 |
||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Serving you since 1998 | ||||||||||||
|
|
Afghan Kidnappers Demand Freeing of Named Prisoners
Tue Nov 2,11:20 AM ET By David Fox
KABUL (Reuters) - A militant Afghan group holding three foreign U.N. workers has given negotiators a list of Taliban prisoners and said it will kill the hostages unless they -- and all Afghans jailed in Guantanamo Bay -- are freed.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said the Jaish-e-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims) had handed over the names of at least 25 Taliban followers jailed in Afghanistan whose release it was demanding.
"The United Nations has asked for the list of prisoners and we have given a list of at least 25 people inside Afghanistan," AIP quoted the group's leader Mullah Sayed Mohammad Akbar Agha as saying.
"But we can't give a list for the Guantanamo Bay prisoners. There are many Afghan prisoners there. All of them should be released," Agha said.
The U.N. workers -- Filipino Angelito Nayan, Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland and Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo -- were snatched from a busy Kabul street Thursday, sparking fears that Afghan militants were copying the tactics of insurgents in Iraq.
The Pakistan-based AIP did not say if it had the list.
Mullah Agha earlier told Reuters that Wednesday's noon (0730 GMT) deadline for the prisoner release remained in place for now but could be extended if negotiations progressed.
He said negotiations with a "tajir" -- an influential trader with wide contacts -- were continuing.
A video the group released showed the kidnap victims beside a masked militant, and included a series of demands.
The group has previously called for the release of all Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, the evacuation of all foreign troops from Afghanistan and the closure of U.N. operations in the country.
DISQUIET AMONG AFGHANS
Disquiet has been growing among Afghans over the kidnappings and former President Burhanuddin Rabbani -- still an influential figure -- said they were un-Islamic.
"How can we say these people are Muslims? How can we accept them?" he told Reuters in an interview. "They are creating a bad name for Muslim societies and Muslim people."
He praised the hostages as people trying to help Afghanistan.
"There is another clear teaching from our Prophet Mohammad that if a Jew or a Christian, people of the book, come to a Muslim country and anyone tries to harm them, then God will be against them," he said.
Agha said the negotiator had asked for more proof the hostages were alive, and the group would provide it after asking the hostages the names of siblings and husbands.
The government has previously negotiated the release of several foreign nationals kidnapped by Taliban fugitives, in return for a ransom, and some security sources say a payoff may be the best hope in this case.
"... the danger is that you just make kidnapping for ransom a very easy way to make money," said a Western security official. "You may save three lives, but then everyone else becomes a target. If this happens, then clearly the kidnappings become a case of banditry rather than political ideology."
The kidnap victims had helped organize Afghanistan's first presidential election, held on Oct. 9. Karzai, the undeclared winner, expects to pick a new cabinet by end-November. (Additional reporting by Simon Cameron-Moore and Sayed Salahuddin)
Kidnappers negotiate over fate of UN hostages as deadline looms
Tuesday November 2, 8:57 PM AFP
Islamic militants holding three foreign UN election workers in Afghanistan were locked in negotiations with groups trying to secure their release, as Muslim leaders condemned the kidnapping.
The abductors and sources close to the Afghan government told AFP negotiations were continuing, although the status of those talks was unclear as a Wednesday deadline for the hostages' killings approached.
"I can confirm that talks are going on today," said Sayed Khaleed, a spokesman for the Jaishul-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims) group that abducted the three United Nations employees from their vehicle in Kabul last Thursday.
"Any details about the nature of the talks and the number of people involved is ahead of time. But we expect the results soon."
Khaleed hinted that Jaishul-Muslimeen may consider compromising on its demands, which include the departure of all foreign forces and UN employees from Afghanistan and the release by the United States of all Taliban prisoners.
"We have our own conditions and the government has their conditions. If they accept our conditions then we will be ready to accept some of their conditions as well," Khaleed told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"If talks work then of course there will be hope for the lives of the hostages."
Sources close to the government said various groups were talking with the abductors in a bid to win the hostages' release.
But those involved in organising the negotiations did not want to give any details or reveal who was involved in the talks, due to the sensitivity of the situation.
The three hostages are Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Shqipe Habibi from Kosovo and Filipino Angelito Nayan. They were helping to arrange Afghanistan's first-ever presidential election on October 9.
US-backed interim president Hamid Karzai won the poll in a landslide.
Jaishul-Muslimeen has said it will kill the hostages at midday (0730 GMT) on Wednesday if its demands are not met.
Khaleed reaffirmed on Tuesday that the deadline had not been extended, as some media reports have suggested, but there is hope in Kabul that an extension may be granted.
"Wednesday is still the deadline and there has been no change up to now. If we extend the deadline, the decision will be made by our leader, Akbar Agha, and he will announce that," Khaleed said.
Afghanistan's influential Ulema Council of Muslim scholars condemned the kidnappings and called for the immediate release of the three.
"Islam is (a) religion of peace and kindness and those who resort to such actions must know that their actions can only defame Islam and have no other result," the Ulema Council said in a resolution released to the media.
"The Ulema Council of Afghanistan seriously asks those who have taken these people hostage to release them."
Muslim leaders in the Philippines also appealed for Nayan and the other two hostages to be released.
"In the spirit of Ramadan, the holiest month in the Islamic calendar... we appeal to the Muslim captors to free the Filipino captive," the Philippines' Office of Muslim Affairs said in a statement.
Jaishul-Muslimeen is an obscure splinter group of the fundamentalist Taliban militia, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until late 2001 when US-led forces toppled them for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
The US military publicly wrote off the Taliban as a major threat after they failed to fulfil promises to disrupt the presidential election.
But an 18,000-strong military coalition, dominated by 16,000 US troops, is still in Afghanistan hunting Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters.
Another 9,000 peacekeepers from around 30 countries are patrolling mainly in Kabul as part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.
Afghan officials optimistic of hostage released, militants 'flexible' on demands
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Afghan officials are optimistic that three U.N. hostages in the capital will be freed unharmed, a government spokesman said Tuesday, but there was no evidence of any contact with their kidnappers.
A Taliban splinter group claims it abducted the trio in the Afghan capital last Thursday and is threatening to kill them unless the United Nations and British troops leave Afghanistan.
Jaish-al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, released a videotape on Sunday showing the frightened captives Annetta Flanigan of Northern Ireland, Filipino diplomat Angelito Nayan and Shqipe Habibi of Kosovo and mimicking the tactics of insurgents in Iraq.
However, several Afghan officials say they suspect that warlords or criminal groups were also involved in the bold daylight snatch and that the hostages may still be in the Kabul area.
``So far, we've not been informed of any contacts with the kidnappers,'' said Latfullah Mashal, spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry. ``But we're progressing and hopeful that the hostages will be released safely.''
He said the ministry, whose security forces are leading the search, had undertaken unspecified initiatives which were ``going well.'' He declined to elaborate.
The militants say that they have divided up the hostages to thwart any rescue attempt. They also say they are ready to discuss their demands, which also include the release of Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Ishaq Manzoor, who claims to speak for Jaish-ul Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, said Tuesday that it would be ``flexible'' about its demands if the government or the United Nations also gave ground.
In a satellite telephone call to The Associated Press, he insisted talks were ``ongoing'' via an intermediary, and suggested ``a few days more'' could be allowed beyond a Wednesday deadline if negotiations progress.
``If they don't accept our demands, we will have no choice we will kill them,'' he said. U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said he couldn't comment on any contact because it could jeopardize efforts to free the hostages.
An urgent search operation involving NATO and U.S. troops as well as Afghan security forces has focused on Kabul and the Paghman valley to the west. The hostage-takers have said only that the trio are still in Afghanistan, but have issued a string of warnings to authorities to back off.
``If the government and coalition forces find one of them, we will kill the other two,'' Manzoor said. The hostages were in Afghanistan to help manage its Oct. 9 presidential election.
U.S.-backed interim leader Hamid Karzai secured a majority of the votes, but is still awaiting official confirmation of the result, expected in the next few days.
Karzai edges closer to officially winning Afghan election
Wednesday November 3, 9:29 AM AFP
Hamid Karzai moved closer to being officially declared Afghanistan's first popularly elected president when an independent panel declared that its investigation into election fraud would not affect the poll's result.
Karzai, interim president for the past three years, won 55.4 percent of the more than eight million ballots cast in the historic October 9 election to secure the required simple majority in the first round of voting.
But the UN-Afghan electoral commission known as the Joint Electoral Manegement Body (JEMB) has been awaiting the outcome of an investigation into complaints by all 18 presidential candidates before officially declaring Karzai the winner.
JEMB spokesman Sultan Baheen said Tuesday the panel of three international experts had found that any irregularities would not affect the result.
"The panel investigation does not affect the overall result of the election," Baheen told AFP, but said the JEMB still had to examine the panel's report before announcing whether it considered the election valid.
"We should review and discuss and decide in no more than two days," he said.
Baheen said the panel had found some problems but not of such magnitude as to affect the result.
The panel was made up of Briton David Mathieson, former Canadian diplomat Craig Jenness and Staffan Darnolf from Sweden.
It was formed two days after the election to appease 14 of the 18 candidates, who had called for the poll to be annulled due to what they termed massive fraud.
All the candidates, including Karzai, submitted more than 100 documents to the panel. Many complaints pointed out that supposedly indelible ink, used to stain electors' fingers to prevent multiple voting, washed off easily.
Despite the fraud claims Karzai's closest challenger Yunus Qanooni, who got 16.3 percent, conceded defeat over a week ago.
Mohammad Mohaqeq, a warlord and leader of the Hazara ethnic minority, was third with 11.6 percent, followed by Uzbek military strongman Abdul Rashid Dostam on 10.0 percent.
French-speaking Tajik intellectual Abdul Latif Pedram was a distant fifth with 1.4 percent. The only woman to run for election, paediatrician Masooda Jalal, polled sixth with 1.2 percent of the votes, beating 12 candidates.
Once his victory is certified, Karzai will become the country's first elected leader after rule by colonial powers, monarchs, communists, Soviet occupiers, warlords and the fundamentalist Taliban.
Karzai has led two interim administrations since US-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
His inauguration as elected president will take place 30 days after the formal announcement of his victory and he will serve for five years.
International experts end probe into Afghan election fraud
KABUL, Nov 2 (AFP) - A panel of three international experts which was investigating claims of fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election has finished its work, a spokesman for the electoral commission said Tuesday.
"The panel has submitted its report to the commission," said Sultan Baheen, spokesman for the UN-Afghan joint body, without giving details of what it said.
The commission must examine the report before announcing whether it considers the October 9 election valid. Interim leader Hamid Karzai took more than 55 percent of the vote.
"We are expecting that they will make the official announcement sometime this week," said UN election official Silvana Puizina.
Puizina said the report would be made public after the commission has seen it.
The panel was made up of Briton David Mathieson, former Canadian diplomat Craig Jenness and Staffan Darnolf from Sweden. It was formed two days after the election to appease 14 of the 18 candidates, who had called for the poll to be annulled due to what they termed massive fraud.
Candidates including Karzai submitted more than 100 documents to the panel. Many complaints pointed out that supposedly indelible ink, used to stain electors' fingers to prevent multiple voting, washed off easily.
Despite the fraud claims Karzai's closest challenger Yunus Qanooni, who got 16.3 percent, has conceded defeat.
Afghan Islamic council urges release of UN hostages
KABUL, Nov 2 (AFP) - Afghanistan's influential council of Muslim scholars on Tuesday condemned the kidnapping of three UN workers in Kabul as un-Islamic and called on the abductors immediately to release the hostages.
"Islam is (a) religion of peace and kindness and those who resort to such actions must know that their actions can only defame Islam and have no other result," the Ulema Council said in a resolution released to the media.
"The Ulema Council of Afghanistan seriously asks those who have taken these people hostage to release them."
The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Fazel Hadi Shinwary, heads the Ulema Council, which is made up religious scholars from around the nation.
Its decisions have strong religious significance in Afghanistan's conservative Islamic society.
The council said the abductions contravene Islamic law.
It also emphasised that the hostages, who were working for the United Nations to help organise the October 9 presidential elections, were legitimately in Afghanistan, contrary to the abductors' assertions.
It said that those who kill people who were legitimately in a Muslim country "won't smell the fragrance of heaven".
Islamic militants abducted Annetta Flanigan from Northern Ireland, Shqipe Habibi from Kosovo and Filipino Angelito Nayan from their UN vehicle in Kabul on Thursday.
Their abductors, a breakaway Taliban faction called Jaishul-Muslimeen (Army of Muslims), have threatened to kill them by midday (0730 GMT) on Wednesday if foreign forces and the United Nations do not leave Afghanistan.
The group has also demanded that the United States release all Taliban prisoners and that foreign governments condemn the "infidel invasion" of Afghanistan.
Jaishul-Muslimeen is a murky splinter group of the fundamentalist Taliban militia, which ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until late 2001 when US-led forces ousted them for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
Mainstream Neo-Taliban Claim No Involvement in Kidnapping
RFE/RL 11/01/2004 By Amin Tarzi
Hamid Agha, purporting to speak for the neo-Taliban, told Reuters on 31 October that the group was not involved in the abduction of the UN employees. "We have no comments about the issue.
It is their [Army of Muslims] work and we are not involved in it," Hamid Agha claimed. Information about the breakaway faction of the neo-Taliban called Taliban Jami'at Jaish-e Muslemin (Muslim Army of the Taliban Society), which reportedly is led by Mullah Sayyed Mohammad Akbar Agha, emerged in August.
At the time Hamid Agha indicated that the organization was not "the Taliban." On 28 October, however, Mufti Latifullah Hakimi, also purporting to speak on behalf of the neo-Taliban, said that although his group had no information regarding the kidnapping in Kabul, it admired the action.
The current incident is Afghanistan's first case of an Iraq-style kidnapping of foreign hostages which, like this case, includes displaying the hostages on videotape. In light of recent reports that some former members of the Taliban regime may be seeking reconciliation with Kabul, observers believe that the incident may be an outcome of struggles within the fragmented groups formerly belonging to the Taliban regime.
Gunmen kill local police chief in western Afghanistan
HERAT, Afghanistan, Nov 2 (AFP) - Gunmen killed an Afghan district police commander and one of his bodyguards in an ambush in western Herat province, a government official said Tuesday.
Haji Shirin, police chief of Kosan district, and his bodyguard were killed when unknown men attacked his vehicle along a road linking Herat to the Iranian border, provincial government spokesman Ahmaddullah Afzali told AFP.
The killing may be related to a dispute between Shirin and "old enemies", Afzali said, without giving further details.
Herat was the scene of bloody unrest in September after president Hamid Karzai dismissed Ismael Khan, one of the most powerful warlords in Afghanistan, as governor.
The province, bordering Iran and Turkmenistan, has since been largely peaceful.
Up to 11 killed in clash between Afghan troops and local militia
Tue Nov 2, 6:26 AM ET South Asia - AFP
KABUL (AFP) - Up to 11 people were killed in fighting between Afghan soldiers and militiamen in southern Afghanistan, local officials said.
The Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers, police and local militia forces clashed Monday in Qalat, capital of troubled Zabul province some 390 kilometres (240 miles) south of Kabul.
"Some 11 people were martyred and four others were injured in the fighting between national army, police and militia forces," provincial deputy police chief Colonel Ghulam Jailani told AFP on Tuesday.
Seven of the dead were ANA soldiers while the rest were militiamen working for a provincial reconstruction team run by the US-led military coalition, he said.
The Afghan defence ministry, however, confirmed the deaths of only four local armed men and said five soldiers had been wounded.
"Four armed men dressed in civilian clothes were killed and five ANA soldiers were injured in the fighting between the ANA and the irresponsible armed group," the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said the clash erupted after ANA troops based in Qalat fought with and arrested 20 armed men who had been searching houses and bothering local people.
Colonel Jailani disputed this, saying the fighting was triggered by ANA soldiers' attempts to disarm police and other armed forces in the province.
"It was the ANA which came to the city and tried to disarm police and other forces and the fighting started," he said.
In a separate incident in neighbouring southern Kandahar province, one person was killed and two wounded when ANA troops opened fire on local militia forces near Kandahar city airport, police said.
"One militia soldier was killed and two others were wounded in a misunderstanding between ANA and the local militia close to Kandahar airport," Kandahar deputy police General Salim Khan told AFP by telephone.
Local militia commanders still hold power across much of Afghanistan, a legacy of the quarter-century of conflict which has engulfed the landlocked central Asian state.
Disarming militias and diluting the power of local commanders and warlords are among the biggest challenges facing President Hamid Karzai when he starts his five-year-term as Afghanistan's first popularly elected leader.
Afghan national army engaged in fire exchange with militias, killing 4
KABUL, Nov. 2 (Xinhua) -- Afghan National Army (ANA) in an fire exchange with local militias Monday in south Afghanistan killed four and detained 20, Defense Ministry spokesman said Tuesday.
"After receiving complaints from local people in Zabul province, the ANA launched an operation against outlaws in which four militias were killed and 20 others arrested," Zahir Azimi told Xinhua.
One soldier of ANA was also injured during the operation, he added. Hundreds of militias loyal to various local commanders have been ruling the countryside where the central government has little sway since the fall of Taliban in 2001.
Afghan government in its efforts to get the post-war country rid of militias launched a nationwide Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) in October 2003, in which over 20,000 of former combatants have been disarmed.
The program backed by international community is designed to be completed by 2005 under which a new brand 70,000 strong national army would replace the present militia style of some 100,000 Afghan forces.
Bush or Kerry, Osama's unmoved
THE ROVING EYE By Pepe Escobar / Asia Times / November 2, 2004
"Your security does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush or al-Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security will have automatically assured its own security." - Osama bin Laden, October 30
Osama bin Laden's alleged cave in Afghanistan comes complete with room service, dry cleaning, a desk and satellite TV. But despite the massive White House-spun version, this is not a caveman on the run. The latest deluge of polls is virtually unanimous in registering that bin Laden's Afghan Oval Office cave address to America may not have swung the election toward Bush - although it certainly helped Machiavelli-in-charge Karl Rove's campaign by burying "inconvenient" stories like the scandal over missing explosives in Iraq and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's investigation into Halliburton, not to mention distracting public opinion from key issues such as jobs, education, health care, women's rights and of course the deaths of more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians, as reported by the British medical paper The Lancet.
The timing of bin Laden's address was more effective than a thousand bombs - especially because this is a reconfigured al-Qaeda discourse, certainly under the influence of Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's right-hand man. No more window-dressing with Islamic phraseology: this is the sheikh as statesman, way above the terrorist fray - that would be the territory of "Azzam the American", his tape threatening new attacks in the United States released only a few days before after being handed in to the US ABC network in Pakistan. Bin Laden instead has decided to assume the persona of a benevolent Abrahamic prophet trying to patiently open the eyes of the 1.3-billion-strong Islamic ummah (community).
Cosmic politics
It may or may not be true - because at the time bin Laden was deeply involved in the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad - but to credit the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in 1982 as the source of his anger against the West plays extremely well all over the Middle East, and draws a steely link between al-Qaeda and the Palestine liberation struggle. When bin Laden was in Peshawar in Pakistan in the early 1980s - way before the birth of al-Qaeda in 1988 - establishing the first local guesthouse for Arab jihadis, his partner, former professor and mentor was Palestinian Abdullah Azzam. At the time the jihadis were fighting the "Evil Empire" in Afghanistan. It was Azzam the Palestinian who taught bin Laden that jihad is everyone's obligation when Muslim lands are occupied.
Al-Qaeda has stated that it is formally at war with the "Crusader and Zionist West" because Islam has been humiliated for centuries: the latest manifestation is Israel's policy on Palestine. Now bin laden is saying this is not a religious war, it is political. George W Bush and John Kerry may justifiably have qualified bin Laden as a barbarian during the campaign trail's home stretch, but that's not the point: the point is his specific political grievances - the occupation of the three holy cities (Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem), the war in Palestine, and the repression of Muslims in Kashmir and Chechnya. Much more than political repression by local governments and relative poverty in relation to the West, this perception of being repeatedly humiliated is the key cause of political Islam resorting to violence.
By re-establishing his preeminence, and changing his rhetoric, bin Laden makes it clear that the target is not the US election per se, but recruiting the Muslim masses. No more talk of a caliphate: now the theme is political freedom from Western-imposed or Western-sanctioned dictatorships or puppet governments. Intellectual jihadis like bin Laden and al-Zawahiri are going one step ahead in appealing as much to young jihadis - for whom jihad is a state of mind - as to moderate Muslims. So nothing more sensible than toning down the fiery rhetoric of cosmic struggle between good and evil, believers and infidels, to the benefit of a broader theme - legitimizing the fight against injustice, everywhere.
Who profits?
Bin Laden's relevance will be felt by minute shifts of the independent, undecided vote on election day. Millions of Americans are severely annoyed that he is still alive more than three years after September 11, 2001, and are more than ready to make the connection between the image of bin Laden the statesman and the fact that George W Bush took his eye off the ball while the Afghan war was still developing to engage in his disastrous adventure in Iraq.
Why Bush is viewed by at least half of Americans as "strong and resolute" may be baffling to people in other parts of the world. But not when we consider the armies of American Christian fundamentalists in the red (Republican) states - with their non-stop litany of bloody apocalyptic tales of revenge. This is Bushland, and bin Laden's message will only re-energize them even more. So who profits from his address?
Without bin Laden, there is no "war on terror" - which to begin with is a misguided tactic (war) against a concept (terrorism). With no endless "war on terror", there is no justification for Patriot Act/homeland security/infringement of civil liberties, a central theme on the election platforms of both Bush and Kerry.
Bin Laden's address is suspicious in many ways - raising the possibility that it could be a psy-ops. The speech was carefully scripted as an "Osama address to the American people". For the first time it is awash in references to September 11, including such US-style catch phrases as "striking the towers" and "another Manhattan". Another al-Qaeda first, sources in Peshawar confirm, is that the video was delivered to the al-Jazeera television channel complete with an English-language translation and a transcript.
For the first time ever, bin Laden admits that he personally ordered September 11. For the Bush administration this is a windfall: more than three years later, the man they have hastily tried in absentia is entering a guilty plea. The windfall includes the very handy theme of increased fear, as the tape reminds Americans of the preeminent human face of terror.
Bin Laden officially has not been located, and this fact also defies any reasonable explanation. Either US intelligence knows it but it won't act on it - because that would undermine the whole long-term "war on terror" setup - or US intelligence is a joke. Once again US corporate media are not asking these questions.
Bush and Kerry, same-same
No matter who wins on Tuesday, the inexorable and worrying tendency in the US is toward even further militarization of civilian life, and a sustained atmosphere of fear. There's no evidence that the grievances affecting the Muslim world will be addressed. Meanwhile, in his speech bin Laden has completed the transition of al-Qaeda from a vanguard to a network and then a franchising of ideas and methods. It's as if bin Laden was saying, "Go ahead, spread the word, work for change any way you can."
On the surface, bin Laden may have endorsed Bush. But most of all he seems to know that four more years - or four more wars - fueled by arrogance will be much more hurtful to the United States and the West than "another Manhattan". Much in the same way as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld mixes bin Laden with Saddam Hussein, "George Kerry" or "John Bush", it doesn't matter: Osama bin Laden, the bogeyman, will still be there on the other side - as well as millions of energized jihadis.
US. to seek indictment of Afghan drug barons
By Simon Cameron-Moore
KABUL, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The United States is opening a second front in Afghanistan, moving from a war on terror to a war on drugs that it hopes will lead to indictments of Afghan heroin millionaires in U.S. courts within months, diplomats say.
After three years of letting Afghanistan's narco-economy go from strength to strength, Washington has heeded warnings that the Islamic nation's transition to democracy will go badly wrong if drug money is allowed to take over the system.
While 18,000 U.S.-led troops chased remnants of the Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, drug lords flourished as Washington only gave a mandate to its forces to chase militants, not traffickers. Many of these traffickers control militias that were useful allies in the war against the Taliban.
Unlike Colombia, there are no drug cartels, Western drug enforcement agents say, but the United States has identified a handful of potential Afghan suspects for prosecution.
"The United States would like to find a way to indict if it can gather intelligence that establishes a nexus between individuals in Afghanistan and drugs trafficked into the United States," according to a Western diplomatic source.
Afghanistan's opium economy is estimated to have earned $2.8 billion this year, up $500 million from 2003 and equivalent to close to half the impoverished, war-ravaged country's annual gross domestic product, according to drug enforcement agents.
The United Nations is due to release its annual report on Afghanistan's narcotics trade on Thursday. Officials say the speed with which Afghan traffickers have ramped up output is remarkable. There was a 64 percent increase in the area that was harvested this year and opium production is moving back toward the 1999 peak of over 4,500 tonnes.
Western governments, led by Britain, and now backed by U.S. muscle and money, have come up with a three-pronged strategy to reverse the trend -- arrests, eradication and alternative livelihoods for poor farmers.
The fresh impetus comes as President Hamid Karzai prepares to form a new cabinet after winning a historic election on Oct. 9 that will bring down the curtain on the interim government he has headed since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.
The interim government was cobbled together when the priority was the war on terror following the downfall of the Taliban militia. That compulsion forced Karzai, with U.S. backing, to include men known as warlords and drug runners in his cabinet.
Karzai has said the time for coalitions is over, warlords are Afghanistan's number one enemy and the cabinet's new blood will be drug free. But until he is inaugurated and announces his cabinet, police will be careful who they go after.
"I'll tell you the names (of the suspects) once we have an elected president," said Major General Sayed Kamal Sadaat, director general of operations at the interior ministry's department for counter-narcotics.
Washington has no extradition treaty with Afghanistan, but there are moves afoot to put the legal machinery in place, and diplomats say the first indictment in the United States could happen in months. The U.S. campaign to net one of the big fish must start with arrests in the United States, checks on phone records and so forth until the heroin trail is traced back to the source.
Officials have identified at least two individuals with net worth of over $100 million who could be targets. Much of their funds are believed to be invested in construction and real estate in Dubai.
While a handful of people have become drug millionaires there are some two million people in rural households who rely on growing poppy for their livelihood. Weaning them onto other crops will be a priority come the new year, when officials expect eradication to begin in a big way.
On U.S. vote eve, Bush's bete noire roams at large
Reuters 11/01/2004 By David Brunnstrom
ISLAMABAD - Moving in convoy on the eastern edges of Pakistan near the Indian border, sheltering in a cave in the barren Karakoram mountains of northern Kashmir or roaming Afghanistan. Rumours of Osama bin Laden's hiding places are countless, clues are few.
The latest video appearance of the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks gives little away. He seats impassive against a bland, brownish backdrop, his hands resting on what appears to be a table in a video shown on television news bulletins around the world after it was dropped in an envelope at the gate of the bureau of Al-Jazeera television in Islamabad on Friday.
Rumours of sightings of the tall, grey-bearded bin Laden have abounded since the hijacked airliner attacks, but diplomats say most have either lacked a firm basis or been driven by those with an agenda to push.
Clearly, bin Laden's capture, or even evidence that U.S. forces were closing in on him, could be a major boost for U.S. President George W. Bush before Tuesday's presidential election given his vow to capture him "dead or alive".
The assumption has long been that bin Laden was moving between the mountains of Afghanistan and the rugged tribal lands of Pakistan, said one diplomat. "But almost certainly he would not stay in one place for too long.
"So even if the trail is getting shorter, even if there is a better information established in shorter time as to where he's been, it doesn't mean they are necessarily any closer to knowing where he is going to be at any one time."
The latest rumour emerged via India's Star Television, which has been carrying a report saying a 10-car convoy believed to be carrying bin Laden was spotted in eastern Pakistan by an Indian reconnaissance plane.
It sourced the information to intelligence analyst and former U.S. Justice Department Prosecutor John Loftus, who was speaking on Star's sister channel America's Fox News.
Loftus said India's external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing, had tipped off the FBI after the pilot of the surveillance aircraft reported the convoy. The chances of an Indian pilot flying over the territory of arch-foe and neighbour Pakistan are slim. But the rumour has nevertheless gained traction.
The Times of India went into yet more detail, quoted www.debka.com, an Israeli Web site focusing on the Middle East and terrorism, that the head of al Qaeda was spotted between Oct. 17 and 19 by an Indian Air Force reconnaissance plane in the northeast corner of Pakistan.
Additional surveillance aircraft were called in and identified the al Qaeda leader on the move with a 10-vehicle convoy of black Japanese minivans, it said. Four of the vehicles turned up again on Oct. 22 heading east towards the China border.
The report echoed a similar claim made by Pakistani Urdu-language newspaper Khabrain last month, suggesting bin Laden could have taken refuge in northern Kashmir, in the barren mountains straddling the India-Pakistan-China frontier.
Indian officials have not commented and Indian defence analysts voiced doubts about the veracity of such reports.
Pakistan military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan scoffed at the suggestion, which he termed media speculation. "There's nothing to my knowledge on this -- it sounds absurd."
Diplomats say no evidence exists to suggest bin Laden's capture is imminent -- or that he is anywhere other than Afghanistan or the lawless tribal areas inside the Pakistani border -- despite a report in the latest edition of Newsweek that U.S. intelligence agents recently thought they were on the verge of a breakthrough.
"It looked like we were really close, maybe one or two people away," it quoted one official as saying. "There was a lot of optimism around here." The diplomat in Islamabad said Pakistan, a key ally of Bush in his war on terror, had had significant successes in recent months in capturing or killing second-tier al Qaeda figures who may have had recent contact with bin Laden.
It did not follow, however, that this had led to firm indications as to bin Laden's whereabouts, he said. Newsweek quoted U.S. officials as saying that "just a few weeks ago" the net was closing on an al Qaeda operative in Pakistan who, it was hoped, could lead them to bin Laden.
However, it could be significant that the tape was delivered, like an audio tape in late 2002, to the Al Jazeera office in Islamabad, he said. "It suggests it either came from Afghanistan or Pakistan," he said. "I don't think it necessarily suggests Pakistan specifically -- it could just have easily been Afghanistan.
"It suggests one of those two as opposed somewhere completely different like Somalia or Sudan, but I don't think it helps a great deal for narrowing down the search, given that the working assumption has been that he's either in the tribal areas of Pakistan or in Afghanistan."
Bin Laden vows war of 'attrition' against US until it's 'bankrupt'
Tuesday November 2, 8:53 PM AFP
Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has vowed to wage a war of "attrition" against the United States until it is "bankrupt," in a message to the American people posted on the website of Al-Jazeera TV.
The Qatar-based television posted what appeared to be the full text of a message, excerpts of which were aired three days ago, in which bin Laden threatened the United States with attacks similar to those of September 11, 2001.
"We became experts in gang warfare and in the war of attrition," says bin Laden in the new excerpts, published on the eve of the US presidential election.
"We fought the unjust superpower, waging (a war of) attrition, along with the (Afghan) mujahedeen, (against) Russia for 10 years until they became bankrupt and decided to withdraw in defeat," he says, referring to the fight against Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
"We will press ahead with this policy of attrition (against) America until it is bankrupt, God willing. This is not difficult for God," bin Laden says.
In the parts of the video broadcast by Al-Jazeera Friday, bin Laden accused US President George W. Bush of negligence during the September 11 attacks, further inflaming the already intense final struggle for the White House between Bush and John Kerry.
Bin Laden told the American people that their security is not in the hands of either Bush or his Democrat challenger in Tuesday's presidential vote but depends on US policy.
"The more serious thing for America is that the mujahedeen recently forced Bush to draw on an emergency fund to continue the combat in Afghanistan and in Iraq, which proves the success of the plan of attrition until bankruptcy," bin Laden says in the new excerpts of the message, which US intelligence agencies have deemed authentic.
He also boasts of the ease with which Al-Qaeda has been able to make the US administration jump.
"It was easy for us to provoke this administration and drag it" to places of Al-Qaeda's choosing, he says.
"It only takes sending two mujahedeen to the far Mashreq (east) raising a piece of cloth bearing the name of Al-Qaeda for the (US) generals to scurry there, causing America human, material and political losses without any gain to speak of, except some benefits for their private companies," bin Laden adds.
The White House on Sunday labelled bin Laden's surprise address to the American people as "threatening rhetoric," but said intelligence officials were still analyzing the tape for anything more menacing.
How Bush was offered Bin Laden and blew it
By Alexander Cockburn And Jeffrey St. Clair The News International, Pakistan
George Bush, the man whose prime campaign plank has been his ability to wage war on terror, could have had Osama bin Laden’s head handed to him on a platter on his very first day in office, and the offer held good until February 2 of 2002. This is the charge levelled by an Afghan American who had been retained by the US government as an intermediary between the Taliban and both the Clinton and Bush administrations.
Kabir Mohabbat is a 48-year businessman in Houston, Texas. Born in Paktia province in southern Afghanistan, he’s from the Jaji clan (from which also came Afghanistan’s last king). Educated at St Louis University, he spent much of the 1980s supervising foreign relations for the Afghan Mujahideen, where he developed extensive contacts with the US foreign policy establishment, also with senior members of the Taliban.
After the eviction of the Soviets, Mohabbat returned to the United States to develop an export business with Afghanistan and became a US citizen. Figuring in his extensive dealings with the Taliban in the late 1990s was much investment of time and effort for a contract to develop the proposed oil pipeline through northern Afghanistan.
In a lengthy interview and in a memorandum Kabir Mohabbat has given us a detailed account and documentation to buttress his charge that the Bush administration could have had Osama bin Laden and his senior staff either delivered to the US or to allies as prisoners, or killed at their Afghan base. As a search of the database shows, portions of Mohabbat’s role have been the subjects of a number of news reports, including a CBS news story by Alan Pizzey aired September 25, 2001. This is the first he has made public the full story.
By the end of 1999 US sanctions and near-world-wide political ostracism were costing the Taliban dearly and they had come to see Osama bin Laden and his training camps as, in Mohabbat’s words, "just a damn liability". Mohabbat says the Taliban leadership had also been informed in the clearest possible terms by a US diplomat that if any US citizen were harmed as a consequence of an Al Qaeda action, the US would hold the Taliban responsible and target Mullah Omar and the Taliban leaders.
In the summer of 2000, on one of his regular trips to Afghanistan, Mohabbat had a summit session with the Taliban high command in Kandahar. They asked him to arrange a meeting with appropriate officials in the European Union, to broker a way in which they could hand over Osama bin Laden. Mohabbat recommended they send bin Laden to the World Criminal Court in The Hague.
Shortly thereafter, in August of 2000, Mohabbat set up a meeting at the Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt between a delegation from the Taliban and Reiner Weiland of the EU. The Taliban envoys repeated the offer to deport bin Laden. Weiland told them he would take the proposal to Elmar Brok, foreign relations director for the European Union. According to Mohabbat, Brok then informed the US Ambassador to Germany of the offer.
At this point the US State Department called Mohabbat and said the government wanted to retain his services, even before his official period on the payroll, which lasted from November of 2000 to late September, 2001, by which time he tells us he had been paid $115,000.
On the morning of October 12, 2000, Mohabbat was in Washington DC, preparing for an 11am meeting at the State Department, when he got a call from State, telling him to turn on the TV and then come right over. The USS Cole had just been bombed. Mohabbat had a session with the head of State’s South East Asia desk and with officials from the NSC. They told him the US was going to "bomb the hell out of Afghanistan". "Give me three weeks," Mohabbat answered, "and I will deliver Osama to your doorstep." They gave him a month.
Mohabbat went to Kandahar and communicated the news of imminent bombing to the Taliban. They asked him to set up a meeting with US officials to arrange the circumstances of their handover of Osama. On November 2, 2000, less than a week before the US election, Mohabbat arranged a face-to-face meeting, in that same Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt, between Taliban leaders and a US government team.
After a rocky start on the first day of the Frankfurt session, Mohabbat says the Taliban realized the gravity of US threats and outlined various ways bin Laden could be dealt with. He could be turned over to the EU, killed by the Taliban, or made available as a target for Cruise missiles. In the end, Mohabbat says, the Taliban promised the "unconditional surrender of bin Laden". "We all agreed," Mohabbat tells Counterpunch, "the best way was to gather Osama and all his lieutenants in one location and the US would send one or two Cruise missiles."
Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.
U.S. troops tread warily in hunt for Taliban along border region
By David Zucchino Los Angeles Times November 2, 2004
MAGAR, Afghanistan — "No Taliban here," the police chief said.
"No, never," the subgovernor added. "This is the safest place in all Afghanistan."
Marine 1st Lt. Jeremy Wilkinson, commander of Whiskey Company, was skeptical. Every week, U.S. troops are ambushed by gunmen in these hooded passes along the border with Pakistan.
"Well, everyone says there arent any bad guys around," the lieutenant told the two as they squatted on their haunches, stolid and implacable. "But how come we keep getting attacked?"
The Afghans had no answers. Wilkinson and his men moved on, penetrating deeper into the Pashtun tribal highlands on a mission emblematic of the shifting U.S. effort in Afghanistan, where the enemy and the truth are elusive.
Three years after the fall of the Taliban, American forces have seized a measure of control over the restive border region. They have built alliances with local police and militia leaders, buying allegiance through training, equipment and humanitarian projects. The Taliban have been defeated, but not entirely broken, and its fighters maintain support among the ethnic Pashtun mountain tribes here.
Continued infiltration
Insurgents continue to infiltrate Afghanistan along ancient donkey trails and rocky ravines from Waziristan, the lawless tribal region of Pakistan where Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding. Commanders such as Wilkinson lead regular combat forays into remote canyons, trying to seal infiltration routes and divine the intentions of tribes at war with one another — and sometimes with the Americans.
Wilkinson, 29, is weary of the machinations and deflections practiced by the mountain Pashtuns. He can sound jaded at times. Yet he also expresses the timeless American faith in the value of straight talk, noble intentions and a helping hand. Such notions can seem alien to the tribes in the mountains, where loyalty is fungible and betrayal is a useful tactic.
"I dont lie to them, so I expect them not to lie to me," the lieutenant said. "But it doesnt always work that way."
Two years ago, a Los Angeles Times reporter traveled the border with combat teams of the Armys 82nd Airborne Division. Their focus was on finding and destroying weapons caches, sealing and searching villages, and arresting suspected al-Qaida members.
"Soft knock" missions
Today, the biggest weapons caches have been found, and Wilkinsons Marines conduct mostly "soft knock" missions. Aggressive raids and the pursuit of al-Qaida leaders — including bin Laden — are left to a secret U.S. special-forces unit operating from a secure base near the provincial capital, Khost.
The Marines are focused on Taliban fighters and the Pashtun tribesmen who support them. Compared with U.S. forces here two years ago, they operate from a relatively secure foothold.
"The area has improved dramatically over the past two years," said Maj. Gen. Eric Olson, the operations commander for coalition forces in Afghanistan, citing security and support from local police and militias.
U.S. forces certainly have more control here than in Iraq. Where the Iraqi insurgency is deep and broad, support for the Taliban is confined to pockets such as the border region and south-central Afghanistan.
Restricted access
Al-Qaida fighters — mostly Arabs and Chechens — are based in Pakistan, not Afghanistan, Olson said. It is largely Taliban fighters, not foreigners, who receive aid and sanctuary from fellow Pashtuns as they slip back and forth across the porous border — a frontier U.S. combat troops are not permitted to cross except in certain cases of hot pursuit.
For the Marines of Whiskey Company, maintaining security and beating back the Taliban require regular combat patrols into the remote mountains, where they confront hostile villagers, roadside bombs and rocket attacks.
The Marines, from the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, are based at Camp Salerno, a burgeoning military city near Khost. Two years ago, Salerno was a rough tent camp. Today, it features satellite TV, Internet connections, a PX, a barbershop, and a mess hall that serves hot meals — including steak and lobster on Friday nights.
In Magar, a remote hamlet carved from a mountainside at 7,500 feet, the Marines encountered the district police chief and subgovernor. The mud-and-stone dwelling that serves as the office of the subgovernor, Khanan Mangul, featured a dusty portrait of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. But Wilkinson had dealt with Mangul before and did not fully trust him.
"The subgovernor is a little wishy-washy," said Wilkinson, older and more self-assured than most lieutenants, having served nearly eight years as a Marine enlisted man. "He tends to blow with the wind."
Wilkinson is wary of being manipulated, and he understands the precarious nature of his mission. In a sense, allegiance to him is also for sale, wrapped in the fragile promise of a generator or well or four-wheel-drive truck.
"You cant buy an Afghan," he said after listening to the subgovernor. "But you sure as hell can rent one."
Wilkinson had more confidence in the police chief, Kalim Khan, a stout, bull-necked Pashtun the Marines had nicknamed "Unibrow" for his thick black eyebrows. Some of the information provided by Khan on previous visits proved to be not only useful but true — a pleasant surprise.
The lieutenant relies on civil-affairs and military-intelligence teams, and on two local Afghan "terps," or interpreters, code-named John and Bob for their protection. The civil-affairs team assesses humanitarian needs and doles out assistance. The intelligence team pokes around for information about the Taliban.
That night, Wilkinson sent sniper teams up the surrounding ridges, hoping to intercept Taliban fighters infiltrating across the border five miles away. He also sent teams to search vehicles plying the narrow dirt tracks.
They found nothing. Wilkinson figured that if there were any Taliban in the area, the arrival of a noisy military convoy of 13 vehicles and 73 armed Americans would have frightened them off. But he also knew that two major infiltration routes were nearby.
Wilkinson and his men have been frustrated by the insurgents refusal to fight head-to-head battles, and by their reliance on roadside bombs and hit-and-run attacks. The Marines consider such tactics unmanly, and unworthy of true warriors.
Wilkinson also is growing weary of local elders claiming there are no Taliban around. U.S. satellite and signal intelligence strongly suggest otherwise, he said.
"This canyon is one of the hottest places in the country right now," he said.
That night, the village elders in Magar invited Wilkinson and his interpreter to an iftar, the breaking of the Ramadan fast. Wilkinson, his automatic rifle in hand, climbed a stony hillside at dusk and sat cross-legged on the floor of a mud dwelling.
On a scuffed sheet of plastic, a crowd of men spread goat meat, an oily stew of potatoes and beans, and the flat Afghan bread called nan. They filled and refilled Wilkinsons cup of murky green tea.
Walikha Khan, a black-bearded villager who said his brother Barakh had been shot and arrested by U.S. forces six months earlier, warned Wilkinson that the villagers were not afraid of fighting. His father and grandfather had killed rival tribesmen over the years, he said, and he was prepared to fight anyone invading his village — tribesmen or Americans.
Khan said rival tribesmen were falsely claiming that Taliban were active in his village.
"Dont make the mistake the Russians made," Khan said. "They had informers and they arrested the wrong people and it turned everyone against them. This can happen to the Americans, too."
Security guarantee
Wilkinson calmly sipped his tea, but he took Khans threat seriously. He asked Khan whether he could guarantee the Marines safety. Normally, village elders make a grand show of assuring U.S. forces that they will protect them; Pashtun tribal codes require visitors to be provided hospitality and sanctuary.
"I dont want to guarantee your safety," Khan replied, "but Ill try."
It was the first time Wilkinson had not received an absolute guarantee. He wanted to show Khan he wasnt cowed.
"Thats OK," he said. "We hope someone starts a fight. Were always ready."
That night, Wilkinson posted sniper teams and observation posts on the ridges surrounding his base camp. He sent patrols up and down the canyon on both sides of the hilltop hamlet. There was no attack.
The next morning, as the patrol prepared to leave Magar, Wilkinson had his mortar team fire nearly 20 high-explosive rounds into the surrounding canyons. If anyone was lurking and waiting to detonate roadside bombs, he hoped, the explosions would drive them off.
The mortars soared into the blue mountain sky, exploding in clouds of gray smoke and releasing a delayed boom that echoed off the canyon walls. The entire male population of Magar squatted at the edge of the hamlet to watch.
Wilkinson believed that some of the villagers were Taliban supporters. "Two out of 10 people here hate you and want to kill you," he said. "You just have to figure out which two."
The patrol arrived safely at its final nightly base camp, on a rocky escarpment above a streambed. Wilkinson sent out teams to intercept and search vehicles plying the dirt switchbacks and trails carved into the mountainside. They found nothing.
It had been a fairly uneventful mission, with many more to follow. They had found evidence of Taliban, but no Taliban. They had fired mortars, but no shots. They had made no arrests and confiscated no weapons.
"Hey, sometimes just showing a presence, seeing what the community needs, asking questions — sometimes thats enough," Wilkinson said. "Well be back."
Throughout the night, the Marines listened to the grinding gears of overloaded trucks chugging over the streambed, to the tolling of bells around the necks of grazing camels, to the bleating of goats scouring the barren hillsides for tough wild grasses, and to the insistent braying of donkeys. Long before dawn, the cocks began to crow.
Before first light, Whiskey Company was packed up and ready to move out. Headlights cutting through the dust, the convoy snaked slowly along the narrow switchbacks, headed back down the mountainside to the sanctuary of the camp called Salerno.
India and the road to Osama
By Siddharth Srivastava Asia Times
NEW DELHI - Speculation is rife in India that Osama bin Laden, who has gate-crashed the United States elections with the release of his latest video, is holed up in eastern Pakistan, in the northern regions of the country's portion of Kashmir, with even the possibility that he might have already ventured into Indian territory.
Reports, calculated leaks and intelligence are flowing thick and fast that bin Laden is not where he was originally thought to be - somewhere along the harsh Afghanistan-Pakistan border, running from cave to cave to escape intense shelling. This view has been further strengthened by the fact that the recent bin Laden tape, in which he addressed the American people, was delivered to the upscale Islamabad office of Arabic network television channel al-Jazeera. This has given credence to India's long-standing fear that most of al-Qaeda's operatives are holed up and living comfortably in urban hideouts in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, with the complicity of the Pakistan establishment. The US-Pakistan operations on the Afghan-Pakistan border have been dismissed by India as a wild-goose chase at the instance of Pakistan to keep US troops occupied and confused.
Independent confirmation by Asia Times Online, however, has elicited mixed reactions from Indian government officials. While sources in the military say that all reports about sighting bin Laden close to the Indian border are mere "hogwash" and "media speculation", intelligence sources who report to the Home Ministry say that there is considerable concern, as well as the belief that bin Laden is indeed in Pakistan and moving to the northeastern regions close to the Himalayas as a prelude to a winter retreat before he surfaces again in spring.
It goes without saying that the military generally tends to be more closed about any sensitive information because of operational difficulties faced in the wake of any such leakages, while intelligence agencies not in the field of combat are generally more forthcoming about information. Indeed, intelligence officials here confirm the news that a senior official of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) flew to India last week to alert Indian intelligence agencies about the possibility of bin Laden sneaking into India. The Pakistan-based official sought Indian assistance for joint operations by Indian and US forces to nab the world's most wanted fugitive if he crossed over from northeastern Pakistan, the sources said. The official's visit followed the reported spotting of bin Laden in northeastern Pakistan, close to the Pakistan-China-India border. The sources said the FBI official met senior officials related to internal and external security and appeared to have information about the impending release of the latest bin Laden videotape.
Apart from the fact that bin Laden is the world's most wanted fugitive, his presence close to the Indian border could have a huge impact on the United States' "war on terror", irrespective of who wins the US elections. The US will have to seriously re-think its strategy of aligning with Pakistan when it will be India's assistance, both military and intelligence, that may be required to finally crack down on bin Laden. It may also result in the amassing of Indian and Pakistani troops along the Indo-Pakistan border to scour for bin Laden, leading to problems of logistics, command and control.
Hideaway in Kashmir?
Reports of the bin Laden sighting, even if speculative, come on the back of news of heightened activity in the Ladakh region (northern part of Indian-administered Kashmir) by the Aviation Research Center (ARC), a specialized reconnaissance agency of India's Research and Analysis Wing, which looks after external intelligence. Highly placed defense sources have been quoted as saying that the Ladakh region has seen an unusual number of sorties by ARC aircraft. While there is little information about the purpose of such missions, the ARC's sudden activities could trigger further speculation that bin Laden may be lurking in what India refers to as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The former commander of US Central Command, Tommy Franks, wrote in the New York Times last month that even in late 2001 there was intelligence speculation that bin Laden might be hiding in Kashmir. That was around the time when the US had pounded the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan, with reports saying that bin Laden had been injured and forced to flee.
Indeed, in the past few days there has been a surfeit of news about the alleged whereabouts of bin Laden. The United States' Fox News Channel and a website reported to have close links to Israeli intelligence agency Mossad have claimed that an Indian air force reconnaissance plane sighted bin Laden's convoy a few days ago in the Tibet-Ladakh region close to the northeastern border of Pakistan, near India and China. The view has been endorsed by the website Debka.com, which is believed to be run by Mossad. Additional surveillance aircraft were called in and identified the al-Qaeda leader on the move with a 10-vehicle convoy of black Japanese minivans, the website says. Fox, too, made similar claims.
However, doubts have been expressed about the ability of Indian agencies to nail so accurately a convoy and identify it as that of bin Laden. India's abilities to monitor a foreign land are primarily based on a series of satellites, aerial reconnaissance by aircraft and signal intelligence. While the satellites have a resolution of about five meters, a plane like the Jaguar - a deep-penetration fighter jet - can monitor up to 80 kilometers within enemy territory. But neither possesses the ability to pinpoint accurately a specific person in a convey.
Despite the speculation surrounding the whereabouts of bin Laden, there are several conclusions about the fugitive that cannot be denied - he is not on the run; he is healthy, not injured and well fed, as his earlier gaunt visage has been pretty much filled out; he decides when he wants to issue another videotape, unlike Saddam Hussein, who disappeared from his state-run satellite television radars once US troops got close to him; bin Laden says the security of the American people (and by default the rest of the world) is in their own hands, though it is not and perhaps won't be for some time to come; he also knows that millions of dollars might have been spent on promotions and advertising campaigns by incumbent US President George W Bush and challenger John Kerry to propagate their cause, but it is his one videotape that may influence the way the American voters are going to exercise their choice for president.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delh-based journalist.
ADB extends $450,000 grant to Afghanistan
Agence France-Presse via Hindustan Times Manila, November 3
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday extended a technical grant of 450,000 dollars to address the hazard of growing air pollution in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.
The grant will be used to develop a prioritized program to sustain air quality in Kabul, which will then be made available to develop similar programs in other cities in the war-torn country.
Deteriorating air quality in Kabul, caused most likely by vehicle emissions and smoke fires, is taking a toll on public health and welfare, and poses a significant burden in the form of economic and social costs, the ADB said.
"The configuration of the landscape and cold climate exacerbates the situation," the ADB said, adding that the poor, especially elderly and infants, are most at risk.
Afghan Villagers See Saintly Side of Al Qaeda
Mon Nov 1, 8:03 AM ET By Sayed Salahuddin
KHOST, Afghanistan (Reuters) - A headscarf hid the young woman's face as she passed by, but her message for a stranger asking why people would congregate at the graves of al Qaeda fighters was clear.
"Osama is in our hearts."
She was one of a handful of Afghan villagers who had come at daybreak to pray at a shrine for 39 al Qaeda fighters killed while taking refuge in a mosque close to the town of Khost, near the mountainous southeast border with Pakistan.
The mosque proved no protection against U.S. bombs that rained down three years ago at the outset of a campaign to destroy Osama bin Laden's militant network in Afghanistan.
The day after the attack, villagers retrieved the bodies from the rubble, buried them side by side and pooled money to turn the site into a shrine.
Today, a wall encloses the graves, but there is no roof.
Inside, visitors attach pieces of cloth and headscarves to the tops of the graves, both as a mark of respect and a token through which many believe the deceased will remember the visitor and ask God to fulfill their wishes.
They believe in miracles, according to Shayesta Gul. He looks after the shrine, which stands 15 yards from a government checkpoint on a road running through the arid plain to Khost town, a region dominated by ethnic Pashtun tribes.
Villagers are full of tales of the sick regaining their health and a blind man recovering his sight after visiting the shrine. Childless women flock there praying for a baby.
"Some people may regard what we have seen as a superstition," said Gul, tugging his salt and pepper beard.
"But there have been miracles and people have been cured."
AGAINST WAHHABI TEACHINGS
Khost province and bin Laden have a history. The al Qaeda leader ran militant training camps for jihadis, holy war warriors, in the mountains neighboring Pakistan's tribal region of North Waziristan.
U.S.-led forces still scour the remote region hunting Taliban and al Qaeda members, although they suspect bin Laden fled Afghanistan some time ago. Bin Laden was seen in a videotaped message on Friday in which he warned of new attacks but his location was not revealed.
It was in Afghanistan that U.S. Tomahawk Cruise missiles struck al Qaeda camps in retaliation for the bombing of U.S. Embassies in East Africa in late 1998.
Bin Laden, Gul says, is regarded as a "companion of the Prophet." Storekeepers and shoppers in nearby Khost town call the world's most wanted man a hero and "a defender of Muslims."
Bin Laden himself would probably disapprove of the virtual canonization of him and his followers.
The custom of adorning graves and creating shrines runs counter to the austere Wahhabi version of Islam that the Saudi-born al Qaeda leader espouses.
There have been stories of Arab al Qaeda fighters angering Pakistani and Afghan militants by desecrating graves of fallen comrades.
Wahhabism sprang out of the Arabian peninsula in the 18th century. When Wahhabi forces took Mecca in 1803 one of their first acts, according to some historical accounts, was to order the destruction of the domed tombs of the Prophet and the early caliphs.
OTHER SHRINES
But Afghanistan's Islamic traditions are different, fused with more mystical Sufi beliefs.
There are shrines to saints, poets and emperors whose conquests spread the faith through central Asia and the Indian subcontinent.
Conferring saintly status on dead al Qaeda fighters is not a one-off, confined to Khost.
A similar shrine was established on the outskirts of the southern city of Kandahar, where the bodies of 97 al Qaeda members lie buried.
"Women and children come to pay homage and pray, some from as far afield as Pakistan and Iran," says shrine caretaker Malang.
"I have seen blind people recover their sight and heard of barren women becoming pregnant after visiting the shrine. It is only a matter of belief," he said.
Kandahar authorities, spooked by the cult built up around the government's dead enemies, demolished the wall of the shrine and set up a checkpoint to deter visitors. But, Malang said, as soon as the checkpoint was abandoned the worshipers returned.
NGOs step up security following kidnappings
KABUL, 2 November (IRIN) - NGOs in the Afghan capital Kabul are stepping up their security measures following last week's kidnapping of three international UN staff. "That such an incident could happen in broad daylight on a busy Kabul street is a reflection of a deteriorating security situation," Nick Downie, head of the Afghanistan NGO Security Office (ANSO), told IRIN on Tuesday.
A Taliban splinter group claimed it abducted British/Irish citizen Annetta Flanigan along with Filipino Angelito Nayan and Kosovan Shqipe Habibi in the Afghan capital and is threatening to kill them unless the United Nations and foreign troops leave Afghanistan. The three UN election workers were taken from a UN vehicle in Kabul on Thursday. Jaish-al Muslimeen, or Army of Muslims, released a videotape on Sunday showing the frightened captives.
The government voiced hope on Monday the three could be saved. "We are optimistic that the hostages will be released," Defence Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi said, declining to elaborate for fear of jeopardising the process.
Downie said foreign and local NGOs in Afghanistan had been bracing themselves for an incident of this kind. "From a security perspective, we had been anticipating some type of significant acts during this election period. We noted some extreme, global Jihad propaganda entering the country, we had noted the publicly stated intent of extremist groups but perhaps that was overtaken by the euphoria over a successful few days of voting."
The UN in Afghanistan said its security management team had reviewed the security situation in the light of Thursday's abduction. "Their decision is that all programmes and operations continue and that there should be no change in UN staff levels in the country," Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), said at a press conference on Sunday in the capital.
"The team's main agreement is that measures that are already in place in some parts of the country, in particular concerning protection of UN vehicle movements, are now applicable to areas of Kabul," the spokesman added.
ANSO said it was taking similar measures. "We are considering and have adopted new, more serious measures that will restrict movements and presence in a manner that has not occurred before," Downie said.
CARE International, one of the biggest NGOs in Afghanistan, said the abductions had highlighted the need to boost security throughout the country to make it safe for humanitarian aid and badly needed reconstruction. "It underscores the importance of making greater progress on security sector reform, the demobilisation and disarmament of militias and the creation of a professional and multi-ethnic security force," Paul Barker, the NGO's country director in Afghanistan, told IRIN.
On Tuesday, Afghanistan's chief mullah, Shaikh ul Hadis Mulawi Fazel Hadi Shinwari, condemned the kidnapping and appealed to the captors to release the three UN staff members unharmed ahead of a deadline set for Wednesday, when the kidnappers have said they will be executed.
Afghan women headed to Arizona for entrepreneurial training
The Business Journal of Phoenix 11/02/2004 By Mike Sunnucks
When Barbara Barrett visited Afghanistan earlier this year, she saw an emerging country a few years removed from the authoritarian rule of the Taliban.
Barrett, one of the Valley's most influential leaders, also saw a country where women who once were oppressed and denied the right to go to school now had more freedom and liberties.
That includes the ability to start their own small businesses and other economic enterprises.
An idea hatched from Barrett's visit to Afghanistan that links women entrepren-eurs from that developing country with one of the top business schools in the country.
Barrett's brainstorm resulted in a partnership involving Afghan women entrepreneurs and Thunderbird, The Garvin School of International Management.
A group of 15 Afghan women entrepreneurs will attend Thunderbird in January to learn how to set up small businesses back home.
They will go to two weeks' worth of intensive classes at the Glendale school on how to set up a business model and plan, how to get financing such as micro loans, and how to find export opportunities for the United States and other markets.
Heading the effort is Barrett, who serves on Thunderbird's board of directors, and Mina Sherzoy, a businesswoman whose family came to California when the Soviet Union invaded her homeland in the late 1970s. Sherzoy returned to the capital city of Kabul after the U.S. liberation and has worked to help foster economic development and entrepreneurism.
Barrett has close ties to President Bush and is the wife of Intel Corp. Chief Executive Craig Barrett.
"It seemed like a perfect fit," said Barrett of setting up a partnership between the Afghan businesswomen and Thunderbird.
Barrett said most of the funding for the project comes from Arizona contributors to Thunderbird and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which is picking up travel costs.
Barrett said if the Afghan program is successful, the initiative could be expanded to other developing countries, including Iraq, where she traveled recently as part of economic, educational and trade efforts.
"This is a wonderful opportunity to partner with a university like Thunderbird," said Sherzoy, who is in the Valley to help organize the January program.
Sherzoy said women with media companies, import-export businesses, finance and medical practices are scheduled to attend the two-week program. Most of them are from the capital city of Kabul, Afghanistan's main commercial hub and most open and westernized area. Sherzoy said if the Thunderbird effort works out, more programs could be held there and at other universities in the United States.
Steven Stralser, managing director of Thunderbird's Global Entrepreneurship Center, said the program is a first for the graduate business school and displays the institution's commitment to international economic development.
"The attendees will get a well-formed idea of what it takes to start a new enterprise," said the Thunderbird professor.
He credited Barrett for coming up with the idea.
"This really came about from a trip she took earlier this year," Stralser said.
The school is recruiting more scholarship and sponsorship partners to help fund the program and perhaps future projects in Afghanistan and other countries.
The first session with the Afghan women runs Jan. 10 to 21. During the Taliban's rule, women and girls were not allowed to go to school or to be seen in public.
Benazir Bhutto's answer to al-Qaeda
ASIA TIMES ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Benazir Bhutto, daughter of former premier Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, as leader of the Pakistan People's Party, served as premier for two terms, 1988-90 and 1993-96, the first term making her the first female prime minister in the Muslim world. She currently lives in self-imposed exile. Asia Times Online's Syed Saleem Shahzad spoke to Mrs Bhutto on a wide range of topics.
Asia Times Online: Islamic extremists have called for "death to America", with no room for compromise. Why has this extremism emerged now, and not, for instance, during the Cold War?
Benazir Bhutto: The slogan "death to America" was, to my knowledge, raised before Islamic extremists took center stage in global politics. If I recall correctly, it was used way back in Latin America during the times of Che Guevara and Pancho Villa. The slogan is today considered more deadly because of the events of 9/11. In the past, it was more a manifestation of anger or resentment among those who raised such slogans. The events of 9/11 have given it a less rhetorical content.
During the Cold War the countries which felt aggrieved used superpower rivalry to promote their agendas. With the demise of the Soviet Union, and the rise of Islamic extremists during the fight against the Soviet occupation [of Afghanistan], Islamic extremists felt that they could take on the remaining superpower. It is unlikely that non-state actors can take on a superpower without being assisted by another superpower. However, they can cause random terror, spread insecurity and fear, give birth to a clash of cultures and religions and create more hatred and intolerance. This is the real danger. We need to counter such extremism by promoting unity, tolerance and respect to different races, religions and genders. In such moderation lies the harmony and well being of the world community. Moreover, we need to address unresolved political issues to prevent extremists from exploiting them for their own narrow and theocratic ends.
ATol: The US says "you are with us or against us" - all-out war with no compromise.
Bhutto: The impact of 9/11 was dramatic and led to a dramatic declaration that either you are with us or against us. The United States was struck in its financial and political center - while Pearl Harbor was on the periphery in comparison. Pearl Harbor drew the US into World War II. The attacks of 9/11 have drawn it into the war against terror. For some time, the events of 9/11 will continue to dominate the agenda of global politics, with the US in the lead.
ATol: The US is fighting a war against an invisible enemy called al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (a loose coalition of pro-al-Qaeda organizations). What is al-Qaeda in the real sense? Is there an ideology behind its movement, or are they just a bunch of militants who are mindlessly in search of soft US targets to blow up?
Bhutto: Al-Qaeda has managed to unite disparate militant groups into an international confederate of terrorists, which is at times is called the Islamic Front. Often these groups exploit local tensions, for example the tensions in the Middle East, the nationalistic feelings of the Chechen people, the nationalistic opposition to foreign troops in Iraq or the Kashmir dispute. However, they do have an ideology. Their real agenda is to use regional political issues to bring about a theocratic dictatorship similar to the one that existed in Afghanistan under the Taliban. Gender discrimination, cultural intolerance, denial of representation, repression of freedom and subjugation of the masses to one-man clerical dictatorship is a negation of humanity's struggle to overcome suffering and to live in respect and dignity. It is important to separate the terrorists from the regional issue by defusing tensions where they exist through political action.
ATol:There is a theory that Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf was the biggest supporter of al-Qaeda before September 11, 2001. Why and how did he became the "most trusted" US partner in the "war on terror"? And does the Pakistani army fully support him?
Bhutto: It is a fact that the Musharraf regime was the biggest supporter of the Taliban, who harbored al-Qaeda, which was recruiting and training men for terrorism prior to 9/11. This policy was defended in the name of strategic depth. I called it "strategic threat" in a speech I gave in parliament calling for the breaking of ties with the Taliban in 1998. According to a book by Bob Woodward, the Bush administration asked Musharraf to stand up and be counted as friend or foe. Since he gave a positive answer in one telephone call, they decided to work with him. It was more convenient for Washington to work with someone stating he was prepared to play ball than bring about a change at a time of immense crisis. Washington has managed to squeeze concessions out of Musharraf. There is a US base in Pakistan, the FBI [US Federal Bureau of Investigation] are allowed to operate [in Pakistan] and through electronic "transepts" have captured some big fish. Musharraf in turn has been able to use the relationship to buy time during which the Taliban (either deliberately or inadvertently) have been able to regroup. He has also cleverly held out the promise of the capture of a high-value target - read Osama bin Laden or [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar - during the US presidential-election year.
The Pakistan army is a disciplined force. It may be unhappy having to kill civilians in search of terrorists in the tribal areas, but it does what it is ordered to do through its chain of command. There have been isolated incidents that demonstrate a lack of support, namely in the two assassination attempts [last year] against Musharraf, and some other incidents. However, this kind of isolated, junior-level activity is not new. It has occurred in the past during the Attock Conspiracy case of the 1970s [to overthrow Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto's government] and the Islamic Brotherhood attempt to overthrow the democratic government in the 1990s.
By involving the military in civilian affairs and scandals ... as well as political persecution, the impartiality of the armed forces and its professionalism has been made subject to public controversy. It is this controversial political role that would make most professional officers uncomfortable.
ATol: The US invasion of Iraq, in the name of creating a civil society and a liberal democracy in the Middle East, has instead promoted fundamentalist trends, especially in Iraq itself, which had been a tolerant secular society but is now a fundamentalist hotbed where private Shi'ite and Sunni militias rule the roost.
Bhutto: There were two plans: one for the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime and the second for a postwar order. The first worked and the second did not. The consequences are before us. It's a tragedy to see Muslims divided on sectarian lines. It's important for Muslims to unite and dissent on political rather than religious issues.
ATol: Previously, Islamic fundamentalist parties could not make headway in elections, now they are emerging as a challenge in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Bhutto: Extremist and fundamentalist political parties have never been able to score any significant political victories in countries like Pakistan. In fact, if the past record is any guide, it is clear that the extremist parties were never voted into power or even brought close to it by the people. The extremists rose under the dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq in Pakistan. The religious parties [Muttahhida Majlis-e-Amal] formed a government for the first time [in North West Frontier Province] under General Musharraf's dictatorship.
It is dictatorship that leads to the rise of extremist groups. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc are all countries that share a background of long periods of military or authoritarian rule. The best defense against extremism and terrorism is the promotion of freedom, human dignity, rule of law, tolerance and pluralism. The present marginalization of moderate political parties in Pakistan can cause blow-back in time. There is a political vacuum in Pakistan which is dangerous to the future.
ATol: There is an extreme feeling of dissent within religious political parties, which is further giving birth to more extreme notions. Jihadi organizations are one manifestation, but there is a very strong opinion flourishing in the shape of Hizbut Tehrir-like organizations, which has taken strong roots in Central Asia and is silently taking root in Pakistan. Unlike religious-political parties, they do not believe in democracy at all. What is the perspective of these trends?
Bhutto: During the days of fighting the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan [1980s], a military dictator in Pakistan [Zia] used religious parties to recruit fighters. He used money to set up religious schools whose real purpose was to indoctrinate young men into becoming robots. Since he was associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, he used those links to bring together members of the Muslim Brotherhood from different parts of the world. They were brainwashed into believing that after defeating the Soviet Union, they could take on the other superpower, namely America. They were never told that the success against the Soviets was because it was a proxy war with international backing. These indoctrinated elements were patronized in the military, security, civilian and political structure of Pakistan. They believe that Islam came to Pakistan through the shores of Central Asia and can now be exported to Europe through Central Asia. Hence we see the cells operating in that area.
I believe that both my governments were destabilized by these forces. The Pakistan People's Party and I posed the most potent threat to them. We gave an alternative vision of freedom, human rights, modernity compatible with religion as well as progress and prosperity. Pakistan, under the PPP, was an example of a moderate, enlightened and modern democracy to 1 billion Muslims at the crossroads having to choose between the past and the future. These elements prefer Musharraf to the PPP. Musharraf is a military dictator and is not an ideological alternative to them. They have scuttled all attempts at rapprochement between the army led by Musharraf and the people led by the PPP. This is why some sections of the media have speculated that Islamabad could be seized by a combine of religio-political-military elements. I do not believe that this nightmare scenario is possible because I believe that the restoration of democracy can turn the wheel of disaster into one of opportunity for the people of Pakistan - and the wider world community.
Previously, the religious parties were used to help recruit militants. With the passage of two decades, the militant cells are becoming more independent of the religious parties. While they take their spiritual mentoring from the religious parties, their organizational structures are cellular and independent. But there is a real danger today. Disillusioned with military dictatorship and unable to express disillusionment through a fair electoral process, the danger is of the radicalization of the masses. This disillusionment provides a perfect breeding ground for extremist organizations. That was why in Pakistan, parties that are sympathetic to the Taliban and al-Qaeda claim that neither democracy nor military dictatorship works and that theocratic rule should be given a chance. Thus, when people are denied the democratic model of development, they can choose a system that is even worse than military dictatorship.
ATol: Why have secular forces in Muslim societies failed to contain fundamentalism?
Bhutto: Most secular forces were kept out of government during the Cold War by military or authoritarian rulers lacking grass-root support and legitimacy. Since authoritarianism and dictatorship rested on force rather than on law, it gave birth to a culture of lawlessness and extremism. We need to have democracy in the Muslim world and we need to spend more on education and human development to contain the forces of extremism.
ATol: Where do liberation movements such as those in Palestine and Kashmir stand?
Bhutto: The armed struggle of the people of Palestine and Kashmir and others under occupation received a setback following the events of 9/11. Now there is zero tolerance for armed struggle. However, the causes of unrest are political and the search for a solution will continue through peaceful avenues.
Syed Saleem Shahzad is Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times
Pakistan expects stability in post-election Afghanistan
By Qudssia Akhlaque Dawn
ISLAMABAD, Nov 2: Pakistan believes that the completion of the electoral process in Afghanistan will augur well for the country's stability as well as for peace and security in the region.
"We congratulate the people of Afghanistan on the completion of the electoral process. This is their decision and we respect it," was the measured response Dawn got from the Foreign Office spokesman, Masood Khan, when his comments were sought on the victory of Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan's first presidential elections.
The spokesman's response was equally diplomatic when asked if Pakistan believed that Mr Karzai's triumph would bring about political stability to the war-torn country.
"The completion of the electoral process will lead to peace, stability and reconstruction in Afghanistan," Mr Khan said, adding that presidential elections in Afghanistan were part of the Bonn process to which Pakistan, along with other countries, was committed.
Pakistan played a key role in extending support to the UNAMA and the IOM in organizing elections for Afghans living in Pakistan last month.
As a neighbouring country, Afghanistan remains a high priority country for Pakistan and Islamabad is keen to maintain close and friendly relations with Kabul. Pakistan recognises that a peaceful, stable and prosperous Afghanistan is in Pakistan's own interest. Hence, it has actively participated in the process of peace, security and reconstruction in Afghanistan, backing it with high-level official and political contacts.
After the adoption of a new constitution by the loya jirga on Jan 4, the then prime minister of Pakistan, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, was the first world leader to visit Kabul to express solidarity and support for the endeavours of President Karzai and the ongoing political process in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has pledged $100 million as aid to Afghanistan, of which reportedly about 35 per cent has been disbursed in areas prioritised by the Afghan government. For the remaining amount, consultations between the finance ministers of the two countries are under way.
Pakistan signed the Declaration on 'Good Neighbourly Relations' with Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries in Kabul in December 2002.
Last year, Pakistan-Afghan relations saw a downward trend following the July 8 armed attack on Pakistan's embassy in Kabul and border skirmishes. However, this trend was arrested with the swift intervention of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who tendered an apology and promised compensation.
Disclaimer:
This news site is mostly a compilation of publicly accessible articles
on the Web in the form of a link or saved news item. The news articles
and commentaries/editorials are protected under international copyright
laws. All credit goes to the original respective source(s).