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Friday,
January 18, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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8
Islamic militants arrested in UK
USA
committed to Kabul: Powell
WTC
memorial kicks up row UN council revises
sanctions on Al-Qaida |
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‘Shoe bomber’
indicted on nine counts Separate electorate
ends for minorities Indians plead not
guilty to attacks
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8 Islamic militants arrested in UK
London, January 17 “A number of warrants have been executed this morning under the Terror Act 2000. Several have been arrested in connection with an on-going pan-European anti-terror investigation,” a spokeswoman said. Commercial French radio station “Europe 1” said police in Leicester arrested eight Muslims, some of them French, on Thursday morning. The arrests were linked to an investigation into planned attacks by Islamic militants in France, the radio station said, although Leicester police could not confirm that. Britain, long regarded as a soft touch for Islamic extremists, has tightened the net on militants since the September 11 attacks. Meanwhile, London wants Washington to hand over British Al-Qaida suspects being held in Cuba for trial here to avoid a confrontation over the US use of the death penalty, a newspaper reported today. The British Government is also concerned that Washington may be alienating public opinion through its tough approach to the prisoners held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, The Financial Times reported. At least 20 Britons suspected of fighting alongwith the Al-Qaida network or the ousted Taliban regime are being held in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and some will probably join the three Britons already imprisoned in Cuba, The Guardian reported. WASHINGTON/KABUL: The USA scoured the land, skies and seas on Wednesday for Osama bin Laden as it defended its human rights record in the war on terrorism. In a possible breakthrough for the US intelligence in the hunt for Bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar, a man, who claimed to be a financial backer of the Taliban, offered key information to the Marines in Afghanistan. Reuters, AFP |
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USA committed to Kabul: Powell
Kabul, January 17 Mr Powell, who arrived here for the first visit by a US Secretary of State for a quarter century, said the USA would continue to help Afghanistan beyond the current crisis. “We will be with you in this current crisis and for the future,” Mr Powell said following a meeting with interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai, shortly on arrival. “We are committed to doing everything we can to assist you in this time of transition, to a new Afghanistan where people will be able to live in peace and security, raise their children, dream of a better future,” Mr Powell told a press conference. He said the USA would work with the interim government to restore the education and health systems and “all other systems that one requires to be successful in the 21st century”. Mr Karzai said he had been reassured of USA’s ongoing support. Mr Powell’s trip to Afghanistan is to learn first-hand of the war-torn country’s needs ahead of a conference of the donor countries in Tokyo next week. Meanwhile, Mr Karzai vowed that his interim government would be extremely tough on corruption, trying to allay fears that any aid money to rebuild his war-shattered land would go astray. He pledged democracy but said his six-month government would not tolerate corruption. "One area where we'll be extremely tough and rather oppressive will be against corruption. We'll be very, very tough there. We cannot allow that, we know that if we allow that the country will not do very well," he told a news conference during a landmark visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
AFP, Reuters |
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Taliban
joining Afghan army
London, January 17 Some soldiers in Mullah Muhammad Omar’s former stronghold estimate that as many as 6,000 Taliban will soon be a part of the Kandahar’s new army, a report said today. The troops are controlled by the city’s two most powerful warlords, Khan Muhammad and Mullah Naqibullah, and there is no attempt to hide the fact that a large number of them are Taliban. Already more than 1,200 Taliban soldiers who remained in Kandahar after an amnesty was granted have been inducted into the 7,000-strong force in the city.
PTI  |
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WTC memorial kicks up row Washington, January 17 Owners of the photograph, which shows three firefighters raising the US flag in the ruins of the WTC towers, New York, are threatening legal action to stop it being used as the basis for the 19-foot memorial. The firefighters pictured are all white, but New York’s Fire Department said it wants to depict them as white, black and Hispanic to represent the men from the service who died in the attacks. The three men and the New Jersey Media Group — which owns the photograph — believe the image captures a historic moment that should not be interfered with. Fire Department chiefs and the company which manages its headquarters want the statue to stand outside the department’s Brooklyn headquarters as a memorial to the 343 firefighters who died. About a dozen of the men who were killed were black and 12 were Hispanic. But in the statue, the firefighters would not even be based on the likeness of any real firefighter. But the group — the Vulcan Society — says it is pleased that an effort is being made to be racially and ethnically representative and to commemorate all those who sacrificed their lives on September 11.
IANS |
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UN council revises sanctions on Al-Qaida
United Nations, January 17 The yesterday’s resolution, drawn up by the five permanent council members, updates a previous set of sanctions, which expire on Saturday, against the Taliban when they were rulers of Kabul. Under the resolution all nations are required to impose travel and arms embargoes on remnants of the Taliban, Al-Qaida and its supporters wherever they may be in an effort ‘’to root out this network.’’ The document also calls for a freeze of financial assets of individuals, groups and institutions on a list prepared by a council sanctions committee. The resolution also gives the green light to two earlier decisions by the council and the committee — to release freezed funds for Afghanistan’s Central Bank and lift sanctions on the National Afghan airlines Ariana. Consequently, Ariana will be able to collect some $ 23 million in overflight fees frozen by the International Air Transport Association. A larger sum of $ 221 million will be released by the US Treasury to the Da Afghanistan Bank in gold and cash reserves held by US financial institutions. The resolution calls for a review of the sanctions in 12 months. The sanctions committee on which all 15 council members are represented and which had been overseeing the implementation of sanctions against the Taliban will now monitor embargoes against Al-Qaida and Taliban remnants and constantly update the list of organisations associated with them.
Reuters, PTI |
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‘Shoe bomber’ indicted on nine counts Washington, January 16 The indictment, handed by a federal grand jury in Massachusetts, said Reid, (28), had received training from Al-Qaida. “Reid is charged as an Al-Qaida-trained terrorist who attempted to destroy American Airlines Flight 63 with explosive devices concealed in his shoes,” US Attorney-General John Ashcroft told a news conference while announcing the indictment. Reid was aboard American Airlines Flight 63 bound from Paris to Miami on December 22 when he was overpowered by passengers and crew. The plane then landed in Boston, where he was taken into custody. The nine-count indictment charged Reid with attempted murder, and homicide and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction — “a destructive device consisting of an explosive in each of his shoes.” Other charges included placing an explosive device on an aircraft, attempted destruction of aircraft, interfering with flight crew members and flight attendants, using a destructive device during a violent crime and attempted wrecking of a mass transportation vehicle. A lawyer for Reid, assistant federal public defender Tamar Birckhead, said the indictment “is merely an accusation, and no more.” She said Reid must be presumed innocent. Reid faces a maximum penalty of life in prison if convicted on the charges. The next step in the case will be an arraignment, when a plea typically is entered to the charges.
Reuters |
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Separate electorate ends for minorities
Islamabad, January 17 President Pervez Musharraf also increased the number of seats in the National Assembly, the powerful Lower House of Parliament, by 48 per cent to ensure higher representation to the people in the reforms announced yesterday. Pakistan’s religious minorities have long been demanding a joint electoral system, introduced by the former military ruler Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s, saying the separate electorate isolated them and cut them off from the mainstream. The decision to allow religious minorities to vote and contest elections along with the Muslim majority has been welcomed by the mainstream political parties. But they castigated the stipulation that only graduates would be permitted to contest in a largely illiterate country describing it as the “worst snobbery of sorts” and said it would result in widening the urban and rural divide. Political parties are worried that a large number of their candidates, especially from the rural areas, would stand automatically disqualified if the decision is not revoked. “The government has tried National Accountability Bureau, it has tried detentions, now it wants to reduce our electoral strength through this undemocratic and unconstitutional action,” a PPP activist said. Political analysts said the clause was as bad as the separate electoral system as it would isolate a huge chunk of the rural population from the political process.
PTI |
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Indians
plead not guilty to attacks New York, January 17 Mohammed Azmath, 38, and Syed Gul Mohammed Shah, 36, both Indian nationals, entered pleas separately before different federal judges yesterday. The two men were named in separate criminal indictments on Monday in the US District Court in Manhattan. Shah’s lawyer, Mr Lawrence Feitell, complained his client should be moved out of special facilities at a Brooklyn Federal jail. Shah’s lawyer claimed difficulty in communicating face-to-face with his client because Shah must speak through thick glass, forcing the lawyer to shout to be understood, allowing anyone within earshot to hear their conversations. US District Court Judge Lawrence McKenna said he would consider writing to the jail warden if the problem persisted.
AFP |
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Anti-terror war used to stifle dissent: HRW London The HRW’s newly released 2002 annual report notes that “in the days following September 11, various governments tried to take advantage of the tragedy by touting their own internal struggles as battles against terrorism”. Specific examples included Russia, which portrayed its brutal war in Chechnya in that light, and China, which did the same with its suppression of political agitation in Xinjiang province. The report quotes Egyptian Prime Minister Atef Abeid, whose security agencies used torture and summary military trials against Islamists, as suggesting that the West should “think of Egypt’s own fight against terror as their new model”. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had “repeatedly referred to Palestinian authority President Yasser Arafat as “our Bin Laden”. According to the HRW, Malaysian Deputy Premier Abdullah Ahman Badawi had used the war on terrorism to justify administrative detention under his country’s long-abused Internal Security Act. A crackdown on independent journalists reporting Zimbabwean governmental abuses had been portrayed by President Robert Mugabe as an attack on supporters of terrorism. “For too many countries the anti-terror mantra has provided a new reason to ignore human rights,” HRW’s Executive Director Kenneth Roth said, and international affairs specialists endorse the HRW’s analysis. Rosemary Hollis, who heads the West Asia programme at London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs, says the HRW is correct in identifying oppression and the suppression of free expression and pluralism in decision-making as breeding resentment. The 670-page HRW report which covers developments in 66 countries, says those countries joining the fight against Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaida organisation faced a fundamental choice. “They must decide whether this battle provides an opportunity to reaffirm human rights principles, or a new reason to ignore them,” it says. And it carries on bluntly: “Unfortunately, the coalition’s conduct so far has not been auspicious. Its leading members have violated human rights principles at home and overlooked human rights transgressions among their partners.” The HRW says that at the heart of any anti-terrorist campaign should be efforts to encourage respect for human rights. In such a culture, targeting civilians would be anathema and terrorism would be marginalised. The uncomfortable truth is, according to the rights watchdog, that key members of the coalition fighting Al-Qaida and the Taliban have embraced human rights only in theory while subverting them in practice. According to the HRW the West’s failure to rein in the Israeli abuse of Palestinians or to restructure sanctions against Iraq to minimise the suffering of the Iraqi people have been followed closely in the region and add weight to the argument that the West’s commitment to human rights is one of convenience. The HRW report, however, contains a stark warning: “repressive governments, by their very nature, can only be overthrown by radicalism,” says the HRW, and can therefore credibly portray themselves as the only bulwark against extremism.”
The Observer, London |
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Palestinian
gunman shot Nablus (West Bank), January 17 Israeli and US officials said Israeli army chief Shaul Mofaz was on his way to the USA to meet US West Asian troubleshooter Anthony Zinni. Reuters |
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In
Video (
Richard Reid, a Briton who trained with Al-Qaida in Afghanistan, was
indicted on Wednesday for attempting to destroy an airliner with 197
persons on board last month when he tried to ignite explosives in his
shoes.
DOCUMENTARY
ON LEWINSKY