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Taliban weakened in KHOJA BAHAWUDDIN (Afghanistan), Oct 25: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have been weakened by 19 days of U S strikes from the air and by ...more Little
room for real PESHAWAR (PAKISTAN), Oct 25: The talk is all of US airstrikes, Pashtun tribes, terrorist networks and what are called moderate Taliban. So it’s hard . ..more Chinese
doctor admits BEIJING, Oct 25: A doctor in eastern China has admitted planting a bomb in his wife’s shopping bag in an attempt to kill ....more German
couples lead HAMBURG, Oct 25: Almut Pannbacker has never actively decided against having a child, indeed she has .....more |
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God in demand as uncertain world seeks answers BERLIN, Oct 25: Religion is back in fashion as a bewildered world turns to god in the wake of the suicide plane attacks on US cities, and churches....more Old pro-Kashmiri militant killed in US Kabul raid ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: Chacha Lahori, a frail, elderly Pakistani who left a middle-class life in Lahore to participate in Jihad, or holy war, was killed ...more Pak Govt plans to crack whip against militant groups ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: Faced with violent protests for rejecting the bodies of Harkatul Mujahideen militants killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan Government ....more US goal is "elimination" of Al Qaeda, Taliban: Rumsfeld WASHINGTON, Oct 25: The United States has said its goal in Afghanistan is the "elimination" of both Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist network Al-Qaeda and the Taliban militia. ........more |
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Taliban weakened in attacks, says Afghan opposition KHOJA BAHAWUDDIN (Afghanistan), Oct 25: Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban have been weakened by 19 days of U S strikes from the air and by opposition attacks on the ground, Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said today. The combined action had hurt the Taliban command and control system and the fundamentalist Islamic movement was having problems reinforcing key towns, Abdullah told reporters. "The general assessment is that the enemy forces are being affected as a result of our operations as well as the air strikes," he told reporters after a meeting of Northern Alliance leader General Mohammad Fahim and other commanders in this town near the frontline in the Northern Province of Takhar, bordering Tajikistan. "Their supply routes have been disturbed," he said. The Northern Alliance, which has been battling the Taliban since the mid-1990s, has targeted Taliban positions in the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif whose fall could open new supply routes for attacks on the Taliban positions nearer to their Southern strongholds. Commanders had hoped the attack on Mazar-i-Sharif, which lies near the border with Uzbekistan, would be completed within days but the advance had slowed in the last week and Northern Alliance commanders say they have faced fierce counterattacks. But Abdullah said commanders at the meeting, which took place late last night, had agreed that the Northern Alliance positions around Mazar-i-Sharif were "satisfactory". "Of course we would like to see things happen," he said in response to a question about whether the U S -led strikes were helping their attack. "(At the meeting) We discussed tactics as far as the targets were concerned," he said, declining to elaborate. However, Northern Alliance forces under the command of ethnic Uzbek Warlord General Abul Rashid Dostum appear to be stalled about five km (three miles) to the south of the airport of Mazar-i-Sharif, which lies outside the city. Northern Alliance commanders say they have called on Washington to step up air strikes on the Taliban frontlines to help their troops advance. U S air strikes entered their 19th day in the campaign to punish the ruling Taliban militia for providing a haven for Osama bin Laden, the main suspect in the September 11 suicide plane attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and sliced into the Pentagon. But Abdullah said Northern Alliance soldiers were fighting their own battles. "We rely on our own resources," he said. The United States has struck at Taliban frontline positions facing Northern Alliance troops, but these attacks are not believed to be coordinated and Washington appears to be trying to keep a distance from the alliance, composed of Northern minorities and widely unpopular in much of Afghanistan for its internecine battles for power in Kabul from 1992 to 1996 in which 50,000 people, mainly civilians, were killed. However, Abdullah said Russian supplies of munitions to the alliance, of which it has been a longtime supporter, were continuing although he did not say if there had been any increase since the start of the U S strikes, which Moscow supports. "It’s an ongoing process," he said. (REUTERS) |
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Little room for real moderates in Afghanistan PESHAWAR (PAKISTAN), Oct 25: The talk is all of US airstrikes, Pashtun tribes, terrorist networks and what are called moderate Taliban. So it’s hard for the real moderates in Afghanistan to get a word in edgeways. The modern-thinking people that this backward country of 25 million needs to overcome its widespread poverty, warlordism and lawlessness have little say if they do not first have a strong base in Afghanistan’s traditional social system. Even harder for them, the past 23 years of war have made the society all the more traditional, with the Taliban’s stern Islam barring women from school and work and hate among the many ethnic groups dividing the men. "You have to realise that if i wear western-style clothes, people in my village will call me a communist," says Delawar Faizan, 23, a refugee from the Pashtun tribal belt that dominates national politics. "They say only a man who wears a turban is a good Muslim. They never ask what goes on in the brain underneath that turban," adds Faizan, a computer specialist in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar. Aziz Royesh, an exiled campaigner for equal rights for all Afghans male or female, says he has a problem that goes deeper than his western-style clothes or secular ideas. "I can’t influence the Pashtun at all, I’m a hazara," he adds, referring to the ethnic minority — about 15 percent of the population — traditionally condemned to be little more than the garbagemen and gravediggers of Kabul. At the other end of the social ladder, Sayed Ishaq Gailani hails from one of the leading Pashtun families. Well-educated and well-off, he has all the right connections — and still feels that moderate groups such as his national solidarity movement for peace and civil rights are sidelined. Gailani, 44, blames foreign powers for meddling so deeply in his country’s affairs that the Afghans can no longer decide their fate by themselves. "The Americans started their bombing without asking us how to really bring change," he says. Keen to defend its Taliban proteges, Pakistan has convinced Washington and others that so-called moderates in the fundamentalist movement could be partners in a future Government, he complains. "Now we hear that (Mullah Wakil Ahmed) Muttawakil is a moderate," he says, referring to the Taliban Foreign Minister who reportedly secretly visited Islamabad last week to discuss a possible peace deal. "Until yesterday, he was one of the Taliban, those people who beat women in the street with sticks if their ankles show from under their burqas (veils). "How did he become a moderate overnight?" Gailani asks. "We’re fed up with these words. They’re not words that Afghans use, they’re imposed by outsiders. "Why aren’t they looking for real moderate, educated Afghans and asking them their opinions?" Afghanistan, an arid mountainous country about the size of Texas, is dominated politically by the Pashtuns, tribal people who live by a traditional code that puts honour and revenge above education, economic progress, the national interest or life itself. It was slowly developing economically and politically under Zahir Shah, the ex-monarch deposed in 1973 and now planning to return to help form a broad-based Government to replace the ruling Taliban. The leaders after him — first a left-leaning cousin, then communists backed up after 1979 by Soviet troops — promoted public education and health, women’s rights and a prominent role for ethnic minorities. They proclaimed respect for Islam without highlighting it. But this modern life came in a political package whose main message — communism — was an anathema to the deeply Muslim population. During the 1980s war, heavily defended Kabul was an island of Soviet-backed social progress in a sea of islamic revolt. After the Muslims defeated the Marxists in 1992, the "holy warriors" turned into warlords whose endless turf battles paved the way for the Taliban to seize power four years later, promising the world’s strictest Islam would finally bring peace. Two decades of war and upheaval have, in fact, produced a large pool of educated, outward-looking Afghans who have either lived and studied abroad or worked with international agencies helping refugees during the 1980s Soviet war and trying to rebuild Afghanistan in the 1990s. So many Afghan Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) popped up around the country in the 1990s that they ran many of the services that the state, both during the civil war among former Mujahideen factions and after the Taliban seizure of power in 1996, could not or would not provide. Some have been so impressive that a foreign diplomat following the Afghan crisis from Pakistan predicted the post-Taliban leadership was more likely to emerge from among these modern managers than from the compromised political leaders and former commanders. Some might very well do that — but only if they already have their roots in traditional society, says Abdullah Jan Khalil, a Pakistani Pashtun who teaches Afghan history at Peshawar University. "No Pashtun will accept a ruler whose forefathers have not already been rulers," he predicts. (REUTERS) |
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Chinese doctor admits planting bus bomb in wife’s bag BEIJING, Oct 25: A doctor in eastern China has admitted planting a bomb in his wife’s shopping bag in an attempt to kill her, state media reported today. Li Qiang, 31, told police he put the homemade time bomb into his wife’s bag about 20 minutes before it exploded on a city bus in Linyi, Shandong province, the reports said. Li wrapped up the bomb and told his wife it was a ham, the Beijing Morning Post said. Three of the 58 bus passengers died after the explosion on Sunday, and more than 30 were injured. Li’s wife, who was among an unspecified number of people who remained in critical condition, lost both legs in the blast, the newspaper said. Li, a hospital doctor in the city, told police he planned to kill his wife because he wanted to be single again, it said. (DPA) |
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German couples lead fullfilled life without children: Report HAMBURG, Oct 25: Almut Pannbacker has never actively decided against having a child, indeed she has pondered the idea off and on for the last 20 years. "But now time has run out," says the 43-year-old optician from the Northern German Port of Hamburg. She doesn’t regret the way things have turned out, though: "I never considered children important." the Federal Demography Institute in Wiesbaden says around a third of women born after 1960 in Germany remain childless - and the tendency is rising. An existence without children is becoming a way of life for many couples. Around half of all childless couples in Germany make a conscious decision against raising a family, says sociologist Harald Rost at the State Institute for Family Research at the University of Bamberg. Yet few of them decide against becoming parents in their early years: "Most of them keep delaying until it’s too late," says Rost. Rost discovered that couples can produce a host of reasons for saying no to kids. It may be that the right partner is missing or there are fears that children might disturb a happy relationship. Fear of losing independence, the physical changes during pregnancy or the demands of motherhood can also pay a role. Experts, though, agree that one of the main causes is the failure to reconcile the family and profession. Academics, especially, fall into this category: 89 per cent are childless. And a glance at Germany’s european neighbours shows that the birth rate is higher where creches, Kindergartens and playschools are available. That is certainly the case in Scandinavia and France. Whereas a woman in German gives birth to 1.4 children statistically, the figure is 1.7 to 1.8 in France. "There, only 15 per cent of women remain childless," says Professor Herwig Birg, Managing Director of the Institute for Demography and Social Management at Bielefeld University. Other figures show that women in Germany are investing more and more time in their education and in beginning a career. This means that on average a married women has her first child a few months short of her 29th birthday. In 1980 in West Germany as was, the figure was 25 years, as it was in 1991 in the then defunct German Democratic Republic. But even in former communist Eastern Germany, the birth rate has now slipped to 1.1 children per woman, despite comprehensive day care. Even Sweden, still seen as the forerunner of all-day care, is reporting a decline in births. One cause is that ‘’families continue to face huge material disadvantages,’’ says Demographer Birg. Stefanie Winter said she never longed for a child. Besides this, her job played a big role in her decision. "I didn’t want to be in two places at once," says the journalist. Her decision would have been different, though, if society allowed for a fair distribution of duties between mothers and fathers, she contends. "But I don’t think I’ll see that in my lifetime," says Winter aged 37. Although she doesn’t have children of her own, winter, from hamburg, has not foregone contact with kids. She regularly goes on holiday with her 12-year-old Godson, and she looks after friends’ children from time to time, too. Her partner shares her decision not to have children and that is an agreement that can be vital to the success of a relationship, says Professor Bernhard Strauss, Director of the Institute for Medical Psychology at University of Jena. Strauss concludes that children are not necessarily part and parcel of a fulfulling life. "Couples looking to focus their lives on other things are just as happy," says the Professor. Besides work, that could mean hobbies, cultivating a social life and voluntary activities. All the same, some doctors continue to maintain that childless people are more prone to suicide and disease. "That’s nothing but a myth," says Strauss. The theory that the lack of desire for children can be traced to persisting childhood problems is also mere speculation. "The decision not to have children is not pathological," insists strauss, despite the fact that childless couples are still "regarded suspiciously" by society. Childlessness in Germany is, however, no longer looked on as a failing, as it was up to the 1980s. Almut Pannbacker can’t complain about negative reactions from colleagues or friends: She and her partner are seen by them as a fixed entity. They have been together for 13 years, sharing common interests like travelling and scuba diving. But the slim woman with the short, blonde hair thinks that the idea that children can help couples get through difficult times is a misnomer: "Children can also damage relationships," she says, and goes on to relate the experiences of friends. Stefanie Winter enjoys her life "just like it is." But thinking about getting older, she’s sure she will end up being lonely. She believes the best thing to do is foster her circle of friends: "You can choose you own family, too." (DPA) |
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God in demand as uncertain world seeks answers BERLIN, Oct 25: Religion is back in fashion as a bewildered world turns to god in the wake of the suicide plane attacks on US cities, and churches, mosques and synagogues do their best to provide spiritual solace and guidance. It has been standing room only at memorial services around the globe by all faiths for the victims of the September 11 attacks, and church and synagogue attendance has shot up after years of decline. While mosques have not reported a significant rise in congregation size, Friday prayers have become a rallying point for Muslim anger against US military strikes on Afghanistan. But most spiritual leaders are keen to play down suggestions of a new clash of civilisations and are concentrating instead on building bridges. "A lot of people who don’t normally go to church are now coming and asking how could this happen, what does it mean," said Beth Ferris, the Executive Secretary for International Affairs at the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC). "People always turn to religion in times of crisis. But this time it is more powerful because of the nature of the attacks and the feeling it could happen anywhere, coupled with a belief the world has changed in ways people can’t understand." As fear of flying has soared after the suicide hijackings, father Walter Maader, who runs the chapel at Frankfurt International Airport, has been busy. "There are real worries, real concerns. Those who come have been really affected and our condolence book is full," he said. Jehovah’s witnesses have also been out in force on the streets of Nicosia. Michele Baron, a spokeswoman for France’s 600,000-member Jewish community, said Sabbath Services had been fuller. "every time there is a crisis, there is a return to the sacred." Rabbi Jonathan Romain, a spokesman for the Jewish Information and Nedia Service in Britain, where around 310,000 Jews live, estimated congregations were up some 15 percent. "Jews want to show their solidarity and camaraderie," he said. Like many Muslim communities, leaders of Italy’s 650,000 Muslims said they had not seen any outward change in religious worship but believed the attacks had led to an upheaval in how the community thought about faith and politics. "This is a moment of cultural identity crisis," said Ali Schutz, a respected member of Milan’s Muslim community. The WCC’s ferris said while many churches were calling for an end to the US air strikes on Afghanistan to allow humanitarian operations to resume, some in Russia, Britain and the United States were seeking to justify retaliatory action. "The churches reflect the diverse opinion of people in different countries," she said. The US military action sparked religious clashes in Nigeria earlier this month in which more than 200 people were killed. There have also been Muslim riots in Pakistan and marches in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. But most religious leaders have tried to calm tensions and quash fears of a new Christian crusade against Islam. "We hope that more intensive dialogue and contact will mean we cannot be divided but can learn from each other," said Hasan Ozdogan, the Chairman of the Islam Council in Germany, which is home to some three million Muslims. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo led some 2,000 worshippers yesterday in prayers for world peace recited by both Christians and Muslims. The Philippines is Asia’s only Christian country and has a minority Muslim population. Various groups are supporting the idea of a special day when women around the world, regardless of their faith, will wear scarves or hats to cover their hair to show solidarity with muslim women who face discrimination in the west. The manager of the Leoniana religious bookstore around the corner from the Vatican has had so many requests for books about Islam that he has set up a special section for them. (REUTERS) |
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Old pro-Kashmiri militant killed in US Kabul raid ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: Chacha Lahori, a frail, elderly Pakistani who left a middle-class life in Lahore to participate in Jihad, or holy war, was killed along with at least 19 other Pakistani militants in a US attack on Kabul. Lahori, whose exact age was not known but was believed to have been over 60, was killed yesterday along with 19 other members of Harakatul Mujahideen that is on a US list of terrorist organisations. But the group has also sent activists to Afghanistan to fight alongside the ruling Taliban as they come intense US attack for their refusal to surrender Osama Bin Laden, suspected of being behind the deadly September 11 attacks on the United States. Lahori was also called Baba Lahori, Baba for his old age and Lahori, because he hailed from the Punjab province capital of Lahore, a liberal metropolis known as the cultural centre of Pakistan. Despite his age and middle-class background Lahori was lured into the world of Jihad, or holy war, by a feeling of meaninglessness in life and a desire to achieve martyrdom, he said more than a year ago. Lahori had driven a taxi cab in the United Arab Emirates for several years before returning to Pakistan in the late 1990s and settling down with his son, a banker, and a daughter who is a doctor. Their identities are not known. In an interview with Reuters more than a year ago, Lahori, who asked not to be identified, said he wanted to fight the forces of evil and had left his children and family for an opportunity to give his life for the cause of Islam. Militant sources who have met him say that he was disappointed with modern life and felt his children were ignoring him and left him at home all day. "He wanted a purpose in life and he has met his dream," a source told Reuters after hearing of his death. There was no immediate explanation of why Lahori, who used to spend most of his time promoting and organising the group’s publications, was in Afghanistan. He had not been trained as a fighter. One source said he was in charge of administration of a Harakatul Mujahideen camp near Kabul. But no other details were available. Lahori, whose real name is known by very few people within the group, had insisted on secrecy because he was afraid if his children discovered where he was, they would come and get him. His children did not support his desire to fight Jihad and become a martyr, sources said. Lahori stood out among his peers because his personality contrasted with most other militants, who joined Jihadi organisations after studying in religious seminaries for years and after receiving armed training — usually at camps in Afghanistan. (REUTERS) |
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Pak Govt plans to crack whip against militant groups ISLAMABAD, Oct 25: Faced with violent protests for rejecting the bodies of Harkatul Mujahideen militants killed in Afghanistan, Pakistan Government is contemplating a crackdown on the pro-Taliban religious groups. President Pervez Musharraf’s Government has directed that stern action should be taken against any militant outfit involved in violence in any part of Pakistan, media reports said here today. The direction came in the wake of largescale protests in Southern city of Karachi following Islamabad’s refusal to let in the bodies of Harkat militants at the Pak-Afghan border yesterday. Musharraf’s presidential secretariat has sent a letter to the interior division directing it to "take stern action against those organisations found involved in violence, brandishing of weapons and creating fear amongst masses," ‘the news’ daily said. The Interior Ministry in Islamabad has also identified 10 militant outfits which are active in Kashmir, the paper quoting presidential secretariat sources said. The 10 outfits are Mujahideen, Harkatul Mujahideen, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jamiat-ul-Mujahideen, Tehreek-e-Jihad, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Tehreek-ul-Mujahadeen, Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Islami, National Liberation Army of JKLF and Al-Badr Mujahideen, it said. Of the 10 organisations, Harkatul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammad have turned out to be a major embarrassment for Islamabad after the us administration has vrtually banned both of them for their alleged links with Osama bin Laden and his terrorist outfit Al-Qaeda. The embarrassment turned acute yesterday when bodies of eight Harkat militants, who were killed in US bombing in Kabul two days ago, were brought back for funeral in Pakistan. Border guards earlier refused to permit the bodies to be brought into Pakistan at Thorakham border area. The bodies were later brought through Mohammad tribal agency to avoid embarrassment to Pakistan Government’s for its inability to stop the pro-Taliban supporters from crossing into Afghanistan to fight alongside the militia, the newspaper said. While skirting a direct answer about the involvement of Harkat fighters in Afghanistan, Pakistan foreign office spokesman yesterday asked Taliban not to permit Pakistanis to fight alongside it. The Government reportedly also planned a crackdown on the sectarian groups as they were found taking part in the anti-US demonstrations to protest the American military action in Afghanistan. The groups included Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar Jhangvi, Sipah Mohammed, Tehrik Fiqh-i-Jafaraia (TJP - Sajid Naqvi group), TJP (Moosvi group), Sawad-e-Azam, Lashkar Ahl-e-Bait, Tanzeemul Ikhwan and Sunni Tehrik, the paper said. (PTI) |
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US goal is "elimination" of Al Qaeda, Taliban: Rumsfeld WASHINGTON, Oct 25: The United States has said its goal in Afghanistan is the "elimination" of both Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist network Al-Qaeda and the Taliban militia. "The Taliban is going to go. Al-Qaeda is going to go. They are going to be gone. It is just a matter of time," Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. The immediate task of the US "is to see how fast we can eliminate the Al Qaeda and the Taliban from that country and provide the kind of humanitarian assistance simultaneously that can be helpful to the Afghan people, and then, along with other nations, do what we can to create a stable situation for a period while they figure out how they are going to govern themselves," he said in an interview to `Voice of America’. Rumsfeld said "our task is not him (capturing or killing Bin Laden). It is the network that he is a part of and all of the people in it and stopping them from killing people. That is what we are trying to do." Asked whether there will be a problem if the post-Taliban Government in Afghanistan included so-called moderate members of the militia, he said: "Well, that is a strange combination, `moderate’ with `Taliban.’ I don’t know that it is a good fit. "The way they have behaved, it seems to me, they have been so repressive and killed so many people and starved so many people and been so abusive to so many people, using the word `moderate’ is a reach." On the possibility of Northern Alliance "moving in and sort of setting up a Government," Rumsfeld said "... The people of Afghanistan are going to decide what their Government is going to look like." When asked how long the military campaign would take and whether it could be accomplished before the onset of winter, he said: "No one can know. The overall effort to defeat terrorism is going to take years." Rumsfeld also virtually rejected Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s plea for a pause in the US-led campaign in Afghanistan during Ramazan. "Well, I think it is important to be sensitive to the interests of a variety of countries in the region. And certainly, Pakistan has been wonderfully supportive and helpful in this effort against terrorism. On the other hand, history is replete with instances where Muslims have fought Muslims and Muslims have fought non-Muslims throughout all of the various holy days, including Ramazan. "And it is also clear that in a number of instances, wars by Muslims have started during Ramazan. And it is very clear that the Al Qaeda and the Taliban do not stop during Ramazan. They kept on for the last several years fighting the various tribes in the region." Rumsfeld said "so it seems to me that we, all of us, have to be sensitive to concerns of people. On the other hand, we have to be concerned about the fact that these terrorists are loose, they need to be rolled up, they need to be stopped." "And my impression is that stopping these terrorists before they use even still more powerful capabilities, which they clearly have the ability to gain access to, is a pretty important assignment, and we’d best keep at it," he said. (PTI) |
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