Al-Qaeda appears to be increasing its influence among Islamist militant groups along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, with offers of money, training and other assistance, US experts say.
Osama bin Laden's group, which has been rebuilding in safe havens in Pakistan for over a year, has taken a prominent role in a new effort by the Taliban and other radical organizations to coordinate their operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We are seeing an increase in cooperation between the [Afghan] insurgents as well as the terrorists led by al-Qaeda. They are increasing in their coordination," said US Army Major General David Rodriguez, commander of NATO forces in eastern Afghanistan.
"They're cross-fertilizing their tactics, techniques and procedures and also again getting resourcing mainly from al-Qaeda, who is the central player in the terrorism equation," he said in a videolink from Afghanistan on Tuesday.
Some analysts say the violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan constitutes a single struggle against a cross-border militant threat in the Pashtun region.
"It really always has been. The fact is that we drove the Taliban into Pakistan, along with the other Islamist elements [after the 2001 invasion]," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Al-Qaeda has long played a role in militant activity along the border region by providing training and information operations for groups in both countries. But some analysts believe al-Qaeda may now be trying to compensate for weakened Taliban influence in eastern Afghanistan that resulted from NATO's capturing or killing a number of Taliban leaders last year.
In other news, a US aid worker and her Afghan colleague kidnapped in Kandahar a month ago have been killed, their employer said, citing unconfirmed information received in recent days.
The governor of Kandahar, where the two were snatched on Jan. 26, could not immediately confirm the statement posted on the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation's Web site on Tuesday.
"We are deeply grieved to report the apparent deaths of Muhammad Hadi and Cyd Mizell, workers who were kidnapped by gunmen on January 26 in Kandahar, Afghanistan," the statement said.
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Zarar Ahmad Moqbel survived a rocket and small arms ambush by suspected Taliban insurgents to the east of Kabul yesterday.
SINGAPORE
The accused head of the Singapore wing of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic militant network Jemaah Islamiah (JI) escaped yesterday afternoon from a detention center, the Ministry of Home Affairs said.
A manhunt for Mas Selamat bin Kastari was underway, the ministry said in a statement.
Kastari was arrested by the Indonesian police on Bintan island in January 2006 and sent to Singapore, where he was wanted for involvement in planned attacks on Changi Airport.
Taiwan’s Lee Chia-hao (李佳豪) on Sunday won a silver medal at the All England Open Badminton Championships in Birmingham, England, a career best. Lee, 25, took silver in the final of the men’s singles against world No. 1 Shi Yuqi (石宇奇) of China, who won 21-17, 21-19 in a tough match that lasted 51 minutes. After the match, the Taiwanese player, who ranks No. 22 in the world, said it felt unreal to be challenging an opponent of Shi’s caliber. “I had to be in peak form, and constantly switch my rhythm and tactics in order to score points effectively,” he said. Lee got
EMBRACING TAIWAN: US lawmakers have introduced an act aiming to replace the use of ‘Chinese Taipei’ with ‘Taiwan’ across all Washington’s federal agencies A group of US House of Representatives lawmakers has introduced legislation to replace the term “Chinese Taipei” with “Taiwan” across all federal agencies. US Representative Byron Donalds announced the introduction of the “America supports Taiwan act,” which would mandate federal agencies adopt “Taiwan” in place of “Chinese Taipei,” a news release on his page on the US House of Representatives’ Web site said. US representatives Mike Collins, Barry Moore and Tom Tiffany are cosponsors of the legislation, US political newspaper The Hill reported yesterday. “The legislation is a push to normalize the position of Taiwan as an autonomous country, although the official US
CHANGE OF TONE: G7 foreign ministers dropped past reassurances that there is no change in the position of the G7 members on Taiwan, including ‘one China’ policies G7 foreign ministers on Friday took a tough stance on China, stepping up their language on Taiwan and omitting some conciliatory references from past statements, including to “one China” policies. A statement by ministers meeting in Canada mirrored last month’s Japan-US statement in condemning “coercion” toward Taiwan. Compared with a G7 foreign ministers’ statement in November last year, the statement added members’ concerns over China’s nuclear buildup, although it omitted references to their concerns about Beijing’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong. Also missing were references stressing the desire for “constructive and stable relations with China” and
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said it has lodged a protest with Pretoria after the name of the Taipei Liaison Office in South Africa was changed to the “Taipei Commercial Office” on the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation’s (DIRCO) Web site. In October last year, the South African government asked Taiwan to relocate the Taipei Liaison Office, the nation’s de facto embassy, out of Pretoria. It later agreed to continue negotiating through official channels, but in January asked that the office be relocated by the end of this month. As of the middle of last month, DIRCO’s Web
RSS