Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: maceng2 who wrote (11602)	11/26/2001 7:30:24 AM
From: maceng2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Taliban leader hides with bin Laden The Northern Alliance's Foreign Minister claims Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and Osama bin Laden are in hiding together. Dr Abdullah Abdullah has revealed the belief after stating the US gave its Afghan partners a few hours notice before sending Marines into southern Afghanistan. He says the US Marines were sent to Kandahar when negotiations between Pashtun tribal leaders of the Islamic militia broke down. Tribal leaders had been pressing the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar to hand over Kandahar to them. Dr Abdullah says he believes thousands of Taliban and foreign fighters loyal to bin Laden were in the south ready to fight the marines. "I can say they are thousands without being specific. The forces of the Taliban and the terrorists groups have been contained in and around Kandahar and Helmand (province). They have no where to go." With the collapse of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, the Taliban and bin Laden's al-Qaida network have been driven into a small pocket of southern Afghanistan. Apart from the provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Zabul provinces, the Taliban also control parts of Uruzgan province, say some former Taliban in the capital of Kabul. Attempts to negotiate the surrender of Taliban and their al-Qaida allies have failed, Abdullah said. He told reporters that the priority of the US-led coalition and the Marines in Kandahar is to wipe out the last remnants of the Taliban that ruled Kabul for five years and to "eradicate terrorism" by capturing bin Laden and crushing al-Qaida. ananova.com

To: maceng2 who wrote (11602)	11/27/2001 5:28:23 AM
From: spiral3	Respond to of 281500

Warlords set to reap profits of poppy harvest thanks for that heads up Pearly. I noticed that the european papers reported things a little differently from the US press. Not only that but there seems to be some confusion over some of the bombing targets, perhaps in consideration of civilians. I never found these assertions anywhere in the local papers - Lao$ indeed. snip...> Alliance factions and other warlords deny benefiting from opium production, but it is an open secret that nearly all tolerate it. Most are happy just to cream off the taxes, but others have been more directly involved. Hazrat Ali, one of the new warlords in control in Nangrahar, ran Jalalabad airport in the mid-Nineties at a time when weekly flights to India and the Gulf carried huge amounts of opium to Western markets.During the war against the Russians, the huge and illicit drugs trade nurtured by the mujahideen was ignored and tolerated by the CIA and other Western intelligence agencies in return for their commitment to fight the Soviet Union. Now, with the Taliban ban on poppy- growing lifted, it would appear that Afghanistan is facing a return to those days. The main Nangrahar opium bazaar of Ghani Khel has reopened for business. Afghan opium traders arriving in the Pakistani city of Peshawar claim 100 of the market's 300 stalls now sell opium blocks stockpiled during the ban.The same is true of Kandahar, where the city's main opium bazaar escaped the US bombing. 'All our evidence is consistent. They are replanting in a major way,' said Bernard Frahi of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention located in Islamabad. For Afghan farmers it is a simple choice. A farmer can earn £6,000 for a hectare of opium, compared to just £34 for wheat <...end snip Victorious warlords set to open the opium floodgates Paul Harris in Peshawar Sunday November 25, 2001 observer.co.uk