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Afghan government says al Qaeda still active in south By Sayed Salahuddin
Thursday December 27, 2:31 AM
KABUL (Reuters) - Al Qaeda fighters are still active in Afghanistan, fuelling the troubles of a land where guns are rife, banditry is on the rise and Osama bin Laden is still at large.
Bin Laden's al Qaeda militants are still operating in pockets of southern Afghanistan and U.S. troops would stay until they are destroyed, the new interim government's Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, said on Wednesday.
But details of a foreign security force were still under negotiation, he said.
Ending the mystery over the whereabouts of the Saudi-born millionaire fugitive remains the goal of rising numbers of U.S. forces deployed in the rugged, landlocked country, and the United States has urged anti-Taliban fighters to join the hunt.
Bin Laden's disappearance and the vanishing act by the leaders of the ousted Taliban who protected him are added complications in a country plagued by rivalries forged during more than two decades of war.
"In some of the southern parts of Afghanistan, in Paktia province, we believe there are still pockets of al Qaeda," Abdullah told a news conference, adding that some al Qaeda forces were active around the former Taliban stronghold, Kandahar.
American troops would leave "when the mission of eradicating terrorists and all the Taliban bases is accomplished", he said, speaking after the second cabinet meeting of the five-day-old interim government that will govern for six months in the run-up to a Loya Jirga -- or grand council of tribal elders.
For the British-led foreign security force, the government has sought a carefully agreed-upon mission since the troops could be called upon to intervene in disputes that have nothing to do with the Taliban.
"The final details of the tactical agreement (are) under discussion between our country and the leading troop contributing country, which is Britain," Abdullah said.
A few dozen British Royal Marines arrived last week. The bulk of the force, which will include Germans and Turks as well, has yet to be deployed, waiting for Britain to agree details with Afghan security officials.
Asked when the main contingent would arrive, Abdullah said: "very soon... I'm talking about days."
Afghanistan's new government has been loath to agree to a lengthy deployment of foreign troops on its soil and has also been in discussions on the size, trying to keep the numbers as small as possible.
"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.
PUSHING INTO TORA BORA
U.S. forces were preparing for a new push in the hunt for bin Laden after a brief respite for Christmas.
Defence officials in Washington said U.S. and allied forces would soon make a fresh thrust into caves and tunnels in the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan after bombing bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters there into submission.
Officials said last week about 500 Marines had been put on standby in Afghanistan for possible orders to help search the caves, al Qaeda's last major Afghan redoubt, for clues to bin Laden's fate.
"Some of those unaccounted for may actually be dead or they might be hiding in Tora Bora or elsewhere," coalition spokesman Kenton Keith said in Islamabad. "Interrogation of captives and investigation of former hiding places will bring some clarification over the coming days."
But he stressed that even with the fall of the Taliban, the U.S. war was far from over.
"One thing is clear, that the job isn't finished, therefore military action will continue," Keith said.
U.S. officials acknowledge they no longer know whether the Saudi-born militant, accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States, is dead or alive or has fled from Afghanistan.
BUILDING CONSENSUS
New leader Hamid Karzai has moved quickly to establish support for his cabinet, whose challenge lies in building consensus in a country where years of war have fractured a devastated land into a patchwork of areas run by ethnic warlords and tribal barons.
This week, he included Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek warlord, in the government to help build broad-based support among ethnic minorities and to fend off a powerful potential foe.
Dostum's inclusion also marks a first step to establishing a national army for Afghanistan from its many militias.
AIR STRIKES RESUME
U.S. defence officials said air strikes over Afghanistan had resumed on Sunday north of Kandahar.
The strikes ended a lull following a deadly raid on a convoy in eastern Afghanistan last week that survivors said was a mistaken target.
Villagers in eastern Paktia province and survivors say up to 60 people were killed when U.S. aircraft attacked a motorcade carrying ethnic Pashtun tribal elders to Karzai's inauguration.
U.S. officials say they struck a legitimate target -- presumed to be Taliban militia -- after members of the convoy fired shoulder-launched missiles at U.S. aircraft.
Abdullah said the incident had been discussed by Afghan security officials and the U.S. military, but he was not aware of the details of the talks.
He said the cabinet agreed to create commissions for reconstruction and to combat drugs in the country that until a Taliban crackdown two years ago grew 75 percent of the world's heroin-producing opium.
Many drugs international officials fear that the end of Taliban rule and the return of warlords will prompt farmers to return to growing poppies, the source of opium and the most lucrative cash crop in one of the world's poorest countries.
In a signal of confidence in the administration of new leader Hamid Karzai, Afghan refugees from Pakistan started to return from Quetta and other border areas through the border town of Chaman.
"On Tuesday alone 800 families returned," a Pakistani border official told Reut
Thursday December 27, 2:57 AM
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A prominent figure in Afghanistan's collapsed government who has not been seen for weeks, Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, was wounded by U.S. bombing last month, a Pakistan-based Afghan news service said on Wednesday.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted sources in Pakistan's border town of Miranshah as saying Haqqani, the Taliban's tribal affairs minister, was moved to an unknown location after the November 16 bombing in the eastern Khost district that killed 62 people, including five of his bodyguards.
"Since then, Haqqani has not been seen anywhere leading to fears he may have succumbed to his injuries," the agency said.
But, quoting sources in the area, it said it was difficult to say whether Haqqani, also a famous mujahideen guerrilla commander who fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, was among the many people killed by the U.S. bombing.
Khost, in Paktia province bordering Pakistan's lawless tribal areas, has been a special bombing target because the United States believed the Saudi-born fugitive militant Osama bin Laden had set up many of his al Qaeda network's training camps in its rugged and inaccessible valleys.
Khost was also a prime target of the 1998 cruise missiles fired by Washington on suspected camps of bin Laden, who at that time was the prime suspect in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.
U.S. jets have been prowling the skies of Afghanistan since October 7 in their hunt for bin Laden, accused of masterminding the devastating September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington
NEW YORK (AP)--Fox News Channel said Wednesday that war correspondent Geraldo Rivera had made an "honest mistake" in his reporting of a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan.
The network said it had accepted Rivera's explanation and planned no further action.
Rivera's reporting surrounding a Dec. 5 incident in Kandahar where three U.S. soliders were accidentally killed by a U.S. bomb has been called into question.
The next day, Rivera reported that he had "walked over the spot where the friendly fire took so many of our men and the mujahadeen yesterday. It was just, the whole place, just fried, really, and bits of uniforms and tattered clothing everywhere. I said the Lord's Prayer and really choked up."
But The (Baltimore) Sun later reported that Rivera had filed his report from Tora Bora, hundreds of miles from Kandahar incident.
Rivera later said that he had witnessed the aftermath of a separate incident where two Afghans were killed in Tora Bora and that he had confused the two cases in his mind.
It was unclear Wednesday exactly what he had seen. The Sun said there was a friendly fire incident in Tora Bora, but it had happened three days after Rivera filed his report. Rivera was traveling and couldn't be reached for comment on Wednesday.
The U.S. military had no record of a friendly fire incident in Tora Bora on that day, but was checking further, Maj. Brad Lowell, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said Wednesday.
A Fox News Channel statement said network executives had reviewed the tapes of Rivera's work and concluded: "It was an honest mistake. Based on Geraldo Rivera's 30-year track record, Fox News has full confidence in his explanation and journalistic integrity. This is not the first, nor will it be the last, mistake made in a war zone."
The network has no plans to discuss the incident on the air, spokesman Robert Zimmerman said.
Rivera quit his CNBC talk show and took a pay cut to report from Afghanistan. He drew attention for saying he would kill Osama bin Laden if he had the opportunity, and for carrying a gun for protection.
Bob Steele, ethics director at The Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank, questioned the extent of Fox News Channel's investigation into its star correspondent.
"Unfortunately for Geraldo Rivera, his track record is marred," Steele said. "He has been significantly criticized in the past for everything from hyperbole to factual inaccuracy. This incident raises profound questions about his journalism and his ethics."
Rivera told The Washington Post in Monday's edition that allegations that he had lied were "hideously absurd."
"The time has come to stop the Geraldo-bashing," he said.
Thursday December 27, 5:14 AM AFP
The Briton who allegedly tried to blow up a US airliner trained in Afghanistan under Osama bin Laden, reports said, as the United States added two Pakistan-based Kashmiri groups to its list of terror organisations.
India and Pakistan, nuclear powers locked in their own bitter conflict over terror attacks, edged closer to a showdown as the world spotlight briefly shifted away from Afghanistan despite the ongoing search for bin Laden.
Nations readied to hammer out the details of a multinational force to keep the fragile peace in Afghanistan, where US military might has been unable to close the book on the Saudi-born dissident and his al-Qaeda network.
US television channel NBC reported that Richard Reid, the Briton arrested Saturday after reportedly trying to set off explosives on a Paris-Miami flight, had trained in al-Qaeda's now defunct Afghan camps.
It cited unnamed intelligence sources saying that prisoners being held in US custody in Afghanistan had recognized Reid, 28, in photos shown to them during questioning by US agents.
A Pentagon spokesman said he was unaware that the man's picture had been shown to detainees.
US investigators are trying to determine if the Briton, who eluded French security and tried to detonate explosives hidden in his shoes once on board the flight, was working by himself or not.
The Times newspaper in Britain reported Reid was a convert to Islam and had worshipped at the same London mosque as Zacarias Moussaoui, who is jailed in the United States in connection with the September 11 attacks.
AbdulHaqq Baker, head of the Brixton mosque, said both men likely belonged to external study circles run by Arab Muslims who offered an extremist interpretation of Islam and were seeking fighters for their "holy war."
He said Reid may have been a "testing ground" for new ways to attack Western targets and surely could not have been acting by himself when he boarded the plane wearing shoes said to be packed with explosives.
Reid was subdued by passengers and crew after allegedly trying to set his shoes on fire. An official told the Boston Globe paper Tuesday that Reid could have succeeded if he had used a butane lighter instead of a match.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell meanwhile added two Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups blamed by India for an attack on the parliament in New Delhi to the State Department's terrorism blacklist.
As tensions between India and Pakistan over the December 13 raid soared to new heights, Powell said he was designating the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammad, as foreign terrorist organisations under US law.
He said in a statement that the move was "another important step in our campaign to eliminate the scourge of terrorism," following deadly September 11 attacks on the United States.
India has blamed the raid on the two groups named by Washington, but said they were backed by Pakistani intelligence and threatened to retaliate.
The parliament attack left 14 people dead, including the five gunmen, and led Delhi to recall its ambassador from its longtime rival.
India said Wednesday it had put missiles "in position" against Pakistan but did not elaborate as the two countries continue massing troops along their borders.
Washington has repeatedly insisted that its campaign against terrorism will not be confined to Afghanistan, where the new UN-backed government of Hamid Karzai took office on Saturday after the ouster of the Taliban militia.
US troops are reportedly still scouring the rugged terrain of Afghanistan in the search for bin Laden, his al-Qaeda fighters, and Mullah Mohammad Omar, the head of the Taliban who sheltered them.
But the United States has no immediate plans to dispatch US marines in support of US special forces and anti-Taliban allies in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.
Some 500 US Marines are reportedly on standby for rapid deployment to the mountains of eastern Afghanistan around Tora Bora, to flush out remnants of bin Laden's al-Qaeda loyalists still holed up there.
However, whether or not the marines will move in has yet to be decided, said Major Brad Lewell, spokesman for the US Central Command.
An estimated 2,000 al-Qaeda troops loyal to bin Laden are said to have fled toward Pakistan.
Reports said seven al-Qaeda troops were holed up in a Kandahar hospital with weapons and grenades, and had resisted attempts to take them by force.
UN officials said Wednesday that food deliveries still could not be made in southern Afghanistan because of roaming gunmen around Kandahar, a southern city that had once been the Taliban's stronghold.
Karzai has vowed to make security his top priority in the early days of his six-month mandate to lead his nation, battered by more than two decades of war, and has already taken steps to form a national army.
He has installed Abdul Rashid Dostam, a powerful northern warlord, as deputy defence minister and was reportedly holding talks with Ismail Khan, a renowned strongman from Herat province, in a bid to stitch together a workable skein of control.
In a nation divided by regional warlords with their own spheres of control, an international security force of as many as 5,000 soldiers is expected to give Karzai a measure of security.
But deployment has been held up by serious questions over the size, make-up and ultimate role of the force.
On the eve of crucial talks in London to try to work out the details, Karzai's foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said Kabul was still holding talks with the governments involved.
Karzai convened his cabinet Wednesday for the second time in four days as ministries get down to the business of rebuilding the war-torn nation.
Wednesday December 26, 5:28 PM
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's interim administration resumed the task of rebuilding the shattered country on Wednesday, with the government meeting for the second time since its inauguration.
No details were immediately available but a guard at the presidential palace, where ministers' cars pulled up in the morning, said they were arriving for a government meeting.
And in a signal of confidence in Hamid Karzai's administration, which has a six-month mandate, Afghan refugees from Pakistan started returning in numbers from Quetta and other border areas through the border town of Chaman.
"On Tuesday alone 800 families returned," a Pakistani border official told Reuters.
The returning Afghans were buying up television sets, satellite dishes and video recorders to take home, and traders said the markets in Quetta, Chaman and Spin Boldak had run out of many items and prices were rising sharply as demand soared.
U.S. forces were preparing for a new push in the hunt for Osama bin Laden after a brief respite for Christmas.
U.S. defence officials in Washington said U.S. and allied forces would soon make a fresh thrust into caves and tunnels in the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan after bombing bin Laden's al Qaeda fighters there into submission.
"Operations are imminent," one defence official said.
Other officials said late last week about 500 Marines had been put on stand-by in Afghanistan for possible orders to help search the caves, al Qaeda's last major Afghan redoubt, for clues to bin Laden's whereabouts.
The Saudi-born militant, accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States, has vanished and U.S. officials acknowledge they no longer know whether he is dead or alive or has fled from Afghanistan.
Kenton Keith, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition conducting the hunt for bin Laden, said in Pakistan it was "quite possible" he had been killed, but the U.S. defence official said the search was still on.
BUILDING CONSENSUS
Karzai, sworn in on Saturday following the demise of bin Laden's Taliban protectors, has said U.S. 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.
He has included Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek warlord, in the government to help build broad-based support among ethnic minorities and to fend off a powerful potential foe.
Dostum's inclusion also marks a first step to establishing a national army for Afghanistan from its many militias.
Those fighters have been vital allies in the U.S. air campaign that routed the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban and in the ground assault to flush out diehard Taliban and al Qaeda loyalists.
In the southern city of Kandahar, eight wounded Arab al Qaeda fighters armed with guns and grenades remained barricaded in a ward of a hospital after a failed attempt by U.S.-backed forces loyal to city governor Gul Agha to flush them out.
AIR STRIKES RESUME
Shooting broke out at the hospital earlier after one of the group, apparently injured in U.S. bombing raids, was lured into leaving the ward and sounded the alarm when he realised it was a trap. U.S. forces arrested him, witnesses said.
"Now they are very nervous and they won't allow anyone in, not even the nurses," said security guard Niaz Mohammad.
Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban and the movement's last bastion, fell to tribal fighters on December 7.
U.S. defence officials said air strikes over Afghanistan had resumed on Sunday north of Kandahar.
The strikes ended a lull following a deadly raid on a convoy in eastern Afghanistan last week that survivors said was a mistaken target.
Villagers in eastern Paktia province and survivors say up to 60 people were killed when U.S. aircraft attacked a motorcade carrying ethnic Pashtun tribal elders to Karzai's inauguration.
U.S. defence officials say they struck a legitimate target -- presumed to be Taliban militia -- after members of the convoy fired shoulder-launched missiles at U.S. aircraft.
Karzai's spokesman Ustad Stanikzai added to speculation that Afghan foes of some of the elders in the motorcade may deliberately have misidentified them to U.S. forces.
"Rivalries among the various tribes may have led to the incident," Stanikzai said.
Karzai administration focuses on building Afghan military
Wednesday December 26, 3:38 PM AFP
New Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was working to unite his war-battered nation, while London prepared for crucial talks to thrash out the details of an international security force in Afghanistan.
Washington came under criticism over reports it may extend its war on terrorism to Iraq, while jittery governments remained on high alert for more attacks as further details emerged about the man who slipped through French security and tried to blow up a US airline en route from Paris to Miami.
Meanwhile, US soldiers and their Afghan allies were still trying to track down Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident said to have masterminded the September 11 attacks in the United States which killed around 3,000 people.
Late Tuesday, Afghan security forces arrested a wounded Arab al-Qaeda fighter but seven others with weapons and explosives remained barricaded in a hospital in the southern city of Kandahar, a spokesman for provincial governor Gul Agha said.
Karzai, sworn in Saturday as head of Kabul's new UN-backed government, was due to hold a second cabinet meeting Wednesday, moving swiftly to establish unity and security after more than two decades of conflict.
In major steps taken so far, the defence ministry has begun planning for an army, a process which will include integrating tens of thousands of fighters from the ranks of ethnic warlords throughout the country.
Atta Mohammad, a key mujahedin commander, told AFP the army would be made up of volunteers, ending the nearly automatic practice of forcing men and boys to fight which evolved over the past 23 years of conflict.
"The army should not interfere in politics and civilian affairs," said Mohammad, a former commander in the mujahedin who fought the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"Otherwise we won't have a democratic and civil government," he said.
Karzai, who has a six-month, UN-backed mandate before he is to convene a traditional assembly of elders to map out the nation's post-Taliban future, has said US troops can stay for now.
Karzai's 29-member cabinet includes two women, in a decisive break with the repressive Taliban regime, as well as representatives from across Afghanistan's ethnic spectrum.
Officials in London were also preparing for crucial talks Thursday to thrash out the final details of an international security force in Afghanistan.
Between 3,000 and 5,000 troops are set to take part, but officials from Britain -- which will initially lead the force -- have acknowledged delays in further deployments.
Turkey said Tuesday it would be interested in taking over command of the force after Britain's three-month tenure ends.
The precise role of the force has yet to be determined, as well as how it will work with the multi-ethnic government of Karzai, agreed on after days of difficult negotiations in Germany earlier this month.
Russia is to help rebuild Afghanistan's famous Salang Pass, once a strategic supply route and used by the Soviet army during its 1979-89 occupation, under a memorandum signed in Kabul Tuesday, Interfax reported.
A videotape showing bin Laden describing preparations for the September 11 attacks released earlier this month by the Pentagon appeared to be succeeding in persuading Arabs that the al-Qaeda boss was responsible for the terrorist attacks.
Egyptian Interior Minister Habib Al Adly said Tuesday that the videotape is "clear and definite" proof of bin Laden's guilt.
Bin Laden's Taliban protectors were toppled by ethnic forces aided by US air strikes, clearing the way for Karzai's multi-ethnic government, but bin Laden and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar have vanished.
Some 2,000 fighters said to belong to bin Laden's sophisticated al-Qaeda network, which had training camps in Afghanistan, fled under fierce US bombardment.
Newsweek magazine reported Monday that US military leaders are examining how Washington's campaign against terror could be expanded to topple Baghdad strongman Saddam Hussein.
The Bush administration assembled a global coalition to retaliate against the Taliban for harboring bin Laden, lining up Arab and Muslim nations to support the war on terrorism.
But nations such as France and Germany have already made clear they are against attacking Baghdad, and heavyweight China on Tuesday added its voice to the chorus of opposition.
A Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman said Beijing was "concerned" over the report, underlining that a move on Saddam could weaken the coalition.
US investigators said they are trying to determine if Richard Reid, 28, was acting alone or with connections to a group when on Saturday he reportedly tried to ignite explosives hidden in his shoes on an American Airlines, Paris-Miami flight.
A report Wednesday in British daily The Times said Reid could be linked with bin Laden. It said Reid prayed at a London mosque also attended by a suspected conspirator in the September 11 attacks, Zacarias Moussaoui, a 33-year-old French national of Moroccan descent.
The leader of the Brixton Mosque, in southwest London, told The Times that Reid was incapable of acting alone and was probably on a test mission for a new terrorist technique.
A mixed-race Briton with a Jamaican father and English mother, Reid was identified after his fingerprints were sent by the FBI to British police, The Times said.
The Boston Globe daily, in the United States, quoted a Massachusetts state official saying Reid was equipped with explosive devices so sophisticated that it is unlikely he was working alone.
"The gravity of the situation is becoming more and more serious as time goes on," said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.
Wednesday December 26, 1:24 PM
By Bryan Pearson
KABUL (Variety) - Bollywood has returned to Afghanistan in a blaze of color and sound, much to the relief of Indian filmmakers who lost an important market when the Taliban imposed its strict anti-entertainment regime on the country five years ago.
Just days after the Taliban began fleeing war-ravaged Kabul ahead of the advancing Northern Alliance forces on Nov. 12, trucks filled with TV sets, video machines and the latest videos and DVDs from India began shuttling in from neighboring Pakistan.
``Seventy percent of my stock is from India, the rest from America and Japan,'' said Zamin Begana, who owns one of about 15 new video stores that have sprung up in downtown Kabul.
Like those of his neighbors, Begana's shop is crowded each day with customers jostling to buy their favorite titles, which go for about $2 each.
Bollywood stars such as Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan are still the favorites of most Afghans, though the younger set prefers newer titles, Begana said.
Despite the economic hardship brought about by 23 years of war and a devastating drought in Afghanistan, Begana manages to sell 70-80 videos a day, as many DVDs and three or four expensive videocassette players. Other stores report similar business.
And three cinemas have opened in town since the end of what Kabulis refer to as the ``dark days'' of the Taliban rule. In a noisy hall watching a grainy movie on an ancient screen, Afghans can indulge their passion for Hindi movies for as little as 3,500 afghanis (12 cents). The favorite at the Bakhtar movie house is ``Mohara,'' which draws audiences of 300-400 at each day's four screenings.
Owner Abdul Rahim, who said he spent the Taliban years ``baking cookies,'' told Daily Variety that Indian movies are by far the most popular with his audiences. ``I have shown one American movie -- 'Thunder' -- which was also popular because it is all action.''
American movies must be submitted to local censors who, according to Rahim, cut out all nudity and sex. ``Short kissing scenes are allowed, but if there is sucking of lips, it's gone.''
For now, his audiences are all male. Women and girls, who under Taliban rule were kept virtual prisoners at home, ``are not yet brave enough to come to the movies,'' he observed.
Even if they were, he wouldn't allow them in. ``It's not yet 100% safe. We are waiting for the new government to decide if women and girls can go to the movies, as they did before the Taliban arrived.''
Reuters/Variety REUTERS
Wednesday December 26, 6:18 PM
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand, one of the world's leading holiday destinations, said on Wednesday it expected foreign tourist arrivals in 2002 to rise eight percent to 11.13 million on a better global economic outlook.
Thai tourism authorities said growth in arrivals this year would be just four percent to 9.87 million. Growth had been expected to be double that before the September 11 attacks on the United States battered the global tourist industry.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said in a statement that concerted efforts by Thai tour operators and an expected easing of global political tensions, as well as a recovering world economy, would encourage more travel next year.
"Travel and tourism businesses will join forces in launching more promotions which will result in more attractive tour packages and make available a wider range of choice," the TAT said in a statement.
The Thai economy depends on tourism as one of its main sources of foreign exchange. Income from tourism accounted for about six percent of the country's gross domestic product and the hotel sector alone employed around 500,000 people, the TAT said.
TAT Governor Pradech Phayakvichien told reporters he saw vast potential growth in Chinese and Indian tourists thanks to rising per capita income in those countries.
Thailand saw an 8.18 percent rise in tourist arrivals in the first eight months of 2001, but the attacks on the United States and the resulting U.S.-led war against the Taliban in Afghanistan hit arrivals in the last four months.
Thailand has also clamped down on nightlife, forcing bars and nightclubs to close at 2 a.m., threatening Bangkok's reputation as one of Asia's top entertainment destinatio
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