In his first televised address to the nation Hamid Karzai said his administration supports a free market. "Social and economic progress in our country is dependent on a free market economy and private sector development," he told Afghan Television. "The government will lessen its interference in economic affairs. This will pave the way for freedom and private sector initiative... The people will be allowed to take part in a free press. I agree with the constitution and I respect it." Freedom of economy and speech, he cautioned however, was limited by "national interest". He did not elaborate. Karzai said the greatest threat to peace and security in the country was the number of guns on the streets. He said he had given instructions to his security chiefs that armed factions should be incorporated into a national army as soon as possible. Karzai has a tough row to hoe. Chances are he won't succeed - but if he does, think what an example to the rest of the Muslim world! If the energy and resources they put into making war were to go into commerce, they'd become a rich nation.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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A US Marine Corps KC-130 air refueling aircraft carrying seven marines crashed into a mountain while making an approach to land at a forward operating base in southwestern Pakistan. TV news reports say all crewmen are presumed dead.
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01/09/2002 ||
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Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni has ordered the Afghan military to quit Kabul within three days and leave security duties in the capital to Afghan police and an international peacekeeping force, his ministry said. Permits to carry weapons have already been prepared to prevent "irresponsible" people from bearing arms inside Kabul. The International Security Assistance Force is expected to number some 4,500 troops by the end of this month. The force's powers will be limited to "assist in the maintenance of the security" in Kabul and its surroundings. Qanooni is another of the Good Guys in the Afghan drama - another Masood protege. He had his police force put together and trained before they took Kabul.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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Lawyers for Zacarias Moussaoui, the first person indicted in the Sept. 11 attacks, supported a legal bid to televise and increase public access to his trial, saying it would enhance the fairness of the landmark case. But the U.S. government argued against making an exception to the rule that prohibits cameras in federal court, saying televising the conspiracy trial set for October could endanger jurors, witnesses and court officials. "If you don't acquit, your car might explode. Nothing to do with us, of course."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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A former nuclear plant mechanic with a massive arsenal of more than 200 weapons was arrested for allegedly threatening workers and supervisors after he was fired from the San Onofre power plant in Southern California. The 43-year-old man, who authorities declined to name, was arrested on Tuesday. Deputies found a cache of 200 weapons, including assault rifles and grenades, and thousands of rounds of ammunition at his home in Laguna Niguel and at a rented storage facility. Hmmm. No. We probably didn't want him working at a nuclear power plant. Don't think we wanted him working at the local gas station, for that matter.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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In an attempt to alter the extremist image of Kashmiri militancy, the Pakistan government constituted a National Kashmir Committee to be headed by former president of Pakistan occupied Kashmir Muhammad Abdul Qayyum Khan, who is opposed to involvement of hardline Islamic militant groups in the Kashmir insurgency. That's a nice conciliatory move. We imagine there will be others. Musharraf looks like he's serious.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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The United States has warned several countries, especially Somalia, they must deny safe haven to terrorists if they want to avoid becoming targets in the US war on terrorism, Secretary of State Colin Powell told The Washington Times. But... but... But there's nobody there but them chickens! They said so!
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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East African foreign ministers approved a Sudanese proposal calling for an international conference on terrorism. The announcement came after a closed-door meeting of the ministerial council of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) ahead of a summit of the seven-member grouping. The proposal calls for holding an international conference for the "identification of terrorism" and for fighting it "within international legitimacy". IGAD comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. This is another proposal to talk about the subject endlessly, arguing over definitions, rather than doing anything about it. The US is using a working definition of terrorism right now: People who slam civil aircraft into buildings. Seems pretty simple.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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The Coalition for the Defense of Human Rights urged the United Nations to appoint someone to investigate what it called "jihad violence" against non-Muslims and moderate Muslims in several Asian, African and Middle Eastern countries. At a rally outside United Nations headquarters, speakers from Afghanistan to Indonesia to Sudan cited the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States by suspected Islamic militants as even more reason for the world to pay attention to allegations of persecution in majority-Muslim countries. In a letter delivered at the U.N. gates to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the group demanded that he appoint a special rapporteur to examine "the status and conditions of non-Muslim minorities, women, and humanist, moderate Muslims in states ruled by Islamic majorities." What an interesting development - a human rights group that's concerned with human rights! They're right, too. Sufis and other Muslim minorities take it just as hard as the Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians and Ba'hais.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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Hamas gunmen killed four Israeli soldiers in the first successful attack into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip. The two gunmen disguised as police officers attacked the army post outside the kibbutz of Kerem Shalom, across the border from Rafah, before being gunned down themselves by the Israeli army. All four soldiers killed, including an officer, were Bedouin Arabs serving in the Israeli army. The army commander of southern Israel, General Doron Almog, accused Salah Shahadeh, a close associate of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassine, of planning the attack and demanded that the Palestinian Authority arrest him. The PA leadership condemned the attack and vowed to crack down on any violation of the ceasefire ordered by Arafat. "We do not accept under any pretext this violation of our national decision to decree the ceasefire and we will act against any damage to our security," it said in a statement. Facts of life, Middle East style: Any kind of a peace will be harmful to the "clergy" and political hacks who control the snuffies. If peace were to come about through some accident, the justification for their funding would go away. The hard boys themselves come cheap and they're disposable, but it takes a lot of money from "charitable donations" to buy all those arms and ammunition, even more to keep the top leadership living in the style to which they've become accustomed.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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One of two militants holed up in a mosque in Kashmir was killed and the other surrendered after an encounter with security forces. The encouter followed when security forces surrounded the mosque in which militants fleeing a search operation had taken refuge. The incident took place in Bamrada village, 40 km northwest of Srinagar. "We called on the militants to give themselves up, and they responded with gunfire," a senior district police official said. After a series of similar incidents, the authorities warned last year they would neutralise any militants using mosques as a place of refuge during encounters with the security forces. It's extra propaganda points if you can get a few bullet holes in the local mosque.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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General Pervez Musharraf will announce a ban on the Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyeba on Saturday, official sources said in Islamabad. The long-awaited speech on a new terrorism policy will also include bans on two domestic sectarian terrorist groups, Tehrik-i-Fiqah Jafaria and Sipahi Sahaba. That single move should defuse the tensions between the two countries, assuming he follows through and actually shuts them down. They will, of course, try to come back under assumed names, but that can be dealt with if the Paks are really serious.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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Six people, including four Lashkar-e-Tayyeba militants, were killed in separate incidents in Kashmir valley. Yes. It would be nice to be rid of them for good. There are lots of other problems both Pakistan and India could be working on.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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The Sri Lankan Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam is an Inter-Services Intelligence-aided terrorist outfit, former Union law minister Dr Subramanian Swamy charged in an interview with an Indian publication. "Recently, an Afghan diplomat told me that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda supplied the LTTE with weapons. Today, the LTTE has run out of funds, as its channels of funding have been choked by the United States-led campaign against terrorism in Afghanistan. It is for this reason that the LTTE is practically suing for peace with Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe." Thought their turnabout was pretty abrupt. Didn't know about the ISI involvement but it's believable. LLTE has been bad news for another perfectly nice country that didn't deserve to have someone else's problems exported to it. Just another argument in favor of disbanding ISI - which remains politically impossible for Musharraf.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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Turkey's top court ruled that the leader of a popular pro-Islamic party violated laws by founding the party -- a ruling that could force the politician to step down as the party's chief. The Constitutional Court said Recep Tayyip Erdogan, head of the Justice and Development Party, was banned from being among the party's founding members because of a prior conviction for inciting religious hatred. Turkey takes this stuff seriously. What's scary is that they've been taking it seriously since the 1920s, and it's still not gone away.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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The government froze the assets of a Muslim charity in Britain after a similarly named U.S. group was designated a terrorist organization with alleged links to the al-Qaida network. The Society of the Revival of Islamic Heritage, based in Stratford, east London, is being investigated by the government Charity Commission for possible links with the U.S.-based Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, which the U.S. Treasury placed on its list of designated terrorist organizations. "Your pledge of just $500 a month can pay the salary of this gunman!"
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
01/09/2002 ||
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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.
