27 die in US missile attacks

ISLAMABAD, Aug 21 (PTI) — The US missile strikes on suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan and Sudan have claimed 27 lives, left about 50 wounded and hundreds missing, even as the world community was divided today with Russia strongly denouncing the American action, which, however found support from Britain and Germany.

US warships in the Arabian Sea and the Red Sea almost simultaneously fired 75 Cruise Tomahawk missiles at 11 p.m. last night to target facilities belonging to Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden, believed to be responsible for the August 7 bombings at US Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.

Twentyseven persons were killed in Khost and Jalalabad near the Pakistan border, in Afghanistan, where Laden is suspected to have a terrorist training camp.

The Taliban claimed that Laden escaped unhurt in attacks. "Osama is safe and sound and was at a far distance when the US strikes hit his bases," a Taliban source was quoted as saying by the English daily "The Nation".

One of the training camps of Kashmiri militant groups, "Harkat-ul-Mujahideen", also came under attack, its chief, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil was quoted by the media here as saying.

Thirty persons were injured in the attack in Afghanistan.

In the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, 10 persons were injured as the missiles hit a pharmaceutical factory allegedly owned by Laden and which the USA said, was engaged in manufacturing chemical weapons.

Governor of Khartoum Majzoub al-Khalifa said the fate of 300 workers, including pharmacists and technicians, who were on duty when the factory was hit by the missiles, was a mystery.

Sudan’s official news agency, Suna, quoting a surgeon at Khartoum Hospital said, 10 persons, including two with serious injuries, were treated at the hospital.

President Bill Clinton, who cut short his vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, to return to Washington said the training camps in Afghanistan were hit because a meeting of key terrorist leaders was supposed to take place.

"We have reason to believe that a gathering of key terrorist leaders was to take place there, thus underscoring the urgency of our actions," he said.

Mr Clinton said his anger was aimed at those waging a "holy war" against America and not the followers of Islam.

"Our mission was clear — to strike at the network of radical groups affiliated with and funded by Osama bin Laden, perhaps the pre-eminent organiser and financier of international terrorism in the world today," he added.

Sudan and the Talibans, who control most of Afghanistan, lashed out at the USA for launching the strikes at, what they said, were not linked with terrorist activities.

Sudanese Head of State Omar El-Beshir said Khartoum "reserves right to lodge a complaint" with the UN Security Council against Washington for the attack on the pharmaceutical plant, as hundreds of angry protesters attacked the vacant US Embassy in the capital.

Sudanese television showed crowds pelting stones at the US Embassy, climbing over the gates and pulling down the flag. "Down, down, USA," chanted the protesters standing atop the gates and inciting crowds.

Meanwhile, Sudan announced recall of the entire diplomatic mission from its embassy in Washington.

In Kabul, two UN officials were shot and wounded.

In Islamabad, troops and police guarded the US Embassy, putting up barricades around the complex to thwart any possible retaliatory action by radicals.

India for global action
Tribune News Service

NEW DELHI, Aug 21— India today refrained from commenting on the U.S. attack on alleged terrorist sites in Sudan and Afghanistan, but reiterated the need to globally tackle the menace of terrorism and find a lasting long-term solution to effectively put an end to it.

"I don’t want to comment on the US action", a spokesman of the External Affairs Ministry said here. "It is high time the international community got together to tackle the problem of trans-national and trans-border terrorism," he added.

The spokesman said instead of selective "unilateral action", meaningful international cooperation against terrorism would help contain terrorism which had assumed a serious dimension.

He said terrorism was an issue of particular concern to India as it had experienced it earlier in Punjab and now in Jammu and Kashmir. "India has been the victim of state-sponsored cross-border terrorism in its most heinous forms and on numerous occasions, India has drawn the world attention to the presence of training camps in its neighbourhood where terrorists are equipped and prepared for carrying out subversive activities in India", he said.

"Such terrorist training facilities have continued to function openly and in an unimpeded manner, in Pakistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and present-day Afghanistan", the spokesman said.

He expressed regret that the international community till now had been silent or indifferent to these developments. They were unable to agree on concerted efforts to tackle the menace of international terrorism, he said.

The spokesman said India had made appeals to include terrorism within the jurisdiction of the proposed International Criminal Court but other countries had not reacted to the proposal.

The Bharatiya Janata Party, which is holding its national executive meeting at Jaipur, gave a guarded reaction to the US attack in Afghanistan and Sudan.

The party vice-president, Mr K.L. Sharma, told newspersons in Jaipur that there was a need for a global approach to root out international terrorism.

Mr Sharma said the world should unite and denounce terrorism.

To a specific question on whether the BJP defended the US attack, Mr Sharma said there should be a uniform policy to fight the menace.

The Delhi police, meanwhile, beefed up security at the US embassy here as a precautionary measure. The capital is home to a large number of Afghan refugees and African students.

A Delhi police spokesman said the police was asked to step up security at the US mission, and other institutions as also of those of US origin here in the wake of the US bombings.

Clinton talks to Sharif

ISLAMABAD, Aug 21 (UNI) — Pakistan today did a volte face after us President Bill Clinton talked to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on phone and said no casualty or damage had been caused on its soil, retracting its stand that at least five of its citizens were killed by a stray missile.

A Foreign Office spokesman said Mr Sharif, however, told Mr Clinton that the us attacks on sovereign and independent states violated international norms.

Mr Clinton rang up the Pakistani Prime Minister to apprise him of USA’s views on the missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan.

He said Mr Sharif told him that it would have been better if Mr Clinton had, instead, initiated a dialogue with those countries.

"No Pakistani was killed or injured on the Khost or Jalalabad borders by the US cruise missile attacks to harm Osama bin Laden, the spokesman said.

Earlier in the day, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman had claimed that one of the us missiles aimed at Afghanistan landed on its side of the border killing at least five persons.

Security beefed up in US mission

NEW DELHI, Aug 21 (PTI) — The Delhi police today beefed up security at the United States Embassy and other American institutions in the Capital following Washington’s military strikes on alleged terrorist bases in Sudan and Afghanistan.

City Police Commissioner, V.N. Singh said at a panel discussion here that security had been beefed up keeping in view the large number of Afghan refugees and African students in the capital.

The police chief was speaking on the pressures under which the city police was functioning which "distracted" the staff from their normal policing duties.

The USA yesterday launched missile strike against what it identified as "terrorist related" bases in Afghanistan and Sudan in retribution for the US Embassy bombings in east Africa that killed 263 persons, including 12 Americans.

Destroy Pak bases first, says Rabbani

NEW DELHI, Aug 21 (PTI) — The Rabbani regime in Afghanistan today termed the U.S. air attacks against terrorist training camps in Taliban-controlled areas as "not sufficient enough" and said Washington should attempt destroying the "terrorist-producing machinery" in Pakistan.

"Terrorist training camps have been established and operated in southern Afghanistan with the active involvement of the Pakistan military intelligence service, ISI... Unfortunately, the international community kept silent in the face of increased terrorist activities stemming from these camps," the Afghan Ambassador Masood Khalili said.

Addressing a Press conference here in the wake of yesterday’s U.S. airstrikes in Khost and Jalalabad provinces in southern Afghanistan, Khalili said if the international law permitted, terrorist camps in places like Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta in Pakistan, which was a safe haven for terrorists, should be destroyed.

He quoted his leader Burhanuddin Rabbani as having told him from northern Afghanistan this morning that the USA is "fighting against the smoke and not the fire".

Asked to elaborate, Khalili said Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind behind the blasts in Kenya and Tanzania, and more than 2,000 of his terrorist followers, had entered Afghanistan through Pakistan and its ISI.

He described the airstrikes as "not sufficient enough" and said Pakistan should be also dealt with "politically, socially and internationally" for training and harbouring terrorists.