(Reuters)
Forces loyal to Afghan warlord Ismail Khan said on Thursday they had captured the town of Chaghcharan, straddling a vital road linking Kabul to the western city of Herat. "At 5.30 this morning (0100 GMT), we captured the capital of Ghor province Chaghcharan and also captured a large number of Taliban militiamen," Seyyed Nasir Ahmad Alavi a spokesman for the group, told Reuters by satellite telephone.
Chaghcharan lies about 250 km (155 miles) east of Herat and 350 km (218 miles) west of Kabul. The capture of the town would be a major blow to the Taliban after the Northern Alliance said on Tuesday that a group of Taliban commanders had changed sides and closed the Bagram-Bamiyan road to their former comrades. The Bagram-Bamiyan road was the Taliban's main supply route from Kabul to their forces in northern Afghanistan. The road to Herat is the only other supply route from Kabul to the north. Alavi said Chaghcharan had been seized after a week of fighting in the area. He said clashes were continuing along the main road around the towns of Shahrak and Tulak as Taliban forces withdrew westwards towards Herat.
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JOHN DANISZEWSKI and TYLER MARSHALL, TIMES STAFF WRITERS
Frightened by the heaviest U.S. bombings so far in Kandahar, scores of Afghans arrived at Chaman Thursday to seek refuge in Pakistan, carrying rumors of destroyed houses and dead civilians along with their belongings. Although the stories of casualties were widespread, no one interviewed had firsthand knowledge of anyone who was killed. What seemed certain, however, is that nearly five days of U.S.-led bombings have unnerved the population of the Taliban's spiritual capital and left the city's defenders frustrated. "In Kandahar, there is chaos, and everyone is looking out for himself," said Wakil Khan, 25, as he strode across the frontier.
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10/12/2001 ||
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news.telegraph.uk
Al-Jazeera, the Arabic television station, is the only broadcaster in Kabul. Its correspondent, Tayseer Allouni, filed this report from the city yesterday, as the US-led bombing raids continued. His dispatches are subject to Taliban censorship:
AFGHANS are burning the food parcels being dropped by American planes. They are being destroyed in anger, as people reject aid from those who are also dropping bombs on them. The people are refusing any help from the enemy, be it food or otherwise. They see it as a bribe for the blood of their children, their widows and the others suffering under the bombardment. Packs that fell in Khost province were collected and burnt, and some religious scholars have issued an edict prohibiting the eating of such supplies. I was told that this is because these supplies are seen as a con: America is ridiculing the Afghans by bombing us on the one hand and dropping food on the other.
The situation in Kabul is dire. There is only partial power in the city. One-third of residents are totally without concentrated in and around Kabul airport. One missile hit four clay houses occupied by people.
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10/12/2001 ||
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IRNA
Six days after the first US-led air strikes in Afghanistan, the Taliban remains unmoved by President George Bush's renewed demand to hand over Osama bin Laden immediately. According to the NNI, the Taliban envoy to Pakistan Mulla Abdul-Salam Za'eef laughed away Bush's offer to 'reconsider' military strikes against the regime if it hands over bin Laden, saying the US will make some 'more offers' after losing more in the war. "We reject this offer. The world has seen that the Afghans cannot be dictated," Za'eef said on Friday.
Asked if the Taliban were ready to hold talks with the US or any other country, he said: "Anyone who wants to talk to the Taliban leadership or visit Afghanistan is welcome, but we haven't invited anyone, nor will we invite anyone for dialogue." He claimed that the U.S. plan was to take control of natural resources in Central Asia and that bin Laden was not the Americans real target. "Their motive is not to capture Osama, but to ensure its easy access to Central Asia and China," he said.
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(AP)
A spokesman for al-Qaida network has repeated threats to carry out new terror attacks and said Muslims in the United States and Britain should avoid airplanes and tall buildings. Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, speaking on a videotape aired on Al-Jazeera, also said President Bush, his father, former President Clinton and the prime ministers of Israel and Britain would not "escape punishment'' for the deaths of Muslims.
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(Reuters)
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, speaking after the world body won the Nobel Peace Prize, called for a suspension of the air strikes in order to provide aid to hungry civilians before the onset of winter. "All I can say is there is a desperate situation for hundreds of thousands -- perhaps up to two million -- of the Afghan civilian population who desperately need food," she said. "It is absolutely wrong that 6,000 people were killed in the terrible events of September 11 but equally we must have regard for the population in Afghanistan," she told Irish state radio.
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10/12/2001 ||
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By KATHY GANNON and AMIR SHAH, Associated Press Writers
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)
Heavy explosions rocked the Kabul airport Thursday afternoon in the first daylight raids on the capital and bursts of Taliban anti-aircraft fire rang out during the fifth day of U.S. airstrikes on Afghanistan. Earlier in the day, civilians fled the southern Afghan city of Kandahar as raids there targeted a compound where followers of Osama bin Laden had lived. The strikes on Kandahar sent refugees fleeing for the Pakistani border. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia said at least 115 people had been killed nationwide in overnight strikes late Wednesday and early Thursday, including 100 who died around Jalalabad and another 15 who were killed when a missile struck a mosque in that northeastern city.
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10/12/2001 ||
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Wall Street Journal On Line Peggy Noonan
On Friday, Sept. 14, I went with friends down to the staging area on the West Side Highway where all the trucks filled with guys coming off a 12-hour shift at ground zero would pass by. They were tough, rough men, the grunts of the city--construction workers and electrical workers and cops and emergency medical worker and firemen. I joined a group that was just standing there as the truck convoys went by. And all we did was cheer. We all wanted to do some kind of volunteer work but there was nothing left to do, so we stood and cheered those who were doing. The trucks would go by and we'd cheer and wave and shout "God bless you!" and "We love you!" We waved flags and signs, clapped and threw kisses, and we meant it: We loved these men.
And suddenly I looked around me at all of us who were cheering. And saw who we were. Investment bankers! Orthodontists! Magazine editors! In my group, a lawyer, a columnist and a writer. We had been the kings and queens of the city, respected professional in a city that respects its professional class. And this night we were nobody. We were so useless, all we could do was applaud the somebodies, the workers who, unlike us, had not been applauded much in their lives. And now they were saving our city. Noonan illustrates the difference between real men and the caricature "macho men" created by feminism. Real men don't posture; they do what needs to be done. They work hard, care for their families, and love their country. The difference between real men and the gun-totin' screamers of the Middle East is also accentuated. Our military doesn't posture; in fact, it's pretty self-effacing. That's why we have confidence in them, and expect them to annihilate the bin Laden bully boys and the Taliban thugs.
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"Osama is Great" -- "America will Crash" -- "Afghanistan is Britain's graveyard" -- "Al-Qaeda is Good, Taliban is good, Washington is our target, Americans must die," were the chilling war cries.
Crowds began streaming into the ground shortly after Friday prayers as police, paramilitary and regular army troops were deployed in force to ensure no repeat of the violence that wracked this southwest Pakistan city on Monday and Tuesday. The protest was organised by the Afghan Defence Council and the Jamaat-Ulema-Islami (JUI). The JUI has become a rallying point for radical Muslims who remain a minority in Quetta and its 1.2 million population.
The rally defied predictions and ended peacefully, but with a resolution warning Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to free all detained JUI members by October 14 or face the consequences.
JUI claims about 500 militants have been arrested since Monday's violence when buildings were gutted, banks looted and five people died. The detained include JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman. "These people are innocent. They have every right to protest and they are not miscreants. They just want to save our country," said JUI acting president Maulvi Abdul Ghani. If Musharraf failed to meet the demand then the JUI would not be able to restrain its activists, Ghani warned. "Musharraf is selling the blood of martyrs, just for a few dollars," he said.
This article starring:
MAULANA FAZLUR REHMAN
Jamaat-Ulema-Islami
MAULVI ABDUL GHANI
Jamaat-Ulema-Islami
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SouthLondon.co.uk
An appeals court in Yemen has reduced the prison sentences given to four Islamic militants in last year's bombing of the British Embassy. The court cut the sentence given two defendants, Abu Bakr Gaiyul and Ahmed Masoud, from 15 to 10 years. Two others saw sentences reduced from six years to four years, and from four years to two years. No explanation was given for the reductions. All are alleged to belong to the Aden-Abyan Islamic Army. The group is thought to have been founded by Yemenis and other Arabs who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s and then returned home to wage jihad, or holy war, against their own governments. They are against foreign presence on their territories.
The bombing on October 13 shattered windows at the embassy and neighbouring buildings and damaged an embassy generator, but caused no injuries. The embassy attack came one day after suicide bombers blasted a hole in the hull of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbour, killing 17 US sailors.
This article starring:
ABU BAKR GAIYUL
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army
AHMED MASUD
Aden-Abyan Islamic Army
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
