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Arab militants in ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: They come from places ranging from Chechnya to the Philippines, from Sudan to China, many already on the run from the law ......more APEC
leaders declare SHANGHAI, Oct 21: Pacific RIM leaders today condemned the terrorist attacks in America as "murderous deeds" and demanded international...more US
fuel planes watch ABOARD USS CARL VINSON, Oct 21: The landing strip on the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is just 700 feet long by 84 feet wide ....more Risking
enemy fire, ABOARD A C-17 ABOVE AFGHANISTAN, Oct 21: As a Us Air Force cargo plane enters Afghan air space, exploding.......more |
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‘China
supports fight SHANGHAI, Oct 21: Chinese President Jiang Zemin today described terrorism as a "scourge" that undermines stability and urged Asia-Pacific ......more ‘ISI
is keeping Punjab LONDON, Oct 21: Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is organising violent pro-Taliban protest demonstrations against the US in Sindh, ....more UN troops needed to pacify Afghanistan-commander PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, Oct 21: The world could face further attacks like the September eleven suicide crashes in ......more |
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Arab militants in Afghanistan on the run again ISLAMABAD, Oct 21: They come from places ranging from Chechnya to the Philippines, from Sudan to China, many already on the run from the law and find themselves pursued again in Afghanistan. For thousands of militant Arabs and Muslims from other countries, Afghanistan was to be an Islamic Utopia and training ground from which to export their hardline beliefs. Instead they find their support network crumbling under the US military onslaught aimed at Osama Bin Laden and his Taliban protectors. "Probably they will suffer the same fate as the Taliban as they will also be opposing the US forces," said retired Pakistani Lieutenant-General Talat Masood. "They don’t have anywhere to head but to the mountains," he said. "But they may also be the toughest fighters as they have nothing to lose," said Masood, who served when the Pakistan military was funneling help to Afghans during the 1979-89 soviet occupation. Foreign fighters, known generally in Afghanistan as Arabs no matter what their nationality, first arrived in the 1980s to fight with the Mujahideen, or holy warriors, against the soviets and were known as zealous and ardently anti-western. Western Governments estimated that before the United States began its attacks on the ruling Taliban on October seven, some 10,000 to 13,000 militants were living in Afghanistan — part of a vast web of training camps run by Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network. A Russian memo to the UN Security Council earlier this year on information Moscow had compiled on bases and facilities used by Bin Laden and Al Qaeda listed 55 camps, offices and residences. It added many were used by Arabs and Muslims from other countries. Those camps were among the early targets when the US-led airstrikes began nearly two weeks ago, scattering the militants. "They can’t be that cohesive now," Masood said. There have also been reports of differences between the Arabs and the Taliban as the law-and-order situation shows signs of breaking down in Afghanistan after 14 days of blistering US raids. One Taliban commander who fled the eastern city of Jalalabad said the Arabs began ordering Afghans around after the September eleven attacks in the United States, saying they were now in control. "The Arabs and Chechens are now more powerful than the Taliban," Malik Sherzad Khan, a Taliban militia commander and Arabic interpreter, told Reuters in Peshawar. But one of the Taliban’s most powerful ministers told a Pakistan newspaper the Arabs and Taliban were working together to fight off the US strikes to punish the ruling militia for not handing over Saudi-born fugitive Bin Laden, who Washington blames for the September eleven attacks. "Whoever migrated to Afghanistan in the name of Islam, we consider them all Afghans, be they from Saudi Arabia, Britain, Chechnya, Pakistan, India or other country of the world. And yes, we are all fighting this war together," Tribal Affairs Minister Jalaluddin Haqqani was quoted as saying in the news yesterday. Some of the Arab fighters in Kandahar are expecting to fight the US troops, although there is no information on any clashes after the United States sent about 100 of its elite troops on a lightning in-and-out raid into areas near Kandahar yesterday. Arab fighters have appealed to Afghans in Kandahar to look after their women and children if the holy warriors were to die alongside Taliban troops in combat against US forces. "The Arabs made speeches in the city’s mosques... They said that if they were martyred (killed in action), the local people should take responsibility for their families because they had no other place to go," a local journalist in Quetta, Nematullah Achakzai, told Reuters after a visit to Kandahar. The Taliban say three Arabs have been killed so far in the US air strikes, although the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said that one aide to Laden was killed in Afghanistan when a grenade exploded in his hands, and did not die in a US bomb attack as had been reported. Abu Baseer Al-Masri, an Egyptian, was a group commander for Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network when he died in Jalalabad, one of the main targets of 13 days of withering US airstrikes. Two of his comrades, a Chinese Muslim and a Yemeni, were wounded, although no details were given. The Russian memo outlined bases around Afghanistan, saying for example, that earlier this year 600 men were training under instructors from Libya, Tunisia and Egypt in Rishkor settlement in Kabul province. (REUTERS) |
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APEC leaders declare war against terrorists SHANGHAI, Oct 21: Pacific RIM leaders today condemned the terrorist attacks in America as "murderous deeds" and demanded international cooperation in fighting terrorism -although they did not endorse the ongoing US military campaign in Afghanistan. After a two-day summit involving US President George W. Bush and his counterparts from countries including china, Russia an Japan, APEC issued the unprecedented statement about an unfolding geopolitical crisis. APEC delegates had previously said they would not be able to mention the war in Afghanistan or the hard-line Taliban’s protection of Osama Bin Laden, the key suspect in the September 11 terrorist attacks, because of the political sensibilities of two large predominantly Muslim nations in the economic forum: Indonesia and Malaysia. "Leaders consider the murderous deeds as well as other terrorist acts in all forms and manifestations, committed wherever, whenever and by whomsoever as a profound threat to the peace, prosperity and security of all people, of all faiths, of all nations," the statement said. The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, deviating sharply from its normal economic agenda, found itself unable to back US-led assaults on Afghanistan, even though Washington has the support of former adversaries Russia and China. By contrast, Indonesia and Malaysia have expressed worries about the deaths of Muslim civilians in Afghanistan and called for a stop to the bombing. They fear a backlash across the Muslim world could spread instability. APEC leaders noted that the terror attacks affected the slowing global economy they are working to restart. "Terrorism is also a direct challenge to APEC’s vision of free, open and prosperous economies, and to the fundamental values that apec members hold," the statement said. The leaders called for the suppression of terrorism and for bringing terrorists to justice. Getting down to business on the last day of the APEC summit, Bush joined the other APEC leaders in donning traditional Chinese attire and posing for a group photograph. This year, Chinese President Jiang Zemin wanted to focus on APEC’s official agenda of facilitating free trade - at the summit in this Chinese financial centre full of shiny modern bank towers - but the war on terrorism was unavoidable. "I want to emphasise in particular that the september 11 terrorist attacks in the US tell us that terrorism is an international public hazard," Jiang said in opening remarks before the leaders met in private to complete their final statement today. "We are fighting a battle against international terrorism." Jiang met privately with Bush on Friday and cautioned that the US attacks in Afghanistan need to be well defined and that they should avoid civilian casualties. Jiang and Russian President Vladimir Putin met yesterday and agreed the combat should stop quickly so a political solution can be found in Afghanistan, which Washington accuses of harbouring Bin Laden’s Al-Qaida terrorist network. Bush was to meet with Putin later today before flying back to the White House. (AP) |
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US fuel planes watch over tired fighter jets ABOARD USS CARL VINSON, Oct 21: The landing strip on the US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson is just 700 feet long by 84 feet wide (215 metres long by 26 metres wide). In case that’s not difficult enough for a pilot landing at 150 miles an hour (240 kph), it’s also moving. Try finding it at night, with no horizon to judge where you are and no lights but a single strip down the centre to guide you. Try it after six hours of intense concentration, squeezed in a cramped and uncomfortable cockpit, dropping bombs over Afghanistan. Most nights at least one pilot will misjudge the landing and have to power up the throttle to take off and come round again. "When a guy is low on gas, he’s had a bad night, if he can’t get aboard it gets real serious," said Ken, a flight navigator for the S3 fuel tanker planes that fly near the carrier to offer a last gasp of fuel to a fighter that runs too close to empty. "There’s nowhere else to go. Either you come back aboard or you flame out and go in the water, so the gas becomes very important. That’s probably our highest profile thing we do, saving some guy from getting low on gas," said Ken, known on board as shrimpy. The fighter pilot has to glide in, aiming for the third of four trip wires on deck that catch a hook on the back of the aircraft and bring it to a screeching halt. "If you take one of the early wires, you were low. The bad thing about being low is if you get low enough you hit the back end of the ship. That’s bad," said one s3 pilot know as fritz, playing backgammon with shrimpy at the end of his day flying two refuelling missions. "If you’re high then you end up catching none of them and you go round again." Fliers in the S3 squadron have a less glamorous job than the pilots of the F-14 tomcats and F-18 hornets that are carrying out bombing missions in Afghanistan, but they do a range of missions that are no easier. One of their tasks is to scour the ocean for any unknown and potentially hostile ships — a task they carry out thoroughly after the attack on the USS Cole last year in Yemen. Seventeen sailors died when attackers used a small boat packed with explosives to smash a hole in the side of the ship. "In the light of the uss cole we want to know who everybody is down to the smallest fishing vessel, down to the smallest little craft," said Fritz. "We found a three foot raft once." The S3 plane is designed to seek out submarines and can carry torpedoes. But the main job of the squadron in the current bombing campaign against Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban regime is to accompany the fighter jets and refuel them mid-air before they go into Afghan airspace to drop their bombs, or on the way out. Mid-air refuelling is a precision operation. The fighter has to line himself up around a mile behind and to the left of the tanker and drift in at an angle of 45 degrees. The tanker puts out a hose with a basket on the end about one and a half feet across. That’s the target for the fighter to aim his fuel probe at. "It only comes out around 30-35 feet," Fritz said. "He’s flying right up underneath our tail." "Every now and then somebody will take the basket off. They’ll hit it so hard they rip it off or they punch a hole through it," Fritz said. "But that’s rare." The Carl Vinson’s Air Wing Commander, T C Bennett, who has flown several missions since October 7, says there are sometimes as many as eight planes lining up for gas. "It’s like a big conga line. It’s a beautiful thing —thirsty little airplanes out there." (REUTERS) |
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Risking enemy fire, US drops food to Afghanistan ABOARD A C-17 ABOVE AFGHANISTAN, Oct 21: As a Us Air Force cargo plane enters Afghan air space, exploding bombs and fires flicker yellow on the land below. On this night, as since the war began, some Afghans may die from aerial bombs. Others are to receive packets of biscuits, peanut butter, lentils and other food aid raining down from the C-17 globemaster high above. "I want justice to come to the terrorists," says Gary, 34, from cleveland, who oversees the cargo of 17,000 meals to be dropped below. "But I’d rather be dropping food than bombs." Usually war offers no such choice. But since the start of the US-led campaign in Afghanistan two weeks ago, Washington hopes the high-altitude food drops will play a key role in its fight for the hearts, minds and stomachs of the Afghan people. The 14-hour round-trip flight from the US air base at Ramstein in Germany will climax in a seven-second burst over Northern Afghanistan. Yet the mood on board already grows sombre two hours before, when the crew prepare their guns and put on full combat gear, crash helmets and parachutes. In a dull red light, they don oxygen masks and the aircraft is depressurised. Without oxygen at high altitudes, the brain would slow and grind to a halt. Oxygen also acts against painful decompression sickness in which nitrogen boils in the blood. Military duffel bags next to the emergency exit contain chemical and biological suits and masks, lest the plane be forced to make an emergency landing in hostile territory. "Anytime you’re flying over airspace where someone does not want you there, there is a threat," says Captain Stan, 33, the flight’s lead pilot. Like the rest of the crew of men mostly in their early 30s, Stan has family and children back in the United States and prefers not to give his last name as a security precaution. By Saturday, 11 missions over Afghanistan, initially of two and now four 240 million dollars C-17 planes, have gone well. Yet risks remain, even as crew fears have lessened somewhat over time. "This is more intense," said Gary, who has served in hostile places including Haiti, Panama and Somalia. "We know that they have SAMS (surface-to-air missiles)." On the ground, the cargo jet appears as a tiny dot in the sky and Afghan fighters have fired at them as well as bombers. Tethered to the jet’s wall for their oxygen supply, the crew awaits the crucial sequence: "Five, four, three, two, one, green" At Ramstein before take-off, officers tell a handful of journalists allowed to fly over Afghanistan for the first time this week that even uttering "green" at other times on the flight is considered bad luck, lest it trigger a premature drop. That warning is part of briefings that includes a Chaplain’s prayer. "We pray, father, that the right people would find these meals," said Major Fred McFarland. He tells the crews he has left a supply of new testaments for them by the briefing room door. Another officer explains the flight path over the black sea across several ex-soviet nations and the Uzbek-Afghan border. After the evening take-off, the arrival over the black sea brings the mission’s first challenge: Refuelling with a KC-135 Stratotanker, a 1960s jet which mates from 12 feet above to deliver thousands of pounds of additional fuel. Under a beautiful starry sky, the brief late-night liaison with the 1999-built C-17 proves a perfect match. The food is stored in two-metre high cartons along the length of the plane’s belly. Inside, bright yellow packages show an American flag, a cartoon of a man eating happily from the bag and large letters reading: "Food gift from the people of the United States of America". English, Spanish and French text — nothing in Pashto, Tajik, Uzbek or Afghanistan’s other languages — say the bag contains nourishment for a day. Those able to read english — and less than a third of Afghans can read even their own language — can puzzle over the nutritional facts on the packaging back, such as the amount of saturated fat within. The food manufacturer’s name is printed on the wrapping. But in jittery America these days, the three companies that make the food refuse to answer questions about it. (REUTERS) |
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‘China supports fight against terrorism, salvaging economies’ SHANGHAI, Oct 21: Chinese President Jiang Zemin today described terrorism as a "scourge" that undermines stability and urged Asia-Pacific nations to jointly fight the menace while salvaging their economies in the aftermath of the attacks on the United States. "Terrorism is a scourge that undermines stability. The september 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, in particular, have produced serious consequences," Jiang said in his keynote address to the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum leaders, meeting on the second and final day of their annual summit here. Jiang, who is also the host, said "a peaceful and stable environment is indispensable for sustained economic growth. It is therefore a common task for people throughout the world to fight terrorism." "Let us join hands in creating a regional and international environment in which people of all countries will enjoy success, peace and prosperity," he said as world leaders, including US President George W Bush planned to discuss ways to combat terrorism over lunch and issue a statement on it at the close of their talks. Jiang noted that the terrorist strikes had hurt both the regional and global economies, causing stock markets to tumble and hurting the aviation, insurance and tourism industries. Welcoming leaders from apec countries, attired in colourful Chinese stain robes, Jiang said he found the world situation and that of the Asia-Pacific both encouraging and worrying. "We, the APEC economic leaders, have a historical mission to fulfil. We must adopt a forward-looking approach and formulate, through discussion, a common development strategy that is responsive to the development requirements of the new century in the interest of promoting growth and prosperity in the Asia-pacific," Jiang said. Jiang, who is also the general secretary of the ruling communist party, said "all in all, there are both challenges and opportunities ahead. We should work together, take actions, seize opportunities, and rise to the challenges so as to promote greater economic growth of our region in the new century." To strengthen cooperation so that all APEC member economies may benefit from economic globalisation and scientific and technological progress should be an objective for APEC to strive for, he said. He predicted that the Asia-Pacific region, in the long run, would remain economically the most dynamic part of the world. It is in the common interests of APEC that all its member economies enhance coordination in macro policies, deepen economic restructuring, stabilise financial markets and create a sound overall environment for economic recovery and sustainable development, Jiang said. He pointed out that developed members of the APEC are the major beneficiaries of economic globalisation and therefore, they should quickly adopt further measures to restore market confidence, expand demand and promote an early recovery and development of the regional and global economy. (PTI) |
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‘ISI is keeping Punjab away from strikes’ LONDON, Oct 21: Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is organising violent pro-Taliban protest demonstrations against the US in Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP provinces while keeping the province of Punjab away from such protests in an effort to direct international aid to it, MQM founder and leader, Altaf Hussain, has alleged. It was ISI’s "game to deceive the US and international community to show that Sindh, Balochistan and North West Frontier Province are obsessed with religious fanaticism and the province of Punjab was not only walking shoulder to shoulder with the US and the international community in combating terrorism but is the only province that belongs to people with liberal and moderate mindset," he said yesterday. "It (ISI) wanted the flow of international aid to be directed to Punjab instead of other provinces," Hussain said while discussing the current situation in Pakistan with a delegation comprising people from the provinces of Sindh, Balochistan and NWFP, living in Britain. He said India, China, Afghanistan, Iran, US, UK and the rest of the world community "are fully aware that the province of Punjab is the hub of all the fanatical and Jihadi groups and the headquarters of all the fanatical and extremists groups." (AGENCIES) |
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UN troops needed to pacify Afghanistan-commander PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN, Oct 21: The world could face further attacks like the September eleven suicide crashes in the United States if the United Nations does not send peacekeeping troops to pacify Afghanistan soon, said a leading opposition commander. Haji Mohammad Zeman, a veteran commander who has challenged the ruling Taliban to surrender the eastern city of Jalalabad or face attacks, said the Afghan war could widen to other countries if it is not contained. Opposition efforts to return exiled former king, Zahir Shah, to Kabul to oversee a transition to a post-Taliban Government suffered a major setback last Wednesday when the United Nations declined his urgent request to provide peacekeeping troops to assure his safety, Afghans said. "Afghanistan needs — and I need — United Nations peacekeeping forces to come and bring peace to Afghanistan," Zeman told Reuters at his home in Peshawar late yesterday. "If the UN refuses to send peacekeeping troops and peace does not come to Afghanistan, the war will spread. Other countries will also not be at peace. There will be more troubles like on September eleven." Afghan opposition leaders backing the ex-king believe his return to Afghanistan after four decades in Roman exile would spark off mass desertions from the Taliban military and force the hardline Islamic Government to crumble. In a quandary about how to bring him back when they are not strong enough to topple the Taliban, they see a negotiated peace deal guaranteed by UN peacekeepers as their best hope for settling the Afghan war. Zeman, 44, who fought among the Mujahideen (holy warriors) as a commander during the war of resistance against the 1979-89 soviet occupation, said his group would first send religious leaders from the Pashtun tribes to meet Taliban leaders in Jalalabad to urge them to surrender. "If these talks do not solve the problem, we are ready to fight," he said. About 150 commanders in the eastern province of Nangarhar were ready to assault the hardline rulers, he said, but they did not have enough arms to fight effectively against the Taliban and their allies from Arab states, Chechnya and other Muslim areas. Zeman said there were about 1,800 foreign fighters in the Jalalabad area working with Saudi-born Bin Laden. Recent refugees from the area say foreigners from Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network were brought in to defend the city from a US attack but have angered local tribesmen by acting as if they now ran Afghanistan. Zeman, an ally of the religious leader Sayed Ahmad Gailani who is working to rally Afghan exiles behind Zahir Shah, believed most Taliban forces in the eastern provinces would cross lines to join pro-king forces. But a minority of Taliban would fight along with their Arab, Chechen and other foreign Muslim allies, he said. The commander, who returned to Pakistan on October 6 from 3 years in exile in France, said he knew from personal experience how a Government in Afghanistan could give up power without much of a fight. "During the (1992-1996) Mujahideen Government, I was commander of the 11th Army division based in Jalalabad," said Zeman. When the Taliban made its final sweep through the country to power in 1996, he accepted their offer to meet to discuss a peaceful handover. "It was a very bad situation for US and everybody wanted peace, so we surrendered at that time," he said. "Now we are trying their own tactics." Zeman fled to Pakistan after the Taliban takeover, but Islamabad asked him to leave the following year because he was criticising Pakistan’s Taliban allies too openly. He spent eight months in Germany and 3 years in Dijon, France before returning to Peshawar on October 6. Zeman said commanders now linking up to challenge the Taliban would focus on Nangahar province and its capital Jalalabad first and extend their campaign to the neighbouring provinces of Kunar and Laghman if needed. Some opposition leaders have suggested Zahir Shah hold his Loya Jirga, his traditional grand assembly to choose a new Government, in Jalalabad if he cannot enter Kabul safely. Zeman said it must be held in the capital. Jalalabad, the former winter capital, would be an important feather in the opposition’s cap, especially if it can be taken without a fight. At the western end of the famed Khyber Pass, it controls the main route from Pakistan to Kabul. Zeman said the opposition was open to all who wanted peace, including moderates in the Taliban movement, but had his reservations about former fellow Mujahid, Jalaluddin Haqqani, now the Taliban Tribal Affairs Minister. Haqqani visited Pakistan last week to discuss peace options and told a local newspaper the Taliban would fight a guerrilla war in the mountains if needed to defend their power. (REUTERS) |
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