November 1, 2001

Key commander 'escapes Taleban'
Thursday, 1 November, 2001, 18:58 GMT BBC News
A prominent supporter of the former Afghan king says his forces have begun fighting the Taleban in an area north of Kandahar.

US to Fight Through Ramadan; More Ground Troops Due
By Peter Millership and Sayed Salahuddin
Thursday November 1 4:54 PM ET
WASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) - The United States cannot afford to halt its military campaign in Afghanistan for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and is planning to put more troops

U.S. House Panel Backs Radio Free Afghanistan
By John Whitesides
Thursday November 1 10:03 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A House of Representatives panel approved legislation on Thursday that would establish a ``Radio Free Afghanistan'' to broadcast news and explain U.S.

Aid Groups Urge U.S. to Not Worsen Afghan Disaster
By Randy Fabi
Thursday November 1 7:35 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Humanitarian groups on Thursday urged the United States to take more care in its military campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda network to avoid hurting Afghans

Media bring the good, bad and ugly to Afghanistan
By Mike Collett-White
Friday November 2, 10:43 AM
JABAL-US-SARAJ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - When hundreds of reporters began to descend on the small Afghan town of Jabal-us-Saraj six weeks ago, the locals were licking their lips

U.S.-Russia Group Stresses Taliban Must Go
Thursday, November 01, 2001 9:41 PM EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States and Russia on Thursday reaffirmed their opposition to any role for the Taliban in a new Afghanistan government if the movement is ousted as a result

Rumsfeld: US to Soon Put More Troops in Afghanistan
Thursday, November 01, 2001 4:06 PM EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will soon put more elite troops on the ground in Afghanistan, sharply increasing bomb targeting and other support for anti-Taliban forces

Taliban Deny Access to Detained Aid Workers
Thursday, November 01, 2001 3:20 PM EST
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Taliban rulers of Afghanistan have denied access this week to eight Western aid workers on trial for trying to preach Christianity, the State Department said on Thursday.

Pakistan's pro-Taleban nuclear scientist
Thursday, 1 November, 2001, 14:08 GMT BBC News
Shahzeb Jillani of the BBC's Urdu service profiles a controversial Pakistani nuclear scientist detained over his alleged links to the Taleban

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Pakistan secretly supplies arms to Taliban:
Washington Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (Kyodo) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban are receiving military and other supplies covertly from Pakistan despite Islamabad's backing for U.S.

Afghan opposition says troops nearly ready
By Mike Collett-White
JABAL-US-SARAJ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An Afghan opposition leader said Thursday that thousands of fighters would soon be ready for an offensive to the gates of Kabul

Taliban say ground and air attack repulsed
By Sayed Salahuddin and Mike Collett-White
KABUL/JABAL-US-SARAJ (Reuters) - Afghanistan's Taliban militia said on Thursday they repulsed the first joint air and ground attack by U.S. and opposition forces in the north but lost

Turkish Forces to Train Afghan Opposition
Thursday November 1 7:04 AM ET
By Orhan Coskun
ANKARA (Reuters) - NATO's only Muslim member state, Turkey, announced Thursday it would send a team of around 90 special forces troops to Afghanistan to help train

U.N. envoy: No timetable for new Afghan government
November 1, 2001 Posted: 11:12 AM EST (1612 GMT)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) --The U.N.'s top Afghanistan envoy said Thursday he can't provide a time frame for finding a political solution that will yield a future government for the war-ravaged country.

US 'bombed Afghan power plant'
Thursday, 1 November, 2001, 15:53 GMT  BBC News
The use of B-52s appears to mark a change of tactics
American bombs have hit one of Afghanistan's biggest power plants, cutting electricity supplies to the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar and the city of Lashkargah, Taleban officials say.

US general says uncertain about Afghan opposition
WASHINGTON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The general commanding the U.S.-led military operation in Afghanistan said in an interview aired on Thursday he remained uncertain about the capabilities

Bin Laden urges Pakistanis to defend Islam-Jazeera
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden has issued a letter urging Pakistani Muslims to defend Islam against what he described as a Christian crusade

Taliban envoy says Kabul holding Americans
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said on Thursday that Afghanistan's ruling militia had detained several U.S. citizens but he gave no details.

Taliban extend jihad to Australia
SYDNEY, Nov 1 (AFP) - Australia has become a target of the Taliban's holy war because it had joined America's war against terrorism, an envoy of Afghanistan's ruling militia said Thursday.

Rain heralds Afghan winter
Thursday, 1 November, 2001, 11:47 GMT
By Kate Clark in Shomali, north of Kabul  BBC news
The first rains of the winter have fallen in Kabul, the capital of drought-stricken Afghanistan.
Rain doesn't make the news in many places round the world, but in Afghanistan - now three years into the worst drought in living memory - the first rain of winter is eagerly anticipated.

Pirate radio rallies pro-Taleban support
Vocal support for Taleban - now some are ready to fight
By the BBC's Umer Afridi
Pashtun tribesmen in Pakistan's north-western frontiers are using four locally built FM transmitters to recruit fighters for jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan.

U.N. envoy says no timeframe for Afghan solution
By Jack Redden
Thursday November 1, 11:23 PM
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The U.N. envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said on Thursday agreement on a post-Taliban government depended on the political will of the Afghans

Pakistani Islamic Party Threatens U.S. Air Base
Thursday, November 01, 2001 11:55 AM EST
DALBANDIN, Pakistan (Reuters) - A radical Islamic party spearheading anti-U.S. protests in Pakistan on Thursday threatened to burn down an air

US, Russia agree no role for Taliban in new Afghan government
Thursday, November 01, 2001 10:51 AM EST
MOSCOW, Nov 01, 2001 (AFX-UK via COMTEX) -- Senior US and Russian officials have agreed in a joint statement that the Taliban should play no role in a future government of Afghanistan.

Propaganda offensive by Taliban
By Sandra Laville in Quetta
The Telegraph (UK)
November 1, 2001
THE Taliban escorted a group of journalists into Kandahar yesterday to present a show of defiance in the face of American attacks.

CIA agent alleged to have met Bin Laden in July
French report claims terrorist leader stayed in Dubai hospital
Anthony Sampson
Thursday November 1, 2001
The Guardian (UK)
Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according

Taliban attacks Japan's dispatch of SDF
ISLAMABAD, Nov. 1 (Kyodo) - Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, attacked countries, including Japan, which plan to dispatch troops to Pakistan and surrounding

France holds Afghan talks - BBC
French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine is in Delhi for talks with Indian leaders about the US-led campaign against Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban in Afghanistan.

Profile: Veteran Afghan leader Ismail Khan
By BBC News Online's Marcus George
As veteran Afghan commanders return to the spotlight, one of the beleaguered country's most legendary figures has remained conspicuously absent.

Pakistani volunteers cross into Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Several hundred Pakistani tribesmen on Thursday crossed into Afghanistan to join the ruling Taliban's jihad or holy war against the United States, witnesses said.

Pakistan tribesmen being screened for Afghan jihad
By Tahir Ikram
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Hundreds of armed volunteers were being screened by leaders in the tribal rim of Pakistan on Thursday to fight beside the Taliban in Afghanistan against

UN Afghan envoy says has no schedule for solution
ISLAMABAD, Nov 1 (Reuters) - U.N. special envoy on Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi said on Thursday he could give no time frame for finding a political solution on a future

Next Afghan govt must represent women, Amnesty says
By Jeremy Lovell
LONDON, Nov 1 (Reuters) - Human rights pressure group Amnesty International called on Thursday for a future government in Afghanistan to be truly representative of all groups

WAR ON TERROR - Was Clinton pro-Taliban?
Congressman charges Afghan extremists were coddled, oversight efforts 'belittled'
By Joseph Farah - 2001 WorldNetDaily.com  Wednesday, October 31, 2001
President Clinton incubated the Taliban regime in Afghanistan for at least three years, despite the fact that it was harboring Osama bin Laden, was responsible for growing 60 percent

Iran Tells EU Ministers It Opposes The Return of Afghanistan's King
Wall Street Journal - Oct 30, 2001 - Paul Hofheinz
LUXEMBOURG -- Complicating efforts to lay plans for a new regime in Afghanistan, Iran has said it will oppose any move to allow the exiled Afghan king, Mohammed Zahir Shah

US took critical view of king it now wants to restore: Archives reveal American scepticism
by Julian Borger in Washington - The Guardian (UK) October 30, 2001
Afghanistan's former king, now being promoted by Washington as the linchpin of a post-Talibangovernment, was an ineffectual ditherer on the throne, according to contemporary

Kabul in Miniature;
California's Afghan American Community Is Divided on How to Unite Its People
Sharon Waxman - The Washington Post 10/31/2001
The banquet hall at Mission Paradise restaurant is packed tonight, vibrating with an odd, adrenaline-fueled mix of momentum and melancholy.

Winning the War of Words: Information Warfare in Afghanistan
Analysis Paper #5
P.W. Singer, John M. Olin Post-doctoral Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies
Brookings Project on Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy
October 23, 2001
As the US military responds to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, understandably enough much of our attention has been paid to the missiles and warplanes currently hitting targets

The making of the world's most wanted man: Part 1
Jason Burke in Peshawar
Sunday October 28, 2001
The Observer
What drove a rich Saudi boy to become a terrorist mastermind? After months of interviews, and gathering startling new testimony from al-Qaeda associates and enemies around the world

The making of the world's most wanted man: Part 2
Expelled from Saudi Arabia, bin Laden builds the global links that can bring him revenge
Jason Burke in Peshawar
Sunday October 28, 2001
The Observer
1990-96: Saudi disillusion and exile in Sudan
Prince Abdullah, the effective regent of Saudi Arabia, placed a soft, plump hand on his young compatriot's shoulder, smiled and spoke of friendship and loyalty. His words were smooth