Indo-Pak ties, global terrorism to feature in
Vajpayee-Bush meet

WASHINGTON, Nov 6: Global terrorism and escalating hostilities between India and Pakistan are expected to take centre stage during Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s talks with US President George W Bush and Congressional leaders during his three-day visit to Washington beginning tomorrow.

Mr Vajpayee is visiting Washington at the special invitation of Mr Bush, who is anxious to keep India in good humour, as the us allies with Pakistan to wage its war on terrorism.

Until the September 11 attacks, India was riding high in Washington, while Pakistan was out in the cold.

However, the tide has since turned, with Washington cozying up to Pakistan as a strategic partner to smoke-out terrorists who have taken refuge in Afghanistan.

The Washington visit is seen here as an opportunity for Mr Vajpayee to get his views across in his first "face-to-face" meeting with Mr Bush.

Discussions in the forenoon followed by a lunch hosted by Mr Bush on November nine will crown the official working visit. On November eight, a day after his arrival here, Mr Vajpayee is slated to meet top leaders of the US Senate and the House of Representatives.

He will also meet members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the House International Relations Committee. In addition, Mr Vajpayee will meet the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans.

India observers here believe the US-India relationship is undoubtedly at a turning point. The US wants to be a major player in the region and has not hesitated to quickly revive ties with its old ally Pakistan.

At this critical juncture, Mr Vajpayee may have to play his cards carefully to ensure that India’s geopolitical interests are not compromised, observers say. Violence is on the upswing in Kashmir since September 11 and New Delhi blames Pakistan-backed militants for it.

The US is anxious that the hostilities between India and Pakistan, both with nuclear weapons in their arsenal, are kept on a tight leash. But india has bristled at any suggestion of international intervention to resolve the Kashmir issue.

A key issue that is likely to come up in the Vajpayee-Bush talks will be the US commitment that its global anti-terror campaign will encompass the militancy in Kashmir once its battle with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists is settled.

In the run-up to the visit, Indian officials have emphasised that the discussions will also focus on bilateral relationship that gives priority to resumption of joint military operations and sale of us military hardware to India.

India is also expected to convey its keen interest in taking a lead role in the reconstruction in Afghanistan once the Taliban regime is toppled. New Delhi would also like to keep Pakistan out of the picture during the formation of a post-Taliban Government.

Mr Vajpayee will leave for New York soon after his meeting with Mr Bush on November nine. He is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly the following day. (UNI)

US checks Tajikistan bases, Al Qaeda hides: Pentagon

WASHINGTON, Nov 6: US military teams are checking airfields in Tajikistan and other countries in the region to see if they could serve as bases for increasing airstrikes in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said has said.

Land-based airstrikes would be easier than using navy carrier-based warplanes and long-range bombers now employed in the campaign against Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, Saudi-born fugitive Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem told reporters.

Defense officials yesterday said US teams were also looking at air bases in other countries near Afghanistan, including Kazakhstan. US ground troops are currently based in Uzbekistan.

"There are a whole host of reasons why having airfields closer to afghanistan is good," Stufflebeem said as American warplanes pounded taliban and Al Qaeda targets for a 30th day.

These included less need for aerial refueling, shorter response times to intelligence reports on Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, and ability to more quickly rearm aircraft and get them back onto targets, he told reporters.

Asked about reports that teams were looking at three bases in Tajikistan, one of Afghanistan’s northern neighbors, he replied, "in terms of the airfields in Tajikistan ... There is an assessment team in the country to do just that."

US officials said the assessment team in Tajikistan was looking at three bases: Kulyab, Khojand and Turgan-Tiube.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a weekend trip that included Russia and Central Asia, met with Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov on Saturday but did not announce any deal for the bases. He was to return to Washington late on Monday.

Stufflebeem said similar military survey teams were being dispatched to "all of the countries that have offered assistance," but did not name them. "We would hope to have a capability to get access to afghanistan from the north and the south," he said.

Such bases would be useful for such fighter aircraft as F-15E ground attack planes and possibly a-10 tank-busting aircraft.

Of the approximately 75 fighter aircraft used on Sunday, Stufflebeem said about 60 were based on carriers, seven to 10 were long-range bombers and the rest land-based tactical jets. Defense officials said those tactical strike aircraft were based in the Gulf.

Sunday’s sorties struck in five planned target areas, including taliban cave and tunnel complexes and military forces, especially those arrayed against anti-Taliban forces, Stufflebeem said.

The Pentagon yesterday refused to confirm or deny a report by NBC news that US forces had begun using the biggest conventional weapon in the American arsenal. Quoting unnamed military officials, NBC said US planes dropped two BLU-82 bombs — 15,000-pound (6,800-kg) bombs — on Taliban troops in Northern Afghanistan.

"We’re not going to get into a lot of the operational details of what we are doing there," said Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Jay Steuck.

"As we’ve said all along, we will use at our choice the entire arsenal of choices. That would include a weapon of that nature. But i can’t confirm that detail (that the BLU-82 had been used) at this point."

The detonation of the BLU-82, a bomb that originally was designed to clear helicopter landing zones during the Vietnam war, creates a massive crater. Eleven BLU-82S were dropped during the Gulf war to clear mines and instill fear among iraqi troops. The bomb is dropped by large cargo planes.

Stufflebeem said increasingly heavy strikes by US bombers and other warplanes on Taliban positions around the Northern key crossroads city Mazar-i-Sharif and the capital Kabul were "preparing the battlefield" for when opposition Northern Alliance forces launch offensives to capture those cities. (REUTERS)

Taliban, US look to history of war

WASHINGTON/KABUL, Nov 6: The United States and the Taliban both invoked history in their war over Al Qaeda — Washington to defend fighting during Ramadan and the Afghan rulers to show why the superpower would retreat in defeat.

As US warplanes pounded Taliban and Al Qaeda targets for a 30th day, Voice of America Radio broadcast a Government statement saying Muslims had themselves often waged war during their holy month, starting in the seventh century.

Washington yesterday said Ramadan, which begins in two weeks, would not force a suspension of the war it launched on Oct 7 to crush the Al Qaeda network it blames for the Sept. 11 attacks that killed about 4,800 people in America.

"As this year’s observance of Ramadan approaches, the US and other countries, including Muslim countries, are concerned about further terrorist attacks," said the statement on Voa, Broadcast in 53 languages including the main Afghan ones.

"The coalition has no choice but to go to the source of the terrorism in Afghanistan and to root out terrorist groups elsewhere," it said. "As President George W Bush put it, ‘the enemy won’t rest during Ramadan, and neither will we."’

In Kabul, the Taliban’s top spokesman, Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, told a news conference the movement did not expect Washington to suspend hostilities for Ramadan.

"We have no expectation of any sympathy or humanitarian sense from America," said Muttaqi, whose movement is sheltering Al Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden.

Muttaqi said the war would be long but he cited recent history to predict ultimate disaster for the United States.

"This power that the world calls a mighty force will face fiasco. They need to consult the Russians and the British about their defeats here," Muttaqi said, referring to the Afghan massacre of British colonial troops in the 19th century and the humiliation of the soviet army in their 1979-89 occupation.

He challenged the United States, which has conducted the war from the air except for one known hit-and-run ground raid by paratroopers last month, to send in combat troops.

"If they have the strength and if their soldiers are not men used to a soft life, why are they not fighting face-to-face?" he asked.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem signaled the Taliban would get their wish to take on american troops at close quarters. "There are very few of us who believe this will be done solely by air power," he told reporters.

Stufflebeem said US military teams were checking airfields in Tajikistan and other countries in the region to see if they could serve as bases for increasing airstrikes.

Strikes launched from nearby land bases would achieve more than the raids now being carried out from navy carriers and by long-range bombers, he said.

Rockets fired from US aircraft struck a hotel and vehicle used by Taliban fighters in Kabul on Monday, littering the street with wreckage and body parts.

The sound of helicopters was heard before the rockets slammed into the hotel just before dawn, which would mark a change in US tactics from using high-flying jets in the campaign.

Sunday’s sorties struck in five planned target areas, including cave and tunnel complexes and front-line Taliban forces arrayed against the local opposition, Stufflebeem said.

He said increasingly heavy strikes by US bombers and other warplanes on Taliban positions around the Northern key crossroads city Mazar-i-Sharif and the capital Kabul were "preparing the battlefield" for when opposition Northern Alliance forces launch offensives to capture those cities.

Stufflebeem said the US military had only anecdotal evidence that its bombing campaign was weakening Taliban protection of Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, but had seen no Taliban response to opposition fire for "a matter of days."

"My guess is that would be because they’re either hunkered down and aren’t coming out ... Or they’re not able to fire," he said. "So I think that’s a very positive sign."

President George W Bush led the way in bolstering US efforts in the diplomatic arena, hosting Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika for talks on the war.

Bouteflika endorsed the military campaign, but said: "We should all work together to correct the flagrant injustices of the world today. ... A comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the Middle East conflict, including satisfying the inalienable international rights of the Palestinian people for the creation of their own state ... Is more important than ever."

Bush, seeking to counter criticism particularly in Muslim countries that the US offensive is taking too high a toll on civilians, is also due to meet leaders from Kuwait and Morocco later this week.

The State Department announced the appointment of a seasoned envoy, James Dobbins, as its representative to the Afghan opposition and called in retired Ambassador Christopher Ross to put the US point of view in arabic to television audiences in the Middle East.

It gave ross the title of special adviser as part of attempts to persuade Arabs and Muslims that bombing Afghanistan is a legitimate response to the Sept. 11 attacks in which hijacked aircraft were rammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Dobbins would "continue our work with the Afghan opposition groups, the Afghan parties, to try to help them form a future Government for Afghanistan."

The White House expressed new optimism about efforts to contain the spread of anthrax even as additional spores were found at a Pentagon post office.

White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said it was a positive sign that no new infections were reported over the weekend and that several suspected anthrax cases turned out to be false alarms.

The US statement on continuing the war during Ramadan touched on the Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan, citing the Mujahideen anti-occupation fight as one of the wars from history that had not paused for the fasting month.

"In truth, the US is far from alone in realizing that there can be no pause when fighting for survival," it said.

"During Ramadan in the year 624, the Muslim Prophet Mohammed was victorious in the battle of badr. Mohammed also began a campaign to reclaim the holy city of Mecca during Ramadan," it added.

It said Muslims had often fought wars during the fasting month or on days sacred to other faiths. This included a surprise attack launched by Egypt and Syria against Israel on Oct. 6, 1973, the Jewish Yom Kippur holiday.

Voice of America boasts an audience of 80 percent of adult males in Afghanistan, where television is outlawed under the Taliban leadership’s extreme interpretation of Islam.

In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw issued a gloomy warning that acts of terrorism could be carried out in Bin Laden’s name even after the Saudi-born dissident had been captured or killed.

In an interview with The Times published today, Straw said Bin Laden enjoyed a following "similar to the Nazi phenomenon."

"What we know from the way terrorist groups have operated in the past, even when they have been destroyed, is that those still at large may decide to carry out some further acts of terrorism." (REUTERS)

Planned dinner for Vajpayee in NY triggers controversy

NEW YORK, Nov 6: A planned dinner reception here on Saturday for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has triggered a controversy among organisations of Non-Resident Indians instead of being a harmonious community event to enable leaders to interact with him.

Though over two dozen organisations are co-sponsoring the event with Overseas Friends of BJP (OFBJP), those left out are complaining that BJP has "hijacked" the dinner and packed the reception with its own supporters.

Among the most vocal critics is President of the Indian National Overseas Congress Surinder Singh Malhotra who charged BJP with "hijacking" the event.

"Is Vajpayee the Prime Minister of India or BJP?" he asked and said "the loss will be his, not ours"

He also criticised the consulate here for allowing a "group of organisations" to organise the reception for the visiting Prime Minister instead of doing so itself. The consulate has been holding the reception for the Prime Ministers in the past at which all community leaders were invited, he said.

But the consulate denied any wrongdoing, saying Vajpayee is visiting Washington first where the embassy is organising a reception. Had he come to New York first, the embassy and the consulate would have organised the reception here.

Besides, it pointed out that over dozen American- Indian organisations, political, religious and cultural, are involved in arranging the reception. (PTI)

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