Afghanistan News April 3, 2003

April 3, 2003

Green Berets, Allies Fight Afghan Taliban
By KATHY GANNON, 4/2/03
SPINBOLDAK, Afghanistan - Two dozen U.S. special forces troops and hundreds of their Afghan allies swooped in on a border village Wednesday to drive out resurgent Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan. Under fierce attack, the Taliban fled into nearby mountains where they were pummeled by U.S. aircraft.

It was the latest assault on rebel forces, who are regrouping after a U.S. coalition drove them from power 18 months ago. At least eight Afghan soldiers and as many Taliban fighters were wounded. Six Taliban were captured and arrested, but another 60 were entrenched in the rugged Tor Ghar mountain range.

Air support arrived from Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, about six hours after the battle started. By then, 45 special forces soldiers and about 250 Afghan soldiers drove the Taliban into the mountains from the village of Sikai Lashki, 25 miles north of Spinboldak, the gateway to Afghanistan on the border with Pakistan.

"We're still fighting. Our soldiers are hitting them and the American soldiers with us are calling in the air strikes," Khan Mohammed, the 2nd Corps commander in Kandahar, in southern Afghanistan, said as night fell over the stark landscape.

The U.S. military in Bagram, north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, said in a statement that U.S. servicemen "observing" the operation called in air support. "Special Forces called for close air support," the military said. In the first assault, two A-10 fighter jets fired seven white phosphorous rockets and 520 30 mm rounds. Two Apache helicopters followed, firing 130 30 mm rounds and 67 other rockets, it said.

Evidence is mounting in the southern regions of Afghanistan that the Taliban is reorganizing and has found an ally in rebel commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, labeled a terrorist and hunted by U.S. troops. "Six months ago their attacks were sporadic. But today there is a new organization to the Taliban," Mohammed said at the sprawling compound where Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar once lived.

"They have found places and opened fronts. They are better organized and are slowly, slowly getting larger and better organized." In the last two weeks in southern Afghanistan, a Red Cross worker was waylaid and murdered, and two U.S. servicemen were killed in an ambush on their convoy.

Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for the Kandahar governor, told The Associated Press that the Red Cross worker, Ricardo Munguia of El Salvador, was shot 20 times and the vehicles in his convoy were torched. The International Committee of the Red Cross ordered its workers not to travel until further notice.

"This is their aim, to frighten international aid workers away from southern Afghanistan so that the reconstruction cannot go ahead and the government is destabilized," Mohammed said. He accused Pakistan of aiding the Taliban's reorganization and of harboring its key leaders. He was not alone. In Spinboldak, Khalid Khan, the town's director of foreign affairs, said the Taliban leaders and their commanders have found safe havens "in hundreds of homes in Quetta," the capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province.

Khan said the support for fleeing Taliban is coming from Pakistan's militant Muslim groups. But Mohammed said it also is coming from the Pakistan government — a key ally of the U.S.-led coalition's war on terror in Afghanistan. "Without state support these groups couldn't operate," Mohammed said.

Pakistan denies helping militant groups, yet leaders have been freed from house arrest and are urging the faithful in Pakistan mosques to wage jihad against the United States. A former Taliban commander hiding in Ghazni province earlier told the AP he stayed with Harakat-ul Mujahedeen fighters in Quetta last year while in Pakistan. He refused to say what he was doing in Pakistan.

The latest battle in the Tor Ghar Mountains is not far from the border with Pakistan and its semiautonomous tribal belt. It is in that region that U.S. and European intelligence sources say Taliban fleeing the U.S. coalition in Afghanistan have found refuge.

The Taliban's reorganization has provincial commanders overseeing operations. In the south and southeast, the reorganization and military operations are being managed by former Interior Minister Abdul Razzak, former Kandahar corps commander Mohammed Usmani and key commanders Mohammed Dadullah and Mullah Brather. "We know these people, we know their tribes. We know they are in charge here," Mohammed said.

Taliban militants face exit deadline
Gulf Daily News (Bahrain) wednesday 2 April 2003
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan: Governor Gul Agha of southern Afghanistan's Kandahar province has ordered all Taliban to leave the war-torn country's south within 10 days or face "severe punishment".

"In the coming 10 days all Taliban who are here in Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Oruzgan (provinces) must leave, except those who get a guarantee from someone that he is not going to harm the government or security," he said.

Agha was speaking on his return from Shah Wali Kot, north of Kandahar city, where pro-government troops backed by US forces have been fighting suspected Taliban. "I promise the people of Kandahar that none of the Taliban can create problems for stability in the future.

"I have ordered my commanders not to allow any Talibs in the villages; if they are caught they are to be punished severely." He said all Taliban working in the government or army must leave their posts or face punishment. The governor did not say where the former Taliban should go, nor whether other provinces would be willing to admit them.

Agha described as "baseless" Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah Akhund's claims in a BBC interview to have killed two Afghan soldiers, and arrested 65 other Afghan and US troops.

Kandahar commander Khan Moha-mmad, who returned from battle with the governor, questioned where the estimated hundreds of thousands of former Taliban lingering in the four southern provinces would go.

"Due to his anger he made this speech," Mohammad said, before holding talks with the governor. Mohammad said 13 Taliban arrested during the operation around Shah Wali Kot included former Taliban trade and commerce minister Mullah Abdul Rajaq.

Among those believed to have escaped was Mullah Zahir, described by Mohammad as a close friend of the Taliban's spiritual leader Mullah Omar, who has so far eluded capture despite an international manhunt.

Afghan security forces arrest a man allegedly planning to sabotage capital's power supply
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan security forces arrested a man Wednesday allegedly planning to sabotage electricity pylons that provide power to Kabul, state television said. The man, who was carrying 40 kilograms (88 pounds) of explosives, was arrested in Sarobi, west of Kabul, state television said.

Much of the electricity in the capital is furnished by hydroelectric dams in Sarobi. The man, a resident of Sarobi, was identified as Noor Aqa. No other details were immediately available.

Separately, state television said authorities in southern Afghanistan had identified the suspected killer of Ricardo Munguia, a water engineer for the International Committee of the Red Cross who was the first foreign aid worker to be slain since the Taliban regime was brought down in 2001.

The El Salvadoran was murdered on March 27 while traveling between Uruzgan and Kandahar provinces. The report identified the suspect as Abdul Sabor, but gave no details about him. "He is alive and well in Afghanistan, and security forces are hunting for him," the television report said. "They will arrest him as soon as possible." Interior Ministry official Mohammad Daoud declined to comment on the report.

Meanwhile, the former king of Afghanistan, Mohammad Zaher Shah, left the capital Wednesday for Saudi Arabia, where he planned to visit that country's Islamic holy sites, the TV said.

Illegal Afghans sent back to homeland
Source: Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) Abu Dhabi | By Nissar Hoath | April 2, 2003
More than 100 Afghans are arrested every week trying to enter the UAE in search of jobs and hoping for a better life.

Little hope is seen of the trend, which began during Taliban rule in Afghanistan – even after the amnesty for illegal immigrants to leave the country. According to the Afghan embassy, from 100 to 160 Afghans are being arrested while infiltrating into the country and sent to Central Jail in Taweelah every week. In the past three months, the embassy issued 1,289 outpasses at the Central Jail for the infiltrators.

"We were issuing from 100 to 150 outpasses to prisoners each week even before the amnesty," Shafiq Ansari, First Secretary at the embassy, said yesterday. Ansari added that the majority are Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan heading towards the Arabian Gulf instead of returning to Afghanistan due to poverty and unemployment there.

However, he added, some of them include those who come to Pakistan and Iran from Afghanistan in search of employment but end up in Gulf jails after they are lured by unscrupulous smugglers promising them jobs in the region.

"Most of these infiltrators are depressed young people coming to escape poverty because of the continuous war for the last 30 years in Afghanistan, and the drought," the diplomat said. He added this problem has persisted since the early days of the Taliban.

"Every week more than 100 Afghans are arrested but they are issued outpasses for their repatriation without delay. On Monday we issued 125 outpasses at the Central Jail, 164 last week and 150 the week before."

He said he and two more staff members visit the Central Jail every Monday to verify the origin of arrested illegals and issue outpasses on the spot. "Those who have no friends and relatives here to pay for their air tickets back home are supported by local authorities. So far almost all the Afghan inmates have been provided with air tickets by the UAE government, for which we are really grateful."

Asked how this problem can be solved, Ansari said his government is trying its best to convince and repatriate all the Afghan refugees in Iran and Pakistan back to Afghanistan, instead of heading towards this region.

"The best way to solve the problem is to provide the young with jobs back home. This is only possible if the country's reconstruction speeds up and the pledged funds for it are released without any delay."

He said this issue is a source of concern for both the embassy and the UAE government. But those who need to seek the amnesty are small in number. The embassy has issued more than 2,000 outpasses for illegal Afghan residents to leave the country under the amnesty, the diplomat said.

More than 2,000 outpasses were issued to those who were overstaying, but the flow of amnesty seekers at the embassy has been smooth.

NATO Asked to Study Afghan Peacekeeping
By ROBERT WIELAARD, 4/3/02- AP
BRUSSELS, Belgium - The 19 NATO members asked military planners Wednesday to study giving the alliance control of the Afghan peacekeeping operation. Germany has suggested NATO take over the peacekeeping operation in the Afghan capital of Kabul — now under joint Dutch-German command — for the sake of continuity.

Doing so would end what NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson has termed "the unseemly scramble" to find a country willing to command the peacekeeping force. He has complained that the current six-month rotation system of the command does not give the impression that NATO and other nations are interested in a long-term peacekeeping commitment.

The alliance now only provides logistical and other support to the peacekeeping force. Any change in command would need United Nations approval. "NATO nations are interested in looking at all possibilities to maximize the support NATO can lend to international peacekeepers," an alliance official said on condition of anonymity.

The official said alliance envoys asked NATO military planners to propose ideas, including an option for the alliance to take charge of the 4,000-strong peacekeeping force that has rotated among nations since first being deployed in December 2001 after the Taliban regime was ousted.

However, Belgium and France have rejected the idea of putting the Kabul operation under a NATO flag, arguing the organization is too closely associated with the United States. The meeting of NATO ambassadors gave military planners no firm deadline. The request comes during a tough period within the alliance, where relations have been soured by the Iraq crisis.

Before the war began, Belgium, Germany and France united for weeks to hold up NATO plans to send units to Turkey to help defend against a possible Iraqi attack. A February agreement eventually allowed the deployment.

Pakistan arrests militant suspect - bbc
Police in Pakistan have arrested a suspected member of an outlawed Sunni sectarian group, blamed for planning attacks on minority groups. Shabir Ahmed was detained in the central district of Multan on suspicion of being part of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group linked to the killings of Shia Muslims and Christians.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has also been connected with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan. Ahmed was wanted in four cases of killing minority Shia Muslims and had a reward of one million rupees ($17,200) on his head.

Police superintendent in Multan, Malik Hussain, said Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was one of Pakistan's most feared militant groups. "We can breathe a sigh of relief after his arrest. The biggest threat to us was from this man," he told Reuters news agency.

Sunni Muslim Lashkar-e-Jhangvi had close ties with the Taleban administration in Afghanistan and fought against the opposition Northern Alliance forces.
The group is particularly linked to two attacks on western targets in Karachi last year: The car bomb in Karachi which killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers, and the murder of US reporter, Daniel Pearl.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi was outlawed along with a related Sunni group, Sipah-e-Sahaba, in a crackdown on terrorism. Most of Pakistan's 140 million are Sunni Muslims and live in peace with the minority Shia community but a small number of people from each community have been blamed for violent attacks against each other.

FBI steps up hunt for Pakistani
Publication: Washington Times Date: 04/02/2003 Author: Jerry Seper
The FBI has intensified its search for a Pakistani woman suspected of working with al Qaeda terrorists, focusing concerns that the science graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology could be tied to a scheme involving "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla.

Law-enforcement authorities said Aafia Siddiqui, 31, who lived in Boston for years, is being sought for questioning in her suspected role as a facilitator or "fixer" for al Qaeda - someone used by the network to move cash or provide other logistical support. Siddiqui, who has a doctoral degree in neurological science from MIT,
is the first woman the FBI has formally linked to the terrorist group. But law-enforcement authorities believe several women may soon surface in leading roles for al Qaeda, whose ranks have been decimated by arrests and deaths. Terrorist groups including Muslim ones have used women, but it would represent a major shift by al Qaeda, which traditionally has called women unworthy of participating in Islamic jihad.

Last month, the Asharq al-Awsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, Published an interview with a woman identifying herself only as Umm Usama, the "mother of Osama," saying women were training in camps to "carry out operations that will make the U.S. forget its own name." The unidentified woman described her job as overseeing the training "of the female mujahideen affiliated with al Qaeda and the Taliban." Records show Siddiqui left the United States for Pakistan on Jan. 2.
Authorities believe she remained in that country. Her estranged husband, Dr. Mohammed Khan, 33, a Harvard-trained anesthesiologist, worked at a Boston hospital but also dropped out of sight and is being sought for questioning by the FBI.

Siddiqui is a 1994 graduate of MIT, where she majored in biology, anthropology and archaeology. She spent part of her college years in Pakistan writing a paper titled "Islamization in Pakistan and Its Effects on Women."

Her purported ties to Padilla, through al Qaeda field commander Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, are unclear. El Shukrijumah has been trained by Ramzi Binalshibh, the terrorist network's financier. His role in the Organization has been compared to that of Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the September 11 hijackers who crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Information on El Shukrijumah, 27, a Saudi national also known as "Jaffar the pilot," reportedly was given to U.S. officials by captured al Qaeda attack planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. Binalshibh and Mohammed are both in U.S. custody at undisclosed locations.

Although El Shukrijumah does not have a pilot's license listed with the Federal Aviation Administration, authorities are concerned that he may be a trained pilot. Documents retrieved overseas linked one of his aliases to a flight school in Norman, Okla., where terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui also received flight training.
Authorities also believe El Shukrijumah was an associate of adilla's,

The former New York native and Chicago gang member arrested on suspicion of plotting a "dirty bomb" attack. Padilla, now known as Abdullah al-Muhajir, was detained in May after his arrival from Pakistan at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago.

At the time of the arrest, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Padilla was "a known terrorist who was exploring a plan to build and explode a radiological dispersion device, or 'dirty bomb,' in the United States." Mr. Ashcroft called Padilla "an enemy combatant who poses a serious and continuing threat to the American people and our national security." None of the intended targets was identified, but authorities said Padilla, 31, had "knowledge of the Washington, D.C., area" and the nation's capital was considered a logical target.

The FBI, working with other law-enforcement agencies, has taken into Custody more than 3,000 suspected al Qaeda leaders and operatives worldwide since September 11. More than 200 suspected terrorist associates have been charged with crimes in the United States.

U.S. Says Colo. Men Trained in Terrorism
April 2, 2003; Page A02 Publication: Washington Post Date: 04/02/2003
Author: T.R. Reid DENVER, April 1 The FBI has evidence that three Denver-area men from Pakistan have been trained in terrorist techniques and pose "a danger to the community," federal prosecutors said today as they sought to hold the men in jail on immigration charges.

An FBI agent told a U.S. magistrate at a bail hearing Monday that one
of the defendants, Pakistani citizen Haroon Rashid, had been trained at a terrorist camp in Pakistan and wanted to take part in a jihad, or holy war, against the United States, according to wire service reports.

School Year Opens New World for Afghan Children
By Angie Ramos 4/3/03
KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - For the first time in his young life, Afghan Zabiollah, a one-time refugee, washer boy and carpet maker, is going to school. Education for boys was not a priority for Afghanistan's hard-line Islamic Taliban regime that banished girls from schools outright after it came to power in the capital in 1996.

As ethnic Hazaras, 11-year-old Zabiollah, his parents and two siblings were targets for the ethnic Pashtun-dominated Taliban. But life did not get any better after they fled to Iran. "They did not like us," said Zabiollah. "We were not able to walk freely." Extreme poverty also meant Zabiollah had to put in an adult day's work instead of going to school.

When his family returned to Kabul in August, months after the downfall of the Taliban, his father's job as a janitor meant Zabiollah finally had the chance to attend classes. "I hope to learn something so that I can have a good job in the future," said Zabiollah.

Since June, Enfants du Monde, a French aid group, has been running a special center in one of the poorest districts in west Kabul for children who have been deprived of education. "Most of them have very terrible stories to tell and have been through very terrible things and they lack the support from local authorities because there is so much to do here and they cannot take care of everybody and every child," said head of mission Anne-Catherine Rea.

The center gives the children the chance to try to catch up on classes, and, just as importantly, gives them a chance to play with others their age. Surrounding the center are remnants of Afghanistan's 23 years of war dilapidated houses, many of them pockmarked with bullet holes and none with electricity.

Nearby is a former Taliban military camp now run by the Afghan military and outside that is the playground of choice for dozens of boys an abandoned Soviet-era tank.

There are no statistics on how many children suffer from mental problems caused by lives of poverty and violence, although a study last year by the Save the Children aid group said Afghan children were resilient and courageous. The study credited the strong family and sense of community. As children and parents came to terms with the impact of war, those helping them should focus on practical solutions, it said.

Other studies have echoed this, prompting the U.N. Children's Fund to rethink its programs. "The approach has to be different, not social counseling or trauma work," said UNICEF Afghanistan spokesman Edward Carwardine. "It's more about helping children focus on everyday life like going to school, playing with other children."

Up to 4 million Afghan children, possibly the largest number ever, are believed to have enrolled for class for the new school year which began this month. Carwardine said 30 percent of Afghanistan's 7,000 schools had been seriously damaged during more than two decades of Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban rule. "Only half of the schools have clean water, while less than 40 percent have adequate sanitation," he said.

At the Enfants du Monde center, the 300 children who come six days a week are taught reading and writing, but social interaction makes up a big part of the program. "We try to help them express themselves. They have the right to freedom, to express themselves, to play as they want, to learn," said Herve Landa, the center's psychologist. "It's very important for them, and now we can see very good results. Children stay, they remain children. It's quite easy to help them now."

Efforts are also being made to encourage parents to get involved, and once or twice a week the center's social workers hold sessions with parents willing to discuss their children. For the children, though, being able to play with other kids for a few hours a day is enough.

"I'm very happy that I am learning here because during the Taliban time we were not allowed to study or play," said 10-year-old Rahema, whose family stayed in Kabul during the war. "We just stayed at home."