Afghanistan's ruling Taliban gave Osama bin Laden free rein yesterday to wage holy war on the US as Washington said its warplanes had the run of the Afghan skies.
But with reports the US-led strikes had killed civilians, the world's biggest Islamic organization, at the end of an emergency meeting, said innocent Afghans should not be harmed in the retaliation for last month's attacks on American cities.
Other Arab states should not be targeted either, the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), representing the world's 1.2 billion Muslims, said in a communique.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Taliban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said the activities of bin Laden -- the man Washington accuses of masterminding the New York and Washington attacks -- in Afghanistan were no longer restricted.
"With the start of the American attacks, these restrictions are no longer in place," Mutmaen told the BBC. "Jihad is an obligation on all Muslims of the world. We want this, bin Laden wants this and America will face the unpleasant consequences."
The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, told a news conference later that America would not be safe while it attacked Afghanistan.
"As long as America is shedding the blood of Afghans it will not be beneficial to America," Zaeef said. "If America is continuing attacks on Afghanistan it will also not be safe."
A spokesman for bin Laden's al-Qaeda network said in a video broadcast earlier by an Arabic television network that Americans could expect a repeat of the September attacks.
"In the [Muslim] nation there are thousands of youths who are as keen on death as Americans are keen on life," Sulaiman Bu Ghaith said in a message carried on Qatar's al-Jazeera satellite television.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell vowed yesterday that America's anti-terrorism campaign would put a stop to such boasts.
"Chilling words from a terrorist, the kind of words you expect to hear from an evil person with no good intention in mind," Powell said.
With the US military proclaiming supremacy in the skies over Afghanistan after three days of primarily night-time air and missile strikes, US President George W. Bush vowed justice would be done for the attacks on New York and Washington.
"If it takes one day, one month, one year, or one decade, we're patient enough," Bush added.
Against a background of sporadic protests by radicals across the Islamic world, British Prime Minister Tony Blair stepped up a diplomatic push to win Muslim support for efforts to flush out Saudi-born bin Laden, who has been under Taliban protection.
Blair, Bush's staunchest ally in his war on terrorism, arrived in the Gulf to try to win over skeptical Arab opinion -- a trip coinciding with the OIC's emergency meeting in Qatar.
Secretary of State Powell would make a similar trip to Pakistan, India and China, officials said.
The OIC issued an official condemnation yesterday of last month's attacks in the US but expressed concern at the prospect of civilian casualties in Western raids on Afghanistan.
The formal communique issued at the end of the emergency meeting of OIC foreign ministers also rejected the targeting of any Arab country under the pretext of combatting terrorism.
While many have said Iraq might be a target, Britain said yesterday it had no evidence linking Baghdad to last month's attacks on the US.
China too said it was opposed to military strikes spreading from Afghanistan to other countries.
The US, which staged daylight raids on Tuesday and yesterday, says the bombing and missile raids it began on Sunday had shattered Taliban air defenses and military communications.
The latest raids hit the capital Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar in the Taliban heartland, among other targets.
The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said their spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, and bin Laden were alive and well.
He rejected suggestions that their air defenses had been neutralized, saying that US planes were simply out of range.
Taliban officials said that a US cruise missile hit a residential area in Kabul's eastern outskirts overnight. There was no independent confirmation.
In Kabul itself, residents tried to go about their normal business but there was an undercurrent of anger. "We are unhappy about the attacks," said a shoeshine boy. "We have not slept for the past three nights because of fear of the attacks."
Witnesses said two young women and two girls were wounded by shrapnel from a US bomb dropped early yesterday east of Kabul.
The opposition Northern Alliance appeared to be trying to take advantage of the raids. It said it had seized control of the only remaining north-south highway after persuading 40 Taliban commanders and their 1,200 fighters to switch sides.
The raids have triggered protests by Muslim radicals in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, Afghanistan's neighbor Pakistan and parts of the Middle East -- where the issue has split Palestinians.
Around 1,000 students held a rowdy protest outside Indonesia's parliament yesterday, with some trying to knock down the gates leading into the complex in the biggest anti-American demonstration in the capital Jakarta this week.
But Islamic reaction, on the whole, has been muted.
In a sign of how the next phase of the campaign might develop US defense officials said Washington was preparing to use troop-carrying and army attack helicopters in Afghanistan to hunt down guerrillas allied with bin Laden.
Officials said UH-60 "Blackhawk" and other helicopters, including those designed for special operations troops, could be used with possible protection from AH-64 "Apache" attack helicopters. But the officials said such low-flying strikes were not imminent.
Police in Italy and Germany arrested three suspected Islamic militants believed to be linked to bin Laden, Italian judicial officials said. Police were seeking a fourth suspect in France as part of a three-nation coordinated swoop.
Americans took precautions to counter germ warfare after one man died in Florida from anthrax and a second case was diagnosed.
Several hundred people in Florida's coastal city of Boca Raton who may have come in contact with the dead man were tested for contamination. An FBI spokeswoman said it was too early to tell if the anthrax bacteria had been released intentionally.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
RSS