Afghanistan News January 24, 2002

January 24, 2002

American al Qaeda fighter due in court By JoAnne Allen

Thursday January 24, 6:22 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Captured American al Qaeda fighter John Walker Lindh is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Thursday to face charges including conspiring to kill Americans in the war in Afghanistan.

Walker was due to appear before Magistrate Judge W. Curtis Sewell in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, at 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) to hear the charges against him listed in a criminal complaint filed by the U.S. Justice Department.

Walker was charged last week with conspiring to kill Americans abroad and providing support to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, blamed by Washington for the September 11 attacks on the United States that killed more than 3,000 people.

Walker is also accused of engaging in prohibited transactions with the deposed Taliban government that harboured bin Laden.

If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The 20-year-old Californian has not been formally charged by a grand jury and will not be asked to enter a plea on Thursday.

Walker, who goes by his mother's name, arrived at Dulles International Airport outside Washington aboard a military plane on Wednesday evening amid tight security. Television footage showed him, handcuffed and legs shackled, being led to a detention centre near the Alexandria court house.

In a pretaped NBC interview broadcast shortly after Walker arrived, U.S. President George W. Bush was asked what he thought of the young American who joined up with Taliban forces more than a year ago.

"I come down to he volunteered to join al Qaeda and was trained by al Qaeda," Bush said. "I'm pleased he's going to be afforded a chance to make his case in a court of law."

PARENTS NOT ALLOWED TO SEE WALKER

Walker's parents, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker, were expected to be present at his hearing on Thursday along with a team of attorneys. The parents and lawyer James Brosnahan tried to visit Walker at the detention centre in Alexandria on Wednesday evening but were not permitted to see him.

Brosnahan complained Walker has been denied access to legal representation.

"We have four former federal prosecutors that will defend John Walker Lindh and I will tell you this, we're going to fight like hell to make sure that he gets fair treatment here," said Brosnahan, who said he had been asking since December 3 to see Walker.

U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Walker waived his rights to an attorney both verbally and in writing during interrogation sessions.

Walker was interrogated for some 45 days and most recently was held aboard the U.S. warship Bataan in the Arabian Sea. He was taken there from a prison outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where an uprising occurred during which CIA agent Mike Spann was killed.

POINT OF VIEW: Musharraf Reforms May Not Go Far Enough
By Hasan Jafri
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Thursday January 24, 2:42 PM

SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Pakistan's dramatic U-turn on the Taliban and its joining the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan will seem easy compared to the tasks President Pervez Musharraf faces in the next 10 months.

By October, Musharraf must hand over power to a civilian government, as the Supreme Court has ordered him to do following his 1999 coup. Between now and the promised elections (past military rulers have promised but not always delivered a return to democracy), Musharraf plans some of the most far-reaching constitutional and political reforms since the 1970s.

Musharraf is signaling he plans to take advantage of this historic juncture to reduce the influence of religious fanatics and remove their chokehold on economic development. But his likely solution - limited civilian rule with military supervision - has already been tried and has already failed.

He has an historic opportunity to sever the military's longstanding links with religious extremists, replacing those links with representative governance that will reflect the true - and moderate - inclinations of the Pakistani majority. Success would destroy the arguments of those who claim the U.S.-led war against terrorism is a war against Islam. If a military ruler in Pakistan, the world's second largest Muslim country, can improve the lives of his countrymen by breaking the shackles of fundamentalism, leaders elsewhere may follow suit.

But what kind of a civil society is Musharraf going to deliver? He's used unusually strong language against religious extremism, but in the past he's often used a similar tone to deride elected representatives.

While Musharraf is different in some ways from previous Pakistani military rulers - he's allowed greater freedom of the press, and has been more willing to allow political parties to remain active - he's strikingly similar in other respects. Like generals in the past, he mistrusts the political system. And like them, his vision of civilian rule will probably fall short of true democracy.

The new system will become more apparent within the next few months. Some of the more pleasant changes have already been announced. For example, for the first time in two decades, Pakistan's religious minorities will exercise full democratic rights. Women, often the most neglected and marginalized of Pakistan's 140 million citizens, will have greater representation in an expanded parliament. Freedom of speech and assembly will remain guaranteed - at least on paper.

But Musharraf still hasn't answered the key question: what kind of post-reforms power structure does he envision?

From being the most powerful man in Pakistan, Musharraf would become a lame duck if democracy were restored in the form in which it existed before the 1999 coup that brought him to power.

So it's very likely that he'll dilute the powers enjoyed by elected governments and transfer some to himself and a coterie of unelected officials, including army officers and their powerful allies in the civil bureaucracy. It's a mistake that would be natural for him to commit; Pakistani rulers often have a problem distinguishing self-preservation from national interest.

He'll justify the changes because many in Pakistan rightly argue that "unbridled Westminster-type democracy" can't work in Pakistan. We need a system that ensures politics serves the public good - something elected officials left to their own accord have failed to deliver.

But creating unaccountable power centers dominated by unelected generals and career yes-men isn't the solution. Instead, building an independent judiciary, depoliticizing the army by giving civilian ministers more control over defense and foreign policy, and weeding out incompetence and corruption in the bureaucracy would help to restore civil society and ensure democratically elected governments don't abuse power.

There is also an urgent need for reform within Pakistani political parties. While the major parties have always clamored for democracy and the rule of law, they themselves have not practiced it. Political parties have little internal democracy and the leadership they generate is often driven more by self-interest than by the nation's interest.

And then there is the issue of legitimacy - an issue which Musharraf is keenly aware of since he's not a democratically elected leader. Previous military-driven political systems have failed. In the 1960s Field Marshall Ayub Khan and in the 1980s General Ziaul Haq attempted to build political systems that lacked popular representation and popular support; both systems failed to outlast their lives.

On the other hand Pakistan's much-tattered constitution, passed in 1973, has worked; it's still supported by all political parties, however deep the conflcit between them. That's because there's a sense of ownership among both politicians and the people - something which Musharraf needs to create when he announces his own reforms.

-By Hasan Jafri, Dow Jones Newswires; 65/4154-151; hasan.jafri@dowjones.com

(Hasan Jafri, a Pakistani national, is Singapore bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires and has written extensively on Pakistan and Afghanistan)

Afghan peace boosts opium poppy harvest By John Fullerton

Thursday January 24, 2:56 PM

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - In autumn the fields of poppies are in bloom across southern Afghanistan, a sea of red, yellow, white and purple.

In the spring, the flowers have gone. In their place, long stems end in seed pods. Farmers make four cuts in each pod, and collect the sticky white juice the next day.

The opium cycle in Afghanistan is seasonal, and prices move accordingly.

Right now the planting has ended, and in Kandahar's Hazrat-ji Baba street, shabby little kiosks offer plastic packets of brown chips of opium at cheap prices.

"The price has fallen in anticipation of better supplies," said opium trader Noor ul Haq. "We have had some rain, and it promises to be a better harvest."

Before they started planting -- coinciding with the fall of the Taliban in December to U.S. bombs and Northern Alliance fighters -- 150,000 Pakistani rupees ($2,490) would buy 4.5 kg (10 lb) of raw opium.

The price has now dropped to 110,000 rupees, according to Haq.

NOT WELCOME

Foreigners are not welcome in muddy Hazrat-ji Baba street. The stares are hostile. Traders turn their faces away, children toss stones at the strangers' car.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran borders form the golden crescent which diplomats say provides the opium that is processed into two-thirds of the total illicit heroin smuggled into Europe.

"They used to offer the farmers cotton seed to replace poppies, and no doubt now there is peace the United Nations will do so again," said Haq.

"But if cotton prices don't match opium at the market, then farmers will go back to poppies."

The fact is that a farmer with little land can make better money with opium. It is a cash crop that needs little labour.

Haq was a dealer, buying opium in Jalalabad in the eastern border province of Nangahar and selling at a higher price in Kandahar.

The drug was plentiful in hilly Nangahar because there were springs to irrigate farms, while in Kandahar the land was parched from four years of drought.

Production was higher in neighbouring Helmand, a province bordering Iran, because the local kerez (an underground well) system provided the necessary water.

U.N. officials say Afghanistan's new interim government is committed to eradicating opium production, but there are problems.

Crop replacement requires funds, and until pledges of foreign aid translate into hard cash, it will be difficult to persuade impoverished farmers to give up planting poppies.

There are vast profits to be made from smuggling the processed opium -- down to its penultimate stage, morphine sulphate -- to the Gulf, Turkey and on to Europe.

Several big traders are household names here -- men who have private armies, a fleet of vehicles, several houses and connections that reach all the way into the higher echelons of politics and business at home and in neighbouring states.

Some were close to the Taliban, toppled in Washington's declared war on terrorism, a campaign triggered by the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES

Others have made new friends in Afghanistan's interim government.

One sub-sect of the Achakzai tribe, for example, living on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border, has achieved wealth and notoriety for its alleged drug smuggling, and it has influence in Kandahar's intelligence and security apparatus.

The austere Taliban banned opium production, but they still profited by it.

"It is widely believed that the Taliban bought cheap and sold dear and made a killing," said a local opium dealer. "They stockpiled opium when it was cheap."

The question in Hazrat-ji Baba Street is how the United States will act on the issue of opium.

"They helped bring in the interim government led by Mr Hamid Karzai and his allies in Kandahar," said the dealer, who asked not to be identified.

"Will the Americans look the other way when they discover the administration has co-opted powerful smugglers into its ranks -- or will they try to expel them?"

US Taliban Fighter/In US -4: Bush Comment (MORE) Dow Jones Newswires 23-01-02
2322GMT

Thursday January 24, 8:19 AM

Arrived At Dulles Airport

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--The California man who was caught fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan arrived in the U.S. Wednesday night to face criminal charges, MSNBC reported.

According to the network, a U.S. military plane carrying John Walker Lindh --a man called simply "John Walker" by several news outlets--arrived at Dulles Airport in Virginia.

Government watching Jemaah Islamiyah head since 1991: Wong Kan Seng
Thursday January 24, 8:20 PM AFP

The Singapore Government was keeping tabs on Ibrahim Maidin, who heads the Singapore branch of the clandestine group, Jemaah Islamiyah, as far back as 1991, after the Gulf War.
Nothing incriminating was uncovered then.

But it received a tip-off after the September 11 attacks in the US, that an associate of Ibrahim's was linked to the Al-Qaeda.

And news that this Singaporean had been arrested in Afghanistan, a month later, forced the authorities here to act before the group fled the country.

Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng revealed this in an exclusive interview with Channel NewsAsia's Walter Fernandez.

The Jemaah Islamiyah group here was very secretive.

But Singapore's so small that it was only a matter of time before someone talked, and the authorities penetrated their veil of secrecy.

Mr Wong says when the authorities learnt that Singaporean Mohd Aslam had been arrested in Afghanistan, they swung into action.

Several people were interviewed on December 8th, and on the following day, the first arrests were made.

More people were taken in later, the last on December 24th but by then, some suspects had fled the country.

Mr Wong said: "It's not a movie, where you plan nicely and you know who everybody is involved in the group and you move in and you smash the whole lot of them.

"As the investigation progresses, you get to know who are the people related to that organisation, what the people involved are doing and from there they move step by step.

"It's not a matter of identifying here are the 15 people, and moving straight in and nabbing all 15. It doesn't happen like that. It may be that way in the movies."

Mr Wong, however, refused to say how many terrorist suspects are on the run.

Meanwhile, the 13 who have been detained, are being held at Whitley Detention Centre.

The authorities are talking to them, and investigating any new leads they uncover.

However, Mr Wong says no further arrests have been made so far.

The families of the 13 detainees are allowed to visit them each week and bring them books to read.

Several Muslim groups are also providing support and financial help to the families.

Taking a broader perspective, Mr Wong says he does not expect the arrests to harm race relations.

The Home Affairs Minister said: "This is not committed because of race reasons. Or religious reasons. This is purely a group of terrorists, wanting to perpetuate terrorism in this part of the world.

"And it doesn't just happen in Singapore, Jemaah Islamiyah is also found in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines."

And Singapore, he says, is prepared to do what ever is necessary, to prevent terrorist activities here.

Mr Wong also believes that the arrests will not scare away foreign investors.

He said: "If they see that we take tough action and deal with this thing firmly, they know that Singapore can be safe. In fact, if you look around us, you'll see Singapore's still the safest place."

And the Home Affairs Minister's message to Singaporeans: "Life must go on. Singaporeans must not be paranoid about what is happening, in Singapore, arising from the arrests of this group. They have to carry on life as per normal

Singapore finds "clear link" between local group and al-Qaeda
Thursday January 24, 7:54 PM

SINGAPORE, Jan 24 (AFP) -Singapore said Thursday it had uncovered further evidence of a "clear link" between 13 suspected Islamic militants arrested last month and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

"Investigations in recent days have found new evidence that supports further the finding of a clear link between the detainees and the al-Qaeda," the government said in a statement.

Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said: "The new finding shows a very direct link between the Jemaah Islamiyah group detained here and the al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan."

Fifteen suspects were originally arrested last month by agents of the Internal Security Department (ISD), but two were subsequently freed.

The 13 still under detention are held under the Internal Security Act, which allows detention without trial.

They allegedly plotted to bomb US targets in the city-state, including a busload of American sailors and the US embassy.

The new evidence was a video tape containing footage of a busy suburban subway station that was allegedly to be the target of a bomb attack.

Authorities claim the tape was found in a secret compartment in the home of Mohamed Khalim bin Jaffar, one of the 13 still detained.

The government says the tape was similar to footage found in the rubble of an al-Qaeda leader's home in Afghanistan and which was handed over to Singapore on December 28.

The tape found in Jaffar's home had no voice commentary and is likely to be the original tape of the one found in Afghanistan, the government said.

According to the government, another of the detainees, Faiz Abu Bakar Bafanaa, gave a copy of the original video tape to an al-Qaeda leader called Abu Hafs Mohammad Atef in Afghanistan.

Atef is accused of being a lieutenant of bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant named by the United States as the mastermind of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

The Singapore government said ISD agents also found a computer hard disk in Jaffar's home which he claimed had been thrown away.

Data stored in the hard disk has been erased but forensic investigations managed to recover a file named "Security Of An Organisation," the government's statement said.

"The computer file was on how to avoid detection and how to maintain secrecy," it said.

Investigations into the detainees and their alleged plans are continuing.

Singapore said it would keep a vigilant eye for terror threats against the island, a bulwark of stability in troubled Southeast Asia, and would work with regional countries to combat terrorism.

"The cracking of this case shows that Singapore is on top of the situation," the government said.

It said "the Singapore government will not hesitate to take strong and pre-emptive action against anyone threatening the peace and security of Singapore."

The island's security agencies work closely with their foreign counterparts in the fight against terrorism.

Neighboring Malaysia and the Philippines have arrested dozens of suspected militants, and Indonesia is questioning a Muslim cleric believed to be the regional leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant outfit.

On Thursday, Malaysian police said they had arrested 23 Muslim militants, including four Indonesians and three Singaporeans, since December.

They belonged to a cell within the Muslim Militant Group with links to Jemaah Islamiyah extremists in Singapore, Inspector-General of Police Norian Mai said.

FBI Says Agents Prevented Attacks
Wednesday January 23 10:47 AM ET

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - The FBI (news - web sites) director said Wednesday that interrogating members of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terror network detained at the U.S. military base in Kandahar has prevented new attacks against U.S. targets worldwide.

Robert Mueller made an unannounced visit to the base, the largest concentration of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. As many as 400 al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners have been held at the base since the Taliban regime collapsed under attack by U.S.-led forces in November.

``Information we have picked up since the war has prevented additional attacks around the world,'' Mueller said. ``Interrogations from al-Qaida members detained here in Afghanistan as well as documents ... has prevented additional attacks against U.S. facilities around the world.''

Mueller ate a lunch of Afghan chicken and rice with FBI agents who are here to interrogate detainees. They are the first agents deployed in a combat zone.

Mueller refused to give details on what attacks may have been prevented. Singapore authorities last month arrested suspects they said were plotting attacks against the U.S. Embassy and other targets, helped partly by hand-written notes and a videotape found in Afghanistan.

In addition, a prisoner from the conflict - Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi, an al-Qaida training camp commander - warned of an impending attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen this week, according to Yemeni officials.

The FBI director said that he was traveling to find out ``what more needs to be done to assist FBI agents who have participated with Army and other forces here to learn all we could and can about terrorist activities.''

Mueller said he could not say anything about the military's continuing hunt for bin Laden or his chief Afghan ally, deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

U.S. special forces and Afghan anti-Taliban fighters conducted house-to-house searches in four villages in southern Helmand province seeking Omar, the one-eyed cleric whose extreme Islamic regime allowed bin Laden to use the country as a base, Afghan sources said.

Neither Omar nor his aides were discovered, the sources said on condition of anonymity. U.S. officials refuse to confirm special forces operations.

Special forces had been reported in action Monday near the eastern city of Khost, seizing four people suspected of links to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a prominent Taliban figure. The Khost area is considered dangerous because of deep feuds between rival warlords, and there were conflicting reports of clashes Wednesday.

The Afghan Islamic Press, based in Pakistan, reported that troops loyal to Zakim Khan had captured most government, military and intelligence facilities from loyalists of a bitter rival, Bacha Khan Zadran. Zakim Khan told AIP that he wanted interim leader Hamid Karzai's government to send a delegation to mediate the standoff.

But Amanaullah Zadran, brother of Bacha Khan and the government's minister of border and tribal affairs, said by telephone that his brother's forces were in complete control and that there had been no fighting.

About 3,600 soldiers from the United States and other coalition countries are based at the Kandahar airport. It came under brief attack two weeks ago, and two freshly dug mortar pits were discovered Wednesday north of the airfield. There were no mortars or munitions.

``We'll keep them under observation,'' Army Command Sgt. Maj. Mark Nielsen said.

Several suspicious individuals were seen by troops on the perimeter during the day, Nielsen said, some of them weaving in and out of abandoned adobe huts.

Asked whether another attack was being prepared, Nielsen said: ``I wouldn't put it past them. We'd be fools to think people are not outside looking in.''

Meanwhile, a young American who fought with the Taliban, John Walker Lindh, was being flown to the United States. Lindh traveled about 450 miles from the USS Bataan in the northern Arabian Sea, where he had been held for two months, to Kandahar and was transferred to a C-17 military transport.

Lindh was expected to arrive in suburban Washington sometime Wednesday. He faces charges in U.S. federal court in northern Virginia for conspiring to kill Americans, providing support to terrorist organizations and engaging in prohibited transactions with the Taliban. He could be sentenced to life imprisonment if convicted.

Reporters were kept away from the C-17 at Kandahar. The transfer took place under the red low-visibility light of the plane's back ramp, in a steady, cold rain, on the otherwise darkened runway. Lindh could not be seen.

Lindh, a 20-year-old Californian who converted to Islam at age 16, allegedly trained at an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan and personally met bin Laden.

Lindh was captured in November in the siege of Kunduz and survived a bloody prison uprising by Taliban and al-Qaida members near Mazar-e-Sharif in which CIA (news - web sites) operative Johnny ``Mike'' Spann was killed. There has been no indication he was directly involved in Spann's death.

In other developments:

- Five survivors of a Marine helicopter crash arrived Tuesday in Germany at a U.S. military hospital and were in stable condition, said Landstuhl Regional Medical Center near Ramstein Air Base. The helicopter was on a resupply mission for U.S. forces when it crashed Sunday south of Kabul, killing two Marines.

- Afghan leader Hamid Karzai visited China and won pledges of more aid, but the amount was not specified. An agreement was signed covering $4.6 million in aid that China had already pledged, including $1 million that China offered at an international donors conference in Tokyo.

- The American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) has sued two New Jersey counties, accusing them of violating state law by not releasing names and other information of detainees held in county jails since the Sept. 11 attacks. The group estimated that 400 to 700 people are being held as part of the government's terrorism probe.

- In Yemen, the government has closed down an Islamic institute where foreigners had been rounded up in recent weeks on residency violations, Education Minister Fadel Abu Ghanem said. It is located in a tribal region where Yemeni forces had been searching for al-Qaida suspects

UN chief heads for Afghanistan after fierce fighting kills 12
Friday January 25, 5:55 AM AFP

US special forces engaged in heavy fighting at two suspected al-Qaeda compounds in Afghanistan, killing more than a dozen Islamic militants on the eve of a landmark visit by UN chief Kofi Annan.

In what appeared to be one of the biggest battles fought by US troops in their 15-week-old campaign in Afghanistan, US forces also captured 27 militants, US military officials said.

A US commando was reported slightly wounded in the ankle in the action 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kandahar,

The firefight came amid mounting concern over factional feuding and lawlessness in the country as Annan prepared to become the first UN chief to visit the country in more than 40 years.

Most of those captured in the raids were Afghan fighters, despite initial reports that the compound was used by al-Qaeda, the network of mostly foreign fighters blamed for September 11 attacks on the United States.

"Once the compound was raided, we found it was mostly of a Taliban nature," said Air Force General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A large cache of weapons and ammunition was discovered and destroyed by an AC-130 gunship, officials said.

US warplanes also heavily bombed a suspected al-Qaeda base at Chargoti Ghar in the eastern Afghan province of Khost on Thursday, the Afghan Islamic Press reported.

UN officials earlier sounded the security alarm as Annan prepared to fly here Friday for the first visit by a UN secretary general to the war-ravaged central Asian nation since 1959.

"There are various armed groups who do not respond yet to central command," said Francesc Vendrell, deputy special envoy to Afghanistan. "There are forces from various commanders facing each other in places such as the north."

Political leaders and ordinary people throughout Afghanistan have expressed support for increasing the deployment of foreign troops in the war-scarred country, Vendrell said.

The UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), currently restricted to the greater Kabul area, is expected to reach its agreed full deployment of 4,500 troops from 17 countries by the end of February.

Vendrell had earlier in the week suggested a greater and wider deployment of some 30,000 foreign soldiers.

Officials fear that poor security could hamper efforts to rebuild Afghanistan after two decades of war despite pledges of 4.5 billion dollars in international aid.

"The secretary general will be urging neighbours to work more closely together to keep the security situation in Afghanistan stable, arguing that it is in their common interest," a UN statement said.

Vendrell said Annan would announce Friday the formation of a special commission to organise a "Loya Jirga" council of tribal elders, which will in turn name a transitional authority to rule ahead of elections within two years.

The commission is the next phase of the Bonn agreement thrashed out by Afghan factions in Germany last month under which Afghanistan's political transition is mapped out until general elections are held within two years.

The first phase saw the installation of a 30-member six-month interim government headed by Pashtun royalist Hamid Karzai on December 22.

Vendrell said Annan's visit "is a way of saying to the new government that they have to move further along on the Bonn agreement."

In a sign of normalization since US and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban militias, the first international flight by the Afghan airline Ariana since November 1999 arrived in New Delhi on Thursday from Kabul, after receiving permission to fly through Pakistani air space.

And the United States said Thursday it had unblocked Afghan gold and other assets held in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, frozen in 1999 while the Taliban was in power.

The move returns control of about 193 million dollars in gold and 24 million dollars in other assets to the new Afghan interim authority.

Karzai was in China where he was expected to be offered more aid, Beijing officials said. They also said he promised to repatriate any Chinese Muslim separatists discovered in Afghanistan.

In the Philippines, a C-17 cargo plane brought a dozen more US troops, equipment and supplies to help government troops battle Islamic guerrillas in the south.

Some 600 US troops were to be mustered for a six-month joint military training exercise, which could include forays into the jungle strongholds of Muslim Abu Sayyaf guerrillas believed linked to al-Qaeda.

Singapore authorities said they had uncovered further evidence of a "clear link" between 13 suspected Islamic militants held since last month and the al-Qaeda.

The 13 allegedly plotted to bomb US targets in the city-state, including a busload of American sailors and the US embassy.

Polemics continued Thursday over the treatment of 158 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners held at the US naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, despite a decision by Washington to suspend further transfers from Afghanistan.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told the BBC that it was "far preferable" the three Britons held there face justice in Britain.

Meanwhile, American John Walker Lindh, captured while fighting for the Taliban, appeared in a US federal court Thursday and was ordered held without bond. He faces charges of conspiring to kill US nationals and supporting terrorist groups.

In London, two Algerian men were charged with being part of al-Qaeda. Remanded into custody were Baghdad Meziane, 36, accused of "directing" al-Qaeda activities, and Brahim Benmerzouga, 30.

In Washington, US President George W. Bush said he would seek to nearly double the budget for homeland security to 37.7 billion dollars for fiscal year 2003, part of a larger effort to protect the country from terrorism.

He warned that Americans should stay on the alert "because we're still under attack (from) evil people that are relentless in their desire to hurt those who love freedom."

U.S. troops kill 15 Taliban fighters By Charles Aldinger

Friday January 25, 5:34 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Elite U.S. troops attacked two guerrilla compounds in southern Afghanistan on Thursday, killing up to 15 Taliban fighters and capturing 27 others, Pentagon officials said. One U.S. soldier was wounded.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the special forces strike north of Kandahar showed that pockets of resistance remained in the country despite the U.S.-led rout of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group and the former Taliban government.

Rumsfeld and Air Force General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, refused to discuss numbers killed in the pre-dawn raid, but Myers said 27 Taliban were captured and that a U.S. special forces soldier was wounded in the ankle.

Other Pentagon officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters that as many as 15 Afghan Taliban fighters had been killed.

According to Rumsfeld, diehard supporters of al Qaeda and Taliban are fighting on in a number of places in Afghanistan. "We are going to pursue them...and we are going to keep at them until we get them."

"We're doing it systematically and I think you can expect that it will continue for some period of time."

The latest action flared early in the day 60 miles (96 km) north of Kandahar, officials said.

NO 'WALK IN THE PARK'

"This would never be described as a walk in the park. any firefight is intense," Myers said in response to questions by reporters.

The general said intelligence information before the raid indicated that the two compounds might have been used by al Qaeda leadership but that they instead had apparently been used by Taliban leaders.

Myers added there was no immediate indication that Taliban leaders such as fugitive supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had been killed or captured.

The U.S. special forces soldier wounded in the action had been evacuated, he said.

The United States launched its war in Afghanistan in October in response to September 11 attacks on Washington and New York which killed more than 3,000 people.

The Taliban have been driven from power and U.S. forces are now hunting fugitive bin Laden, accused by Washington of masterminding the September attacks that killed more than 3,000 people.

The U.S. military's bombing campaign has come to a virtual halt in Afghanistan over the past two weeks but American warplanes continue to fly the skies over that war-shattered country looking for "targets of opportunity".

Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials have also said in recent weeks that the focus of the U.S. military campaign has shifted to ground operations to root al Qaeda and Taliban out of hiding places and searching caves and tunnels for intelligence information in the U.S. war on terrorism.

Commission appointed to plan new Afghan government
Friday January 25, 5:25 AM AFP

Afghanistan took another small step towards democracy with the confirmation of a 21-member commission to organize a council of tribal elders to appoint a new government, but clashes between US troops and al-Qaeda remnants showed the war is not over.

US defence officials in Washington said US special forces had raided two al-Qaeda compounds in southern Kandahar, killing more than a dozen people and capturing 27. One US commando was lightly wounded.

And the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported US warplanes had heavily bombed a suspected al-Qaeda base in the eastern Afghan province of Khost Thursday.

The continued presence of al-Qaeda fighters comes amid increasing fears about lawlessness and factional fighting which could undermine attempts to unite and reconstruct the nation after 23 years of war.

The membership of the commission will be announced on Friday in Kabul during an historic visit by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, a UN official said.

"It has been formed and it will be announced tomorrow," said Francesc Vendrell, UN deputy special representative to Afghanistan.

"There will be women on this council," he told AFP. "In my view it will be ethnically balanced and composed of people who are independent of the various military and political forces."

The 21-member council must determine procedures and the number of people who will participate in the Loya Jirga, or traditional council of tribal elders.

The formation of the council and the calling of the Loya Jirga are part of the provisions of the Bonn accord, which paved the way for the formation of the six-month power-sharing interim administration that took office in Kabul on December 22.

The Loya Jirga has to appoint a transitional authority that will rule the war-ravaged country in the lead-up to democratic elections, which must be held within two years.

However, Vendrell and other officials remain worried about the security situation in Afghanistan.

"There are hundreds of thousands of people with weapons," said Vendrell.

"There are various armed groups who do not respond yet to central command. There are forces from various commanders facing each other in places such as the north."

Security concerns were heightened this week when Syed Noorullah, deputy to ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam, told AFP fighting had erupted in recent days around Qala-e-Zal, 60 kilometres (37 miles) northwest of Kunduz.

AIP reported Wednesday that Dostam's forces had seized control of Qala-e-Zal, near the Tajikistan border, after several days of fighting with troops from a rival ethnic Tajik faction.

The groups involved are members of the Northern Alliance which fought against the ousted Taliban regime and now control most of the ministries in the new UN-backed interim government.

AIP also reported rival Pashtun tribal groups were vying for power in the eastern city of Khost.

Separately the agency quoted residents from the Pakistani border town of Ali Zai in northwestern Parachinar district who said the US bombed Chargoti Ghar in Khost province Thursday. The residents said flames and billowing dust had risen up close to the border but there was no word of any casualties.

Asked to elaborate on his reported comments that Afghanistan would need the deployment of 30,000 international troops to become secure, Vendrell said he believed a proper survey needed to be carried out on the security needs of the country.

The international security force, which is expected to swell to up to 5,000 members, has so far been confined to Kabul, but Vendrell said it was important that it be deployed to other major cities.

Aside from the factional fighting, the Taliban and al-Qaeda remants continued to pose a threat as US forces raided "Taliban and al-Qaeda leadership targets" about 100 kilometres (60 miles) north of Kandahar.

It was not known who was among those killed or captured, but defence officials said the two compounds raided were believed to hold "significant al-Qaeda" leaders.

Afghan Reconstruction Minister Amin Farhang, accompanying interim leader Hamid Karzai in China Thursday, said the administration would "pay any price" to maintain security in the country. Reconstruction would be impossible without security, he added.

Karzai, appointed in December to head the interim government, was continuing his diplomatic blitz after winning pledges of 4.5 billion dollars in aid from donor countries in Tokyo earlier in the week.

The Afghan leader flew to Tajikistan later Thursday.

He is due to return to Kabul Friday to meet Annan, and on Monday goes to Washington for a meeting with US President George W. Bush.

Afghanistan made further progress towards rejoining the international fold Thursday morning when a Boeing 727 belonging to national airline Ariana flew to New Delhi on the first international commercial flight since November 1999.

More than a dozen killed, 27 captured in US raids on compounds in Afghanistan
Friday January 25, 4:53 AM AFP

US special forces raided two compounds in Afghanistan believed to hold Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders, killing more than a dozen people and capturing 27 others, US defense officials said. A US commando was lightly wounded in the ankle, they said.

Air Force General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the raid was launched early Thursday local time in the mountains north of Kandahar, triggering an intense firefight.

"This would never be described as a walk in the park," said Myers.

Myers said most of those found inside were Afghan fighters despite initial reports that the compound was used by al-Qaeda, the network of mostly foreign fighters and suspected terrorists led by Saudi-born multi-millionaire Osama bin Laden.

"Once the compound was raided, we found it was mostly of a Taliban nature," he said.

The general would not say whether the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was believed to be in the area.

"We still have eyes on the targets there and there is a potential for further action," he said.

Bin Laden and Omar both are the subject of an intense US manhunt, having eluded capture by US forces since the Taliban's fall from power in Afghanistan.

The raids -- in an area about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kandahar -- comprised one of the largest known US ground operations of the US military campaign in Afghanistan.

"They were not a surprise. They were planned," said US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a Pentagon news conference with Myers.

Rumsfeld said the raids are carried out without knowing precisely who is inside but "with the knowledge that, when you see certain indicators, why it's likely that they are people who are not simply foot soldiers."

A US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said more than a dozen suspected Taliban or al-Qaeda fighters were killed in the raid.

Another 27 were captured and taken to Kandahar for questioning, said Navy Commander Dan Keesee, a spokesman for the US Central Command in Tampa, Florida.

US forces were sorting through the captives to see who they were and how high ranking they were, Myers said.

US forces had intended to take prisoners because a key aim of the operation was to gather intelligence, he said.

A large cache of weapons and ammunition were discovered at one of the compounds. It was destroyed by an AC-130 gunship, Keesee said.

A US special forces soldier was wounded in the ankle by enemy fire, defense officials said, but the injury was described as not life-threatening.

Keesee said the soldier, who was not immediately identified, was being treated at a medical facility in the Afghanistan theater of operations.

"He's in stable condition. His injuries are not life threatening," he said.

Rumsfeld said US forces were search for remaining pockets of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, which he said were "in some cases not small pockets but somewhat larger than small."

"I think the long and the short of it is, there are a lot more of these pockets," he said. "We are going to pursue them. We are pursuing them now. We pursue them alone, we pursue them with coalition forces, we pursue them with Afghan forces, and we're going to keep at them until we get them."