Headlines on this page
US attack on Afghanistan may provoke Islamists

PESHAWAR: By hastily condemning the acts of terrorism that shook the US on Monday, Pakistan and Afghanistan's ruling Taliban wisely tried to distance themselves from those who sponsored the bombings of the Pentagon in Washington and New York's World Trade Centre.

However, the question is whether the US government, panicky after the embarrassing attacks on its defence headquarters and commercial nerve-centre, would be satisfied with the strong denials coming out of Kabul and Islamabad. Everybody knows that Islamabad is bracketed with Kabul due to Pakistan's close ties with the Taliban. Therefore, Pakistan risks being pressured if and when the US decides to punish the Taliban for harbouring Osama bin Laden.

President Bush and the American media have already concluded that the attacks were acts of terrorism and amounted to the declaration of war on the US. An effort is on to identify the attackers and some American television channels were telecasting interviews with terrorism experts and diplomats who suspected bin Laden's hand in the bombings.

The Taliban, they alleged, were also responsible for the attacks because they gave refuge to bin Laden and refused to expel him from Afghanistan even after repeated demands by the UN Security Council. The message being sent out was that the Taliban cannot escape responsibility for bin Laden's actions.
In fact, the US government officials had conveyed such a message to the Taliban several months ago. The message was loud and clear - that the Taliban would have to bear responsibility for any future terrorist attack against the US by bin Laden and his men.

Fear had gripped Kandahar, spiritual capital of the Taliban and hometown of their supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar, on a number of occasions following media reports of a likelihood of another US attack on Afghanistan. The first US strike against Afghanistan was in retaliation to the August 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and was launched only 12 days after the attacks on the US missions.

The situation is far more serious now because the US as the world's only superpower cannot afford to be seen as weak and vulnerable. It would want to strike back forcefully to punish the attackers and their supporters and deter future bombers. There seems little doubt that the devastating terrorist attacks in New York and Washington were a reaction to the pro-Israel policy of the US government in the Middle East.

The free hand given to Israel to kill and uproot Palestinians and destroy their homes has been fuelling anger and frustration not only against Tel Aviv but also the US. It is certain that the US won't change its policy concerning Israel and Palestine in the wake of the terrorist attacks. Whether under the Democrats or the Republicans, the US is heavily committed in favour of Israel and balancing this policy by granting at least some rights to the hapless Palestinians appears unlikely in the near future.

President Clinton had wasted no time in ordering a cruise missile attack on Afghanistan on August 20, 1998 following the bombing of the US embassies in East Africa. One reason for his haste was to draw attention away from his much-publicised sexual affairs with the young White House intern Monica Lewinsky. President Bush too would be under pressure, though not for reasons which forced Clinton's hand, to attack Afghanistan. Such an attack may not harm bin Laden but it would definitely have apolitical fallout and could fuel protests in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and provoke Islamist forces to adopt a tougher anti-US stance. Pakistan, already a much sanctioned country and no longer in American good books compared to India, would also have to brace itself for further hostility from Washington until it agrees to abandon the Taliban and facilitate US plans to get bin Laden. By Rahimullah Yusufzai
Lessons for the US to learn

We live in one world. There are moments when we know this is so for the best of reasons and moments when we know it for the worst of reasons. This disorder and the anger which goes with it have reached America from whatever source. Equally, The attacks on the World Trade Centre towers and on the Pentagon and other American targets are a terrible proof that disorder in the world cannot be fenced off.

New York's police commissioner called it "a war zone" and many others followed him in that description. The truth in that sad banality is not simply that the casualties are as grave as on many a battlefield, or that the organization of these attacks was, alas, like that of a highly efficient military operation. It is also that in a number of places in the world, including the United States itself, as Oklahoma City showed, there are groups who consider themselves at war with America.

It is true that their number is small. The list of possible culprits is short. The world is not full of people who want to kill Americans. But there is a potentially deadly combination of literally suicidal audacity, recruitment from among alienated youth, modern means of destruction, and the inattention of governments who are either incompetent at controlling terrorist groups or who look the other way for political reasons. We can add to that the cover which diasporas in both North America and Europe can provide for terrorists, largely by allowing them to remain anonymous and untraceable. This is the combination that has almost certainly brought this tragedy upon us.

We have seen it before on a lesser scale. But a terrorist success of this size is something new. It could be emulated in other continents. It could be emulated with chemical or biological weapons - the Tokyo subway attack was a warning of that possibility - or with nuclear weapons. The irony is that America's sense that it is vulnerable to rogue attack, which its allies sometimes decry, has been shown to be correct. But, at the same time the instruments which American governments, and especially this one, have been preparing to remedy that vulnerability are shown to be either inadequate or irrelevant.

Extraordinary long-range aerial military capacity, the ability to strike at will and perhaps even from space at any point on the globe, does not provide sufficient means to destroy terrorist groups. These left Osama bin Laden and his men, the most likely perpetrators of Tuesday's atrocities, untouched after the bombing of the East African embassies. Missile defence, of course, would be irrelevant to such attacks, which remain the most likely way, as so many critics have said, of conveying nuclear weapons on to American soil.

America's best defence against terrorism originating from abroad remains the existence of governments and societies more or less satisfied with American even-handedness on issues which are important to them. Plainly, this is furthest from the case in the Muslim world. That is largely because of American policy on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but also because there are some Arabs and other Muslims who also regard American and western ascendancy as affronts in themselves.

Contrary to stereotypes, however, most Arab and Muslim, and especially Palestinian, radical groups set limits for both practical and moral reasons on the violence they consider permissible. They may not be limits which we, or Israelis, like, but they are limits all the same, and they are well short of planning anything like Tuesday's attacks. Osama bin Laden's limits are another matter, which is why he is the prime suspect here.

The head of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in denying that his organization had anything to do with the attacks, nevertheless went on to say that the discontent and anger which American policy was creating meant that its approach to the Middle East should be reviewed. His point is obvious. Anger is an asset which entrepreneurs of violence like Bin Laden can use. Would a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the establishment of an adequate Palestinian state end all Muslim terrorist violence? Perhaps not, but it would go a long way toward doing so. This not to argue that Washington's Middle Eastern policy should suddenly change because of these attacks. That would indeed be to argue in favour of blackmail.

But that policy is part of a broader problem. As analysts like Paul Rogers of Bradford University have argued, there is a clear danger that the rich world as a whole, and not only the US, will pursue a policy of "keeping the lid on" much of the rest of the world's discontents. Fundamental problems of injustice and inequality get palliatives and an increasingly sophisticated military is supposedly in reserve, but actually not that competent, to deal with the resulting troubles. These are usually outbreaks of violence within or between poorer states, and they can also lead to breakdowns of state authority, or its assumption by groups completely unprepared to exercise power - and to havens for extremists.

That, after all, is the story of Afghanistan. The US and Russia together helped turn Afghanistan into the backward and dangerous state that it has become. The US and Pakistan, with some British and other help, notoriously encouraged, because it was useful to them at the time, the rise of fundamentalist groups and the pan-Muslim recruitment of fighters. Out of this came the Taliban and Osama bin Laden.

Americans understandably want pursuit and punishment. What nation would not in these circumstances? This was above all a stupendous crime. But it does not minimize that crime or take way from the need to identify and punish to say that this pursuit should be international, and that if the crime was planned in Muslim lands, the anticipation of Muslim governments is essential. Nor does it minimize the crime to say that western policy may have played a part in creating the anger which led to it.

Finally, it is proper to say that, while there is a global problem of inattention to injustice which is piling up trouble for the future, we are not yet facing an anarchic array of dangerous states and extreme movements. Terrorism is in fact more confined and has fewer havens than in the past. This outrage should not be a signal for the West to pull up the drawbridge but rather for a renewed international effort to deal with the fundamental problems that will blow up in all our faces if we let solutions drift away.-Dawn/Guardian Service By Martin Woollacott
Powell phones Musharraf, seeks cooperation

US tells Pakistan it must help in terror probe; President pledges 'unstinted cooperation' in fight against terrorism
News Desk

ISLAMABAD: US Secretary of State Colin Powell Wednesday talked to President General Pervez Musharraf and Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar on phone and discussed the effects of terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.

According to sources, Powell asked the two leaders of Pakistan if they were for or against the terrorists and their supporters behind the attacks. The sources said that Powell also phoned leaders of Turkey, Bangladesh, India, UAE and other prominent leaders of the world.

The sources said that the Pakistani leadership made it clear in their talks with Powell that they were against all kind of terrorism anywhere in the world. Pakistani leader also sympathised with Powell over the terrorist attacks.
Agencies add: Earlier, the United States said on Wednesday it expects the fullest cooperation from Pakistan in investigations into the attacks on New York and Washington and wants to know if it would help if Washington decides to act.

Pakistani Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi was called to meet Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage a day after airborne terror strikes against New York and the Pentagon killed thousands of people, officials from both sides said.

"We have not made a determination yet as to who is responsible for yesterday's attack," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters. "But we thought as we gathered information and looked at possible sources of the attack it could be useful to point out to the Pakistani Leadership at every level that we are looking for and expecting their fullest cooperation and their help and support," Powell said.

Washington wants to see how helpful Pakistan might be "if we find a basis to act" on any information gathered by an inquiry into the attacks, Powell said. "We thought it would be useful to point out to the Pakistani leadership at every level that we are looking for and expecting their fullest cooperation .... as we conduct this investigation ... as well as (to see) how helpful they might be if we find a basis to act on that information," he said.

The US ambassador to Pakistan was expected to meet top officials in Pakistan shortly, Powell added. The United States has made made no secret of its displeasure with Pakistan's relationship with Afghanistan's Taliban, accused of harboring bin Laden, as investigators probe any possible role of the Saudi cleric in the attack. Washington would like to see Islamabad force the militia to expel the Saudi-born billionaire militant.

Meanwhile, President Pervez Musharraf early Thursday assured US President George Bush of Pakistan's "unstinted cooperation" in the fight against terrorism. "We regard terrorism as an evil that threatens the world community," Musharraf said in a statement following urgent talks with his key aides following Tuesday's kamikaze bombings in the US.
Musharraf chaired the three-hour meeting at his official residence in the neighbouring city of Rawalpindi. The talks ended well after midnight on Wednesday. Musharraf reiterated that concerted international efforts were needed to fight terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. "All countries must join hands in this common cause," he said. "I wish to assure President Bush and the US government of our unstinted cooperation in the fight against terrorism."

He said Pakistan strongly condemned the acts of terrorism. A government spokesman Anwar Mahmood confirmed the meeting but did not say what was under discussion. US ambassador to Islamabad Wendy Chamberlin is due to call on Musharraf on Thursday.

Meanwhile an official from the foreign ministry said a Pakistani diplomat held talks with Taliban officials in the Afghan capital Kabul and passed an "important" message on behalf of the government of Pakistan. The official, who requested anonymity, did not disclose the purpose of the meeting but reliable sources said the talks were related to the "urgency of the matter."

Umer Farooq adds from Islamabad: Senior officials hold meeting in Islamabad on Wednesday to review the regional situation developing in the wake of terrorist attacks on US cities. Officials said that the meeting was presided over by the Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar in which the latest developments in the region came under discussion.
The attacks on US cities have initiated chain of events including the evacuation of UN aid workers from Afghanistan and the intense media focus on Afghanistan and Osama Bin Laden as prime suspect.
So far the US Administration has not officially blamed any one for the attacks. However, the media leaks point the fingers at Osama Bin Laden and his associates. The US cruise missile attack on Osama Bin Laden hideouts inside Afghanistan in 1998 created grave difficulties for Pakistan. It will definitely like to avoid any such situation again.
In the last 24 hours the Afghan Ambassador to Islamabad has addressed two press conferences to deny the involvement of Osama bin Laden in the attacks which indicates the apprehension of Taliban authorities about impending US retaliation.

The evacuation of all UN and aid agencies workers from Afghanistan, the process that will be completed by Friday, is fuelling the speculation about an impending US attack on alleged terrorists camps inside Afghanistan. In 1998 before launching the cruise missiles attack on Afghanistan the US Administration evacuated most of its diplomatic staff from Pakistan to ensure their safety.

In the second press conference addressed today (Wednesday) the Taliban Ambassador reiterated his government's official position on Osama Bin Laden that they would consider the evidence of Osama's involvement in terrorists acts for extradition.

The Taliban administration appears to be making every effort to distance itself from the attacks on US cities. The Taliban foreign minister condemned the attacks and denied the possibility of involvement of Osama Bin Laden. The US electronic media is continuously accusing the Saudi dissident of involvement in attacks that killed thousands of people in US cities.

Pakistan would like to avoid a situation in which it would find itself caught in crossfire. Pakistan has condemned the attacks in New York and Washington and it has expressed the hope that the perpetrators of these outrageous crimes will be apprehended and punished soon.

So far there has been no official contact. However, President Musharraf in a televised speech condemned the attacks and condoled the death of thousands of American citizens. He has also urged Pakistanis living in the United States of America, to extend all possible help and assistance to all victims. "I urge you to step forward and donate much needed blood for the injured. Step out and provide your service and your resources to all those who need them there," said President Musharraf in his speech.
Russia, India, Iran to discuss Afghanistan

DUSHANBE, Sept 12: Officials from Russia, India, Iran and other states hostile to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban will meet in Tajikistan's capital Dushanbe this week to discuss a conflict now catapulted into world headlines.

Worldwide suspicion for Tuesday's deadly attacks on New York and Washington has focused on exiled Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, an arch-foe of the United States who is sheltered by the Taliban.

A diplomatic source in Dushanbe said the meetings would be attended by a representative of the anti-Taliban northern alliance, as well as Russia, India, Iran and ex-Soviet republics Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It could begin on Thursday, he said.

The meeting was planned before the attacks on the United States, and the source said the main issue would be the fate of the anti-Taliban alliance after a weekend attempt to assassinate its legendary military leader Ahmad Shah Masood.

Northern alliance figures have denied reports that Masood was killed in the attack by suicide bombers posing as reporters.

The northern alliance includes the ousted government recognised by most of the international community although it controls only a tiny portion of Afghan territory.

The alliance, openly backed by Russia, could play a key role if the United States launches an all-out fight against the Taliban. But the alliance has so far relied strongly on the leadership of Masood during years of opposing the Taliban.

Northern alliance officials have promised to show reporters videotape proving Masood survived Sunday's attack, in which a video camera packed with explosives detonated while he gave an interview.

Moscow fought in Afghanistan for a decade during the 1980s and has taken responsibility for defending ex-Soviet Central Asian states from what it says are Taliban efforts to export Islamic radicalism.

India and mainly Shi'ite Muslim Iran share Russia's fear of the extreme form of Sunni Islam espoused by the Taliban.

Pakistan is the only country bordering on Afghanistan that recognises the Taliban as the country's legitimate rulers.

Dushanbe beefs up border:Moscow and Dushanbe stepped up security measures on the Tajik-Afghan border Wednesday after the deadly terrorist attacks in the United States and an assassination attempt on Afghan opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood, officials said.

Security officials in Dushanbe said they feared neighbouring Afghanistan, mostly under the control of the radical Islamic Taliban militia, might use these events to try and destabilize Tajikistan, which it considers a shelter for Afghan opposition forces.

"If the Taliban tries to take advantage of the situation, we will see a sharp increase in illegal border crossings and we are presently getting ready for this," said a Russian border guard spokesman, Pyotr Gordyenko.

Russian soldiers patrol the 1,200-kilometre border under an agreement between Russia and Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic.

Gordyenko said border guards increased identity checks and placed their troops on higher alert.

Afghanistan, mostly under control of the Taliban militia, gives shelter to the Saudi multi-millionaire Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of having masterminded Tuesday's suicide aeroplane attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington.

Bin Laden has denied his involvement in the attacks, which could provoke US retaliatory strikes.

"Several people have recently attempted to enter Tajikistan illegally with Taliban passports and we have uncovered a large weapons cache near the (Tajik-Afghan) border," Gordyenko said.

Tajikistan also put its airforce on alert, said the head of the country's anti-aircraft defence, Akbar Kayumov. He said several Afghan helicopters had recently violated Tajikistan's airspace.

Tajik authorities are particularly preoccupied since they estimate thousands of unregistered weapons are loose in the country, officials said.

Sunday, anti-Taliban opposition leader Masood was victim of an assassination attempt.

American and Russian sources said he had been killed, while Afghan opposition fiercely denies the claims. Tajikistan has suffered from the rise of radical Islamists. From 1992 to 1997, the country was torn by a bloody civil war between the Islamic opposition and the former communist government.

After a peace agreement in June 1997, part of the Islamic armed opposition joined a coalition government. However, violent Islamism has not disappeared and is now represented by the Hizbi Takhrir movement.

In recent years, Tajikistan has also been rocked by a series of terrorist attacks targeting politicians and government officials. The latest of these attacks killed Culture Minister Abdulrakhim Rakhimov.-Reuters/AFP 14.9.01