Federal officials met with Arab-Americans to assure them that laws protect them from racially motivated violence, but found participants more concerned with their civil liberties than slurs or assaults. Tuesday's forum on anti-Arab violence prompted by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks gave way to a question-and-answer session on plans to interview Middle Eastern men as part of the nationwide investigation. Imad Hamad, Midwest regional director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, told the panel that the interviews "brought chilling concerns to the community." Noel Saleh, an attorney for the Arab Community Center for Eco-nomic and Social Services, objected to the idea of singling out
MASS EXECUTIONS Pakistan's main fundamentalist party said it would hold its government responsible for the killing of Pakistani militants in the city of Kunduz
Islamic radicals in Pakistan warned yesterday of a "strong reaction" if Pakistani militants were massacred in the besieged city of Kunduz, the Taliban's last stronghold in northern Afghanistan. "The United Nations and the government of Pakistan must do something for their rescue soon otherwise there will be a bloodbath in Kunduz," a top Muslim cleric, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamazai, said. "If Pakistanis are massacred in Kunduz, there will be a strong reaction here against the military government, which they would not be able to control." Earlier rumblings from Pakistan's religious right and pro-Taliban parties failed to elicit a widespread response from mainstream society here
The Amnesty International report on Afghanistan was unsparing: Violations against civilians "were numerous and included rape, extra-judicial executions and torture, as well as long-term detention of prisoners of conscience." In the present context, it would be easy to conclude that the Taliban militia, known for its heavy-handed rule, was responsible. Instead, the comments were directed at Northern Alliance rule in Afghanistan between 1992 and 1996. From the US perspective these days, the Northern Alliance are the "good guys," the same group which, with a large assist from American military bombardment, has helped to seize power from the Taliban in much of the
TOO MUCH TO BEAR Determined to prevent any chance of a negotiated end to the Taliban's rule in the region, the US has stepped up its air raids on Kandahar by day and night
As Kabul continues to relax a week after the end of the American bombing, the see-saw of war is bringing new and heavier terror to the people of Afghanistan's second city, Kandahar. Apparently determined to destroy the Taliban leadership and prevent any chance of a negotiated end to their rule in the region which is their spiritual headquarters, the US has stepped up its air raids on Kandahar by day and night. The Pentagon confirms the strategy, as do the thousands of refugees pouring out of the city. On the second day of their excursion for foreign journalists, Taliban commanders Tuesday took
STRATEGY How the US takes the war campaign from phase one in Afghanistan to phase two against al-Qaeda remains an unsettled and to many an unsettling question
The seven-week military campaign in Afghanistan has given the world a stark view of a new American doctrine to make war on the sources of terrorism in the world. But with the defeat of the Taliban perhaps only days away and the hunt for Osama bin Laden intensifying, the force of the American destruction of Afghan targets has sent an unambiguous warning far beyond the war theater to a number of regimes that continue to provide bases and training to terrorist groups. The warning is: This could happen to you. Yet how US President George W. Bush takes the war campaign from
OLD HABITS The liberation of Herat from Taliban control has revived ethnic mistrust between two groups in the Northern Alliance that threatens a return to bloodshed
It would not seem to augur good things for this city that while everyone agrees that the Taliban have been vanquished here, not everyone agrees who deserves the credit. Two groups, both part of the Northern Alliance, joined together to fight the Taliban in Herat. But now each is portraying itself as the city's liberator and making its grab for power, backed up by the wea-pons used to defeat the Taliban. And each is accusing the other of being armed by Iran, whose border is about 100km away. One group is the Islamic Population, led by Ismail Khan, the commander who governed
CHANGING TIMES A large crowd descended on Bakhtar cinema Monday for the first showing in a city long deprived of entertainment -- but when the doors opened, it was still a men-only show
Every night for the past five years Mohammad Safar has closed his shop and faithfully manned his post as an unpaid security guard at Kabul's abandoned Bakhtar cinema. Under the rule of the Taliban militia, who regarded movies as a western venality and closed down the Bakhtar cinema on their second day in power, it was a thankless job. Officials from the feared ministry of justice across the road would peer from their office windows to check the doors were always padlocked. Suddenly on Monday morning, however, the frail Safar found himself trying to hold back a crowd of more than 1,000
Around 200 Afghan women threw off their burqa veils in the Afghan capital yesterday in a symbolic protest to demand respect for women's rights after the collapse of the Taliban regime. They included former politicians, academics, activists and teachers who had been confined indoors or forced to wear the hated burqa, which covered them from head to foot, in public for the past five years. "You are the heroic women of Kabul," organizer Soraya Parlika told the group, members of the newly formed Union of Women in Afghanistan. "You have been imprisoned in your own homes, you have been beaten, you have been
US Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to open a day of Afghan reconstruction talks today attended by representatives of some of the world's richest nations and institutions. Powell will open meetings co-chaired with Japan at the State Department which will pave the way for an international conference in Pakistan from Nov. 27 to 29 hosted by the World Bank and intended to help rebuild a country devastated by decades of war, years of famine and weeks of a US-led bombing campaign. The aim is to underpin a political framework being hastily constructed for Afghanistan with billions of dollars. At least 14
The FBI said it believes a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, belatedly found last week, was written by the same person who sent an anthrax-laced letter to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle last month. Investigators also said Monday they are looking into the possibility that the letter to Leahy was misdirected, which could have been the source of anthrax contamination at a State Department mail facility that sickened one worker. Two Senate office buildings struck by the anthrax scare reopened, and US health experts provided assistance to authorities in Chile who found a new letter that may contain anthrax. Tom Skinner, spokesman for
THE HAMBURG CELL The country's officials say they have learned, among other things, the ease with which terrorists can blend in with foreign students in big cities
Shortly after Sept. 11, when the US sent out urgent inquiries for leads on the suspected hijackers, German officials quickly traced three of the ringleaders to an apartment in this affluent northern port. It was an important break. But the names and address -- Marienstrasse 54 -- suddenly seemed familiar, German investigators say, and then they realized why: In 1998 and 1999, they had those same men and that same apartment under surveillance because of suspected links to an operative for Osama bin Laden. When nothing came of the surveillance, it was abandoned. Yet during that period, the
DISLOYALTY UNDER FIRE As the Afghani elements of the Taliban seek to defect to the Northern Alliance, fighters from abroad appear to have decided to kill them first
Foreign soldiers fighting on the side of the Taliban have begun massacring their Afghan Taliban comrades in a desperate effort to hang on to the encircled city of Kunduz, refugees and Northern Alliance soldiers here say. Foreign Taliban soldiers, who have gathered in Kunduz for what appears to be a last stand, have gunned down more than 400 Afghan Taliban soldiers trying to defect to the Northern Alliance, the refugees and the alliance soldiers said. The 400 were killed in two massacres late last week, refugees said, and were prompted in part by the defection of a local Taliban commander to the
VISITING FORCES The group says that at least half of the 30 dead troops found near Kabul on Sunday were shot in the head, indicating that they were likely subject to revenge executions
Here at a former battlefield outside Kabul, at least half of 30 dead fighters that the the International Committee of the Red Cross found on Sunday had been shot in the head, officials close to the investigation of the deaths said. The dead came into Afghanistan from places like Pakistan and Arab nations to fight for the Taliban, the officials said. The Northern Alliance, which took this area from the Taliban last week, particularly loathes those foreign volunteers. The fighting took place as Taliban forces retreated from this village, which is outside Kabul and near the strategic Bagram air base. Four of the
The American spy had come to Afghanistan all kitted out for the first war of the 21st century, a rucksack bulging with hi-tech gadgets and gizmos -- and then he jumped on his horse. Smart bombs and dumb animals have been the two main ingredients of the West's six-week war against the Taliban, which has sent US troops on the ground, to say nothing of the humble footsoldiers of the international press pack, journeying back in time. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded last week that a bizarre interface of satellite technology and equestrian transport has seen US spooks trekking
NATIONWIDE Terrorist centers in at least six US regions have been exposed, as a rough outline of the depth and breadth of al-Qaeda's US operations begins to emerge
The largest criminal investigation in American history has exposed the rough outlines of at least a half-dozen centers of terrorist support on US soil operating underground before the Sept. 11 suicide attacks, officials say. Law enforcement officials say they believe suspected supporters of terrorism have stolen credit cards and used wire transfers to finance their activities, created false visas and identity documents, and moved frequently with like-minded Middle Easterners. Arresting many, catching few Investigators believe they have arrested a small handful of terrorist supporters among the more than 1,000 people, most of Middle Eastern descent, they have detained since Sept. 11 and they
POST-AFGHANISTAN The US vice president has said military action could be taken against other countries it considers are harboring terrorists
US Vice President Dick Cheney said on Friday that after the Afghanistan campaign was over, America could use military action in a second wave of attacks directed against states which harbor terrorists. Cheney said up to 50 states could be targeted for a range of action, from financial and diplomatic to military, on the grounds that they had al-Qaeda networks operating there. Somalia, the east African country which is a haven for al-Qaeda supporters, would be high on any US list of targets, alongside Iraq. Planners in Washington and London are considering the next steps. The ease with which Kabul has fallen has
Investigators found a letter on Friday addressed to Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, which the FBI said appeared to contain anthrax. It would be the second letter bearing the deadly germ known to have been sent to Capitol Hill. The contaminated letter was postmarked Oct. 9 from Trenton, New Jersey, as was the one sent to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, and contains similar handwriting, investigators said. One law-enforcement official said the return address -- a fourth-grade class at a nonexistent school in New Jersey -- also was the same. Four people, including two Washington postal workers, have died
POST-TALIBAN RULE Ismail Khan, the reinstalled warlord leader of Herat, has sent a not-so-subtle message to the West: Thank you for your help but it is no longer needed
It seems as if things are returning to normal in Herat, especially if you are Ismail Khan, a legendary and highly independent warlord here, whose forces chased away the Taliban. That was Monday, when Khan, commanding Northern Alliance troops, liberated this city in far western Afghanistan. On Tuesday, Khan entered the city in triumph. By Friday he had been "elected" governor general by thousands of supporters who gathered at a mosque. Thus installed, Khan held a news conference Friday in the lush garden of a villa here and delivered a not-so-subtle message to the West: Thank you for your help, such as
STRATEGY SHIFT As the Taliban shows signs of plans to vanish into the mountains for a guerrilla campaign, the question is whether the move has come too late
Reports that the Taliban have decided to withdraw from their southern bastion of Kandahar, the last major city held by the fundamentalist militia, signal the conflict in Afghanistan has entered a new phase -- guerrilla war. Battered by a lightning ground offensive by their Afghan foes backed by devastating US aerial firepower, the Taliban seem to have concluded they cannot win a conventional war against their enemies and that it is not worth losing their lives trying. Analysts say the Taliban seem to be planning to vanish into the mountains, hiding in caves and remote valleys and staging a guerrilla
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