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NOTE. This occasional newsletter is a compilation of news, commentary and links
relating to the war on terrorism and the current crisis in Central/South/Southwest
Asia. Please forward to whomever. Send links, links and links to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Read archives at http://www.topica.com/lists/borzou/read.
Subscribe by sending a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sorry for any sloppy typos, misspellings or
grammatical errors. (written from a remote location).
-Borzou Daragahi
***
ENDGAME. It might appear that the deployment of Marines in southern Afghanistan
heralds the start of a new stage in the war in Central Asia. But reports trickling out
over the last week or so (alluded to in the briefing below) show just how intensely
U.S. forces have been covertly engaged on the ground since September.
The presence of U.S. troops so close to the Taliban's center of power brings a
hitherto absent intimacy between the two sides in the conflict. It signals to the
Taliban, bin Laden and the Muslim world just how dirty the U.S. is willing to get its
hands in order to achieve its still somewhat nebulous objectives in Afghanistan.
"Boots on the ground ... signals to America's enemies that the age of cruise-missile
diplomacy is over," Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute told
the Christian Science Monitor. "For years, Osama bin Laden made it clear that he
didn't believe America would take the risk of sending in troops after him - and that
this was his greatest advantage."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1127/p1s1-wosc.html
(More on the diplomatic efforts in Bonn later this week.)
U.S. troops and operatives are on the frontlines of the effort to quell an ongoing
uprising of Taliban soldiers held at a prison fortress in Mazar-e-Sharif. "At least a
dozen Americans were inside the sprawling fortress, although it was not possible to
confirm the exact numbers involved," reports the Nov. 26 New York Times. "During one
of the strikes they called in, five Special Forces members were seriously wounded when
an American weapon landed close to their position."
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/26/international/26CND-FORT.html
"The United States used heavily armed AC-130 gunships and MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters
on Sunday to help Northern Alliance commanders crush a revolt by foreign Taliban
prisoners at a mud-walled fort in northern Afghanistan," Reuters reported.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011125/ts/attack_afghan_pentagon_dc_1.html
Bizarrely, some of the Taliban soldiers stuck in the northern city of Kunduz were
reportedly airlifted out of town by Pakistani planes late last week. "The planes
arrived as alliance leaders prepared to accept a partial surrender of Taliban forces
in the last northern city they hold," reports the New York Times. "But contradictory
signals continued to surround the fate of the town...American officials, who have been
evasive on this subject, say they do not have information on the planes. Pakistani
officials declined comment."
http://partners.nytimes.com/2001/11/24/international/asia/24AFGH.html?Partner=AOL&RefId=l3eEFnnuuuF-
Two if of the Taliban fighters in Kunduz - Mullah Dadaullah and Mullah Fazil -"are
implicated in some of the worst human rights abuses in recent Afghan history,"
according to Human Rights Watch. "The need to set up a justice mechanism to prosecute
war crimes and crimes against humanity is no longer a theoretical issue, it's an
urgent priority," said Sidney Jones, Asia Director of Human Rights Watch.
Despite airlifts and airstrikes, the fighting on the ground at the prison fortress
continues. ``They're fighting until death. For this reason it has continued,'' said
Alam, an alliance commander outside the fort coordinating attacks with a
walkie-talkie. ``They won't hand themselves over alive.''
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011126/ts/attacks_afghanistan_uprising_16.html
Kamikaze warfare may be the last weapon at the disposal of the Taliban and al Qa'ida
as the U.S.-backed forces tighten the noose. Earlier this weekend, a defecting Taliban
soldier told the London Telegraph some of the fighters who gave themselves up in
Kunduz, in Northern Afghanistan, planned to blow themselves up Hamas-style in order to
kill some of the Northern Alliance leadership. "They have put bombs on their stomachs,
with a switch outside, and when they hug Northern Alliance commanders, they will blow
themselves up and the commanders," said Benares.
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/26/war226.xml&;
sSheet=/news/2001/11/26/ixhome.html
***
SOUTHERN FRONT. Look for a similar "fight to the death" mentality in Southern
Afghanistan. The Financial Times reports that Osama bin Laden has told his soldiers to
die rather than face the prospect of arrest and prosecution in the U.S. "While
offering themselves to die for a cause was considered vital, now Osama bin Laden is
formally telling his followers to only opt for death," a Pakistani official told the
FT. "His instructions are that death or victory are the only options."
http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3BDWU5HUC&liv
e=true&tagid=ZZZC19QUA0C&subheading=asia%20pacific
Osama's orders could imperil the hundreds of Marines landing near an airbase built by
bin Laden. "The Marines, numbering in the 'low hundreds,' were to be followed by
several hundred more from Navy ships in the Arabian Sea, a senior defense official
told the Associated Press. "The official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity,
said the Marines landed by helicopter southwest of Kandahar, and that additional
Marines were to arrive by C-130 transport aircraft. The official would not discuss the
Marines' intended mission, except to say they would perform 'a variety of functions'
and may number more than 1,000 within a few days. Kandahar is the last major Taliban
holdout against opposition uprisings throughout the country."
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011125/ts/attacks_military_293.html
Bin Laden will likely get increasingly desperate and dangerous as he's surrounded and
hiding in Afghanistan's White Mountain, "with their snow-capped peaks, steep valleys,
and fortified caves (some with their own coal-fired heating systems)," according to
the Christian Science Monitor. "Bin Laden's in 'bunker syndrome,'" A former US Special
Forces officer involved in manhunts in Vietnam, Panama, and Somalia told the Christian
Science Monitor. "He's in a cave, behaving like Hitler. He's still sending messages
out, he's still half-directing things. But his ability to move and communicate is
very, very limited."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1126/p1s2-wosc.html
There's no equivalent of the Northern Alliance in Southern Afghanistan, where the U.S.
will have to do the heavy lifting in what is called "close quarters" combat. "In
ever-increasing numbers, US special forces are engaging in a dirtier phase of the
campaign, hunting for Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, and trying to build an alliance
that can be trusted to negotiate with northern leaders for the future of the fractured
country," reports the Boston Globe. "Much of the operation in the south - from direct
attacks to intelligence gathering, the disruption of Taliban supply lines, and guiding
airstrikes - is being shouldered by Army special forces 'A Teams,' defense officials
said. More than a dozen were operating in Afghanistan as of last week, they said. Each
12-man team, led by a captain, includes soldiers trained in six skill sets: weaponry,
engineering, medicine, communications, operations, and intelligence. 'We're working
from a position of ignorance in the south,' said Julie !
Sirrs, a former Aghanistan specialist at the Defense Intelligence Agency."
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/329/nation/In_the_south_US_needs_new_strategy+.shtml
Bin Laden's followers have the tools to do some serious damage. They got their
know-how from - among other sources - far-right antigovernment groups in the U.S.,
according to the Monitor, which thumbed through some documents found at an abandoned
al Qa'ida/Taliban outpost. "A 41-page file, called 'Assorted Nasties,' claims to be a
recreation of a CIA manual allegedly commissioned in the 1950s and known as the
'Devil's Diary,' which details how to make bio- and chemical weapons from household
items. 'This book may seem controversial and dangerous, but such information may
someday be the lifeblood of freedom fighters,' one manual reads, addressing American
right-wingers."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1126/p6s1-wosc.html
***
CLONING OSAMA Al Qa'ida claims that even if the U.S. kills bin Laden, they might not
have killed bin Laden. "The London-based Arab newspaper Al Hayat last Saturday quoted
an al-Qaeda spokesman claiming that bin Laden has recruited at least ten lookalikes
over the years, preparing them to play decoy in the same way that Saddam Hussein has
reputedly done over the years," reports Time.com. "'Even if the American attacks
against Afghanistan succeeded in finishing the Taliban movement, they would not
succeed in arresting bin Laden,' one 'Abdul Noor' told Al Hayat on behalf of the
terror network. 'Not merely because that is difficult, but because bin Laden has 10
lookalikes. Two of them are north Africans and they all are in Afghanistan.' The only
physical differences between them, the al-Qaeda man reportedly warned, were birthmarks
on their backs."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,185240,00.html
***
MODUS OPERANDI. The Independent of Ireland reports that the CIA has been on an
aggressive hunt for bin Laden in Southern Afghanistan. "Members of the CIA unit,
called the Special Activities Staff, were the first Americans to enter Afghanistan. A
team was sent in on September 27 to prepare the way for special forces troops to work
initially in the north and later the south of the country. The sources said the CIA
was in the vanguard of the operation that led to the successful allied aerial
bombardments and ground military operations by the Northern Alliance.Hundreds of
special forces troops, including SAS men, are now operating across the mountainous
country, concentrating on finding bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban
leader. CIA, Delta Force and SAS undercover troops between Kabul and Kandahar are said
to be closing in, aided by intelligence supplied by the CIA. The CIA unit has about
150 members, including pilots, operators of missile-carrying Predator unmanned r!
econnaissance aircraft, and ground operators."
http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=30&si=642632&issue_id=6424
An article in the Wall Street Journal last week laid waste to the myth that the CIA
has been hampered in doing its dirty work in recent years by bureaucratic red tape.
The remarkable Nov. 20 piece, republished at MSNBC.com, described the CIA-conducted
abduction, interrogation, torture and execution of a suspected terrorist in Albania
three years ago. "Ahmed Osman Saleh stepped off a minibus here in the Albanian capital
in July 1998 and caught what would be his last glimpse of daylight for three days. As
he paid the driver, Albanian security agents slipped a white cloth bag over Saleh's
head, bound his limbs with plastic shackles and tossed him into the rear of a
hatchback vehicle. Supervising the operation from a nearby car were agents from the
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency...Guards dumped the bearded self-confessed terrorist
on the floor of a windowless bathroom. After two days of interrogation by CIA agents
and sporadic beatings by Albanian guards, Saleh was put aboard a !
CIA-chartered plane and flown to Cairo, according to the Albanian agent and a
confession Egyptian police elicited from Saleh in September 1998. There were more
beatings and torture at the hands of Egyptian authorities. And 18 months after he was
grabbed outside the Garden of Games, a Tirana children's' park, Saleh was hanged in an
Egyptian prison yard....Privately, U.S. officials have described it as one of the most
successful counterterrorism efforts in the annals of the intelligence agency."
http://msnbc.com/news/660358.asp?cp1=1
***
ONWARD TO BAGHDAD. The Bush administration has developed a policy called "coercive
diplomacy," in which the governments like Iraq will be told to say uncle or die,
reports the London Telegraph. "The Iraqi leadership will be told to readmit the
expelled United Nations weapons inspectors or face military attack," says the paper.
"The next military assault would be much wider than the occasional air strikes
launched by US and British jets enforcing the no-fly zones over northern and southern
Iraq."
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/11/26/wbush26.xml
&sSheet=/news/2001/11/26/ixhome.html
***
SISTERHOOD. A little-noticed protest march in Kabul last week marked the first time in
years that women in Afghanistan publicly asserted their rights. "On a bright, crisp
day in a Kabul suburb, women in leather jackets, skirts and flowered headscarves met
to call for the right to work, education for their daughters, and a political voice,"
reports Reuters.
"But military police of the Northern Alliance, who seized control of Kabul from the
Taliban a week ago, said they had been given no warning and postponed the march for a
week. It was a faltering start, but still an important moment for the women who just
seven days ago could not leave the house unaccompanied, let alone show their faces."
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011120/wl/attack_afghan_women_dc_5.html
***
DOMESTIC BLISS. Some may think that the American media has become hopelessly
jingoistic since Sept. 11, licking up the Bush administrations propaganda and marching
orders like a docile puppy. In fact, a lot of Americans think that the U.S. media is
way too critical and meddlesome in covering the war. "Editors say many Americans also
fail to understand that the media's duty is to keep the public informed, even when
that coverage might include unpleasant or unsettling news," says a widely cited
article in the Los Angeles Times last week. "Many readers and viewers just don't
accept that, and news executives across the country are hearing what Douglas Clifton,
editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, calls a 'steady drumbeat of criticism'. Neither
the volume nor the virulence of these charges yet approaches the level of the
anti-media sentiment often expressed during the Vietnam War. But 'treasonous' and
'traitor' are words aimed at the news media with increasing frequency."
http://www.theage.com.au/news/state/2001/11/20/FFXY9T647UC.html
On the law enforcement front, even the FBI acknowledges that it's been spending a lot
of time locking immigrants guilty of nothing more than minor immigration violations
following "tips" from concerned citizens. "Evidence from civil liberties groups and
investigations in the American media, meanwhile, suggest that many of those detained
by the FBI as the result of public tip-offs about their suspicious behaviour have in
fact been victims of official over-reaction and excessively punitive responses to
minor immigration violations or old fines that have remained unpaid. In one case, a
Pakistani petrol station attendant in New Jersey was seen carrying an envelope inside
a see-through plastic pouch to his car. Because of the anthrax scare, he was taken
into custody, where he remains on an immigration violation despite being cleared of
any link to terrorism."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=106384
***
IT'S ALL ABOUT DOPE. An expose at Copvcia.com argues, rather convincingly, that the
Northern Alliance - long accused of being drug-smuggling thugs-- now controls the
Afghan heroin trade. "Only belatedly have major outlets like the Wall Street Journal
(Oct. 2), The Associated Press (Oct. 5), and the Washington Post (Oct. 5) begun to
acknowledge, in stories placed well back in the paper, and with much less emphasis,
that the Northern Alliance - our allies against the Taliban - are now in real control
of the heroin trade. Smuggling routes have shifted from south through Pakistan
northward through Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan."
http://www.copvcia.com/stories/oct_2001/heroin.html
***
MAILBAG
* Richard in Manhattan submitted the following letter to the New York Times. It was
not published. "Laura Bush's radio address Saturday, Nov. 17 attributed the poor
health care in Afghanistan to the al-Qaida and the Taliban. She said, 'One in every
four children won't live past the age of five because health care is not available.
Women have been denied access to doctors when they're sick.' Who does she hold
responsible for the lack of universal health care in the United States, in which 43
million people have no health insurance? And will she and the president's
adviser/director of communications, Karen Hughes, who organized the campaign to
publicize the plight of Afghan women, now go on the offensive to seek passage of the
Equal Rights Amendment?"
***
ENDNOTE. A film screening, Kabul style: "Not even a Harry Potter premi�re in New York
or London could match the enthusiasm of crowds outside the Bakhtar Cinema in downtown
Kabul this week. Rioting broke out Monday when the theater opened. In the first three
days, some 3,000 people have crammed the dusty hallways and big auditorium of the
cinema - lending an odorous air of suffocation as Afghan and Indian films played
scratchily on the big screen."
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/1123/p1s4-wosc.html
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