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Tuesday,
January 15, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Anti-terrorism
war to last 6 years: Pentagon 30
Al-Qaida men flown to Cuba
Fatah
leader killed |
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A grim-faced Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe listens as Malawian President Bakili Muluzi opens the Extraordinary Summit of the
Southern African Development Community (SADC) called to discuss conflict in the region,
on Monday. In his address Muluzi called for free and fair Presidential elections in Zimbabwe and said the election should not just be seen for its final outcome, but should be judged as a process.
— Reuters photo
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Anti-terrorism war to last 6 years: Pentagon
Washington, January 14 Donald Rumsfeld, Defence Secretary, has won President Bush’s backing for a sharp increase in military spending, reports The Telegraph. Extra money will be allocated for more of the weapons that have proved useful in Afghanistan, such as unmanned surveillance and attack aircraft. The increased spending will continue whether or not Osama bin Laden is found soon. It follows signs that Pentagon is wearying of the intense public interest in the hunt for the Al-Qaida leader, and Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. John McCain, a senator and former chairman of the armed services committee, said on his return from a trip to the Afghan region that he felt frustrated that bin Laden was still at large. He added, “He’s on the run now. I think he’s a threat so long as he’s alive, but it’s a far different scenario than the one where he had sanctuary and was able to operate with a financial network and a network of terrorists throughout the world.” After four weeks in which the Pentagon and the media were constantly on tenterhooks for the imminent capture of Bin Laden, a change of tack ordered by Rumsfeld has become evident. Officials say that they will no longer even hint at where they think he might be. There have also been reports of clashes between the Pentagon and the CIA over the quality of intelligence emanating from Afghanistan, states the paper. Some military officials feared there was a “missed opportunity” when the Pentagon ordered US Central Command to rely on local Afghan forces rather than US troops to try to intercept and capture Bin Laden after the assault on Al-Qaida’s Tora Bora mountain hideouts. Not only did Bin Laden apparently escape, but so have a series of Taliban leaders over the past two weeks, almost certainly including Mullah Omar, raising questions about the competence or possible corruption of the Afghan forces. Although no politician is yet prepared to risk publicly differing with President Bush over the administration’s handling of the war, some advisers fear that public patience over the failure to catch Bin Laden will evaporate if the hunt drags on too long — or if there is a fresh terrorist attack on the US.
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30 Al-Qaida men flown to Cuba
Kabul, January 14 Powell’s visit is intended to support reconstruction of the nation shattered by two decades of war but the interim government and aid organisations say their work is being frustrated by a lack of funds. The second batch of detainees from the Afghan campaign to be flown to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, left in a C-17 US military cargo plane last night, a spokesman for the US Central Command said. US warplanes attacked caves around the eastern Afghan town of Zhawar overnight and early today, the Afghan Islamic Press reported, quoting residents in the neighbouring Pakistani town of Miran Shah. US ground troops scouring the area have found heavy weapons and ammunition in a network of bunkers, caves and buildings much larger than had been apparent from earlier aerial reconnaissance. Meanwhile, German peacekeepers began their first street patrols in Kabul today, and were making preparations to expand to 24-hour operations once more troops arrived. A convoy of heavily-armed German paratroopers were seen driving through Kabul’s northern and central districts along with Afghan police. Curious residents lined sidewalks to catch a glimpse of the foreign peacekeepers, while enthusiastic children waved, cheered and shouted “hello” to the convoy in English.
AFP |
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Key Pashtuns
' blocking' Omar arrest
Kabul, January 14 Further hampering efforts to net the one-eyed cleric is that some tribal groups in southern Afghanistan where he is believed hiding, do not want to see him apprehended, Dr Faizullah Jalal told newsmen. Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai, he believes, is himself undecided about the issue. “On the one hand he will not pave the way for the cleric’s escape, but if Omar does want to escape, no one will take steps to prevent him.” Since Karzai has his power base in southern Afghanistan he is able to bring influence to bear on tribal chieftains there, the political science lecturer at Kabul University said. These tribes were also influenced by groups in Pakistan which helped propel the Taliban to power in 1996. Dara Adam Kheil (Pakistan): Afghanistan’s newly appointed Chief Justice said he would give the death sentence to Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar if they were brought to his court. “Mullah Omar and Osama are responsible for the destruction of Afghanistan and giving a bad name to Islam,” Mr Fazal Hadi Shinwari said a day before he was to depart for Afghanistan to take up his post.
AFP, AP |
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Speech is over, now will Pervez act? HAVING made the historic speech on January 12, Pakistan’s President, Gen Pervez Musharraf, has now before him an uphill task of satisfying the expectations he raised in his own country, in India and in the international community. Now no more speeches but action — that is the expectation. In this speech the General repeatedly condemned the “defeated” religious militants for misleading the masses and giving Pakistan an image of an illiterate and soft state in the eyes of the international community. He also warned and condemned those Pakistanis who took up causes of Muslims outside their own country. Some measures he announced to correct the situation are unprecedented — rather revolutionary. The measures are; all mosques and madarsas will be registered by March 23 (Pakistan’s national day) and no new mosques and madarsas can be established without an NOC from the government. Mosques will be allowed to use loudspeakers only for Friday sermons. Any mosque using this facility to spread hatred will be closed down. These are unprecedented steps in the history of the subcontinent where people consider it their divine right to raise a place of worship anywhere without regard to any building laws. But the question is who is responsible for the proliferation and power of the militant groups? It is the politicians (including Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, his daughter Benazir and Nawaz Sharif), the police and the administration, the judiciary, the Press (particularly Urdu), the ISI and the Army itself (even under the leadership of Gen Musharraf). It is a fact that until frightened by the wrath of the USA and the international community after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Pakistani Army and the ISI were brazenly using Islamic militancy and jehad as an important component of their country’s foreign policy. If Gen Musharraf is really serious about ridding his country of the menace of religious militancy and obscurantism he will have to effect reforms in the policy, judiciary, political parties, the ISI and the Army. He has talked of reforming the police (a near-impossible task in Pakistan). He will have to amend the Political Parties Act to provide that no party exploits the name of religion for political gains. Obviously the most hurt parties in that case will be Jamiat-ul-Ulema-i-Islam and the Jamaat-i-Islami. Gen Musharraf’s most important and difficult task will be to reform the ISI and the Army. Within Pakistan the ISI is accused of not only organising cross-border terrorism but also of engineering sectarian and ethnic bloodshed in the country for political reasons. Pakistan’s former ISI chief Hamid Gul, who supports Islamic militancy, said in a recent interview with Urdu daily Jang that the army training programme is itself jehad-based. Jehadi indoctrination was an important part of the military training, he said. Can Musharraf delete that part of the teaching programme that brainwashes the young cadets into jehadis? But what about Gen Musharraf himself. Was it not under his leadership post-Kargil that the army backed jehadis against the Nawaz Sharif government and paved the way for his eventual military coup? Did he not allow the holding of the annual conference of the Markaz-ud-Daawa in Mudirke in 2000 although it had been banned by Mr Sharif before he was ousted. This Markaz, of which Lashkar-e-Toiba is the military wing, openly preaches hatred against non-Sunni sects and against foreign countries, including India, in the name of Islam. It was Gen Musharraf who told jehadi groups in occupied Kashmir on February 5, 2000, to unite for fight in Kashmir. As a result, the United Jehad Council came into being. Gen Musharraf ruled Pakistan when the hijackers of an Indian plane from Kathmandu to Kandahar slipped into that country. Masood Azhar, who had been released in exchange of passengers of the hijacked plane, was received as a hero in Pakistan. He subsequently launched a terrorist organisation called Jaish-e-Mohammad which claimed responsibility for the attack on the Assembly building in Srinagar on October 1. India holds it responsible for the December 13 attack on Parliament in New Delhi. Lastly, Gen Musharraf condemned his country’s jehadi groups for supporting Taliban against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. That is comic. He should go back to his September 19 address to the nation to see that these jehadi groups were only following the army’s then policy. Gen Musharraf was outright anti-Northern Alliance. Should India believe that after his speech on January 12 Gen Musharraf has transfigured into a moderate Muslim — or even a Pakistani Kamal Ataturk? |
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Fatah leader killed Nablus, January 14 Hospital sources in Tulkarem confirmed the death of Raed Al Karmi (30), the leader of the town’s branch of the Al-Aqsa Brigades, a radical offshoot of Fatah.
AFP |
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Mugabe’s ‘repression may lead to civil war’
Johannesburg, January 14 Mr Mugabe faces re-election in March. “The deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe places in real jeopardy the possibility of free and fair elections... and raises the spectre of such violent repression of political opposition degenerating into civil war,” Amnesty said in a statement issued in South Africa. The British-based human rights pressure group appealed to Zimbabwe’s neighbours, whose leaders were attending a regional summit in Malawi on Monday, to take a tough stand against what it said were state-sponsored killings. “The time has come for SADC to send a strong and consistent message that the situation in Zimbabwe has grown worse, that the Zimbabwean authorities should not allow human rights to be violated with impunity,” Amnesty in a memorandum to the 14-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) said. Last year, Amnesty said Zimbabwean human rights organisations had reported about 50 politically motivated killings since early 2000. Most of these, it said, were carried out by self-styled veterans of the 1970s war against white rule. For the past two years, black war veterans have been occupying white-owned farms with the support of the government. In its latest report, Amnesty said over the past few weeks it had received reports of up to 10 people killed in violent repression by state-sponsored militias. Last week, Zimbabwe’s parliament passed legislation granting Mugabe sweeping security powers ahead of the March 9-10 presidential poll.
Reuters |
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Bush faints, recovers
Washington, January 14 The Doctor, an Air Force Colonel, said Mr Bush quickly recovered and is doing well. “I do not find any reason that this would happen again,” said Dr Tubb. “He fainted due to a temporary decrease in heart rate brought on by swallowing a pretzel.” Dr Tubb said Mr Bush suffered an abrasion on his left cheek, the size of a half dollar, and a bruise on his lower lip, apparently from falling on the floor from a couch. He was alone in the room watching TV while his wife, first lady Laura Bush, was in a nearby room on the telephone.
AP |
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A leader of the militant
Palestinian movement linked to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s
Fatah was killed in a blast in the West Bank town of Tulkarem today,
Palestinian security officials said, blaming Israel.
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