March 9, 2002

Milosevic says FBI paper shows al Qaeda in Kosovo
By Abigail Levene

Friday March 8, 10:48 PM
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic brandished what he said was an FBI document showing al Qaeda backed Muslim fighters in Kosovo as he insisted
on Friday that Albanian separatists were the true villains in the war-torn province.

Sparring with a Kosovo human rights activist who accused Serbs of killing and mutilating ethnic Albanians, the former Yugoslav leader said the document proved al
Qaeda and Mujahideen support for Muslim fighters in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya.

"This is a Congressional statement of the FBI. That's what this is," Milosevic declared, adding triumphantly that the report was dated last December -- "after
September 11".

"Neither the (Serbian) army nor the police have been implicated in war crimes," Milosevic told The Hague war crimes court in the fourth week of his trial, pointing
the finger repeatedly at Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerrillas.

But witness Sabit Kadriu said he knew nothing of activity by Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden in Kosovo, where a Serbian crackdown on ethnic Albanians
triggered NATO strikes in 1999.

"It's not true there were Mujahideen in Kosovo. This is a fiction of your mind," the 41-year-old ethnic Albanian human rights activist and former teacher told the
U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia.

Milosevic, who faces 66 counts of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia, traded allegations of atrocities with Kadriu in
an ill-tempered session that saw the three Hague judges intervene frequently to steer accused and witness back to the substance of the charges.

"The KLA was a liberation army and you were mutilating and killing civilians," said the 14th prosecution witness.

"We know whose speciality this is," Milosevic retorted. "It is the al Qaeda branch in Kosovo."

"A MOCKERY OF THE VICTIMS"

Kadriu, who visited the site of atrocities in the north-western Cicavica region of Kosovo in September 1998, on Thursday had chronicled grisly killings in the
province.

Kadriu was rounded up with thousands of others by Serbian forces in May 1999, he said. Interrogated and beaten, he was later deported to neighbouring Albania.

He ended up in a refugee camp but returned to his native Kosovo in mid-June 1999 to become a municipal official.

Milosevic, who is defending himself, adopted the aggressive cross-examination tone that has become familiar since his trial began on February 12.

The ex-president zeroed in on specific massacres of Kosovo Albanian families, alleging they fell victim to KLA clashes with Serbian forces rather than to Serb
atrocities.

"This is a mockery of the victims and he should be ashamed of himself," Kadriu responded.

Most of those to testify so far have been Kosovo Albanian "deportation witnesses", as the prosecution calls them. Kadriu was the first who dared turn to face
Milosevic directly as he answered questions from the former Serbian strongman.

Milosevic is accused of spearheading the deportation of 800,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in March-June 1999 as part of a grand plan to create an ethnically
pure "Greater Serbia".

The involvement in the Balkans of Mujahideen guerrillas from Arab states and Afghanistan is well documented. U.S. agents tracked the trail of al Qaeda leader bin
Laden and his followers in Albania and Kosovo itself, before the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The KLA began a campaign of violent resistance to Serbian rule in the mid-1990s which brought Kosovo to widespread Western public attention and ultimately
drew NATO into the conflict.

Milosevic's wife Mira Markovic is currently on a four-day visit to her husband, who has been in detention since being sent to The Hague last June by Serb reformers
who ousted him in 2000.

Markovic will not be coming to the trial, Milosevic's legal adviser Dragoljub Ognjanovic told Reuters in the tribunal lobby.

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Afghans mark women's day but burqas rule streets

Friday March 8, 11:00 PM

By Mehrdad Balali

KABUL, March 8 (Reuters) - Afghan women marked their first International Women's Day since the fall of the Taliban on Friday with delegates at the main official
function free of the burqa but out on streets the Islamic dress still largely prevailed.

However amid the celebration of new freedoms, attended by U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, even the most liberal of Afghan women present
urged their advance must be within Islamic teachings and not follow western models.

Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai vowed to improve the status of women, sidelined after the fall of the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul in the early 1990s and
then subjected to even harsher oppression under the fundamentalist Sunni Muslim Taliban.

Under the Taliban, Afghan women were banned from seeking education and employment, confined to homes, lashed by so-called religious police for wearing nail
polish or makeup and denied many fundamental rights enjoyed in other Muslim nations.

"This is a great and historical day. We are determined to work to improve the lot of women after all their suffering under the narrow-minded and oppressive rule of
the Taliban," Karzai said.

The meeting place was a destroyed open-air movie theatre set alight by the Taliban who had banned films and television during their six-year rule.

The location was carefully chosen for its symbolism because the theatre is named after "Zainab", a 14th century Muslim heroine and symbol of women's rights in
Islam.

"We are taking practical steps towards this goal," Karzai told the International Women's Day gathering to cheers from dozens of proud delegates.

Women buzzed around the theatre handing out leaflets calling for their rights to be respected and restored. Outside on Kabul's streets there were few women present
and none in the immediate vicinity were aware of their sisters' doings.

Four months after the Taliban left Kabul, it is still rare to see women on the streets without the all-enveloping blue burqa, but their lives have changed dramatically in
other ways.

"Based on the teachings of Islam and under international conventions, women have all kinds of rights. They can go to school and reach the highest levels of
education. They can vote and be elected to political office," Karzai said.

Unusually for a conservative Islamic country, a woman recited verses from the Koran to an audience where women outnumbered men four to one. Under Islamic
law, woman should not sing in circumstances like this when men are present.

It would be unthinkable in conservative Islamic states such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, where women are not allowed to sing solo in front of men, let alone from the
Muslim holy book.

"I am very happy. It is the first time in many years we have anything like this. I am anxious to go back to school and finish my education," said Saliah Soma, one
delegate.

She said she had been forced to quit journalism school at Kabul university when the Taliban regime rose to power in the mid-1990s.

EDUCATION AND POVERTY FIRST
No one at the meeting wore the burqa, opting instead for jeans, colourful Western suits, or traditional attire with just a scarf loosely covering their heads.

But in a country gripped by total social and economic deprivation, many Afghans argue more fundamental issues such as education and poverty must be addressed
before women can hope for priority for their needs.

Sima Samar, Karzai's minister on women's affairs and a champion of sexual equality, warned any quest for progress must be pursued within Islamic values, ruling out
liberal Western feminist ideas.

"Afghanistan is an Islamic country. To save our women from present miseries, we cannot copy any Western and European models," she said in her speech.

The dramatic developments in Afghanistan attracted a host of international figures and women's rights groups.

"This is a new beginning and a great beginning for Afghan women. I promise to support their cause. We are setting up workshops to promote education for them.
We will focus on women as a priority," said the U.N.'s Robinson.

But the presence of Western feminist groups sparked alarm in some religious circles that the West may be trying to impose its liberal values on the conservative,
male-oriented Islamic state.

U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan Lakhtar Ibrahimi, in his speech to the ceremony, urged the international community to take heed of realities in Afghanistan and
follow rather than lead.

"The international community should line up behind the Afghan people, not in front of them. Let's respect what they Afghans think is best for them. We need no other
agenda," he said.

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Al Qaeda laughed at U.S. soldiers in fierce battle
By Jeff Mason

Saturday March 9, 12:40 AM

LANDSTUHL, Germany (Reuters) - The hills echoed with laughter as al Qaeda and Taliban fighters rained down fire on U.S. soldiers wounded in a fierce Afghan
battle.

Helicopters brought teams of U.S. soldiers into enemy terrain a week ago, seeking to eliminate the Islamic militants from a remote corner of Afghanistan.

Determined resistance left wounded U.S. soldiers exposed on the hills and trying to stay alive as mortar and gun fire barred helicopters from returning until nightfall.

Three wounded U.S. soldiers at the U.S. military's medical facilities at Landstuhl, Germany, gave a graphic account on Friday of this perilous March 2nd battle.

"We could hear them laugh at us," said Specialist Wayne Stanton, 20, from Rockwood, Tennessee, who was on crutches and had a cast on his leg. "They were
laughing every time we shot at them."

"They were 2,000 feet above us. Our small arms could not reach them up there," he said. "Every time a fast mover (aircraft) or a helicopter came to attack them or
engage them, they just ran into the caves."

On Friday, the U.S. military said al Qaeda's resistance was faltering after nearly a week of fierce fighting in freezing Afghan mountains, with coalition forces gaining
the higher ground.

The U.S. says eight American soldiers and seven Afghan troops have died in the battle, with about 100 wounded, in the biggest U.S.-led ground offensive of the
five-month Afghan war.

ENEMY TERRAIN
On March 2, the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division carried about 100 or so soldiers by helicopter into an area between two 10,000 foot-tall ridges at about 6
a.m.

The al Qaeda forces and their backers responded almost immediately from positions high in the mountains and with their escape caves nearby.

"We took some gunfire as we proceeded to make our entrance off the helicopters," said Spec. Ricardo Miranda, 20, of Salinas, California.

Many of the Americans quickly realised the Afghan forces had the upper hand.

"We're fighting in their backyard. We're the ones who are not used to the high altitudes of the mountains," Miranda said. "They know where every crack in that
mountain is."

The stubborn al Qaeda and Taliban resistance led to casualties in the U.S. forces by late morning.

Sergeant Robert McCleave, 25, from El Toro, California, was hit by mortar fire in his thigh and elbows.

"It was probably no more than, and I kid you not, no more than 10 feet away. One of the soldiers that was with us took the bulk of that blast. The rest of us got
pretty well wounded after that."

"When that round hit, it felt like somebody had just pressed the pause button on the VCR."

"I saw a fellow soldier of mine look around. He stared right at me in the eyes and he started screaming, and I was like 'oh, okay, this is my time to yell now', so I hit
the floor."

ORDEAL UNDER FIRE
Fear spread as the blood flowed.

"After I saw the first few people get hurt, I started getting scared," said Stanton.

"It really hurt a little bit more to see my guys get hit," Miranda said. "Living with these guys so long you build a kind of brotherhood, you could say. I love all my guys,
I am not afraid to say it."

Then Miranda, who now rides a wheelchair with an arm and a leg in casts, was wounded. "I felt a little bit of shock at first. I looked at my hands, I looked at my
body, I said, 'Wow, I got hit'," he said.

The wounded men had to keep on the move to stay alive amid fire from above, running amid the blood and the pain. Growing reinforcement of the al Qaeda forces
dashed hopes to bring in rescue helicopters in the early afternoon.

"It would have been taking a very big chance just to fly those birds in there. The chance (was) of a helicopter going down and more casualties," McCleave said. "The
area was too hot, there was too much fire taking place."

U.S. aircraft pounded the hills in support of its troops, scattering the Afghan forces only temporarily.

"As soon as you heard the jet engines...fire would cease," McCleave said. "They would jump into bunkers, try to hide in cave complexes."

NIGHT RESCUE

Nightfall finally brought a chance of rescue.

"As soon as night fell, it relieved a lot of tension because they didn't have night-vision capabilities, they couldn't see us," Stanton said.

"It was more sporadic. They tried to use tracer rounds to spot where we were. When they used tracer rounds, the close air support, the AC-130 crews, saw where
they were firing from and just obliterated them."

By 11 p.m., U.S. helicopters rescued the remaining men, some of whom had hobbled under hostile fire for more than 12 hours.

---

U.S.-led war in Afghanistan in dangerous ground phase
By Deborah Zabarenko

Friday March 8, 4:27 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Six months after September 11 and five months after the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan began, the conflict's deadliest clash for U.S.
soldiers shows the truth of the Pentagon's mantra: "The task is far from over."

Top Defense Department brass acknowledged this week embarking on a dangerous phase of up-close ground combat after months of airstrikes on Taliban and al
Qaeda targets and a remarkably low casualty rate for U.S. forces.

That appears to have changed with Operation Anaconda, a mission that started last Saturday and is aimed at dug-in pockets of resistance in the mountains outside
the eastern Afghanistan city of Gardez.

Eight U.S. servicemen have been killed in the operation, seven of them on Monday in two incidents in which U.S. MH-47 "Chinook" Army helicopters operating at
high altitude encountered fierce fire from the ground. Those who died were part of a reconnaissance push into the hostile area. Prior to the operation, there had been
one U.S. military death from hostile fire in the Afghanistan campaign.

"Of course any time one has a higher concentration of forces on the ground, one can anticipate higher casualties," U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks told reporters
hours after the deaths were announced.

Franks said he and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had repeatedly predicted U.S. forces and their allies would come to this point.

"And yes, it is more dangerous, and that is the phase of the operation that we're in right now," Franks said.

The current phase comes after an apparent lull in fighting following the December campaign to attack cave complexes at Tora Bora, seen as a stronghold of
sympathizers of Osama bin Laden, leader of al Qaeda.

Washington holds bin Laden responsible for masterminding the September 11 attacks by hijacked commercial airplanes that killed about 3,000 people at the World
Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.

Still, the whereabouts of bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar remain unknown, and the eradication of Taliban and al Qaeda forces has not been
accomplished.

NO 'LEAKERS'
Those Taliban and al Qaeda fighters holed up in the caves outside Gardez are not "leakers," as Franks described those who managed to slip away from the Tora
Bora caves when that area was under attack.

"The enemy forces have sustained much larger numbers of killed and wounded, and there will be many more," Rumsfeld told reporters. "We intend to continue the
operations until those al Qaeda and Taliban who remain either surrender or are killed. The choice is theirs."

The focus of Operation Anaconda is the hundreds of fighters hiding in caves in the Shahi-Kot region, some staying with their families.

U.S. forces that managed to get into one of the caves found mortars, rocket-propelled grenade rounds and small arms. In another cache, they found foreign drivers'
licenses and foreign passports.

That seems a far cry from the initial months of the military effort after attacks were first launched on October 7, when warplanes pounded Afghan targets daily and
relief flights dropped food and supplies, with military casualties confined largely to accidents. The Taliban, which sheltered bin Laden, was deposed and an interim
government put in place.

But from the beginning, Rumsfeld has sounded variations on a theme he mentioned again on Monday: "The task is far from over."

Alex Alexiev, a former Defense Department military analyst on Afghanistan and the Soviet failure there, said the current phase was a mopping-up operation, albeit
one that could take a long time.

"This is not going to be the same intensity as the first and decisive phase," Alexiev said in a telephone interview. "We now have to insert people on the ground. ...
That's something that has to be done and you take casualties when you're involved in such operations."

He contrasted the conflict with the Soviet Union's 10-year war in Afghanistan, with 13,000 Soviet troops killed and "huge damage to the very political fiber of Soviet
society."

"Compare that to the American campaign and you have to admit that it was unbelievably successful," Alexiev said. "It's been really astounding. It may go in the
history of warfare as the perfect campaign

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Afghans send reinforcements as US tells al-Qaeda to give up or die
Friday March 8, 5:11 PM(AFP)
Hundreds of Afghan troops rushed to the rugged eastern Arma mountains to reinforce the US-led assault on an al-Qaeda stronghold US officials said includes
"high-value" targets.

"We have hurt the enemy. We have disrupted their lines of control. We have clearly destroyed over half of their force and disrupted their lines of supply," said US
Colonel Joe Smith, chief of staff for the coalition task force fighting the battle in eastern Paktia province.

"They can either give up or be destroyed," he told reporters at Bagram air base near the Afghan capital Kabul.

Smith indicated some senior al-Qaeda leaders might be among those caught in the trap, saying intelligence reports have identified "high-value" targets in the area.

He would not, however, speculate on whether al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was among them.

The Saudi-born militant and his al-Qaeda network are blamed for the September 11 suicide attacks in the United States that killed some 3,000 people.

Eight US soldiers have died and some 48 have been injured since the assault began Saturday in the lower Shahi Kot valley, in the deadliest battle for US forces since
the military campaign began October 7.

The Afghan defense ministry Thursday asked 1,000 men to head to the frontline, in the interim government's first deployment to assist the coalition that ousted the
extremist Taliban militia from power.

"We're going to Gardez to crush Osama bin Laden's supporters. Our mujahedin are experienced in mountain battle. The Taliban and al-Qaeda forces aren't strong
and they have no way to escape," General Gul Haidar told AFP as his troops rumbled through the village of Mohammad Agha en route to Gardez.

"We want them to lay down their arms if they are Afghans and to hand over their foreign fighters. If not, we'll crush them," said Haider, the defense ministry's official
for Afghanistan's southern zone.

Several hundred Afghan fighters are already on the ground with the US-led coalition under the command of local Afghan warlord Zia Lodin.

But as Operation Anaconda entered its seventh day, the allied forces faced dust clouds and a forecast of snow.

The poor weather could impede US warplanes but not ground forces, said US Army Major Tim Brooks, an operations officer with the coalition task force.

"We're better at fighting in all conditions than any other army in the world," Brooks said.

Some 2,000 coalition troops -- including more than 1,200 from the United States -- are taking part in the seven-day-old offensive. About 200 commandos from
Australia, Canada and European countries are also on the ground.

Smith said US forces also continued to discover and destroy cave complexes in the area and analyze documents found in them for intelligence.

"Most of what that documentation is telling us is this is the hardcore enemy we are looking for," he said.

The militants, believed to be mostly Chechens, Pakistanis and Uzbeks, fought a pitched battle with Afghan troops for control of Sirkankel, a town about 25 miles (40
kilometers) south of Gardez, and ambushed US forces with mortar fire as they landed in the mountains to the south and east.

Three Afghans from a local militia also have died in the operation, along with an estimated 400 al-Qaeda fighters, US military officials said.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Operation Anaconda, named after the snake that encircles and crushes its prey, could be over soon.

"I would think it would end sometime this weekend or next week, but one can't be sure," he said at a meeting with Pentagon employees.

Rumsfeld said US estimates of the number of al-Qaeda holed up in the mountains "have been changing dramatically" and it was not known whether other fighters
have been able to move in or out the area.

"I suspect we will not know how many are in there until it's over," Rumsfeld said.

US troops said the only significant incident they faced Thursday came when three to four militants fired on a US CH-47 Chinook helicopter landing supplies just after
sunrise in an area thought to be under coalition control.

The bullets caused no significant damage, said First Lieutenant Joe Claburn, who directed the mission.

"Situations on the battlefield can change in the blink of an eye," he said.

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Abu Sayyaf rape women hostages: Philippine leader

Friday March 8, 4:47 PM

MANILA, March 8 (AFP) -
Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said Friday that Abu Sayyaf Muslim guerrillas in the country's troubled south routinely rape and physically abuse their women
hostages.

This made them "ultimate terrorists" who ought to be exterminated, she told a graduation ceremony at the state-run Philippine Women's University coinciding with
International Women's Day.

Arroyo said the current deployment of 660 US troops helping to train the Philippine military crush the Abu Sayyaf would help end the gunmen's "exploitation" of
women.

The US troops include 160 special forces soldiers who are stationed in the Abu Sayyaf stronghold of Basilan island, where the rebels are holding an American
Christian missionary couple and a Filipina nurse.

Arroyo said "the battle against terrorism, the battle against poverty is also a battle for protecting women's human rights".

"One reason why I am very adamant that we must defeat the Abu Sayyaf by all constitutional means within our power is because the Abu Sayyaf, being the ultimate
terrorists, are also the ultimate abusers of women's rights.

"The women hostages, one after the other, have become more brave in recent times during this administration. And one by one, they had given us their horror stories
of physical rape and abuse that were inflicted on them by the Abu Sayyaf."

Organized in the early 1990s by Filipino militants who fought alongside the mujahedin against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Abu Sayyaf has since branched
out to lucrative kidnap for ransom activities.

Both the US and Philippine governments say the group has links with the al-Qaeda network of Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the September 11 attacks on
the United States.

In April 2000, Abu Sayyaf gunmen raided a Malaysian island resort and seized 20 hostages including a number of Western tourists, who were ransomed off for
millions of dollars several months later.

A second high-profile raid resulted in the capture of 20 tourists and hotel staff in the western Philippine island resort of Dos Palmas last May.