September 2001

US and Britain to strike terror camps within days
Posted: Sunday, September 30, 2001

( Guardian Unlimited ) Devastating attacks on bases controlled by Osama bin Laden are set to be launched in the next 48 hours as part of a tightly focused military operation approved by US President George Bush and backed by Britain.
The strategy, which is a victory for pragmatists in both Britain and America, is designed to kill bin Laden and his forces, and will be launched in tandem with strikes against air and ground forces of the Taliban regime supporting him.

The operation, which British and US sources say could be launched as early as today, would begin with air and missile strikes to destroy the Taliban's 20-aircraft air force, remove anti-aircraft missile batteries, and destroy Taliban tanks and other armour.

In a clear sign that strikes were imminent, Bush declared last night, after a meeting with military advisers at Camp David: 'America will act deliberately and decisively, and the cause of freedom will prevail.' MORE

Saudis air base blow for US
Posted: Sunday, September 30, 2001

The Saudi Arabian Government has ruled out the use of bases on its territory for American-led strikes against Afghanistan's ruling Taleban.

"We do not accept the presence in our country of a single solider at war with Muslims or Arabs," Saudi Defence Minister Prince Sultan was quoted as saying in a government-run newspaper on Sunday.

The prince dismissed as nonsense reports that Saudi authorities would allow Washington to use its bases to attack Afghanistan.

However, he did say Saudi airspace could still be used as his country's contribution.

The BBC Middle East correspondent says this implies that America planes could fly over Saudi Arabia in their operations.

Our correspondent says the Saudi Government appears to have bowed to the sensitivies of its Muslim population and refused to have any part in the expected western action.

On Friday, President George W Bush said he was "most pleased" with the co-operation the US was getting from countries in the Middle East for its global campaign against terrorism.

That was seen as confirmation that Saudi Arabia had decided to allow US forces to make use of a vital command centre launch at a military base outside Riyadh.

VENEZUELA: Montesinos’ Capture
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

WORLD PRESS REVIEW - The dramatic capture and extradition in late June of former Peruvian intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos-after an intensive international search uncovered his hiding place in Caracas-has provoked a major diplomatic flap and fueled heated political controversy in Venezuela over the role of President Hugo Chávez and his government in the Montesinos affair.

Venezuelan security forces’ June 23 arrest of Montesinos, sought by Peruvian authorities to face multiple charges of corruption, bribery, and human-rights violations during his tenure as spymaster and political power broker under former President Alberto Fujimori, came just two days after Chávez's widely reported assurance to Peruvian President-elect Alejandro Toledo that Montesinos "will be returned to your country sooner than a rooster can crow if he is in Venezuela," the centrist El Nacional of Caracas (July 9) reported. MORE

Minister blasts western media's handling of terrorist attacks
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

IRNA -- Minister of Culture and the Islamic Guidance Ahmad Masjed Jamei on Saturday criticized the way the western media handled the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11.

He said that the plight of the Muslims across the world in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks is the outcome of the way the western media covered the incident attributing it to the Muslims.

Masjed Jamei was speaking in a ceremony at IRNA held to welcome its new Managing Director Abdollah Nasseri Taheri, and to bid farewell to former managing director Fereydoun Verdinejad.

IRNA operates under the Ministry of Culture and the Islamic Guidance whose minister holds presidency of IRNA's general assembly, the top policy-making body of the news agency.

Masjed Jamei recommended that IRNA undertake decisive role in enlightening the international press community.

He said that dynamic news network, if it does its duty well, will make good on the weakness in the information system on possibility of an event which may happen.

He also recommended that IRNA's bureaux abroad form relationship with intellectuals of foreign countries and reflect their views in their news analyses.

Aid convoys heads for Afghan capital
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - U.N. aid shipments are heading for war-ravaged and isolated Afghanistan for the first time since they were suspended shortly after the devastating attacks on the United States.

All shipments had been stopped and foreign aid workers pulled out of the country after the attacks on New York and Washington, but aid agency officials said they needed to resume supplies because of a vicious cycle of drought and war.

Two shipments left on Saturday, one carrying 100 tonnes of food for the capital Kabul, and another with 200 tonnes of food and warm clothing for children living in opposition-controlled areas in the north of the country.

The food for Kabul, which is held by the ruling Taliban movement, was sent by trucks by the World Food Programme on a trial basis.

"Once we ensure that food aid is reaching the most needy people inside Afghanistan and local trucks continue to be available to move it from our warehouses inside the country to the rural areas, we will move more food into Afghanistan," said Khaled Adly, a WFP regional director. MORE

Thousands flock to U.S. anti-war rally
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters have peacefully flooded the streets of America's capital to call for peace, as President George W. Bush moved forward with plans a military strike against those responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Chanting "war is not the answer," an estimated 10,000 demonstrators assembled peacefully only blocks from the White House on Saturday. Their voices rose in opposition to the "war on terrorism" that the Bush administration declared on Saudi-born militants including Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the attacks, which left 6,500 dead or missing.

"War is not the answer because the events on September 11 were not the first battle in the war. This has been an escalating cycle of violence," Brian Becker, one of the protest organisers, told Reuters.

"The U.S. has tens of thousands of troops in the Middle East. They occupy Saudi Arabia, they bomb Iraq every week, they impose economic sanctions in Iraq so dreadfully that the (United Nations) say 1.5 million Iraqi people have died," he added.

Many of the protesters travelled from across the country to join the rally. James Creedon, a rescue worker in New York City, left the rubble of Ground Zero, where the World Trade Centre once stood as a symbol of America's economic might, to join the medical teams at the protests.

British journalist 'to be tried for spying'
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

British journalist Yvonne Ridley is to be tried for spying after being arrested in Afghanistan by the Taliban, according to Pakistani press reports.

Urdu newspaper Inquilab and Kabul radio quote highly placed sources in the administration who said that Ms Ridley is being held prisoner in a military camp near the Afghan frontier town of Jalalabad.

The Sunday Express reporter, who was arrested along with two Afghan guides, was allegedly not carrying a passport or a Taliban permit. Spying under the Taliban dispensation carries the death penalty.

The newspaper quoted an official as saying that an enquiry has been ordered and will take time to complete.

He continued: "We have rules to deal with intruders and spies. If she had no ulterior motive, why would she have entered Afghanistan illegally and that too in a disguise?

"We have left it our courts to decide if she is innocent."

Foreign media were ordered to leave Afghanistan after the US stepped up its demand for the extradition of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden in connection with the September 11 terror attacks.

Disgraced archaeologist admits more fakes
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

Shinichi Fujimura, an archaeologist who admitted to falsifying two Paleolithic stone tool findings in northern Japan, has now confessed to faking the discovery of the world's oldest stone tool, which had been broken up and its parts dispersed separately in two prefectures, archaeological association officials said Saturday.

Fujimura made the latest confession to a special Japanese Archaeological Association investigation committee after he announced in December 1997 that the two pieces of the implement, discovered in Yamagata and Miyagi prefectures, were found to match each other, the officials said. The sites are about 30 kilometers apart.

The pieces of the tool — thought to date back 100,000 years — were found respectively at the Sodehara 3 site in Obanazawa, Yamagata Prefecture and the Nakajimayama site in Shikama, Miyagi Prefecture.

The officials added Fujimura suggested he falsified results from at least 20 other locations, but did not provide details about them.

The 51-year-old former deputy director of the Tohoku Paleolithic Institute in Tagajo, Miyagi is suspected of fabricating findings at 33 excavations in eight prefectures, but insisted in a press conference last November he had only faked two.

Those were artifacts at Kamitakamori in the Miyagi town of Tsukidate, and Soshin Fudozaka in Shintotsukawa, Hokkaido in fiscal 2000.

During a reexamination of his finds in April to August, the association developed suspicions regarding six sites, including Itouchimatsubayama in Fukushima Prefecture, after detecting what appeared to be excavation marks made by tools.

Last Sunday, the association said it had analyzed stone tools unearthed at two important locations in Miyagi — Razaragi and Babadan — and grew suspicious about them.

Earlier, a team led by Fujimura said the Razaragi site, found in 1981, was in a layer of earth 42,000 years old, and the Babadan site, found in 1984, was 170,000 years old.

Meanwhile, Norio Ono, mayor of the city of Obanazawa, said he feels deep regret and disbelief at how Fujimura fooled people, adding he wants a personal apology from him.

The archaeologist's descriptions of staging finds have also affected textbook publishers, prompting them to correct history texts on Paleolithic tools.

In November, Fujimura admitted to burying stone tools from his personal collection at Kamitakamori and Soshin Fudozaka, explaining he had been "tempted." He has since been hospitalized. (Kyodo News)

Algerian Terrorists Arrested In Spain
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

( infocentre.ru ) Among 32 video tapes seized from 6 Algerian terrorists arrested in Spain there are some showing a "practice" blowing up of a truck by Chechen militants in the environs of Argun, southern Chechnya, said Juan Cotino, director-general of the Spanish police.

He noted that the militants shown on the video are using the same type of radio transmitters as the ones seized from Algerian terrorists in Valencia.

It was reported earlier that the radio transmitters had been sent by them to Chechnya together with night-vision instruments and other high tech electronic devices, as well as all kinds of forged documents.

Another video believed to have been filmed in Algeria and Pakistan shows an execution of captured soldiers, with burst of automatic fire accompanied by calls for a jihad under Osama bin Laden.

Cotino said that so far the police has scrutinized only 5 videos. Careful examination of the remaining 27 tapes is continuing. From...

U.S. Cannot Save Face by Defeating Taleban
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

TEHRAN A Pakistani official was quoted as saying yesterday that the United States will not compensate for its humiliation by defeating the Taleban.

He was apparently referring to the Sept. 11 attack on the United States, which proved the United States vulnerable to terrorist assaults. The former Pakistani intelligence chief, in an interview with Qatari Al Jazeera television, said that there is disorder in the U.S. administration and that no policy has been adopted to recover from the disorder.

On why the White House does not reveal its evidence of Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden's involvement in the attack to its European allies, the Pakistani official said that the U.S. problem is not bin Laden and they know it. Elaborating further on the issue, he said that the United States is trying to fight against many other countries in a war and disturb the peace in the Persian Gulf, adding that this is one of the reasons Washington has presented no evidence.

Israeli soldiers have killed two Palestinians
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

Israeli soldiers have killed two Palestinians and wounded more than 100 in an upsurge of violence that is straining a truce many hope may help rally Muslim states behind the United States' anti-terror coalition.

Israeli and Palestinian officials warned the ceasefire would collapse if there were no let up in the violence, which followed a reaffirmation on Wednesday of a truce plan by Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat.

"Death to Israel" chanted thousands of Palestinians as an effigy of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was hanged in Gaza City at a rally marking the anniversary of the start of a revolt in which an estimated 602 Palestinians and 169 Israelis have died.

Protests and rallies took place across the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday, following commemorative events on Friday.

Troops battled hundreds of Palestinian stonethrowers at various spots in the Gaza Strip on Saturday in an upsurge of confrontations reminiscent of the start of the uprising, which erupted a year ago after peace negotiations became deadlocked. MORE

Biggest Muslim body to meet on attacks in U.S.
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

DOHA (Reuters) - Representatives of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims will hold emergency talks in Qatar next month to forge a united stand over possible U.S. military action against Muslim Afghanistan, say Qatari officials.

The officials told Reuters on Saturday that Qatar, current head of the 56-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), was awaiting confirmation from member states they would attend, but preparations for the meeting were still moving ahead.

One senior official said Arab ministers from the Jeddah-based organisation would meet on October 8 and a full OIC foreign ministers' meeting would follow on October 9.

The United States has begun a massive build-up for potential retaliation against Afghan-based militant Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organisation, suspected by Washington of being behind the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

President Mohammad Khatami of Iran, one of the OIC's most influential members, called for the meeting shortly after the attacks, saying Muslim states must coordinate their stance towards terrorism. MORE

Taliban says no foreign special forces in Afghanistan
Posted: Saturday, September 29, 2001

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement has denied that any U.S. or British special forces have entered territory under its control.

Qatar's al-Jazeera television reported earlier on Saturday that Afghan security forces had arrested three Americans from U.S. special forces and two Afghan guides who were apparently scouting around in western Afghanistan near the Iran border.

"It is totally wrong, we deny this news that they have come to our areas," Mullah Obaidullah Akhund, the Taliban defence minister, told Reuters in Kabul.

Mullah Obaidullah did not rule out the possibility that some foreign forces could be in regions held by anti-Taliban forces north of Kabul and in the rugged areas of the northeast near the border with Tajikistan. MORE

US and UK Special forces deploy in Afghanistan
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

A senior White House official has confirmed that US and UK special forces have been operating within Afghanistan.

The commandos are carrying out scouting and reconnaissance missions, but are not actively hunting for the prime suspect Osama bin Laden, the official said.

The news comes as diplomatic efforts continue, with a meeting between President George W Bush and Jordan's King Abdullah in the White House.

And in a new development in the investigation, US Attorney General John Ashcroft has released a letter, which links the hijackers of the three planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September.

Mr Ashcroft said the letter was found in a piece of luggage belonging to Mohamed Atta, 33, an Egyptian suspected of being one of the lead hijackers in the attacks.

"This letter is clear evidence linking the hijackers on three separate flights," Mr Ashcroft said.

4 Palestinians killed marking Intifada anniversary
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

JERUSALEM (AP) — Pledging to sustain their uprising against Israel, thousands of Palestinians marched Friday in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to mark the anniversary of the current round of fighting. Three Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, but the bloodshed did not derail efforts to implement a truce.

A fourth Palestinian died when a bomb he was preparing exploded prematurely.

Forty-five Palestinians and six Israelis were hurt in widescale violence reminiscent of the early days of the fighting.

The two sides traded blame for the violence, but said they would go ahead with truce provisions, despite deep skepticism. The cease-fire terms were worked out earlier this week in talks between Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Security commanders from both sides met Friday, and Israel said that in a first step, it would ease some of its security blockades of Palestinian towns. MORE

Algerian pilot instructed four of the hijackers
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

An Algerian pilot detained in Britain instructed four of the hijackers involved in the suicide attacks on the United States, a London court has been told.

Twenty-seven-year-old Lotfi Raissi faces extradition to the US after British police re-arrested him on an international warrant on Friday.

His detention is the latest development in the international effort against terrorism.

Six Algerians arrested in Spain on suspicion of links with Osama Bin Laden, considered by the US as the prime suspect in the attacks, are been held for further questioning by the high court in Madrid.

Spanish police say they found videos belonging to the suspects which contained images of attacks in Algeria and Chechnya and training camps in Afghanistan.

Lotfi Raissi was among four people arrested in the UK last Friday.

The FBI want to question Mr Raissi, who has been living close to London's Heathrow airport, over the 11 September attacks in which more than 6,000 people were killed.

Italy PM says Islam comment misunderstood
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

By Crispian Balmer

ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, facing a firestorm of protest after asserting that Western civilisation was superior to Islam, has said his words were taken out of context and he had not meant to give offence.

The billionaire businessman-turned-politician told reporters during a visit to Germany on Wednesday that the West should be aware of "the superiority" of its civilisation, saying it created wealth and guaranteed respect for human rights.

His comments were denounced by European Union and Muslim leaders around the world, but Berlusconi told Italy's Upper House of Parliament on Friday that he had merely wanted to stress his support for tolerance and individual liberty.

"An artificial controversy has blown up based on nothing and fed by irresponsible comments from the opposition," a combative Berlusconi said.

"I'm sorry that a few words dragged out of the general context, badly interpreted, have offended the sensibility of my Arab and Muslim friends," he added.

"I will continue to want to be sincere. If I have to be hanged on one word, isolated from its context, in exchange for the freedom of saying both what I think and what the great majority of Italians also think, then go ahead and hang me."

The Arab League demanded on Thursday that Berlusconi either deny having made the remarks or else apologise to the world's one billion Muslims.

Egypt and Lebanon also called for clarification while Western leaders expressed shock that the head of the world's sixth largest economy should have expressed his thoughts at such a delicate moment in time.
MORE

Islamabad not to join any military action
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: Pakistan said on Wednesday it was part of the global coalition against terrorism but can never be part of any hostile action against Afghanistan.

"Pakistan cannot and can never join any hostile action against Afghanistan or Afghan people," Foreign Office spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan told reporters.

"We are deeply conscious that destinies of the two people and two countries are intertwined," he said, adding: "There is no joint operation or any specific operation or contingency plans (by the United States) which has been placed before Pakistan."

The spokesman said it was a fight against terrorism in which Pakistan was part of international coalition and we wanted the Afghan government to be responsive to what international community wants from it. "It is not fight against any people or any country."

Syria to join anti-terrorism campaign if...
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

Syria will only support an international campaign against terrorism if it is clearly defined and spares the lives of civilians, it has told a delegation of European Union leaders.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said it was crucial that such a mission should be within a United Nations framework and that the meaning of terrorism be clearly defined.

He was speaking after a meeting in Damascus between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a high-level delegation from the EU.

The delegation, consisting of Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, has been touring the Middle East and South Asia trying to drum up support for the US-led coalition against terrorism. MORE

Catastrophe facing Angola
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

A report released by a British-based charity describes the humanitarian situation in Angola as catastrophic and calls on international donors to provide more support to relief efforts.

The report, issued by the humanitarian and development charity Oxfam, looks at the state of Angola, a country where decades of war continue to cause widespread hunger and homelessness.

It does not only assess the country's humanitarian situation, but looks at the causes of poverty and concludes that the Angolan Government, the Unita rebels and the international community should be doing more to put an end to the war there.

But it goes beyond this assessment to examine why such a situation prevails in a potentially wealthy country and looks at the reasons why the war continues in Angola, despite repeated peace efforts.

It declares that a military solution to the Angolan conflict is not feasible, and calls on the international community to support a peaceful solution to Angola's problems - a solution which has the full backing of Angolan society and not just the warring parties.

Angola Peace Monitor

NW Pilot Enraged Over Confiscation
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

RAPID CITY, S.D. –– A Northwest Airlines pilot became enraged after airport security confiscated his fingernail clippers and scissors, according to police and airport officials who witnessed the incident.

Police intervened, and the incident was being reported to the Federal Aviation Administration.

But no charges were filed against the pilot, whom Northwest declined to identify Thursday. The flight to Minneapolis left Rapid City Regional Airport on schedule Wednesday with the pilot at the controls.

Stricter security measures since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the East Coast include a ban on items that could be used as weapons. The new rules also apply to pilots and flight attendants.

"There was a lot of commotion, like he was throwing a tantrum," said Alice James of Rapid City, who said she witnessed the incident as she was dropping off her daughter and grandson. MORE

In Hijacker's Bags, a Call to Planning, Prayer and Death
Posted: Friday, September 28, 2001

( Washington Post ) Mohamed Atta, one of the key organizers among the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, left behind a five-page handwritten document in Arabic that includes Islamic prayers, instructions for a last night of life and practical reminders to bring "knives, your will, IDs, your passport" and, finally, "to make sure that nobody is following you."

FBI investigators, who found the writings in Atta's luggage, which did not make it onto his flight, are not sure of the author's identity -- whether it was Atta, another hijacker or someone else.

The document is a cross between a chilling spiritual exhortation aimed at the hijackers and an operational mission checklist. With the hijackers all dead, the pages may turn out to provide the most vivid and penetrating glimpse into their mental states and final hours before they embarked on the deadliest act of terrorism in U.S. history. MORE

UN on humanitarian situation in Afghanistan
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

UN Security Council voices concern at worsening humanitarian situation in Afghanistan

September 27, 2001 – Security Council members today expressed deep concern at the worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and said the world community was "ready and determined" to lend the country and its neighbours desperately needed help.

"The tragedy of the Afghan people has deep roots, more than two decades of conflict and three years of drought, but the fast deteriorating situation today was basically the result of decisions taken by the Taliban," said Ambassador Jean-David Levitte of France, which this month holds the rotating presidency of the 15-member UN body.

"Members of the Council called on the Taliban immediately to remove all restrictions on the supply of desperately needed humanitarian aid, including those on food supplies and humanitarian relief workers," Ambassador Levitte said. "These restrictions have one result: the humanitarian assistance cannot be provided inside the country. The Taliban will be held responsible for the consequences of their own decision."

Council members said that the international community stood "ready and determined" to respond urgently and generously to the repeated calls by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan and UN agencies for assistance for the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and its neighbouring countries. The statement recognized "the particular pressures" of potential refugee flows on Afghanistan's neighbours, especially Pakistan and Iran, and said specific help for those countries was needed.

Ambassador Levitte said that in addition to Mr. Annan's briefing on different aspects of the current situation in and around Afghanistan, Council Members also discussed the political situation. They reaffirmed the relevant resolutions on Afghanistan, particularly the ones calling for the Taliban to turn over Usama bin Laden, and welcomed the recent commitment by countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and especially Pakistan.

Earliest presence of humans in east Asia
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

By BBC News Online's Helen Briggs
Stone tools dated to 1.36 million years ago provide the earliest evidence yet of human occupation of northeast Asia.

The tools, which were found at an ancient settlement in northern China, show that early humans were able to adapt to extremes of temperature relatively early in their history.

The crude implements were likely to have been made by early humans known as Homo erectus, a predecessor to our own species, Homo sapiens.

According to many scientists, Homo erectus was the first early human to move out of Africa to populate Asia and Europe.

The tools were found as far as 40 degrees north - at Xiaochangliang in the Nihewan Basin, north China.

This comes as a surprise because the area was thought to be inhospitable to early humans of the time, which were used to warmer climes. It suggests that early humans emerged from the tropics with an inbuilt ability to adapt to their environment. MORE

Islamabad not to join any military action
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

ISLAMABAD, Sept 26: Pakistan said on Wednesday it was part of the global coalition against terrorism but can never be part of any hostile action against Afghanistan.

"Pakistan cannot and can never join any hostile action against Afghanistan or Afghan people," Foreign Office spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan told reporters.

"We are deeply conscious that destinies of the two people and two countries are intertwined," he said, adding: "There is no joint operation or any specific operation or contingency plans (by the United States) which has been placed before Pakistan."

The spokesman said it was a fight against terrorism in which Pakistan was part of international coalition and we wanted the Afghan government to be responsive to what international community wants from it. "It is not fight against any people or any country."

The spokesman said Pakistan had not asked the militia to close down its embassy in Islamabad. The spokesman regretted the torching of US embassy in Kabul by an angry mob, saying "such acts are not in keeping with the diplomatic norms."

Part of the abandoned American embassy was gutted in anti-US demonstrations in the Afghanistan capital on Wednesday.

In response to a question, he said there was no confirmation of the reports that Indian forces had landed in Uzebkistan. He said the US defence delegation was still in Pakistan and was holding talks with its counterparts.

To a question, he said the Afghan embassy in Pakistan was not being asked to close down.

The spokesman said Pakistan had no information on the current whereabouts of Osama bin Laden or members of his al-Qaeda network. He said Pakistan has received no information about Osama since the Taliban claimed he had disappeared on Sunday. "We do not have any information about Osama bin Laden or about leaders of al-Qaeda," he said.

The spokesman admitted that hundreds of people could be entering into Pakistan illegally from Afghanistan across the porous, often unguarded border, but he dismissed suggestions that Osama and his associates could be hiding on Pakistani territory. "I do not think that they will be confident of finding safe haven in Pakistan," he said. –Agencies

Algerian Islamic rebels kill wedding guests
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

LARBAA, Algeria (Reuters) - Suspected Algerian Islamic rebels wearing military fatigues stormed an isolated town and shot and knifed to death 22 people, nine of them at a wedding, witnesses and residents have said.

The bride and groom escaped unhurt, the groom because he was late for the wedding. Victims included a two-month-old baby girl and a four-year-old girl whose throats were slit.

The raids on Wednesday night in the small town of Larbaa, 50 km (30 miles) southwest of Algiers, were the latest in a bloody insurgency which has pitted Islamic guerrillas against the military-backed government since 1992.

The official news agency APS confirmed the death toll of 22 in two attacks in Larbaa, quoting security forces. MORE

Spinach Protein Could Offer New Hope For The Blind
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (http://www.ornl.gov/)

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sept. 26, 2001 – Spinach, touted in the Popeye cartoon for its ability to strengthen the body, may prove even more valuable for restoring vision to people who are legally blind.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Southern California hope to learn whether a protein from spinach could replace a non-functioning light receptor in the eye. People who suffer from age-related macular degeneration or retinitis pigmentosa, diseases that are leading causes of blindness worldwide, may find hope in this research.

"Although the neural wiring from the eye to brain is intact in people with these diseases, their eyes lack photoreceptor activity," said Eli Greenbaum of ORNL’s Chemical Technology Division.

Greenbaum and colleagues propose replacing these non-functioning photoreceptors with a spinach protein that gives off a small electrical voltage after capturing the energy of incoming photons. The main function of Photosystem I, a photosynthetic reaction center protein, is to perform photosynthesis in leaves using the energy of the sun to make plant tissue.

Greenbaum’s collaborator is Mark Humayun, a professor in the University of Southern California’s Doheny Eye Institute. Humayun and his research team showed that if retinal tissue is stimulated electrically using pinhead-sized electrodes implanted in the eyes of legally blind patients, many can see image patterns that mimic the effects of stimulation by light.

Greenbaum believes that it might be possible to use Photosystem I protein to restore photoreceptor activity. Experiments by Greenbaum’s team showed that Photosystem I protein can capture photon energy and generate electric voltages of up to 1 volt.

"What we need to find out is whether these voltages can trigger neural events and allow the brain to interpret the images," Greenbaum said.

In recent research, the team showed that Photosystem I reaction centers protein could be incorporated into the membrane of an artificial liposome, a tiny spherical particle formed by a fatty (lipid) membrane enclosing a watery compartment. The artificial membrane mimics that of a living cell.

Greenbaum’s team also showed that the Photosystem I reaction centers can work inside a liposome, which means it produces the experimental equivalent of a voltage when it comes into contact with light. A liposome will likely be used to deliver Photosystem I reaction centers protein to a retinal cell.

In the United States, degeneration of the retina has left 20,000 people blind and 500,000 people visually impaired. Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited condition of the retina in which specific photoreceptor cells, called rods, degenerate. The loss of function of these rod cells diminishes a person’s ability to see in dim light and gradually can reduce peripheral vision.

Age-related macular degeneration is a disease that affects the center of vision. It rarely leads to blindness but people with the disease have difficulty reading, driving and performing other activities that require fine, sharp straight-ahead vision. The disease affects the macula, the center of the retina.

The project also builds upon work using the technique of Kelvin force microscopy, in which Greenbaum and colleagues performed the first measurements of voltages induced by photons of light from single photosynthetic reaction centers. The work was published in 2000 in an issue of the Journal of Physical Chemistry B.

Other ORNL researchers involved in the project are Tanya Kuritz and James Lee of the Chemical Technology Division, Frank Larimer of the Life Sciences Division, and Ida Lee and Barry Bruce of the University of Tennessee.

"We have assembled an outstanding interdisciplinary team of scientists, vitreo-retinal surgeons, ophthalmologists and biomedical engineers to attack this important problem," Greenbaum said.

Greenbaum has long envisioned that his group’s research in photosynthesis could have an impact on people in terms of energy production and biomolecular electronics. Now, he’s especially excited that it could also restore vision to some blind people.

This research is funded by ORNL’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program, which is provided by DOE. ORNL is a multiprogram research facility managed by UT-Battelle.

Nervous Muslims in Europe
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

Muslims in Europe have also found themselves the focus of unwelcome attention since the attacks in the US. Muslim communities in many European countries have joined the world in condemning the terrorist attacks. The Muslim Council of Britain, for instance, said those responsible "stand outside the pale of civilized values".

Germany has one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe. The chairman of Germany's Central Council of Muslims, Nadeem Elyas, says his group also experienced threats during the Gulf War, but that things are worse now. He says he has received e-mails, phone calls and faxes with serious threats of murder and bombing.

British Muslims are also nervous and angry about harassment and threats after the U.S. terror attacks. Mosques in Birmingham have received abusive phone calls and Muslim residents of the city say they have been harassed in their homes. The Islamia School in West London was forced to close after the attacks after a series of telephone death threats. The school was founded by pop singer Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf Islam.

In France, sympathy for the victims of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington has been strong. But French politicians also worry about provoking a backlash within the country's large Muslim community. "In France, we must remain very attentive to the safety of our citizens," says Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. And he stresses the Western world is "not at war against Islam or the Arab and Muslim world".

Saddam says condolences would be hypocrisy
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein says he would be a hypocrite if he sent condolences to the United States over the September 11 suicide attacks on Washington and New York.

"(U.S. President George) Bush wants us to condole with him," Iraqi television quoted Saddam as telling a visiting envoy of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

"If I had done so, then I would not have respected my people...as Bush is the president of a state which launches war on us and bombs us in a despicable terrorist way," he said.

A U.S.-led coalition bombed Iraq heavily during the 1991 Gulf War. Iraqi targets still come under attack by Western planes policing two "no-fly" zones in the north and south of the country.

"This would be a hypocrisy if I had send condolences to its president and we are not hypocrites," he said.

Iraq has not publicly condemned the devastating attacks, but Saddam's senior aide, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz, sent letters of condolences to a U.S. group opposed to sanctions on Iraq, and to former U.S. attorney general Ramsey Clark who Saddam said had come "to console us for the calamities afflicted by America on us".

Saddam said the U.S. had failed to produce evidence to back its claims about those responsible for the suicide attacks. MORE

German trains crash head-on
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

( BBC ) Two passenger trains have collided near the town of Lindau in southern Germany, injuring 82 people, nine of them seriously.

There are no reports of fatalities, but many school children were among the passengers and some of those injured are as young as 10.

First reports indicate that human error is to blame for the crash, a German railways spokesman has been quoted as saying.

The train travelling from Lindau should have waited for the second train, travelling in the opposite direction from Friedrichshafen, to arrive before it pulled out of Enzisweiler station.

The two regional Deutsche Bahn trains collided at 0730 local time (0530 GMT).

They were travelling on a single-track line linking Lindau - a town on Lake Constance on the border with Switzerland - with nearby Friedrichshafen. MORE

Gunman kills 14 in Swiss assembly
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

A gunman has gone on the rampage in a regional parliament in Switzerland, killing at least 14 people.
Several others are said to have been injured by the man, who was disguised as a policeman, when he opened fire during a session of the assembly.

The incident took place at the regional parliament building in the canton of Zug in central Switzerland, 25 km (16 miles) south of Zurich, at 1030 (0830GMT) on Thursday morning.

Police say the man also detonated an explosive device. A spokesman said any link with the recent attacks in the United States had been categorically ruled out.

Peter Hess, the president of the House of Representatives in the Swiss national parliament, confirmed that 14 people had died.

Mr Hess said that three members of the local government were among the victims.

The Swiss news agency ATS reported that "there was blood everywhere", with casualties lying on the floor and small fires in the assembly hall. Swiss Government

Nigerian school collapse kills pupils
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

The mud-walled Islamiya school in Kano's ancient Kofar Naisa district was weakened after heavy rains overnight, according to local police.

Much of the normally arid northern Nigeria has been devastated by floods this year, killing hundreds and leaving 30,000 homeless.

Witnesses told Reuters news agency that 10 of the dead were girls between five and 10-years-old.

"The building apparently cracked during the rainfall and it collapsed today," Kano State Police Commissioner Yakubu Bello Uba told Reuters. "Eleven of the pupils were killed instantly and seven were rushed to hospital."

In August hail containing lumps of ice, said to be the size of footballs and weighing up to two kilos, destroyed over 1,000 hectares of crops which were about to be harvested.

Kano is northern Nigeria's most populous state and has been an Islamic centre for many centuries.

Two years ago it was the scene of ethnic clashes between local Hausa-speakers and Yorubas from south-western Nigeria which left over 70 people dead. http://odili.net/nigeria.html

Iran Refuses disgusting Americans
Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2001

TEHRAN - Iran's supreme leader ruled out Iranian help for any U.S.-led attack on neighboring Afghanistan, saying yesterday that the United States was not "competent" to lead a global campaign, and calling American behavior "disgusting."
In a state-run television address to the nation, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the U.S. administration was "over-expectant" in wanting the whole world to help following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

"Iran will not participate in any move under U.S. leadership. Iran will not extend any assistance to the U.S. and its allies in attacking the already suffering Muslim neighboring Afghanistan," Khamenei said.

America's behavior, by expecting help but not earning the respect of other nations, was "disgusting," Khamenei said, adding that Iran did not consider the United States "competent and sincere [enough] to lead any global campaign against terrorism."

Iran considers the United States its biggest enemy, but a strong reform movement in the government favors warming ties with the West. Washington has put Iran on a list of nations supporting terrorism.

During the past few days, Iran expressed its opposition to unilateral retaliatory U.S. military strikes against the Taliban, who harbor Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the terrorist atrocities. Iran has called for an international anti-terror coalition led by the United Nations - not Washington.

In his speech, Khamenei, the leader of anti-reform hard-liners, also rejected America's declaration to the world that nations had to choose between being "with us or terrorism."

"We are not with you," he said. "At the same time, we are not with terrorists."

The United States wants Mideast support - from use of military installations or airspace to intelligence - as it builds forces for an expected assault on bin Laden's operations in Afghanistan.

In another regional rebuff yesterday, Saudi Arabia said it won't let the United States use its bases to strike Afghanistan, saying Turkey and the former Soviet republics would better serve America.

Ghazi al-Gosaibi, the Saudi ambassador to Britain, said his country, the birthplace of Islam, could not be involved in any "carpet-bombing" of Muslims in Afghanistan.

Scientists Discover How Some Viruses Take Strong Hold Of Cells
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Source: Brookhaven National Laboratory (http://www.bnl.gov/)

UPTON, NY -- As part of an ongoing effort to understand how viruses infect cells, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have deciphered the molecular-level interaction between coxsackievirus -- which infects the heart, brain, pancreas, and other organs -- and the human cell protein to which it attaches.
This work, published in the October issue of Nature Structural Biology, may lead to improved ways to thwart viral infections, and may help scientists design virus-based vehicles for gene therapy.

The study reveals that the receptor protein for coxsackievirus (known as coxsackievirus-adenovirus receptor, or CAR) forms pairs on the surface of human cells, with two adjacent CAR receptors attached to one another below the surface of the cell membrane. When coxsackievirus binds to the human cell, it forms bonds with both receptors of the pair.

"This arrangement is advantageous for the virus," says Brookhaven biologist Paul Freimuth, one of the study's authors. "The binding becomes almost irreversible, because both bonds would have to reverse simultaneously to release the virus. That increases the likelihood that the virus will infect the cell."

The structural studies also reveal that the binding sites on the coxsackievirus are "cleverly" hidden from the body's immune system, which produces antibodies to fight infections. "If you think of the virus as a golf ball, the binding sites that recognize the receptor are inside the dimples," Freimuth says. "Antibodies can't fit into the indentations, but the receptor is a slender molecule that can fit in."

Both of these features -- hidden binding sites and simultaneous binding to multiple receptors -- are shared by other viruses in the same family, including the virus that causes polio and rhinovirus, one cause of the common cold and other respiratory and gastrointestinal infections.

"It's a very clever arrangement that these viruses have worked out," Freimuth says, "and very hard to defeat." For example, scientists have tried administering single receptor-like molecules designed to tie up binding sites on a virus and block its ability to attach to cells. These haven't worked very well, Freimuth suggests, because the double hold the virus forms with the cell makes it hard for these single molecules to compete. But perhaps administering receptor-like molecules with double binding sites would be able to compete and interfere with the virus' attack.

The current work may also help scientists interested in developing viruses used in gene therapy. The idea behind gene therapy is to destroy a virus’ disease-causing genes and replace them with therapeutic genes -- ones that might fix a genetic defect that causes cancer or some other disease.

Being able to tailor-make viruses that bind to specific receptors could help deliver the genes to cells where they are needed without affecting other cells. And the knowledge that multiple binding sites help viruses gain a strong hold could help scientists to make these designer viruses more effective delivery vehicles. Tailor-made viruses may also offer insight into studies of systems biology -- for example, how added genes affect behavior see: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/bnlpr090501.htm.

The structural details reported in the current study were derived by cryo-electron microscopy -- the analysis of frozen samples of the virus bound to partial and full receptor molecules. This part of the study was performed at Purdue University. Cloning and sequencing the receptor gene and producing the receptor protein were all performed at Brookhaven Lab.

The data were also correlated with a previous study of a portion of the CAR protein bound to adenovirus, performed at Brookhaven’s National Synchrotron Light Source and published by Freimuth and others in 1999 see: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/bnlpr111899.html.

Brookhaven Lab just received $750 thousand from the U.S. Department of Energy to purchase its own cryo-electron microscope, so that this kind of complementary approach to the study of biological molecules can now take place entirely at the Lab.

This research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Keck Foundation, Purdue University, and the U.S. Department of Energy, which supports basic research in a variety of scientific fields.

The U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies. Brookhaven also builds and operates major facilities available to university, industrial, and government scientists.

The Laboratory is managed by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited liability company founded by Stony Brook University and Battelle, a nonprofit applied science and technology organization.

Anti-terrorism proposals worry civil libertarians
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Advocacy groups, legal experts and some members of Congress are voicing strong concerns that a proposal to expand law enforcement powers in order to ratchet up the fight on terrorism could end up treading on civil liberties enjoyed by all Americans.

The Bush administration's anti-terrorism package, which was the subject of hearings in the House and Senate on Monday and Tuesday, has drawn controversy because of provisions critics say affect a variety of privacy and individual rights. They include the detention and deportation of immigrants, the expansion of the government's wiretapping authority, and the easing of grand jury secrecy laws, among other measures.

David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said a basic problem with the package is that it is too sweeping. "It is not in any way carefully calibrated to the threat that we are facing," said Cole, an expert in constitutional law.

Cole said he is most troubled by proposals affecting immigrants, which could lead to the deportation of law-abiding, peaceful non-citizens merely because of "guilt by association." And, he said, the proposals give the attorney general the power to place immigrants in detention merely because of suspicion, without any evidence against them.

A variety of other areas of concern has been cited. Privacy groups have said the package of proposals increases the government's power to monitor online communications, for example. They also fear that provisions ensuring the secrecy of information uncovered in grand jury proceedings -- meant to protect innocent individuals from the release of embarrassing information -- would be loosened. Another concern is that existing restrictions on searches would be eased, not just for terrorists, but for all criminal investigations.

In testimony before Congress and in public statements, the American Civil Liberties Union has spoken out over provisions in three broad areas. They include the provisions affecting immigrants, the changes to surveillance and wiretapping powers, and several other criminal justice measures -- such as the expansion of the government's authority to request secret searches.

ACLU President Nadine Strossen said in an interview that both liberals and conservatives have expressed concern for the preservation of civil liberties, giving her some reason to believe changes will be made to those provisions in the package.

"I'm cautiously optimistic that when Congress takes a closer took at these provisions … they will not be passed, or not in the form that they were proposed," she said.

Many groups and experts have asked that lawmakers take time to fully study the implications of the series of proposals, partly out of concern they could get caught up in the strong national desire to act swiftly and strongly in the aftermath of the attacks.

Indeed, legislators showed a desire to tap on the brakes this week, with the House Judiciary Committee postponing action on the bill scheduled for Tuesday.

At Monday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, told Ashcroft that both Democrats and Republicans want to move forward quickly with legislation to help in the battle against terrorism.

But, he added, "There are a number of provisions in your measure that give us constitutional trouble."

Brian Forst, a professor of justice, law and society at American University, said many of the provisions in the package would, indeed, give the government more powerful tools to fight terrorism. But the potential for misusing those tools should give lawmakers pause, he said.

"On the one hand, you can see that it could do a lot to help, and on the other hand you can also see how it can be abused," said Forst. He noted the abuses of the McCarthy era, or the government's surveillance of civil rights leaders during the 1960s as lessons that should not be forgotten.

"It all depends on how it's managed," he said. "We have reason to be concerned because of the problems there have been in the past." MORE

Iran won't help U.S.-led alliance
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei says his country will provide no help to the United States in any attack on Afghanistan after Washington accused his country of practising terrorism.

"Iran will provide no help to America and its allies...in an attack on suffering, neighbouring, Muslim Afghanistan," Khamenei told a group of war veterans and their families. Excerpts of his speech were carried on state television on Wednesday.

"We do not believe America is sincere enough to lead an international move against terrorism. America has its hands deep in blood for all the crimes committed by the Zionist regime," he added, referring to Israel.

He was speaking two days after U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Iran should halt its support for what he called terrorism if it wanted to be a part of a U.S.-led coalition hunting down the perpetrators of September 11 attacks on the United States.
MORE

'D-day landings' ruled out
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

( Guardian UK ) British and American defence ministers today attempted to play down speculation on the nature of strikes against Afghanistan, saying any military action against terrorism would not begin with a "D-day landing".

The defence minister, Geoff Hoon, used the words in radio interview broadcast hours after his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, cautioned against expecting a "D-day as such".

"There is a role for military force but it is important to emphasise that this is a very different kind of enemy than one that can be dealt with in terms of, say, a D-day landing," Mr Hoon said.

"This is not an enemy that is going to line up and be attacked in a conventional sense."

Mr Hoon, who is today attending a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels, also reaffirmed that "all the evidence" pointed to Osama bin Laden being responsible for the attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

But he indicated that military action would spread far wider than Afghanistan, where Bin Laden is thought to be hiding.

"He undoubtedly has major training camps in Afghanistan but it's also the case that he has facilities elsewhere," he said.

The US defence secretary said earlier that the campaign against terrorism would not begin "with a significant event" or even end with one.

MPs Call for Unbiased, Legal Action against Terrorism
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

TEHRAN - Ever since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, the United States has been threatening to wage a full-flung war on Afghanistan for harboring Osama Bin Laden, whom Washington accuses of masterminding the attacks. However, even if Bin Laden's complicity in the deadly attacks is proved, any U.S. military aggression on Afghanistan would surely claim the lives of many innocent Afghans.

The TEHRAN TIMES interviewed a number of Majlis deputies about the impending U.S. operations and also practical ways to counter terrorism.

The Tehran representative Golam-Ali Haddad-Adel told the daily, "Any fight against terrorism would succeed only if a united stand is adopted by the international community, and following a double standard in this regard would be counterproductive. The countries that intend to root out terrorism must be willing to fight all sorts of terrorism, including the state-sponsored terrorism besetting the Palestinian nation and also the acts of terrorism committed against the Iranian nation. Therefore, as long as there is a selective approach toward this issue, the fight against terrorism will not yield any results." MORE

Young Iranians publicly flogged for being drunk and having sex
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Six young Iranians have been flogged in public for being drunk and having sex.

Police in the south-western city of Doroud say they were given between 80 and 100 lashes each.

They were aged between 19 and 28. This is the ninth set since a campaign of public floggings began recently.

Local judicial chief Mohammad-Sadeq Akbari says it will help create a healthy society.

President Mohammad Khatami has criticised the campaign, saying "tough punishments cannot remove social corruption."

Officials with the judiciary say public flogging is part of Islamic doctrine and deter crime, the Islamic Republic News Agency reports.

Afghans torch US embassy
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Thousands of pro-Taleban demonstrators have set fire to buildings within the vacant US embassy compound in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
Firefighters were attempting to bring the blaze under control, while Taleban militia fought with protesters.

The attack on the embassy compound comes as the United States contemplates military action against Afghanistan.

The embassy has been vacant since 1989, although some Afghan staff were retained for maintenance and other limited duties. It is believed they were not in the compound when it was attacked. MORE BBC

Nato 'to hear attack evidence'
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

The US is expected to present some of its evidence against Osama Bin Laden when Nato ministers meet on Wednesday.

The Brussels meeting, also attended by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov, is likely to reaffirm support for American action against Bin Laden, blamed by the US for the devastating attacks.

US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz is due to brief ministers about Washington's military and diplomatic drive to target those behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Nato Secretary-General George Robertson said the alliance would not take any action until it had received "definitive evidence" from the US on the suspects.

The BBC's Justin Webb in Brussels says there will probably be a formal confirmation that Nato believes the attacks were initiated from abroad and do therefore count as assaults on the entire alliance, justifying a collective response. MORE

Demonstrators torch US embassy buildings in Kabul
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Thousands of demonstrators Wednesday set fire to buildings within the compound of the vacant US embassy in Kabul amid chaotic scenes here, witnesses said.

The demonstrators, protesting possible US military action against Afghanistan, broke into the compound and set fire to some abandoned cars to create a huge blaze which spread to outbuildings but not the main embassy building.

Taliban firefighters were attempting to bring the blaze under control and Taliban soldiers were trying to bring the protestors under control.

The embassy has been vacant since before the Taliban seized Kabul in September 1996.

The demonstration was the biggest show of anti-US anger in Kabul since the current crisis started with the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Face to face with Osama
Posted: Wednesday, September 26, 2001

The fax rolled off the machine into the offices of Al-Jazeera Television on Sunday, and a world preparing for war paused for a moment to read it. Signed Osama bin Laden, it looked like a call to arms from the FBI's most wanted man, calling on "our beloved brothers" to "triumph over the infidel forces and the forces of tyranny, and to destroy the new Jewish-Christian crusader campaign on the soil of Pakistan and Afghanistan." Bin Laden, it seemed, was preparing for war.

We may never know if the fax came from his pen. But from my meetings and phone calls in recent years with him, I believe I have glimpsed his state of mind. It is three years ago now that the first call came to my office at The News in Peshawar, summoning me to a camp in southern Afghanistan. The Pakistani border guards would not let us cross, so the Islamist militant group who had organised the meeting smuggled us in. We waited for three days until finally, on May 25 1998, we met Bin Laden - a softly spoken man who drank copious amounts of water, because of a kidney problem, as we later discovered.

He had brought me there to announce the launch of his International Islamic Front for Jihad Against the United States and Israel - but the Taliban had not approved the announcement, and were furious. Mullah Omar angrily insisted that there could only be one ruler of Afghanistan - Bin Laden or himself. MORE

Washington's hawk trains sights on Iraq
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

( The Guardian ) Paul Wolfowitz's admirers and detractors agree on one thing - "hawk" is too timid a description of the outspoken deputy defence secretary trying to persuade President Bush to bomb Iraq.
"Hawk doesn't do him justice," said one awed former colleague from academia. "What about velociraptor?"

In Washington, deputy defence secretaries rarely play starring roles, but Mr Wolfowitz, due to put the US case to Nato defence ministers in Brussels today, was an exception even before the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Since that disastrous morning, he has been a major player, often overshadowing his boss, Donald Rumsfeld, as the leading proponent of a wider war against suspected state sponsors of terrorism, particularly Iraq. MORE

Hawks gang up against Powell
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

THE political consensus over the September 11 attacks has begun to fracture in Washington with mounting criticism of Colin Powell by prominent conservative hawks.

William Kristol, a leading figure on the Right, accused the Secretary of State of undermining President Bush's war aims.

Mr Kristol, chief of staff to the former vice president Dan Quayle, wrote in the Washington Post: "Virtually every major political figure has gone out of his way to support the president. Except for his secretary of state . . . Colin Powell has revised or modified many of his boss's remarks."

The article, the first public attack on Gen Powell by a prominent Republican since the devastating assault on America, also warned Mr Bush that he could face trouble from his own party if he steers too moderate a course. MORE

Majority of hijackers spent time plotting in Britain
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

(AFP) - Eleven of the 19 hijackers involved in the recent devastating air strikes on the United States spent time plotting their attacks in Britain, according to The Times on Wednesday.

The paper, citing intelligence chiefs, said that five of the hijackers left London airports in June to fly to America after possibly partaking in "a vital planning meeting".

According to the broadsheet, the FBI has asked Scotland Yard to discover who sheltered and funded the team during its stay in Britain in the hope of uncovering a cell of Al Qaeda -- the organisation of Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the September 11 strikes on New York and Washington.

The paper said that three hijackers were on each of the two aircraft that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York and three were on the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. It added that two were on the airliner that hit the Pentagon.

The 11 hijackers were joined in America after their stay in Britain by eight others, including three from a cell in Germany, MORE

NATO Beats Macedonia Arms Goal
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

SKOPJE, Macedonia (AP) - NATO has surpassed its target for gathering arms from ethnic Albanian rebels as part of a peace agreement for Macedonia, the alliance's chief said Tuesday.

"The weapons are still being collected today but we can confirm that 3,381 ... have been collected and the final figure should be higher still," said NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson.

The monthlong mission, Operation Essential Harvest, is scheduled to end Wednesday. NATO said Monday that the quota of 3,300 weapons had already been met.

Robertson called the mission as a success. Without it "peace would not be within reach," he said during his one-day visit. MORE

U.S. Renames Buildup 'Operation Enduring Freedom'
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Moving to repair any damage to Muslim sensibilities, the United States on Tuesday changed the code name of its military buildup in response to the Sept. 11 attacks on America to "Operation Enduring Freedom."

The change was made after the initial name -- "Operation Infinite Justice" -- last week ran into objections from some Islamic scholars on grounds that only God, or Allah, could mete out infinite justice in their view.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters of the new name at a Pentagon briefing. He stressed this was just the designation for the current military buildup and not for the overall U.S. assault on international terrorism using economic, political and diplomatic means.

The initial name surfaced last Wednesday, not long after the Bush administration apologized for another term that could alienate Muslims it would like to include in a coalition to fight terrorism in the wake of a Sept. 11 attack on America.

Earlier last week, the White House said it regretted if President Bush's Sept. 16 call for a "crusade" against terrorism had offended anyone. That reference summoned up in the Arab world the Christian struggle from the 11th to 13th centuries to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims.

Indonesians Sign Up for Holy War in Afghanistan...
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A hardline Muslim youth group in Indonesia said on Tuesday more than 200 of its members had signed up to participate in a possible holy war against the United States in Afghanistan.
The Islamic Youth Movement (GPI), which claims to have several thousand members, said it had links with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban but did not give further details or say how it was funded.

"We officially opened the registration on Sunday and up until now we have 225 people signed up to join a holy war in Afghanistan," GPI commander Hardiansyah told Reuters.

Hardiansyah, in his late twenties, said the GPI also backed moves by other radical Muslim groups in Indonesia to round up American citizens for expulsion. MORE

Israel snubs UK Government
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is refusing to meet British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw because of Israeli anger over Mr Straw's comments on the Middle East.
Mr Straw is due in Israel later on Tuesday after landmark diplomatic talks in Iran.

Officially, Mr Sharon does "not have enough time in his schedule" to meet Mr Straw.

But many in the Israeli Government are infuriated by comments made by Mr Straw published in an Iranian newspaper.

"One of the factors that helps breeds terrorism is the anger which many people in this region feel at events over the years in Palestine, " Mr Straw said. MORE BBC

Iran's media denounce British 'meddling'
Posted: Tuesday, September 25, 2001

THE arrival of Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, in Teheran last night was denounced by hard-line clerics and media as yet another instance of traditional British meddling in Iran's affairs.

"Once again, the bad smell of the British," ran a headline in the hardline Jomhuri-e-Eslami newspaper. Another declared: "The British cannot be trusted."

Demonstrators outside the British Embassy yesterday were chanting "Death to America, death to Britain" before police dragged them away.

Their sentiments and those in the media reflected an old Persian proverb which says: "If something happens, it is the work of the English." MORE

US military threats dismissed
Posted: Monday, September 24, 2001

The Taleban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, has dismissed US threats of military action if Afghanistan fails to hand over Osama Bin Laden.

In a statement on Monday, Mullah Omar said that Washington could not resolve the current crisis by killing either himself or Osama Bin Laden.

"If America wants terrorism to end, it should withdraw its forces from the Gulf and end its partisanship in Palestine," the statement said.

Qatar's Al-Jazeera television channel has broadcast what it says are comments by Osama Bin Laden, who has denied involvement in the attacks, urging Pakistanis to repel any American military assault.

"We incite our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to deter with all their capabilities the American crusaders from invading Pakistan and Afghanistan," Al-Jazeera quoted him as saying.

Bin Laden urges Pakistanis to defend Afghans
Posted: Monday, September 24, 2001

DUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite television has quoted Osama bin Laden as urging Pakistanis to fight any assault on Afghanistan by "crusader Americans".

"We incite our Muslim brothers in Pakistan to deter with all their capabilities the American crusaders from invading Pakistan and Afghanistan," the television reported him as saying in a statement.

"I assure you, dear brothers, that we are firm on the road of jihad (holy war) for the sake of God."

The statement faxed to Jazeera was typed in Arabic, signed "Osama bin Laden" in typed letters and signed in handwriting by "Osama Mohammad".

War on the defenceless is heinous and unforgivable
Posted: Monday, September 24, 2001

THE EDITOR: I watched on television with horror the destruction of the World Trade Centre building and the inherent loss of thousands of innocent lives. There can be no justification whatsoever for the slaughter of innocent people and such act every self-respecting person should condemn.

I am appealing to the President of the USA and commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States of America to keep on hold military air strikes on the lives of innocent people and to not act in haste. I have learnt an investigation into last Tuesday's worst terrorists attacks to hit America is underway. I am imploring you to thoroughly investigate this heinous crime so that these perpetrators can be brought to justice.

As the number one super power in keeping world peace, Americans should try to be a fair and just people when dealing with other countries' disputes. Why are they turning a blind eye on the Muslims; for years Muslims the world over were angered and outraged as hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo were slaughtered by Christian Serbs, yet, despite this tremendous loss America did nothing. I have seen on international news Israeli helicopters and gunships rocketing Palestinian buildings and in many instances I have seen Israel military tanks firing high incendiary shells at Palestinian infrastructure. Obviously people who are injured or killed as a result of these attacks by the Israeli armed forces have forcefully occupied the Palestinian peoples territory without consent and are continuing to build houses for the Jews on said lands. Why is it these disputes cannot be settled with peace keeping forces by the Americans and return to the Palestinian people land that is rightfully theirs?

It is very disturbing to observe the assassination of the Palestinian citizenry and infrastructure by the use of militant forces whenever they retaliate, only in protecting land that is rightfully theirs. The injustices perpetrated by the declaration of war on a people with no proper form of military defense can only be described as heinous and unforgivable.

Acts of terrorism should never be condoned nor encouraged and must be condemned by all world leaders. I think they should all join in the fight to put an end to this ungodly action and to ensure something of its caliber does not re-occur. If this joint exercise is implemented, I am positive it could be guaranteed that this planet will be a much safer and happier place for us to dwell in together.

Let me express my sincere condolences to the American people and other countries in the world who suffered loss of lives from this tragedy that occurred in your country and while I reiterate that attacks on non-combatants go against the countries old Islamic traditions on warfare, we ask that Americans and indeed all western Christians open their eyes and hearts when others are suffering.

RASHEED KHAN

Civic groups in Okinawa protest against U.S. military action
Posted: Sunday, September 23, 2001

NAHA — Civic groups in Okinawa Prefecture, home to the bulk of U.S. military forces in Japan, staged a demonstration Saturday in the prefectural capital of Naha to protest against expected U.S. military action in retaliation for the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

About 100 people representing 33 civic groups marched through the city, yelling, "The U.S. should stop retaliatory war."

They also shouted, "We cannot win peace by war," and "The Self-Defense Forces should not send troops overseas."

Several foreigners, including Americans, took part in the march, distributing pamphlets in English saying they believe a retaliatory war against terrorism is a big mistake.

The groups also staged a 30-hour sit-in at a square in front of the Okinawa prefectural government building from noon Friday to protest the expected military strikes against those connected with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon which left more than 6,300 people dead or missing. (kyodo News)

Bin Laden's 'disappearance'
Posted: Sunday, September 23, 2001

The US national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, this afternoon said America would be "undeterred" by reports that the wherabouts of Osama bin Laden are unknown

Taliban authorities had been unable to locate Bin Laden for the past two days, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said today.

Ambassador Abdul Salam Zaeef said the Taliban chief, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had sent emissaries to inform Bin Laden of a decision on Thursday by the country's Muslim clergy that he should leave the country voluntarily at a time of his choosing.

Mr Zaeef said Taliban authorities had been searching for Bin Laden for the past two days "but he has not been traced."

The Afghan Islamic Press, a private news agency based in Islamabad, Pakistan, also reported the Taliban claim. The agency quoted Mullah Omar's spokesman Abdul Hayee as saying "guest Osama" had "gone missing" and that "efforts were being made to locate him". Quoting Mr Hayee, the agency said that once Bin Laden was found, he would be told of the clerical decision. "Then it would be his decision whether he wants to stay in Afghanistan or not," the agency said.

Saddam Hussein Criticizes Bush Over Choosing-Sides Remark
Posted: Saturday, September 22, 2001

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein criticized President Bush on Saturday for telling nations to choose sides in the coming war against terrorism - saying it was a choice that Iraq has never demanded countries make.
When Iraqis were killed, "we did not ask the world to be either with us or with the terror, as America is doing," the Iraqi leader told his Cabinet, in remarks carried on state TV.

"Instead, we thanked those who sympathized with us, without regarding those who failed to do so as our enemies," he said.

Bush told Congress Thursday that nations of the world must decide whether they are with the United States or with the terrorists.

Hussein accused the U.S. leader of "treating terrorism with terrorism."

It was his fourth remark about the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. In his first, an open letter to the West, the leader said Americans should learn through their current pain about the suffering they've inflicted on others, particularly Iraqis and Palestinians.
http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGA91VRVXRC.html

Saudis balk at letting U.S. use key facility
Posted: Saturday, September 22, 2001

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia is resisting a U.S. request to use a new command center on a Saudi military base in any air campaign stemming from the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.

The Post, quoting unidentified U.S. defense officials, said Saudi resistance to use of the Prince Sultan Air Base has forced U.S. military planners to consider moving the operations center to another, unspecified country, which could delay air strikes for weeks.

But a U.S. State Department spokesman said on Saturday the United States was happy with Saudi Arabia's military cooperation.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/010922/64/159ar.html

Cracks in America's Anti-terrorist front
Posted: Saturday, September 22, 2001

The Italian minister does not believe that one person - Osama bin Laden - could have organized the attack on America. He openly declared, that such statements by Americans are incorrect.

Italy and Germany declared, that they are not going to participate in the war planned by USA against Afghanistan. Defense Minister of Italy, Antonio Martino declared, that focus is not on conflict between the states and consequently Italian armies will not be sent anywhere. It informs western agencies, "in this case the term "war" is unacceptable, therefore participation of Italian armies in the action of punishment for USA is categorically excluded," - minister in interview told Italian TV.

Antonio Marino also declared that any military action by the USA should be undertaken after precisely establishing who were the organizers of the attacks, and only then it will be possible to speak about any cooperation on the part of Italy. The Italian minister doubted that one person - Osama bin Laden - could organize all this. He openly declared, that he counts such statements of Americans to be incorrect.

Minister of Defense of Italy also has called USA not to operate independently. USA should create a coalition and receive the consent of United Nations.

Germany is also excluded from unconditional participation in the operation planned by USA. As Defense Minister of Germany, Rudolf Scharping stated in an interview with Welt Am Sonntag, "the decision on the participation of the German army in military actions of NATO will be accepted in this week. It will be possible to speak about forms and size of German assistance only after results of investigations become known.

Meanwhile many western experts declare, that possible attacks over Afghanistan will result in long guerrilla war. The former assistant to the commander-in-chief of Allied armed forces of the NATO in Europe, general Gerd Shmyukle declared, that such a war in Afghanistan could last for years. He noted, that there are ideal conditions for maneuvering with Talibans in the Afghani Mountains; therefore it would be difficult to strike terrorists from the air. Besides declared Shmyukle, it is very difficult to wage war by jumping-off place over six thousand kilometers. The former chief of academy of command structure of Bundeswehr rear admiral Rudolf Lange also expressed doubts in success of anti-guerrilla war, which cannot be won with the application of usual overland forces.

Not the end of the world, just more of the same
Posted: Saturday, September 22, 2001

( Justin Podur ) It was the thought that the US was being led into a trap that was the most frightening. The thought that the terrorists were working a coordinated strategy. That they had more and worse terror attacks up their sleeve. That they were anticipating the US reaction, that they had more in store, that they were calculating popular Islamist revolts would occur in Muslim countries when the US attacked. The US attacks would be followed by massive Islamic revolts and further terror attacks, to be followed by escalated US attacks, until Naomi Klein wrote about the 'end of video game wars', observing that North America finally understood what bombing really meant and that the game was over.

But now it looks like the end of the world isn't at hand, and the video game wars aren't over. Hearing Bush's speech how could one not remember the ultimatum given to Yugoslavia in 1999? How could one fail to recall how the demands made-- for full access to the whole country for the US, to turn over everyone the US asks for, and everything unconditionally-- were made so that they could not be met? How could one fail to see how everything was being set for bombing? Hearing about the Taleban's offer to invite bin Laden to leave voluntarily being taken not as a first step in a diplomatic solution but instead being categorically rejected, how could one not recall the rejection of a diplomatic solution to the Iraqi crisis ten years ago? How could one fail to see how everything was being set for bombing?

And bombing it is going to be. Because as Tamim Ansary wrote in his article, Bush exhibited plenty of 'belly' for the deaths of innocent Afghanis in his speech, but very little 'belly' for American deaths. It will be bombing, of a country of 25 million of which 5.5 million were being fed by external food programs that are now over, of which 4 million are refugees in countries to which escape routes are now sealed, in which 20 people per day are blown up by the detonation of one of 10 million landmines, in which 2 million are disabled by 20 years of war. It will be bombing that is going to be blamed on the Taliban who will hide in their bunkers while Afghanis are slaughtered. The Taleban's misogyny and intolerant version of Islam will be trotted out as a justification for slaughtering their victims.

And if history is any indication, after a long and destructive period of bombing, there will be some quiet diplomatic compromise with the Taleban that removes the items in the ultimatum that the Taleban couldn't agree to in the first place, the same kind of compromise as the final agreement with Yugoslavia. After this will follow sanctions against Afghanistan and perhaps some sort of inspections regime, this time with inspectors who look for 'terrorist camps' instead of 'nuclear chemical and biological weapons' as they do in Iraq. In this sanctions and inspections regime, the population will be held hostage and will, like the Iraqi population, be threatened with starvation at the merest threat of noncompliance by the Taleban with the inspections regime.

Maybe there won't be another terrorist attack in the US for several years. Maybe General Musharraf in Pakistan won't be ousted by inflamed militants. Maybe India's moving against Pakistani positions in Kashmir, reported in today's 'Dawn', won't escalate the situation to more dangerous levels. Muslims are already living under horrendous dictatorships. It's no easy thing to rise up and overthrow a regime, no matter how horrendous, after all.

Michael Albert wrote an essay back during the Gulf War about something he calls 'the Killing Train'. This train would carry all the corpses generated by the quick violence of video-game style bombings, terrorist bombings, and the slow violence of starvation, preventable diseases, environmental poisonings, civil wars, low-intensity wars. It would stretch from coast to coast to coast to coast and on and on, there is so much unnecessary death going on in the world.

For a moment there was a risk-- and maybe there still is-- that it was all going to come to a quick end in a giant war. It seemed possible that Bush and the gang might, even out of narrow self-interest, have to try out options other than video-game wars and mass murder of civilian populations in order to pressure the regimes that oppress those populations. It felt like social movements were in a race, one we didn't have the capacity or the power to win, to prevent a course of events that would threaten human survival. Now it looks like the killing train will just keep chugging along, and movements have to fight not against the end of the world, but against more of the same.

Pakistan won't cut ties with Taliban
Posted: Saturday, September 22, 2001

Pakistan has no plans to follow the United Arab Emirates by cutting off its diplomatic ties with Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement, the Foreign Ministry has said.

Spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said Islamabad, which plays host to the Taliban's sole embassy abroad, played a key role in communicating between Kabul and the rest of the world in a way that the UAE and Saudi Arabia -- the only other country with ties to Kabul -- did not.

The UAE cut its relations with Kabul on Saturday after unsuccessfully trying to persuade the hardline Islamic government to hand over the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, the official news agency WAM reported.

"We have representatives of the Taliban government in Islamabad," Khan told Reuters. "It's a window for these people to the rest of the world.

UK arrests over US terror attacks
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2001

Three men and a woman have been arrested in Britain in connection with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
A man, 27, and a woman, 25, were arrested at a residential address in west London by anti-terrorist branch officers under the Terrorism Act 2000.

A second man, 29, was arrested at a separate address also in west London, a Metropolitan Police spokesman said.

A third man was arrested later in Birmingham, also by anti-terrorist officers.

All four are being questioned at central London police stations, said the spokesman.

Pakistan protests turn violent
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2001

Four people have died and several others have been injured in the Pakistani city of Karachi as pro-Taleban protests there turned violent.
They are the first deaths after days of protests against the Pakistan Government's decision to back the United States in its campaign against Afghanistan.

Thousands of people have taken to the streets across the country in what correspondents describe as the largest such gatherings in recent days.

But correspondents say most of the protesters appear to be supporters of religious parties who have called the nationwide strike.

Three people were shot dead in Karachi during violent demonstrators in areas dominated by Afghans.

Police used tear gas to break up several rallies as the demonstrators hurled stones and attacked shops and business establishments.

A shopkeeper was lynched to death when he tried to defy the strike call and open his shop.

Religious leaders addressed the massive crowds

In Peshawar, which borders Afghanistan, angry protesters gathered before and after Friday prayers to hear religious leaders make speeches in support of the Taleban and Osama Bin Laden.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf pledged to co-operate with Washington in trying to capture Bin Laden, who it says was behind last week's attacks in New York and Washington.

Speakers at the rallies attacked US President George W Bush's use of the word "crusade" to describe his planned war on terrorism.

"If America wants a crusade, then we are ready for a holy war," said one preacher.

In the capital Islamabad, a cleric at the Lal Masjid mosque warned President Musharraf against co-operating with the US.

"Musharraf, listen: The nation will not accept your decision, and any collaboration with the United States is treason," he said.

"The government's hasty decision doesn't enjoy support of the people," said Qazi Hussain Ahmed, chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's main religious party. MORE

Arab- and Muslim-Americans, bracing for the worst
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2001

Arab- and Muslim-Americans, bracing for the worst after the World Trade Center attack, mobilize their communities while appealing to the fair-minded America for tolerance and restraint

"Sand niggers go home!" spewed one. "Bastards of Islam shall die!" declared another. Within just hours of the 11 September plane crashes into the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., the Internet was rife with postings of hate directed against Arabs and Muslims. Bias attacks quickly followed suit.

On 12 September in Bridgeview, Illinois, police stopped 300 marchers chanting "USA! USA!" as they tried to approach a mosque in this Chicago suburb. A 19-year-old marcher told the Associated Press, "I’m proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have." MORE

Pakistan, the Taliban and the US
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2001

( thenation.com ) Pakistan's military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, has pledged full cooperation with the United States against terrorism, but Pakistan will need to carry out a U-turn in its policy of support for the Taliban if it is to regain the West's confidence and end its present diplomatic isolation. The stark policy choices the military faces may also require a complete turnaround from twenty years of clandestine support to jihadi parties and the growth of a jihadi culture, which has sustained its policies in Kashmir and Central Asia.

After having spent the past seven years providing every conceivable form of military, political and financial support to the Taliban, Pakistan is now essentially being asked by Washington to help the US bomb the Taliban leadership, along with their guest Osama bin Laden, and topple the Taliban regime.

In an immediate follow-up to Musharraf's rhetorical pledge to assist the United States in countering international terrorism, President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell asked Pakistan to take concrete measures to prove its sincerity. MORE

Indonesian students burn flag, calling US terrorists
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2001

Scores of Muslim students have protested and burnt an American flag near the consulate in Indonesia's second-largest city, Surabaya, warning the U-S not to carry out revenge strikes on Afghanistan.

Riot police were called in to stop the group of around 40 students from entering the consulate in the East Java capital.

The protest comes amid growing threats by hardline Islamic groups in the world's largest Muslim nation to launch a holy war against the United States.

Earlier today, in Jakarta, about 200 Muslim women - wearing veils and carrying red roses - prayed near the capital's bustling main thoroughfare in a peaceful rally to condemn last week's attacks.

On Wednesday Bush vowed financial assistance to Indonesia and lifted an embargo on sales of nonlethal military items to the Southeast Asian nation.

After a meeting with Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri, which focused heavily on last week's attacks on Washington and New York, Bush vowed at least $130 million in assistance and $400 million from U.S. trade finance agencies.

He said he supports Megawati's planned economic reforms, including privatisation of banks, and announced a $US400 million ($A807.59 million) economic development initiative by the Export/Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the US Trade and Development Agency.

In a statement issued after the meeting, Megawati, whose country has the world's largest Muslim population, condemned last week's attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as "barbaric and indiscriminate acts."

Megawati also pledged to cooperate with the international community in combating terrorism. "She underscored that terrorism also increasingly threatens Indonesia's democracy and national security," the statement said.

"We share this moment of grief with you," she said. Bush, in the midst of rallying world support for an anti-terrorism campaign, met in the Oval Office with Megawati today, the first leader from a Muslim state since last week's deadly twin terrorist attacks.
He had been expected to press Megawati to crack down on Islamic hardliners within Indonesia, but Megawati did not say she promised that.

"Indonesia has always been against violence," Megawati said. "Anything that relates to violence, including acts of terrorism, we will definitely be against it."

She sought to temper her vice president's statement that the terrorist hijackings in which thousands of people perished "will cleanse the sins of the United States", saying her official comment, and her letter to Bush decrying the "very inhumane" attacks, was the official Indonesian government position.

Bush told Megawati her condemnations "meant a lot to us", and rejected the notion that the anti-terrorism campaign he is organising would also be anti-Muslim in tone.

"The war against terrorism is not against Muslims, nor is it a war against Arabs," Bush said. "It's a war against evil people who conduct crimes against innocent people."

The two leaders issued two statements, one specifically addressing terrorism and the other dealing with issues ranging from the situation in East Timor, civil conflicts in Aceh and Irian Jaya and reform of Indonesia's judicial system.

Bush said he would ask Congress to provide $US130 million ($A262.47 million) in assistance for Indonesia in fiscal 2002, mainly to help with the judicial overhaul, and $US10 million ($A20.19 million) for police training.

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newsdaily/s371710.htm

Taliban defy Bush ultimatum
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2001

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers today continued to voice defiance in the face of a grim warning from the US president, George Bush, that the "hour is coming" for America to strike.

The Taliban's ambassador in Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, insisted that his country would not hand over Osama bin Laden - America's "prime suspect" for last week's attacks.

He told a news conference in the capital, Islamabad: "Our position on this is that if America has proof, we are ready for the trial of Osama bin Laden in light of the evidence."

Asked if he was ready to hand Bin Laden over, he snapped: "No."

Earlier, Bush had delivered a speech to the US Congress setting America on a war footing and warning the Afghan regime of the consequences if it failed to comply with its demands.

In a speech punctuated by frequent bursts of applause, he said: "Our grief has turned to anger and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done."

Mr Blair also received a standing ovation after Mr Bush said that America had "no truer friend" than Britain.

The prime minister, who was today on his way back to Europe for an emergency summit of EU leaders in Brussels, had earlier made clear that there was now no alternative to military action.

He also indicated that British forces would almost certainly take part in any strikes initiated by America against the Taliban and Bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network.

Code Name Infinite Justice 'Offends Moslems'
Posted: Friday, September 21, 2001

THE code name for the U.S. response to last week's atrocities - Operation Infinite Justice - is likely to be changed to avoid offending Moslems, it emerged yesterday.

American defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld was told at a Press briefing that several Islamic scholars objected to the name on the grounds that, in their view, only God, or Allah, can mete out infinite justice.

'I understand. I understand,' Mr Rumsfeld replied. 'And obviously, the United States does not want to do or say things that create an impression on the part of the listener that would be a misunderstanding - and clearly that would be.' It is the second time in a week that language has been used by U.S. officials which some Moslems might find offensive.

The White House has said it regretted if President Bush's calling for a 'crusade' against terrorism had offended anyone.

Yesterday Mr Rumsfeld acknowledged that 'someone, somewhere' had dubbed 'some preliminary aspect' of the Pentagon's military preparations Infinite Justice.

The code name had been passed on to reporters by defence officials on Wednesday, along with news of deployments of U.S. warplanes.

Whether the name Infinite Justice will stick, 'given what you've said and what I was aware of, I just don't know the answer. But I doubt it,' Mr Rumsfeld told the reporter who cited Islamic scholars. 'I don't think it can be said often enough that this is not an effort that is aimed at any religion or any people particularly, or even the people of a country.'

President Bush: "Justice will be done"
Posted: Thursday, September 20, 2001

George W Bush in an address to both houses of Congress said, Osama Bin Laden and his followers in the al-Qaeda organisation were believed to be responsible, and demanded that the ruling Taleban in Afghanistan hand them over immediately or "share in their fate".

In his speech, Mr Bush paid tribute to the acts of heroism of rescuers who had fought to save people from the ruins of the World Trade Center and Pentagon, which were hit by airborne suicide attacks on 11 September.

"Tonight we are a country awakened to danger, said Mr Bush, adding that the US had been "called to defend freedom".

Mr Bush carefully outlined who he believed carried out the attacks, and in particular singled out Osama Bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation.

He said the US respected the people of Afghanistan, but attacked the Taleban regime, which he said had "brutalised" the country.

The president urged the Taleban to "deliver to United States all leaders of the al-Qaeda organisation."

"The Taleban must act and must act immediately. They must hand over the terrorists or share their fate," warned Mr Bush.

Mr Bush said the terrorists hated America because they hated democracy and freedom. "They stand against us because we stand in their way."

"They follow in the path of Nazism and totalitarianism ... and they will follow that path all the way to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."

And in a blunt warning, Mr Bush said: "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make ... either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

"From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbour or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime," he added.

Mr Bush urged the American people to be "calm and resolute" while US armed forces embark on a prolonged campaign against those responsible for the attacks on New York and Washington which left more than 6,000 people dead.

Although Mr Bush revealed nothing of the US' precise intentions, he told the military to "be ready", and said that America would "meet violence with patient justice."

"Americans should expect a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on television, and covert operations, secret even in success," he said.

Earlier on Thursday it was revealed that