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Thursday,
November 28, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Rocket strikes US base in Afghanistan
Europe breeding ground for terrorists Nigerian scribe facing death flees to USA
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| Bush warned of nuclear exchange MANY US Congressmen have cautioned US President Bush against a pre-emptive war against Iraq, predicting destabilisation in the region, but the scenario projected by a Republican Mr Ron Paul, highlights the possibility of nuclear exchanges.
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Rocket strikes US base in Afghanistan Kabul, November 27 Blackhawk and Apache helicopters were scrambled from Urgun airbase in Paktika province to investigate after the rocket landed inside the military compound at nearby Lwara, close to the Pakistan border, the statement said. US special forces identified a vehicle from which the missile was launched shortly after noon yesterday, but it drove off without being apprehended. Coalition outposts come under frequent fire in Afghanistan, although few rockets actually hit their mark. Two attacks last weekend, one on the Lwara base, resulted in three small fires and damage to two US trucks. In a separate incident on Monday, six rockets were fired in the vicinity of a base housing troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which patrols Kabul. An ISAF spokesman said it was not clear whether the 107 mm rockets were aimed at the base or were intended for US coalition troops stationed nearby. A 107mm rocket also struck a building in Kabul city centre yesterday, within 800-metre radius of the Afghan ministries of defence, finance and justice and the presidential palace.
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Europe breeding ground for terrorists London, November 27 Describing the current US-led war against terrorists as “too bin Laden and Al-Qaida-centric,” M.J. Gohel, Chief Executive of the Asia-Pacific Foundation said: “We are breeding terrorists right here in the UK and Europe and yet the public - the best source of intelligence - are being asked to focus on Osama bin Laden, dead or alive, hiding in some cave or location in Pakistan or Afghanistan.” Speaking at a two-day conference on ‘Militant Islam in Asia - the Challenges’, “Case Study: Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and the Global Jehad Network”, Gohel said: “What represents a longer and more dangerous threat is the fact that young British or European-born individuals are being recruited into the terror network. “What is even more worrying is that there are credible allegations of links that Sheikh and Azhar have with elements in Pakistan’s military intelligence establishment, in particular the intelligence agency, the ISI,” he said. Among the UK-based extremists listed by Gohel is Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, Syrian-born asylum seeker of the Al-Muhajiroun group, a group which was founded in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia in 1983. Masood Azhar is the leader of banned outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad and one of the three militants freed by India to end the Kandahar hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft in 1999. Then there is Abu Qatada, the Jordanian-born Palestinian, who also lives in London and has been described as a key contact for the terror network. It was in this kind of environment that Sheikh started moving in, and developed strong anti-western, anti-Christian, and anti-Jewish sentiments. In 1992, after seeing a film on Bosnia at an Islamic society at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) he decided to go to Bosnia and there he came into further contact with jehadi Groups.
“At some point, perhaps 1993 or 1994 he is persuaded to join the Pakistani-based terror group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, also known as the Harkat-ul-Ansar. “The Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, or HUM, and banned by the British and American Governments is a signatory to the 1998 Bin Laden fatwa calling for a jehad against the crusaders and against Jewish people. “Sheikh drops out of the London School of
Economics and disappears like a lot of others born and brought up in the UK and Europe have done. “Sheikh is not heard of again until 1994 in New Delhi and which he had entered for the purposes of general terrorist activity and specifically for freeing Maulana Masood Azhar”, Gohel said. Azhar, a Pakistani citizen, and a key figure of the Harkat-ul Mujahedin, who is implicated in the murder of 18 US soldiers in Somalia, entered India illegally in 1992 for terrorist activity in Kashmir and had been captured by the police.
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Nigerian scribe facing death flees to USA Abuja, November 27 Isioma Daniel’s story in This Day newspaper spawned Muslim anger for allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed and sparked violent riots that left at least 215 persons dead. Daniel fled to the USA last week, This Day reported. Yesterday, the Deputy Governor of the northern Nigerian state of Zamfara, in a radio broadcast said Islamic “Sharia’’ law demands Daniel’s death. Deputy Governor Mamuda Aliyu Shinkafi said Islamic leaders in Zamfara concur that Muslims had a duty to kill Daniel because the Koran dictates such action against anyone who blasphemes Mohammed. The article said Muslims were overreacting in their opposition to the Miss World beauty pageant, originally planned for the capital Abuja. Daniel rhetorically posed the question of what Mohammed would think of the contestants and wrote, “In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them.” Violent riots initially targeted the newspaper’s office in the northern city of Kaduna last week then spread to Abuja, prompting organisers to relocate the December 7 beauty pageant to London. The newspaper has accepted Daniel’s resignation as style reporter, retracted the comments and apologised several times. Condemnation of the “fatwa’’ or religious edict passed against her in Zamfara was widespread. Nigeria’s Federal Information Minister, Jerry Gana, told reporters that the death sentence was invalid because it violated the country’s constitution. Five media lobby groups in Nigeria, in an open letter to President Olusegun Obasanjo, said the death sentence violated Daniel’s rights and was an “attack on freedom of expression, freedom of opinion and freedom of the press.’’ The secretary-general of Nigeria’s supreme council of Islamic affairs, Lateef Adegbite, who called on Muslims to forgive the newspaper, told reporters that the death order should be withdrawn because Daniel had apologised. Zamfara became the first state to introduce Islamic law in Nigeria, in October, 1999. Another 11 states across the predominantly Muslim north of the country have followed suit.
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Bush warned of nuclear exchange MANY US Congressmen have cautioned US President Bush against a pre-emptive war against Iraq, predicting destabilisation in the region, but the scenario projected by a Republican Mr Ron Paul, highlights the possibility of nuclear exchanges. Mr Paul predicts that in the chaos that may erupt as a sequel to the invasion of Iraq, several countries might see an opportunity to move on their neighbours. In an article posted on his website, the Congressman says: “Already we have been warned that cooperation from Russia means no American criticism or resistance to its moves in Georgia or Chechnya. China could attack Taiwan and North Korea could renew its struggle against South Korea. India may see this as an opportunity to settle the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan—with the real risk of nuclear war breaking out.” Mr Paul adds: “It seems the obsession about Iraq’s improbable possession of nuclear weapons far exceeds the more realistic possibility that our pre-emptive strike against Iraq may precipitate a nuclear exchange between these two countries, or even a first strike with nuclear weapons by Israel against Iraq.” The Congressman makes a dig at US claim to promote democracy. He says there is no evidence that current efforts by the USA will lead to more stability. “Promoting democracy, as it is said we are doing, is a farce. If elections were to occur in most of the Arab countries today, Osama bin Laden and his key allies would win. Besides, it seems we adapt quite well to working with military dictators that have ousted elected leaders, as we do in Pakistan by rewarding their cooperation with huge subsidies and future promises.” According to the Republican lawmaker, the odds of achieving the “miraculous result” of a short war and the subsequent installation of a popular regime contributing to regional stability “are probably one in 10,000.” More likely, the consequences will be severe and surprising and not what any one planned for or intended. “It will likely fall somewhere between the two extremes, but closer to the worst scenario than the best,”
The observes |
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