Editor Najam Sethi in his latest column: “Let us admit it. After Afghanistan, our (Pakistan’s) biggest foreign policy failure is in Kashmir. From 1947 to 1965 we beseeched the UN to grant us Kashmir in vain. We then tried to stir revolt in the valley and triggered a destabilising war with India. After 1971 we buried the Kashmir issue at Shimla and forgot about the UN resolutions abroad. We then woke up in the 1990s to foment trouble in Kashmir after New Delhi had made a mess of things in the 1980s. In the last 10 years we have exported an Islamic revolution to Kashmir ... “We have undermined civil society and democratic pluralism by relinquishing political space to extremist jehadi organisations. We have piled up debt in order to fuel the cold war with India and scared away potential foreign investors... Now we are being pushed into a conflict with India by the very extremists who have already dashed our hopes in Afghanistan. Isn’t it time to change a policy of perennial warring with India into a policy of enduring peace with our neighbour?” But that will mean reining in the ISI because of its “primacy in determining Pakistan’s national security agenda”. This is a tricky job, according to Aamer Ahmed Khan who has done a well-researched article for The Herald magazine’s December issue. The writer quotes former Army Chief Jehangir Karamat to emphasise the point that “capping the ISI” will amount to conceding “a position of military advantage — a position that the army believes it currently enjoys in Kashmir — for diplomatic gains that may lie some time in the future.” In Mr Khan’s opinion, “Pulling in the ISI, therefore, may require a fundamental shift in the army’s attitude towards the political class. Leading Pakistani politicians argue that the post-September 11 situation has made such a change inevitable. “ According to an unnamed seasoned observer, there is, therefore, “the need to coopt the civilian leadership in key decision-making areas”. The military government will appear to be serious in this regard only if it takes the necessary measures to create a conducive atmosphere — launching an effective drive against “the plethora of militant organisations that dot the country’s political landscape” and have the capacity to hijack Pakistan’s national agenda. |
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Israel ends blockade of Bethlehem Jerusalem, December 28 The intention was to make it easier for Christian pilgrims and Palestinians to travel to the city during the Christmas holidays, the statement said. The Orthodox Christmas festival takes place on January 7. Almost half of all Christians in the Holy Land belong to the Greek Orthodox church. But Israel Radio said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat would continue to be prevented from entering Bethlehem. The Israeli Government banned Mr Arafat from going to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve to take part in the traditional midnight mass. Mr Arafat has been confined to the West Bank city of Ramallah since the Israeli forces destroyed his fleet of helicopters. Israel has said Mr Arafat has not gone far enough in reining in militants behind a wave of suicide attacks. Mr Arafat, under international pressure, has arrested more than 100 militants and shut some of their offices. Palestinian security sources said yesterday that the police shut down two Hamas workshops used to make mortars in the Gaza Strip. Israeli forces arrested eight suspected militants from the Muslim militant group in a raid in Hebron as they came under fire from Palestinian gunmen. No casualties were reported in the operation the army said aimed to “frustrate terror activity”.
DPA, Reuters |
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Man with explosives in shoes held San Antonio, December 28 The man was detained yesterday for questioning for about two hours after the material was detected in a random security check as he attempted to board a plane. There was no arrest and the man’s name and nationality were not released, airport spokeswoman Lara Uselding said. He is not, however, a US citizen, she said. Officials randomly selected the man at a security checkpoint and wiped his shoes, baggage and clothes with a swab that was sent through an explosive-detection scanner, Ms Uselding said.
AP |
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Milosevic’s daughter on trial Belgrade, December 28 Marija Milosevic, born in 1964, was in Belgrade municipal court as the trial began, it said. Witnesses said she had angrily fired five pistol shots as Milosevic, the ousted Yugoslav President, was escorted from his villa after a 36-hour standoff involving his security guards. Media said bullets hit the car of a government negotiator who had persuaded Milosevic to surrender on charges of corruption and abuse of office.
Reuters |
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Afghanistan's
new Education Minister vows to revive education in the
war-ravaged country.
(
After
five years of Taliban rule, when the burqa shrouded women and
tailors were not allowed to measure female clients, Kabul's
fashion industry has been reborn.
