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| Britain to seek emergency powers to fight terror LONDON, Nov 11: The British Government will tomorrow seek emergency powers permitting the .......more LONDON, Nov 11: Terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden lived a "double life" in Sudan a decade ......more NEW YORK, Nov 11: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met Iranian President Seyed Mohammad ......more Pakistan
imposes ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: Three days after ordering the closure of the Taliban consulate....more |
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Join forces against terror, Bush urges
leaders WASHINGTON, Nov 11: US President George W Bush has exhorted world leaders gathered at the United Nations to join the fight against terrorism as US backed forces in Afghanistan claimed fresh victories against the Taliban........more President
sacks 31 COLOMBO, Nov 11: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has ordered ‘termination of services and discharge’ of 31 Air Force personnel, including the commander of Katunayake Airbase, Air Commodore R A Ananda, for being directly responsible for lapses during the LTTE’s July 24 assault on the country’s.........more Pak moves
nuclear WASHINGTON, Nov 11: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf ordered an emergency redeployment....more |
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Britain to seek emergency powers to fight terror LONDON, Nov 11: The British Government will tomorrow seek emergency powers permitting the indefinite detention of foreigners suspected of terrorism, its latest move to tighten security after the September 11 attacks on the United States. The controversial plan, which involves opting out of part of the European Human Rights Convention, was immediately criticised by a leading human rights advocate. Interior Minister David Blunkett will put an order before Parliament tomorrow saying that events following the September 11 attacks are threatening the life of the nation, a home office (Interior Ministry) spokesman said today. By effectively declaring a state of emergency, he can invoke a clause in European law that allows Britain to opt out of parts of the European convention on human rights — in this case a clause covering the deportation of foreign terrorist suspects. The order in Parliament is the first stage of a process that will give the opt-out the power of law within weeks, the home office said. John Wadham, Director of Rights Watchdog Liberty, condemned the plan as a violation of the rule of law and the rights of Britons. "The Government is bringing back internment," he told the BBC, "no Government should be abandoning the convention, even in these circumstances." Internment without trial was used against suspected IRA (Irish Republican Army) activists fighting against British rule in Northern Ireland, but this will be the first time Britain has used it since signing the European Human Rights Convention. Article 15 of the convention says that: "In time of war or other public emergency threatening the life of the nation, any high contracting party may take measures derogating from its obligations under this convention." The home office spokesman said the order being put before Parliament on Monday will "seek approval for a limited derogation from Article 5 of the European Convention on Human Rights." Article 5 limits the circumstances under which people can be deprived of their liberty. (REUTERS) |
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LONDON, Nov 11: Terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden lived a "double life" in Sudan a decade ago, building a business empire and creating terrorist camps, his biography says. "In Sudan, Bin Laden lived a double life. On the one hand, he built up a business empire by investing in banks and agricultural projects and building a major highway. At the same time he organised training camps at which hundreds of his followers could be tutored in paramilitary tactics. "He persuaded Saudi businessmen, including some of his brothers, to invest in the country. One of the businessmen he hoped to attract was his friend Khaled Al-Fawwaz, who was given a tour of his various projects." For Bin Laden the Afghan war was an "extraordinary spiritual experience," it says. In an interview Bergen conducted with him for the CNN, Bin Laden said, "what we benefited from most was (that) the glory and myth of the superpower was destroyed not only in my mind, but also in (the minds) of all Muslims." According to the biographical extracts, the Afghan war did not only move men like Bin Laden spiritually, it also enabled them to meet key figures in terrorist organisations in the Arab world. In 1987 Bin Laden was introduced to members of Egypt’s Jihad group, the organisation behind the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. A leader of the group Ayman Al-Zawahiri had settled in Peshawar and was putting his skills as a physician to work at a hospital for Afghan refugees. In 1989, Bin Laden founded Al-Qaeda, an organisation that would eventually merge with Al-Zawahiri’s Jihad group. In February 1989, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan and by the end of 1989 there was little reason for Bin Laden to stay in Pakistan. So for the first time in several years he returned to live in his native country, Saudi Arabia, where he would take up other holy wars. He was 32. Two years later he moved to Sudan. "Bin Laden set up an extraordinary range of companies in Sudan, where Al-Qaeda was almost literally holy war, Inc. The first business was Wadi Al-Aqiq, a trading company that had dispensation to ship anything it wanted." Other enterprises followed: Another trading company, Laden international company, Al-Hijra construction (owned jointly by Bin Laden and the Sudanese Government), which built roads and bridges, and the Al-Themar agricultural company, which had 4,000 employees working at its one-million-acre Al Dazazine farms, which manufactured sesame oil and grew peanuts and corn. According to the US State Department, one of Bin Laden’s companies, Tata Investment Ltd, ‘secured a near monopoly over Sudan’s major agricultural exports of gum, corn sunflower and sesame products’. The blessed fruits company grew fruit and vegetables, while Al-Ikhlas produced sweets and honey. Laden also set up a trucking company, Al-Quaduratp; A leather company, Khartoum Tantery; A Bakery; And a furniture making concern. He sank 50 million dollar of his own money into the Al-Shamal Islamic bank in Khartoum, the report said. According to the report, Al-Qaeda was as globally minded as any other international company. To facilitate business, the group maintained accounts at banks in Cyprus, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Dubai, Vienna and London. Al-Qaeda members bought trucks from Russia and tractors from Slovakia to be used for the group’s companies, and went on business trips to Hungary, Croatia, China, Malaysia and the Philippines. Bin Laden established a nine-room office on Mcnimr street in Khartoum, later opening another office-residence in the Riyadh section of the city. Near the blue nile, the group purchased four farms where bin laden, an accomplished horseman, would spend weekends riding while his followers swam, played soccer and picnicked. According to the report, Bin Laden’s five years in Sudan were a period of intense activity in his capacity as a political leader and the mastermind of paramilitary operations against Americans targets. The commercial operations proved a useful cover. In the early 90s, for example, a plane loaded with sugar flew to Afghanistan and returned to Sudan with a consignment of guns and rockets. Bin Laden told CNN in 1997 that one of his proudest achievements while he was based in Sudan was the role of his Afghan Arabs in the 1993 killings of more than a dozen American soldiers stationed in Somalia as part of a UN mission to feed starving Somalis. While his exact role remains murky and has been questioned by some US officials, Bin Laden himself has been unambiguous on the subject. In Afghanistan in 1998 he introduced Hamid Mir, a Pakistani journalist, to a man he described as ‘my military commander in Somalia, the commander of my troops who fought against the American troops, and he destroyed an American helicopter’. According to the extracts, Al-Qaeda also sought to acquire weapons of mass destruction. "In the early nineties Jamal Al-Fadl went to an industrial area of Khartoum where representatives of the group and a Sudanese Army officer discussed the manufacture of chemical weapons. Al-Qaeda and the Sudanese Army also cooperated in efforts to mount chemical agents on artillery shells. Al-Fadl approached another Army officer to inquire about purchasing uranium and was put in touch with an associate, who offered to sell him a consignment for 1.5 million dollars. That man displayed what he said was Uranium, apparently from South Africa, but Al-Fadl dropped out of the negotiations and never found out if the group made the purchase. There is, however, absolutely no evidence that Al-Qaeda has ever ‘weaponised’ any of the chemical and nuclear materials it has flirted with. The technical skills necessary are, at least, at the time of writing, far beyond its scope," the biographer says. (PTI) |
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NEW YORK, Nov 11: Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met Iranian President Seyed Mohammad Khatami and discussed with him the situation in Afghanistan and their role in a post-Tablian scenario. The meeting took place on the sidelines of United Nations General Assembly. Iran, an important neighbour of Afghanistan, and India have similar views on the Taliban regime and are in favour of a broad-based multi-ethnic democratic Government after the fall of Taliban. Khatami had also met Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf. (PTI) |
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Pakistan imposes more
restrictions ISLAMABAD, Nov 11: Three days after ordering the closure of the Taliban consulate in Karachi, the Pakistan Government has imposed more restrictions on the Taliban Ambassador for indulging in activities that damaged the interests of the country. Ambassador Abdul Saleem Zaeef, who has already been asked not to hold regular press conferences, has now been told to seek the permission of the Pakistan Foreign Office to meet anyone other than Afghan nationals, Pakistan daily ‘The Nation’ said today. The restrictions were imposed as he indulged in anti-state-interest activities, it said. It also said Zaeef had not stepped out of his residence during the last three days and security personnel were seen discouraging visitors. Security officials, however, have said there were no restrictions on Zaeef’s movements. The latest curb on his activities followed a dinner hosted by Zaeef for editors of Pakistan newspapers a few days ago during which he severely criticised the restrictions on his freedom to speak and called for similar curbs to be imposed on the US ambassador to Islamabad. The new curbs marks a new low in the relations between Pakistan and Afghan militia who shared close relations till Sept 11 terrorist attacks in US. Pakistan overnight reversed its policy towards the regime by joining the US-led coalition to flush out terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden. (PTI) |
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Join forces against terror, Bush urges leaders WASHINGTON, Nov 11: US President George W Bush has exhorted world leaders gathered at the United Nations to join the fight against terrorism as US backed forces in Afghanistan claimed fresh victories against the Taliban. "As we meet, the terrorists are planning more murder, perhaps in my country or perhaps in yours," Bush told 48 Presidents and Prime Ministers and 114 Foreign Ministers in his first appearance yesterday before the UN General Assembly. "In this war of terror, each of us must answer for what we have done or what we have left undone," said a spirited Bush, punctuating his words now and then with a clenched fist. He issued an apocalyptic warning that terrorists were seeking nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, which they would not hesitate to use if they got hold of them. "These same terrorists are searching for weapons of mass destruction, the tools to turn their hatred into holocausts," bush said, speaking just a few miles from the wreckage of the world trade center. "This threat cannot be ignored, this threat cannot be appeased. ... Civilisation itself is threatened." First reactions to bush’s speech were supportive, but many leaders expressed uneasiness about the toll that the US strikes were taking on people. Iran’s President Mohammed Khatami cautioned against "unilateral practices stemming from pride and rage," while key US ally Pakistan advised washington to develop an alternate strategy if the military option faltered. "It is also essential that a fall-back political strategy be evolved which could attain the same objective as being sought through military application," said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf at the United Nations. Latin American leaders offered full support for Bush but urged more attention to the perceived roots of extremism —poverty and hunger. "Unequal distribution causes frustration and despair ... And generates the conditions that give rise to conflicts and clashes where different types of fundamentalism are at work," said Argentina’s President Fernando De La Rua. European Union officials said they saw no reason to ease strikes on the Taliban, which is shielding the prime suspect in the September. 11 attacks on Americans, Osama Bin Laden. "The real danger today would be for US to take the easy way out and say that the United States strikes are of no use. I think they are useful because the Taliban are still in power," said Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Louis Michel, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency. Before the US President spoke, an interview was published in a Pakistani newspaper quoting Bin Laden as saying that his Al Qaeda network had nuclear and chemical weapons and was prepared to use them. "I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as a deterrent," Bin Laden was quoted as telling the newspaper Dawn. Bin Laden, living in Afghanistan as a "guest" of the ruling Taliban, is prime suspect in the September 11 attacks that killed some 4,600 people on American soil. The authenticity of the Bin Laden interview, said to have been conducted in Afghanistan, could not be verified. Pakistan recently dismissed media reports that Bin Laden had obtained nuclear material from its arsenal and independent experts say it is unlikely that Al Qaeda has developed a nuclear capability. But US officials said they were sure it was trying. Russian President Vladimir Putin also said he thought it was unlikely that Bin Laden’s group possessed weapons of mass destruction, but that his threats to obtain and use them "must not be ignored." Unusually tight security at UN. The week-long annual general assembly gathering in New York took place amid extraordinarily tight security after Bin Laden recently condemned the United Nations and branded UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan a "criminal." It was the first high-level forum among countries from all regions of the world since hijackers used commercial airliners in September to destroy New York’s World Trade Center and severely damage the Pentagon. In Afghanistan, the opposition Northern Alliance, led by ethnic Uzbek General Abdul Rashid Dostum, took four more northern provinces, one day after routing the Taliban in the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif in the first major victory for US-led forces in more than a month of war. The Taliban conceded that they had lost the city, which they had controlled for more than three years. "Yes, Mazar is gone," Taliban Defence Minister Obaidullah Akhund said in a brief interview with Reuters. Dostum said his forces had encountered pockets of Taliban resistance as they moved though the northern provinces, but claimed that the alliance had killed more than 500 Taliban fighters and captured many prisoners. "Today we have captured Samagan, Sara-i-Pol, Faryab and Jowzjan," Dostum told Reuters by satellite telephone, listing the provinces. "In some areas there was strong resistance, others fell without much fighting." The numbers of those killed and captured were impossible to verify and both sides often exaggerate their battlefield claims. After the latest advances, the northern alliance said it would allow the United Nations and Non-Governmental Agencies to return to areas now under its control and resume providing aid to local populations. "We will allow them to come at any time they want," said Northern Alliance spokesman Ashraf Nadeem. "The United Nations can resume their work just like before," he told reuters, referring to the period before the Taliban took control of 90 percent of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. ‘Land bridge’ would boost flow of aid The military victory at Mazar-i-Sharif, which straddles a key supply route between Uzbekistan and the Afghan capital Kabul, could allow what US officials are calling a "land bridge" to supply military and humanitarian aid to anti-Taliban forces and the Afghan civilian population. The Northern Alliance, which is hated in Kabul because of internecine power struggles for the city that killed about 50,000 people in the early 1990s, has pledged not to march into the capital if it gets that far. Bush signalled his own concern about what happen if Northern Alliance forces marched into Kabul. "We will encourage our friends to head south but not into the city of Kabul itself," Bush told a joint news conference with Pakistan’s Musharraf in New York. Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah told reporters in Northern Khoja Bahawuddin his forces were keen to take the town of Taloqan and open the way to Tajikistan, where stockpiles of russian weapons are waiting to be transported to the alliance. US jets also resumed punishing bombing raids on Taliban front lines near Kabul and in the far north, witnesses said. The planes dropped more than 20 bombs on trenches some 200 metres from the opposition-held bagram airport, 25 kms north of Kabul. Hundreds of opposition troops, backed by tanks and artillery, were planning to attack Taliban positions near the airport. (AGENCIES) |
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President sacks 31 airmen after
inquiry COLOMBO, Nov 11: Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has ordered ‘termination of services and discharge’ of 31 Air Force personnel, including the commander of Katunayake Airbase, Air Commodore R A Ananda, for being directly responsible for lapses during the LTTE’s July 24 assault on the country’s principal airbase and the adjoining Bandaranaike International Airport. Three other high-ranking air force officials, including the number three in the hierarchy, were sternly warned to be more alert in the discharge of duties. An increment in their salaries is to be stopped for lapses that indirectly contributed towards the devastation, a report in the local daily Sunday Times said. The President also recommended two officers and ten airmen — who displayed ‘courage under fire’ during the deadly encounter — for gallantry awards. Her directives follow suggestions made to the Defence Ministry by Air Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody, based on the findings of the five-member court of inquiry. A specially-trained commando unit of the Tamil Tigers staged the attack on Katunayake base — home to the attack jet squadron —destroying eight military aircraft and three national carriers in the adjoining airport. The losses amounted to not less than 400 million dollars. Although several other civil investigations were initiated soon after the attack, no substantial breakthroughs have been made. Military top brass suspects that some of the LTTE cadres who took part in this attack, would have escaped. This was confirmed when reports from Wanni said that the people of the LTTE-controlled wanni areas were shown video clippings of the assault. (UNI) |
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Pak moves nuclear weapons: Post WASHINGTON, Nov 11: Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf ordered an emergency redeployment of the country’s nuclear arsenal to at least six secret new locations and reorganized military oversight of the nuclear forces, the Washington Post said in its sunday edition. Quoting "senior officials" in Pakistan, the newspaper reported that Musharraf took these steps "in the weeks since Pakistan joined the US campaign against terrorism" to protect Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from theft or attack. The Pakistan military began relocating critical nuclear weapons components within two days of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, the newspaper said. Musharraf created a strategic planning division within the nuclear program, headed by a three-star general, amid a shuffle of top Pakistani military and intelligence leaders hours before US bombing of Afghanistan began on Oct. 7, the post said. General Khalid Kidwai is now directing operational security of the country’s nuclear sites and weapons, the Post said. The general has deployed more troops and antiaircraft batteries in sensitive locations and has supervised relocation of nuclear devices, missiles and aircraft, the post said. (REUTERS) |
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