Arab News; AP. 20 October 2001. Al-Qaeda puts $50,000 bounty on US soldier; Taleban vow revenge as US troops go in; Taliban: Americans Too Soft for Combat. Combined reports.
ISLAMABAD -- Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda organization has offered a $50,000 bounty to Afghan fighters for capturing an American solider, Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic newspaper reported quoting informed sources. Sources close to the Taleban said the Al-Qaeda had also offered $3,000 to Afghan fighters who come away with an American military dress or any part of a US weapon and $1,500 to those bringing an American gun. The Awsaf newspaper of Pakistan said Bin Laden had placed these rewards after reports that American special forces had taken position on ground. In another development, Jordanian sources said that four Jordanians, who had gone to Afghanistan to fight on Bin Laden’s side, were reported killed. The wife of one of the victims confirmed the death of her husband. A number of Jordanians had left for Afghanistan last year to join Al-Qaeda. Body parts, household belongings and at least one unexploded bomb litter the countryside around an Afghan village destroyed in a US attack, a Taleban official who said he had witnessed the devastation told AFP yesterday. Sher Sha Hamdard, an official with the Taleban’s Bakhter news agency in the eastern city of Jalalabad, said the stench of corpses and rotting livestock around the village of Kadam was almost unbearable. "I hate to say this, but I’m glad I saw these things because the world has to know what the Americans have done here," he said after his visit to the village. In Kabul angry prayer leaders during Friday sermons urged people to fight to the last breath against the US. "America can destroy our country but not our faith and our principles, we will fight till the last breath," AIP quoted a prayer leader as saying at a sermon in the southern city of Kandahar. In another development, Taleban forces recaptured a western district from the opposition Northern Alliance yesterday and also launched attacks in the central province of Bamiyan, an Afghan news service said. Six powerful explosions rocked Kabul in the early hours of today as US warplanes resumed night bombing of the city, witnesses said. "The planes dropped six bombs one after the other," a resident in northern part of the city said. "The bombs appeared very powerful as the explosions were very loud." US warplanes struck the Afghan capital throughout the day, screaming over the city and dropping bombs on the compound of the Taleban militia’s Eighth Division and near the city’s Intercontinental hotel. Kabul residents emerged from their flimsy homes to count the human cost, and Taleban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said between 600 and 900 people had been killed or reported missing in the strikes. Speculation about divisions in the movement’s ranks surfaced with rumors this week that Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil had defected and left Afghanistan. "There is no rift within the Taleban. Muttawakil is in Kandahar. He can die but he cannot defect," Zaeef said. Zaeef said he met Mullah Omar in Afghanistan and the Taleban were in complete control of the country. Asked whether there was any connection between Bin Laden, his Al-Qaeda network and Afghanistan’s ruling Taleban, he said: "No, we don’t even know what anthrax is." The ambassador said a US rocket missed him by 20 meters while he was visiting the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. "In the vicinity of Chowk Madad, one of the rockets hit about 20 meters away from him. And almost he was a casualty," Zaeef’s interpreter said. "That shows that the strikes that the Americans are doing are inside the civilian areas and civilians are being hit." Meanwhile, a senior Taliban commander was quoted Saturday as saying American soldiers are too soft for the rigors of ground combat in Afghanistan and that the U.S.-led air campaign has inflicted little damage on the country's defenses. In an interview published by the Pakistani newspaper The News, Mullah Jalaluddin Haqqani said about 25 Taliban soldiers have been "martyred" in the U.S.-led air campaign, which began Oct. 7 to force the Afghans to hand over terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden. "We are eagerly awaiting the American troops to land on our soil, where we will deal with them in our own way," Haqqani was quoted as saying. "I tell you the Soviets were a brave enemy and their soldiers could withstand tough conditions. The Americans are creatures of comfort. They will not be able to sustain the harsh conditions that await them." Haqqani, a veteran of the 1979-1989 war against the Soviet Union, is the commander of the Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan. The News said it spoke to him in an undisclosed location in Pakistan. "We have so far held on to our defenses," Haqqani said. "The military strikes have failed miserably to inflict any serious or crippling damage to our defense." [N.B.] The Washington Post meanwhile quoted defense officials as saying: "The number of US personnel on the ground is just a handful now and is unlikely to ever resemble the large conventional forces assembled in the Gulf War a decade ago." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews with continuing coverage of WWIII _______________________________________________ Leninist-International mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/leninist-international
