US suspects Osama supporting Chechens

Frontier Post

From JEHANGIR KHATTAK
NEW YORK __ The United States has said that billionaire Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden has played a role in the Chechnya war.
"A link we do believe exists between outside terrorist groups, including Osama and some of the terrorist activities that have occurred in the Russian Federation and by some of the forces operating in Chechnya and Ingushetiya," State Department spokesman James B. Foley told a press briefing in Washington on Wednesday.
He did not elaborate as to what kind of role Osama had played in the Chechen war.
In recent days the Russian intelligence has produced "evidence" that Osama has, in fact, played a role in promoting "trouble" in the Northern Caucasus. The State Department official's comment was seen as an endorsement of the Russian intelligence reports. 
Foley said sanctions aganist Afghanistan, which has been giving refuge to the Saudi dissident since 1996, would stay in force till the time the Taliban rulers handed over Osama to the United States or a third country for trial on terrorism charges.
"We have a separate problem with the Taliban authorities. That's not simply an American problem. It was enshrined in the Security Council resolution that Afghanistan is harboring a wanted international criminal and terrorist and must render him to a country that can bring him to justice, or will continue to face sanctions. These sanctions have been very carefully tailored so that they do not penalise the already suffering people of Afghanistan.
"They are directed at the Taliban, at its assets and at its airline," Foley remarked when a correspondent asked him as to what was the US really doing to stop the war and the atrocities against women in Afghanistan.
"It's a problem that disturbs us greatly, the plight of the people of Afghanistan, the plight of women and children in Afghanistan," he said adding: "We have a whole series of problems or of criticisms of the way the Taliban do business in Afghanistan, including and notably their treatment of women and a whole wide range of human rights violations." He said the people of Afghanistan themselves were victims of this situation __ "..victims of the Taliban, victims of a political situation that has not yielded a willingness on the part of the different factions to deal with each other seriously, negotiate with each other."
He said Washington supported the United Nations efforts to promote a broad-based coalition in Afghanistan that could lift the people of Afghanistan out of their plight.