NEW YORK, Oct. 28 /PRNewswire/
The agency in charge of lining up the right warlords is the CIA. In an interview with Newsweek last week, Robert C. McFarlane, the Reagan Administration national security adviser, said the CIA ``has failed miserably. There's an appalling lack of intelligence skills. I haven't yet found one Dari speaker in the agency -- or anyone who speaks any other Afghan dialect, for that matter. Or any analyst with real knowledge of Afghanistan's history, its tribal cultures, the networks that exists here.''
But American officials are wary of former Afghanistan chieftains who suddenly appear offering to produce miracles, for a price. Just a month ago, a former Afghan commander, Haji Zaman Ghamshirik, returned from exile in France and opened a guest house in Peshawar, Pakistan. He recently offered to play Let's Make a Deal with U.S. officials. ``He phoned at 9:50 one night saying he could deliver Osama bin Laden and bring down the Taliban,'' a knowledgeable foreign diplomat tells Newsweek. ``He just wanted a guarantee that he would get the $5 million reward, a satellite phone, and the governorship of Nangarhar Province.'' Gosh. That's terrible. We'll surely lose. We should just pack up and go home now.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Times of India
AI KHANUM, Afghanistan: US warplanes on Sunday opened up a new front in their raids on Taliban forces in northeast Afghanistan close to the Tajikistan border. Three strikes were heard over a three-hour period from mid-morning on Sunday on Taliban controlled territory near the main zone held by the opposition Northern Alliance. It was impossible to tell whether US bombs hit Taliban military targets or whether there were victims. But jet engines could still be heard flying over Taliban territory as night fell on Sunday.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By CHRIS FONTAINE, Associated Press Writer
A pause in military strikes in Afghanistan for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is ``being considered'' though past wars among Islamic countries have not had such cease-fires, Britain's foreign secretary said Sunday. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the Allies were sensitive to the religious implications of continuing the campaign during Ramadan, which begins in mid-November.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Frontier Post
The Taliban government on Saturday warned that foreigners who enter Afghanistan without papers would be treated as spies and would face âserious measuresâ. The warning came in a foreign ministry statement which said an American had been detained in the Boldak area near the Pakistan border. The militia also reported separately that French journalist Michel Peyrard would be tried on espionage charges. In its warning, the ministry highlighted the cases of the unnamed American, the French journalist and Japanese national Daigen Yanagida who was also detained last week. It is the first time the Taliban has mentioned the US national who it said was arrested near the Chaman border-crossing with Pakistan in the south of the country. The ministry said that from now, foreigners found without papers âwill be considered an act against our sovereignty and not toleratedâ. It said âserious measuresâ would be taken.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Frontier Post Syed Anwer
A day after execution of commander Abdul Haq, reports circulating in Peshawar said the Taliban killed Hamid Karzai, another Loya Jirga activist and former Afghan foreign minister in Kandahar. When The Frontier Post contacted Hamid Karzaiâs home in Quetta for confirmation, Ahmad Wali Karzai, the brother of Hamid Karzai termed the reports as rumors, and said he had talked to Karzai over telephone half an hour ago.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1 views]
Top|| File under:
Times of India
"The fate of anyone who collaborates with (the US and Northern Alliance) will be death... and those who hope to be brought to power by US tanks will be disappointed, because we will use jehad (holy war) to ensure that the Afghan people remain the sole rulers" in the country, Mullah Omar said. He denied that there were internal rifts within the Taliban regime or its army, saying "our soldiers are mujahideen who have chosen the cause of their religion" and "any attempt to divert them from this will fail."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Los Angeles Times, by ESTHER SCHRADER and RONE TEMPEST
U.S. warplanes over Afghanistan are pounding Taliban front-line troops with increasing frequency and to devastating effect, as forces of the Islamic regime move into the open to escape strikes on their hideaways. At the same time, thousands of armed volunteers from Pakistan awaited the signal from their religious leader to cross the border into Afghanistan and join the Taliban in the fight against the United States. Rumsfeld's televised comments were the clearest indication so far that the bombing campaign, directed initially at mostly unoccupied military targets, is now aimed primarily at hitting soldiers on the move. But even as Rumsfeld spoke, reports emerged that errant U.S. airstrikes had killed more than a dozen civilians in the Afghan capital, Kabul, one day after other strikes went astray and landed in two hamlets north of the city. Rumsfeld defended the casualty figures as minimal and said some of the victims might have been killed by Taliban or opposition Northern Alliance fire.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By KATHY GANNON Associated Press Writer
U.S. attacks on Kabul killed at least 13 civilians, witnesses said, one day after U.S. missiles rocketed hamlets along the front line north of here, killing and maiming villagers. American warplanes also pounded targets in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south, Herat in the west and Jalalabad in the east, said the Afghan Islamic Press, a private news agency. Late Sunday, U.S. jets were back over the skies of the beleaguered Afghan capital, and strong explosions could be heard in the direction of the main road from Kabul to the opposition-controlled Bagram air base.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Times of India
Mullah Mohammed Omar said in an Algerian newspaper interview that the "real war" against the US had not yet begun, and promised to give the US "a bitter lesson". "We will give (the Americans) a more bitter lesson than the one we gave the Russians," he said in an interview published in daily newspaper El Youm. "We have not yet begun the real war against the US because of their technological superiority," he said, adding US troops "will not be welcomed with flowers." Well, the phony war will have to do for now.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Times of India
ISLAMABAD: The Taliban have not evolved any peace plan to end the US-led military strikes against Afghanistan, the militia's ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, said. Zaeef also claimed that three-week-long American aerial bombings had resulted in human catastrophe with scores of injured persons dying without medicines and lack of food. "The situation in capital Kabul is very pitiable. There is acute shortage of medicines and food. Injured are dying as a result of shortage of medicines," he told reporters here on his return from Afghanistan Saturday night. He said, "Yesterday's bombing of the ICRC warehouses in Kabul is a clear example of the US intentions to target civilian areas". This was the second time that us jets had hit a well-marked Red Cross building, he added.
Zaeef, who went to Afghanistan twice during the past two weeks, said he visited Kabul and Jalalabad to discuss the current situation with the Taliban leadership and denied he carried any peace plan to end the military strikes against Afghanistan.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
BY JAMES TARANTO WSJ Opinion On-Line Best of the Web Today
Faced with boycott threats, Berkeley, Calif.'s mayor, Shirley Dean, is urging the City Council to reconsider its resolution opposing the war against terrorism. It doesn't sound as though she's getting much cooperation. The Oakland Tribune reports Councilwoman Linda Maio is denying that the resolution even condemned the war, though it did call on America to "help break the cycle of violence, bringing the bombing [of Afghanistan] to a conclusion as quickly as possible." Says Maio: "People are so consumed with anger and hatred for the terrorists, and they have no place to put it. So it comes here."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Donna Halvorsen Star Tribune
From longtime war resisters to students attending their first demonstration, several hundred people came to the State Capitol on Saturday to protest the U.S. bombing in Afghanistan. "The acts of September 11 are crimes against humanity," said Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, a University of St. Thomas professor and one of the speakers. "They should not be called a war, and they should not be responded to with war."
"My message here today is to stand up against injustice, wherever it may be," said Deena Khatan of the University of Minnesota's Arab Student Association.
Longtime protester Polly Mann said that the strength of antiwar sentiment is stronger than it is portrayed in the news media, and that the nation's leaders are not listening. "When we get enough people in the streets, they'll listen to us," she said.
Joe Schwartzberg, a retired University of Minnesota professor, spoke for the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers when he said the war in Afghanistan "will do little to rid the world of terrorism and will promote neither global peace nor global justice."
Imam Hassan Ali Mohamud said Somalis and Muslims in the Twin Cities, while condemning the terrorist attacks, also condemn the killing of "many innocents and civilians who did not commit any crime against us."
State Rep. Andy Dawkins, DFL-St. Paul, was at the rally with his two young children. "I really think the bombing of Afghanistan is a failed policy and is only jeopardizing our security," he said. "I think they've got the message right here today."
Paul Slaton of Hopkins, who said the Nazis killed most of his family during World War II, stood with the counterprotest group. "I was opposed to the Vietnam War, but not this," he said. "The Vietnamese didn't attack us."
The signs told the story of the day. The demonstrators' signs expressed such sentiments as "War is terrorism" while the counterdemonstrators' signs included "Wake up and smell the anthrax." As the demonstration ended, two chants competed: "Say no to war, say yes to global justice" and "Osama needs a hug."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
thesun.co.uk Domenic Mohan
LEE RYAN from Blue has made an astonishing outburst saying the attacks on New York have been âblown out of proportion.â The stupid boy â there is no other expression for him â told The Sun that instead of feeling sorry for New Yorkers we should be worrying about WHALES and ELEPHANTS.
As his horrified mates from Britainâs top boy band tried to shut him up, Lee insisted on speaking out. The 18-year-old, who actually WITNESSED the September 11 tragedy, said during a visit to The Sunâs HQ: âWho gives a f about New York when elephants are being killed? Animals need saving and thatâs more important. This New York thing is being blown out of proportion ... Iâm not afraid to say this, it has to be said and thatâs why Iâm the outspoken one from the band.â
Lee and the rest of Blue â Duncan James, Antony Costa and Simon Webbe â were filming a video in New York at the time of the World Trade Center atrocities. His outburst came as fellow band members recalled their horror at the tragedy. They were doing a webchat for The Sun when he made his shocking remarks.
We started by asking Blue what they saw in New York.
ANTONY: We saw the second plane crash into the tower and then the building crumble.
THE SUN: You witnessed all that? That must have been scary.
SIMON: Of course it was scary, it would be. Itâs the biggest day of terrorism in history.
LEE: What about whales? (Everyone paused and looked at him, confused) They are ignoring animals that are more important. Animals need saving and thatâs more important. This New York thing is being blown out of proportion
SIMON: Shut up, Lee
THE SUN: Thatâs a bit out of order, donât you think?
LEE: Who gives a f about New York when elephants are being killed?
DUNCAN: Shut up
LEE: Iâm not afraid to say this, it has to be said and thatâs why Iâm the outspoken one from the band.â
Later it dawned on Lee how stupid his comments had been and he feared losing his job. A pal said: âHe feels awful and is very worried.â Lee last night apologised and pledged to donate his share of profits from If You Come Back to our Twin Towers Fund.
He said: âI am deeply sorry for what I have said and apologise unreservedly to everyone affected by the tragedy of September 11. I was trying to express my concerns for other issues close to my heart but I realise now I did so in a very foolish and offensive way. I will donate my royalties from our next single to the Twin Towers Fund. I hope this small gesture will go some way to showing that I really am very sorry.â
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
by Tabassum Zakaria
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military operation in Afghanistan is ``not a quagmire'' and the war on terrorism will be a long effort that could include more ground forces, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Sunday. He also would not rule out bombing during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan that starts in mid-November, despite Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf call to halt the U.S.-led campaign during that period or risk further angering the Islamic community. The U.S. military operation has targeted Taliban forces, and military equipment and locations where members of the al Qaeda network may be hiding. The press accuses the generals of fighting the last war? They're four or five wars back by now.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
TRENTON, N.J. (Reuters) - A New Jersey postal worker was confirmed on Sunday to have inhalation anthrax, the deadliest form of the disease, state health officials and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The middle-aged woman who is employed as a mail handler at a main processing and distribution center near Trenton in Hamilton Township was confirmed to have the condition that has killed three people in the United States in less than a month.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer
Sen. John McCain said that America must unleash ``all the might of United States military power,'' including large numbers of ground troops, to prevail in Afghanistan. Bush administration officials said the Taliban is being weakened, but warned Americans must be prepared for a drawn-out conflict. "I think what we're going to have to put in (is) numbers of forces that are capable of maintaining a base for a period of time, relatively short, so they can branch out and move into certain areas where we believe that the Taliban and al-Qaida's networks are located,'' the Arizona Republican said on CBS's ``Face the Nation.'' "It's going to take a very big effort and probably casualties will be involved and it won't be accomplished through air power alone,'' he said on CNN's ``Late Edition.''
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said he agreed with McCain that large numbers of ground troops may be needed. And Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., said if President Bush ``comes to the conclusion that it's going to take that or something like that in order to get these people and to get this network torn down, I would support it.''
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
ABC News
ABCNEWS has been told by three well-placed and separate sources that initial tests on an anthrax-laced letter sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle have detected a troubling chemical additive that authorities consider their first significant clue yet. An urgent series of tests conducted on the letter at Ft. Detrick, Md., and elsewhere discovered the anthrax spores were treated with bentonite, a substance that keeps the tiny particles floating in the air by preventing them from sticking together. The easier the particles are to inhale, the more deadly they are. As far as is known, only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By FRANK RICH NY TIMES
The "America Strikes Back" optimism that surged after Sept. 11 has now been stricken by the multitude of ways we're losing the war at home. The F.B.I. has proved more effective in waging turf battles against Rudy Giuliani than waging war on terrorism. Of the more than 900 suspects arrested, exactly zero have been criminally charged in the World Trade Center attack (though one has died of natural causes, we're told, in a New Jersey jail cell). The Bush team didn't fully recognize that a second attack on America had begun until more than a week after the first casualty. The most highly trumpeted breakthrough in the hunt for anthrax terrorists â Tom Ridge's announcement that "the site where the letters were mailed" had been found in New Jersey â proved a dead end. And now the president is posing with elementary-school children again.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By MAUREEN DOWD
As Rudyard Kipling's Kim reports back to his British spymasters, from the mountainous moonscape of Afghanistan, "Certain things are not known to those who eat with forks." After six weeks of a war at home and a war in Asia, we now understand what we do not understand. The terrorists and Taliban have the psychological edge on three fronts: military, propaganda and bioterror.
George W. Bush was brought up to believe in Marquess of Queensberry rules. Now he is competing against combatants with Genghis of Khan rules, who hide among women and children in mosques and school dormitories, and who don't need an executive order to betray and murder. Polo at Yale is a bit different than the Afghan version, bushkazi, a violent free-for-all with no rules in which galloping horsemen try to throw a headless goat's carcass over a goal.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN NY TIMES
THEY are the knights in shining fire helmets. They are the welders, policemen and businessmen with can-do attitudes who are unafraid to tackle armed hijackers â even if it means bringing down an airplane. The operative word is men. Brawny, heroic, manly men. After a few iffy decades in which manliness was not the most highly prized cultural attribute, men â stoic, muscle-bound and exuding competence from every pore â are back. Since Sept. 11, the male hero has been a predominant cultural image, presenting a beefy front of strength to a nation seeking steadiness and emotional grounding. They are the new John Waynes. They are, as the former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote in The Wall Street Journal recently, "men who charge up the stairs in a hundred pounds of gear and tell everyone else where to go to be safe." ...
"Before Sept. 11, ruggedness was an affectation you put on like an outfit," said David Granger, the editor in chief of Esquire magazine. "Now there's a selflessness being attributed to rugged men. After a decade of prosperity that made us soft, metaphorically and physically, there's a longing for manliness. People want to regain what we had in World War II. They want to believe in big, strapping American boys."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Jerusalem Post
Two Islamic Jihad terrorists opened fire shortly before 15:00 on a crowded street in downtown Hadera. Four Israelis were killed and close to 40 were wounded in the hail of bullets. The two terrorists who carried out the attack came from Jenin refugee camp. Hadera police detectives arrived at the scene quickly and shot and killed both terrorists.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Manila Times
THE defense department said it has yet to confirm the claim of Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Sabaya that American missionary Gracia Burnham was beheaded by his men. Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes in a chance interview during the send-off ceremony of President Arroyo at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA), said he has yet to receive any information about Gracia Burnham and her husband Martin.
Abu Sayyaf has been holding the Burnhams and nine other Filipinos captive in Basilan since May 27.
âI donât know yet, I havenât received anything about that. I have not even received any report about that, Iâm sure that if there are any reports Iâll be informed,â Reyes said. Reyes said the military is still continuing its rescue operation in Isabela and Lantawan, where the group of Sabaya is holed up.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
by JEROME SOCOLOVSKY, Associated Press
MADRID, Spain (AP) - The outlawed separatist group ETA claimed responsibility on Sunday for 11 recent attacks in Spain while tentatively holding out an olive branch by maintaining that the long-running Basque conflict could be resolved "simply by letting the people decide.'' The statement, published by the Basque pro-independence newspaper Gara less then a week after the IRA declared it was destroying its weapons, suggested that ETA felt under pressure to offer a way out of the bloody separatist conflict in northern Spain. They got an anonymous letter. It said, "Mene mene tekel upharsin."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Alan Ruddock The Observer
Richard Haass was preparing himself for an important meeting. It was the morning of 11 September and the straight-talking US special envoy to Dublin was about to come face to face with Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein. Haass was going to speak his mind. A deal was on the table that could finally bring to an end more than 30 years of terrorism in Northern Ireland. Haass wanted to push Adams into persuading the IRA to decommission its arms. If he had to get angry, then so be it.
After a few minutes of talking about 'inching forward' the peace process, Haass finally snapped. 'If any American, service personnel or civilian, is killed in Colombia by the technology the IRA supplied then you can fuck off,' he shouted, finger jabbing towards Adams' chest. 'Don't tell me you know nothing about what's going on there, we know everything about it.' Haass, eyes blazing, was referring to events a month earlier when three Irishmen, including two IRA veterans were arrested at Bogotá airport. They were returning from a trip to Farcland, a Marxist ruritania in Colombia run by the anti-government Revolutionary Armed Forces.
James Monaghan and Martin McAuley, two IRA engineers, were swapping mortar bomb technology with the Farc guerrillas. Farc is the sworn enemy of America and controls the land used to cultivate and export cocaine to the West. Haass was furious. The discovery of the trip was the lever America needed to push Adams towards last week's historic announcement that the IRA had agreed to decommission some of its weapons, a move that was sealed yesterday by David Trimble's decision to return to government as Northern Ireland's First Minister. A few hours later, the first of four hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Centre. Sinn Fein knew they were on an impossible wicket.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
The Associated Press
QUETTA, Pakistan (AP) -- A bomb ripped through a passenger bus Sunday in this southwestern city, killing at least three people, including two soldiers, and wounding 25 others, police said. There was no credible claim of responsibility. The bomb, apparently hidden under a seat, went off as the bus was passing through Rubber Market in a heavily guarded military subdivision.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AP) - A powerful bomb tore through a food court, killing at least six people and injuring scores while U.S. military officers were in town to discuss helping the government fight Muslim rebels. The Americans were unhurt in the early evening attack in this city in the restive southern Philippines, officials said. They were staying at a tightly guarded military camp a few miles from the site of the explosion, said Lt. Gen. Roy Cimatu, who heads the Philippine military's Southern Command. There was no evidence the group of more than 20 Americans was targeted, but Cimatu said the bombing might have been a protest against their presence. There were no credible claims of responsibility for the attack. Cimatu said among the suspects was the Abu Sayyaf, an extremist Muslim group the Philippine military is targeting in a major offensive focusing on nearby Basilan island.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By Asim Tanveer (Reuters)
BAHAWALPUR, Pakistan - Women keened over the bodies of 15 Christians lying in pools of blood in a Pakistani church Sunday after masked gunmen on motorcycles drew up, shot dead a police guard and sprayed the congregation with Kalashnikov fire. ``We are investigating and we will take action against whosoever is involved, no matter what their religion,'' Senior Superintendent of Police Arif Ikram said. ``This is terrorism,'' he told Reuters. Police sent reinforcements to town and the army patrolled the streets as Christians called a protest strike.
As some 70 Christians gathered for regular Sunday morning services, six men on three motorcycles rode up to Saint Dominic's Church and pulled AK47 assault rifles out of their bags, one witness said. Shouting ``Graveyard of Christians -- Pakistan and Afghanistan,'' and ``This is just a start,'' they raced up to the church while the guards were asleep and opened fire, killing one. Five worshippers were wounded, four critically, doctors said. Four gunmen entered the church chanting ``Allah-u-Akbar'' (God is Greater) while two waited outside to shoot anyone who tried to flee, a witness said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Daily Telegraph, by Ben Fenton
AN elite American military unit is preparing for possible incursion into Pakistan in order to steal its nuclear weapons arsenal, it is reported today. The special forces unit is training with Israel's most trusted anti-terrorist unit, and would be called into action in the event that Gen Pervaiz Musharraf lost power in Pakistan, the New Yorker magazine said. The CIA believes that Pakistani army officers sympathetic to the Taliban could pose a threat to Gen Musharraf, and that some of the country's estimated 24 nuclear warheads could be stolen by renegades within Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
CAIRO, Egypt (AP)
An organization of Islamic charities denied Sunday that its members could be funneling money to terrorists, and urged the United States to give evidence to back up its suggestions that they are doing so. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, the United States has frozen the assets of one Saudi charity, the Wafa Humanitarian Organization, and U.S. officials have said Islamic charities are a key source of fund-raising for Osama bin Laden and his terrorist organization, al-Qaida. "We dare anyone to prove that any Islamic charity organization is involved or has supported any (terrorist) body," said Hamid bin Ahmed al-Rifaei, head of the Saudi-based International Islamic Forum for Dialogue, an umbrella group of about 100 non-governmental Islamic and other charities from around the world.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
Washington Weekly By EDWARD ZEHR
A Turkish citizen about to board a plane to Iran was arrested after authorities found instructions for an Islamic holy war, a protective suit against biological and chemical warfare and material for detonators in his luggage. The 29 year-old "university student" named Harun Aydin, was arrested at the Frankfurt airport by the Bundesgrenzschutz (federal border police) after an inspection of his luggage had aroused suspicion.
Presumably the authorities were not much surprised to find the "CD-ROM of a training program for Islamic holy warriors" -- no Islamic fundie would leave home without one these days. But explaining the HazMat suit, the camouflage uniform and the Ninja face mask -- the latter two items de rigueur for casual wear at Osama's Afghan resorts -- must have been just a tad awkward. As for the detonator material, that was explained by the state's attorney's office. The investigators noticed a small bottle, previously used to hold a sample of perfume, which contained a "mercury-like" liquid that could be used to set off a bomb by closing the detonator circuit. The federal prosecutor referred to it as "material for the manufacture of an explosives detonator." The CD-ROM and several video cassettes contained "a training program for so-called holy-warriors (Gotteskrieger), with detailed instructions for waging holy war," according to the German daily, Die Welt. Mr. Aydin's lawyer represented his client as the victim of "a chain of unfortunate circumstances." According to the attorney, it seems that he had somehow picked up the wrong suitcase.
According to the AP, however, "Prosecutors in Germany said Aydin was a leading member of a Cologne-based militant group headed by Turkish-born Muhammed Metin Kaplan, known as the 'Caliph of Cologne.'" Regular readers of this column may recall that the "Caliph" is presently doing four years in a German prison for "incitement connected to the killing of a rival." But the following information from the AP report was not mentioned in the German press until quite recently: "Turkish authorities suspect Kaplan was behind an uncovered plot to crash a plane, laden with bombs, into the mausoleum of Turkey's founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, during the country's 75th anniversary celebrations on Oct. 29, 1998."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
By David Jackson, Laurie Cohen and Robert Manor Chicago Tribune
From a white-carpeted Jiddah office, 11 stories above the sun-spangled Red Sea, Yassin Kadi oversees a portfolio of business ventures and charitable projects that span the globe. U.S. government reports allege that Kadi's money has stretched from Osama bin Laden's military camps to south suburban Bridgeview, where a cell of Hamas operatives recruited "martyrs" for their campaign against Israel. This month the Treasury Department froze Kadi's assets, along with those of 38 other people, charities and firms said to support terrorism. As evidence, a U.S. government official cites a 1998 Saudi bank audit that allegedly shows Kadi's Blessed Relief charity funneled $3 million to bin Laden, drawing the cash from some of that oil-rich country's wealthiest capitalists.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/28/2001 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[0 views]
Top|| File under:
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
