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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BubbaFred who wrote (41747)	11/18/2001 3:59:07 PM
From: JHP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Well they asked the US to get out,and the BRITS,so Russia.. Alliance in command, but US is unhappy CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA TIMES NEWS NETWORK ASHINGTON: The United States is zeroing in Osama Bin Laden, having narrowed down its search for the world’s most wanted man to less than 100 square kilometres in Southeast Afghanistan. But much to its irritation, it is unable to contain the growing influence and aspiration of the Northern Alliance, which is now in control of three-fourths of the country and is pressing to succeed the Taliban in Kabul. The disconnect between the military advance and diplomatic success is becoming apparent every passing hour, leading the administration to warn the Alliance not to push its luck. Senior administration officials have stressed the need to adhere to the planned broad-based government that includes the dominant Pashtun community that the Taliban claimed to represent. The signs out of Kabul have been mixed so far. On the one hand, the Alliance has established total control over the capital and is putting in place a rudimentary administration and policing force, to the extent that it is now asking British and American forces to butt out. At the same time, it is also signaling that it is ready to enter into talks to enable the formation of a broad-based government in tune with the wishes of the United Nations and much of the international community. The simmering mistrust between the United States and the Northern Alliance dates back to the start of the US bombing campaign when Washington, at the instance of the State Department, held back on giving arms and air cover to Alliance fighters to push into Kabul. When the Taliban rout became inevitable, President Bush, again at the instance of State Department mandarins, advised the Alliance not to enter Kabul. In both instances, the State Department was trying primarily to address the concerns its client state Pakistan, which is implacably opposed to the Northern Alliance, having backed the Taliban against all odds. As the Alliance victory became imminent, Islamabad began raising the bogey of revenge killings and a fratricidal civil war. The US was also reminded that the sections of the Northern Alliance were int large-scale opium smuggling that was subsequently stopped by the Taliban. However, initial reports of Alliance fighters carrying out large-scale reprisals against the Taliban have not been borne out. Instead, the Alliance appears to be instituting fairly orderly governing systems, and has offered amnesty in several places to surrendering Taliban forces. If anything, reports from Afghanistan speak of fratricidal fights between Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda and the Taliban who want to surrender. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the Northern Alliance, having forced its way into Kabul against the public caution – but possible private approval – of the US, has no intention of relinquishing a pre-eminent role in the emerging scheme of things. Alliance leaders have also begun to assert themselves against western forces in areas now under their control. "If you are talking about the presence of thousands of fighting troops from outside Afghanistan, this is a major issue which has to be discussed. The events of the past few days showed that the forces which were capable of doing the job on the ground were the forces of the [Alliance]," the regime’s putative foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah was quoted as saying. Meanwhile, US officials are invoking various escape scenarios that Bin Laden might have used to sneak out of Afghanistan. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld alluded to a possible hidden helicopter that might ferry the world’s most wanted man to some other anti-U.S. regime via a private jet in Pakistan. Initial reports that Bin Laden might have already fled to Pakistan with his several wives and children has been met with scepticism in Washington, which believes he is still holed up somewhere near Kandahar. The United States has now imposed a "total picture" over the region, a mixture of satellites, drones and ground intelligence should enable it to trace any movement on the ground. The feeling in Washington is that Osama has been cornered, his days and hours are numbered, and the military end game is near. But officials insist that the broader war against terrorism will continue alongside the diplomatic detailing of a new regime in Kabul.

To: BubbaFred who wrote (41747)	11/18/2001 5:03:25 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Respond to of 50167

American and British special forces have narrowed their search for Osama bin Laden to a hilly area of just 48 square kilometres in southeastern Afghanistan, defence sources revealed on Saturday, reports The Sunday Times. British SAS and American troops have been dropped by helicopter across the southern approaches to the area, near the Taliban city of Kandahar, to prevent Osama bin Laden from escaping into Pakistan. “The plan has always been to deny Bin Laden space,” said Geoff Hoon, the defence secretary. “The space he has to operate in is now very limited indeed.” The disclosure reflected a growing confidence in intelligence circles that they would find Osama bin Laden soon. On the other hand, there are reports that Osama has 10 or 11 look alikes. A British defence intelligence source said he was believed to be “static” somewhere to the southeast of Kandahar. “For a variety of reasons we can be confident that he has not been able to move far.” Last night the Taliban envoy to Pakistan refuted claims that Bin Laden had left the country with his wives and children. “Osama is inside Afghanistan but I don’t know whether he is in our territory or the area controlled by the Northern Alliance,” said Salam Zaeef. Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, has warned that Bin Laden might have access to a helicopter that could try to leave Afghanistan for a possible rendezvous with a private jet in Pakistan. However, America has imposed what it calls a “total picture” over the region, meaning that a mixture of satellite, spy plane and special forces cover should enable it to trace any movement on the ground. The special forces arrived near Kandahar 10 days ago to block off escape routes and engage the enemy. “It has been about aggression and surprise,” said one source. “We want to send a clear message that there is no safe way out to the rear of the Kandahar position.” SAS troops have been operating observation posts in the hills and running search-and-destroy patrols. While they had killed a small number of enemy troops, the psychological impact of their presence had been “disproportionately significant”, the source said. Refugees fleeing skirmishes around Kandahar spoke of British and American special forces searching for Bin Laden in the mountains. One refugee said he had seen a British man questioning a Taliban deserter. Other Afghans crossing into Pakistan at Chaman said soldiers of western appearance were near the outskirts of Kandahar, a base for Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organisation as well as its Taliban hosts. Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces appeared on Saturday to be preparing for last stands in the two cities still in their hands – Kandahar in the south and Konduz in the north. At Kandahar, tribal leaders opposed to the regime agreed to allow Taliban forces to leave the city but said thousands of supporters of Bin Laden were staying to fight. Thousands more were standing their ground in Konduz in the face of a Northern Alliance offensive expected on Sunday. They threatened to massacre civilians if the Alliance attacked. British Special Boat Squadron troopers were carrying out reconnaissance at Bagram airfield, north of Kabul, to establish what repairs will be needed before it can be used as a forward command base. Military planners want to fly 4,000 troops, including marines and paratroopers, into Bagram and the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. They would establish a 2-kilometre security cordon around both and would protect aid convoys travelling between the two cities against attack. The plans were, however, thrown into confusion on Saturday, when Alliance commanders suggested that no more coalition troops would be welcome in the country. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, telephoned Dr Abdullah Abdullah, his Alliance counterpart, who said on Saturday night: “If you are talking about the presence of thousands of fighting troops from outside Afghanistan, this is a major issue which has to be discussed. The events of the past few days showed that the forces which were capable of doing the job on the ground were the forces of the [Alliance].” According to The Times, a British cabinet minister said: “The Americans are interested only in trying to get Bin Laden and push the Taliban further back. Tony’s view is that now is the moment to get in there, both in terms of humanitarian aid and the diplomatic front.”

To: BubbaFred who wrote (41747)	11/18/2001 5:10:40 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

<extreme optimism> is not misplaced.. US and King Zahir Shah is gaining ground, this is what is happening...behind the scenes...Taliban willing. I agree <I am hoping this will end well for Afghanistan, and I am joining Ike with extreme optimism. Even Allah would not allow Afghans to suffer and remain in misery forever.> Some high-ranking Taliban officials in the besieged southern city of Kandahar have agreed with supporters of Afghanistan’s former king to join a national reconciliation government, a top Pashtun leader said. “Some Taliban, including high-ranking officials are in contact with us. They have agreed to national reconciliation and to the establishment of a national government,” former Afghan deputy foreign minister Hamid Karzai said. But he declined to give the names “for the time being” of the Taliban officials concerned because it “could endanger their safety.” Supporters of the 87-year-old former king Mohammad Zaher Shah, a Pashtun seen as the UN’s best hope for achieving a workable interim coalition, have accused the Alliance of violating an agreement not to enter Kabul unilaterally. ‘We didn’t come to Kabul to extend our government. We came to Kabul to call for peace,’ the deposed President was quoted as saying Sunday. Rabbani pledged to ‘try to form a broad-based government as soon as possible,’ on the grounds that the victory over the Taliban ‘does not belong to one ethnic group but to all Afghan people’. However, Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, is unacceptable to the majority of Pashtuns who remember that his four years at the helm were marked by brutal infighting between many of the groups that now form the Northern Alliance. Our correspondent in Washington reports: In a top level meeting with his security aides, President Bush Sunday decided to intensify pressure on Northern Alliance to refrain from forming its own government and to also continue an aggressive pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders. Secretary of State Colin Powell later said the Alliance has agreed to participate in U.N.-brokered talks about forming a new broad-based government in Afghanistan. Earlier it had insisted to hold on its own, a meeting of the loya jirga, to invite various Afghan groups to join the Alliance-led government. Powell told Fox News Sunday that the meeting which would be held within days would aim at “ bringing together a number of leaders representing different parts of Afghanistan, different ethnicities, different tribes, and see if we can get an interim government in place and then stand up a broader government over time.’’ Powell could not say where the meeting would take place but said it is being organized by the top U.N. envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi. “We’ve got to get this moving,” he said. “The holdup had been the Northern Alliance,” Powell said, “and with this announcement today, we should be able to move forward quickly.” The breakthrough came as a result of meetings in the region between northern alliance leaders and James Dobbins, the Bush administration’s special envoy for Central Asia. Brahimi has outlined plans for a two-year transitional government backed by a multinational security force. Powell hoped the meeting could lead to the beginning of administrative control of Kabul in advance of a ‘more comprehensive, broad-based government. That, in turn, “may well require some military presence on the ground” to ensure the delivery of humanitarian supplies or provide “a level of stability in the towns that are being liberated,” he said on ABC’s “This Week.” Powell also played down the direct role of Afghanistan’s exiled king, 86-year-old Mohammad Zahir Shah, in ruling the country. “It seems to me that his role would continue to be symbolic as opposed to being the executive or the chief executive of the new government,” Powell said. The secretary said he believed suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden still was in Afghanistan, though on the run from U.S. airstrikes. “I have seen no intelligence or information to suggest” he has left, Powell said. “It’s getting harder for him to hide, as more and more territory is removed from Taliban control,” Powell said. “I don’t think there’s any country in the region that would be anxious to give him guest privileges if he showed up.”

To: BubbaFred who wrote (41747)	11/18/2001 5:38:42 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50167

Much as I would like these -astards to be decimated but now the time has come for Red Cross to take prisoners in Kunduz. A more humane approach to avoid a catastrophe would be to involve the International Committee of the Red Cross in securing surrender of armed men and sifting the fighters from the civilians. Prisoners of war too have human rights and it would be naive to believe that they would be safe in Northern Alliance's custody. It is true that remnants of the Taliban force that defended Mazar-i-Sharif for weeks before being decimated by the US carpet-bombing on its frontlines, are among those who sought refuge in Kunduz after their retreat. Retreating Taliban troops from Takhar, Baghlan, Samangan and Jauzjan also fled to Kunduz, where the sympathetic Pashtoon population has always sided with the Taliban in a bid to survive in a northern Afghanistan dominated by non-Pashtoons. In any case, Kunduz defenders cannot be defeated by the Northern Alliance without US aerial support, arms supplies and money. In case of surrender, they should be treated as prisoners of war (POWs) in US custody and handled by the ICRC under the terms of the Geneva Conventions. Otherwise, there would be carnage and the US won't be able to absolve responsibility for the bloodbath. There are also reports of the presence of many non-Afghan fighters in Kunduz. Among them reportedly are Pakistanis, Arabs, Chechens, Bangladeshis and Uzbeks from neighbouring Uzbekistan. Northern Alliance military commanders have provided exaggerated numbers of their strength, claiming that about 10,000 out of the 30,000 fighters defending Kunduz are foreigners. Western reporters who have met Taliban and non-Afghan prisoners in Northern Alliance custody in Takhar and Mazar-i-Sharif have pointed out that the number of foreigners among them was far less than should have been had such claims been true. It would be safe to predict that foreigners in Taliban ranks now stranded and besieged in Kunduz could be several hundred but not thousands as is being claimed. A two-day Northern Alliance deadline for Kunduz's defenders has already expired. There is no doubt that the US is directing and advising the Northern Alliance how to seek their surrender and the fall of Kunduz. But the ruthless killing of prisoners taken by the Northern Alliance soldiers, especially of non-Taliban, in recent days seems to have closed the option for these foreigners to surrender. A general amnesty announced by the Northern Alliance for surrendering Taliban also has few takers in view of past experiences of open violation of such offers. It is also clear that the siege of Kunduz must have contributed to food shortages and high prices. Adding to the woes of Kunduz civilians is the daily US bombardment. Some civilians have been able to walk across dangerous frontlines and landmines to safety but the bulk of the population is unable to do so. From reports in News..