NY TIMES
Some experts place the Pashtun at 40 percent of the population in Afghanistan, but the Pashtun claim to be 60 percent or more of the 25 million people. In a country that has never had a census, it is hard to tell who is right. To the Pashtun, the Northern Alliance â which has fought the Taliban for years â represents Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and other minorities. The Pashtun do not consider those groups as their equals, and they do not recognize Pashtun members of the alliance, or even the fact that they are there. If the Northern Alliance tries to rule, it will be only the beginning of another war for the Pashtun, said elders and historians here.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/21/2001 ||
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NY TIMES
The airborne commando raid into southern Afghanistan overnight Friday attacked a military airfield and a headquarters compound of Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's leader, in a daring strike to uncover information about the location and activities of Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders. Meeting only light resistance, the predawn assault was conducted in at least two locations about 60 miles apart by more than 100 Army Ranger paratroopers and other helicopter-borne Special Forces troops.
Privately, military officials strongly suggested that covert action aimed at the Taliban and Al Qaeda leadership was still under way. Other missions could be launched, spurred by intelligence gathered from the overnight raid or in anticipation of movement or other responses by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, these officials said. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Special Operation forces "accomplished our objectives," although neither Mullah Omar nor other Taliban or Al Qaeda leaders were present during the attack on a Taliban compound near the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual center.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/21/2001 ||
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The Pakistani government said today that the Taliban's top army commander is in the country and has been holding talks on the possibility of forming a post-Taliban government for Afghanistan, but the commander, at least publicly, dismissed the notion entirely.
A foreign ministry spokesman said that Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, commander of all Taliban forces on a crucial 1,000-mile stretch of Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, had been in Pakistan's capital as part of a search for a "broad-based government" to succeed the Taliban. The spokesman did not say how far the negotiations have proceeded, or the degree of support given to the initiative by Maulvi Haqqani, a veteran commander from the 1980's guerrilla war against Soviet forces and a hero in Afghanistan. The hard- line clerics of the Taliban named him to the top army post early in October. He previously was dismissive of opposition attempts to topple the Taliban government by luring high-level defectors.
Yet, Maulvi Haqqani appeared to dash hopes that he could be the catalyst for the fall of the Taliban government with a newspaper interview published in Pakistan in which he spoke contemptuously of the very notion of a coalition government to take over from the Taliban. "No one from the Taliban will be part of such an unacceptable government, which will be filled with American, Russian and Indian stooges," he said in an interview with The News, which said the interview had been conducted from "an undisclosed location," apparently a house in Islamabad belonging to Pakistan's military intelligence agency. The Taliban commander, who was appointed to his job only this month, spoke of his loyalty to the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, who has been one of the principal targets of American military attacks, saying that other Taliban leaders would never abandon Mullah Omar "as long as he keeps serving Islam."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/21/2001 ||
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NY TIMES
Investigators said yesterday that a letter discovered Friday night at the New York Post had tested positive for anthrax. Federal authorities and the New York City police said the letter, which was unopened, was postmarked Trenton, N.J., and was addressed in handwriting similar to earlier letters containing anthrax that were found at NBC in New York and the office of Senator Tom Daschle in Washington. Both of those letters had also been sent from Trenton.
Evidence of anthrax was also found yesterday in Washington, in the mailroom of the House of Representatives, the third site on Capitol Hill where spores have been discovered.
The letters to both The Post and NBC were postmarked Sept. 18, and the letter to Senator Daschle was postmarked Oct. 8. The letter to The Post was described by the police and federal authorities as containing a small amount of a powdery substance and it was addressed to "the Editor of The New York Post."
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/21/2001 ||
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NY TIMES
The Bush administration is discussing proposals that would lead to the most fundamental reorganization of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its history, shifting its focus to counterterrorism and away from crime fighting, senior officials said. Under the new thinking, they said, the agency would give up responsibility for some of the duties on which it built its legendary "G-man" reputation, like bank robbery, drug trafficking and some violent crime investigations. "As counterterrorism becomes the No. 1 priority of the F.B.I., it has become obvious that other types of investigations will have to be de-emphasized at the bureau or turned over to other agencies," said a senior administration official, one of several interviewed in recent days who have been involved in the discussions.
Some officials say the restructuring has already begun, even before any formal plans have been proposed, propelled by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, when thousands of bureau agents across the country were ordered to put aside other investigations to focus exclusively on counterterrorism.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/21/2001 ||
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NY TIMES
More than a month after the September terror attacks, the United States and its close allies are still intercepting communications among Osama bin Laden's associates and are convinced more attacks are coming, intelligence officials in several countries say. While American officials have been warning of another attack, the foreign intelligence officials stress that they base their analysis and conclusions on what their own agencies have gathered and not on intelligence they are getting from the United States. In interviews over the past week, intelligence officials in six countries in the Middle East and Europe said they were unsure where to expect the attacks or whether they would be with explosives or with chemical or biological weapons. But they said their intercepts and other tools convinced them that a second and possibly a third wave of attacks were planned.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
10/21/2001 ||
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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.
