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Politics : WAR on Terror. Will it engulf the Entire Middle East? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Machaon who wrote (220)	11/12/2001 8:39:29 PM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 32591

Arab leaders warn Bush to solve Mideast crisis (more Arab arrogance - they are angry that the Taliban is defeated) NABLUS: Arab leaders urged Washington Monday to tackle the Middle East conflict or face a new generation of terrorists, as a passenger jet with more than 250 people aboard plunged into New York in a terrible reminder of the September terror attacks. The ongoing tensions of the region were underscored when Israeli commandos carried out a pre-dawn raid on a Palestinian village near Nablus in the West Bank, killing a militant accused of slaying two Jewish settlers and netting 16 men on Israel's wanted list. In Cairo, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned his US counterpart George W. Bush to meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, or face an even tougher task in defusing the smouldering Middle East crisis that has claimed more than 950 lives. After a meeting with French President Jacques Chirac, Mubarak also warned of a new generation of more "ferocious terrorists" if no lasting Arab-Israeli peace is found. A meeting between Bush and Arafat "must definitely take place," Mubarak said. "After Arafat, it will get more difficult to negotiate." Bush, who has already met several times with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, refused a meeting with Arafat on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session at the weekend, a snub that caused anger in the Arab world. In Riyadh, Saudi King Fahd called on Bush to pressure Israel to halt acts of violence against the Palestinians. "The United States has an important role which is to give impetus to the peace process in the Middle East and to exercise pressure on Israel to halt the violence against the Palestinian people," the king said in a statement. The statements were made as an American Airlines passenger jet with 255 people on board crashed into the Queens area of New York. There was no immediate sign that the crash was a terrorist attack, although the similarity with the hijack suicide strikes just two months ago that triggered the US-led war on terror in Afghanistan, set alarm bells ringing in the United States. Investigators are treating the crash as an accident, at least for now, an aviation official said in Washington. Many Arab leaders said the September attacks were in part motivated by Muslim grievances generated by decades of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and by the 13-month Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in particular. The death toll of the intifada rose Monday when Israeli troops stormed the village of Tell near Nablus in search of wanted militants. Their pre-dawn raid sparked a brief firefight in which Mohammed Rihan, a 25-year-old member of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, was shot dead. The troops arrested 16 men on Israel's wanted list and detained 29 others for questioning, the army said in a statement. Tell was the scene of a fierce gunbattle last week that left an Israeli army officer and three Palestinian militants dead. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said last week he was changing his tactics to combat Palestinian attacks, shifting from the mass tank deployments that followed the killing of a cabinet minister in October to in-and-out commando raids to hunt militants the Palestinians refuse to jail. The operation came just hours after suspected Palestinian gunmen shot dead a security guard in an Israeli village close to the Green Line separating the Jewish state from the West Bank. On Monday, Israeli security forces also announced that they had captured an activist of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad earlier this month who they said was implicated in a string of attacks. In the Gaza Strip, 12-year-old Ahmad Abu Mustapha, who was shot in the head last week in clashes between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli soldiers, died of his wounds. An unidentified young Palestinian was also wounded in the southern gaza Strip when soldiers opened machinegun fire on him, witnesses said. In more violence Monday, an Israeli bus came under fire Monday night in annexed east Jerusalem, said Israeli public radio, which reported no injuries. Earlier in the day, Israel protested at Arafat's charges before the United Nations that the Jewish state was to blame for the violence. "Arafat's remarks Sunday evening to the UN were just another recycling of his innumerable incitements to violence, hatred and terrorism," said Raanan Gissin, a Sharon spokesman, who added that the Palestinian leader should restore peace and return to negotiations. "If Arafat persists in pretending to believe his own repeated lies, he will not achieve a Palestinian state," he said. Bush on Saturday backed an independent Palestinian state in a speech hailed by Arafat and Arab leaders, though several Palestinian officials said it was short on specifics and had to be matched by action. Bush refused to meet Arafat at the UN General Assembly, although his Secretary of State State Colin Powell did hold talks Sunday, as well as meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres. Late Monday, Chirac arrived Monday in the United Arab Emirates on the second leg of his tour for talks on the Middle east and the Afghan strikes with his emirati counterpart. timesofindia.com

To: Machaon who wrote (220)	11/12/2001 9:28:52 PM
From: Scoobah	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 32591

I read this and almost didnt believe it! news.bbc.co.uk Monday, 12 November, 2001, 19:00 GMT Iraq fires mortar into Kuwait Observers say it is unlikely the incident was a mistake By the BBC's Kim Ghattas in Kuwait City Iraq fired a mortar across its border into Kuwait on Sunday morning. The incident was confirmed on Monday by the United Nations observer mission, Unikom, on the border between Iraq and Kuwait. A spokesman said the incident - which has not yet been reported in the Kuwaiti press - was serious and required thorough investigation. There has as yet been no comment from the Kuwaiti government, but an unnamed Kuwaiti official said his country had already filed a complaint with the UN. Accident unlikely The Unikom spokesman said the incident started at 0930 local time on Sunday, when two soldiers fired several rounds of bullets from their AK-47 into Kuwait. The Iraqi prime minister recently renewed the claim that Kuwait was part of Iraq Fifteen minutes later, an 82 millimetre mortar bomb was launched into the Kuwaiti side of the demilitarised zone. No one was injured and the Kuwaiti patrol police did not return fire. Observers say it is unlikely the incident was a mistake since it did not involve anti-aircraft gunfire. The Iraqi army regularly takes aim at US and British airplanes patrolling the no-fly zone. There have been a few such incidents in the demilitarised zone over the past 10 years, but Sunday's incident has brought renewed concern to the small Emirate. Secret hopes Since they were invaded by Iraq in 1990, Kuwaitis have lived in the fear of another Iraqi attack. A few days ago Iraqi Prime Minister Tariq Aziz renewed the claim that Kuwait was part of Iraq. Unlike in the rest of the Arab world, where the US has been harshly criticised for its bombing of Afghanistan, criticism is almost absent in Kuwait. Kuwaitis feel they are in debt to the US for their liberation in 1991 and are secretly hoping that the US will soon shift its attention from Afghanistan to Iraq.