Ananova
Osama bin Laden has allegedly denied any involvement in the US terror attacks and pointed the finger at Jews. His reasoning is that Florida's Jewish community has not forgiven President Bush for his controversial state victory in the US election, an Urdu language newspaper reports. The interview with the accused terror mastermind appeared in the Karachi daily Ummat, believed to have close connections to Islamic groups in Afghanistan. The newspaper says it submitted questions for bin Laden to Taliban officials and received written replies.
The paper quoted bin Laden as saying: "Neither I nor my organisation Al-Qaida is involved in the attacks and the US has traced the attackers within America. "The attackers could be anybody, people who are part of the American system yet rebel against it, or some group that wants to make this century a century of confrontation between Islam and Christianity," he said.
Referring to evidence obtained by American intelligence, bin laden said: "Ask this question to these intelligence agencies that get billions of dollars every year." Ummat quotes bin Laden as saying: "We are against the American system but not the American people. Islam does not allow killing of innocent people, men, women and children even in the event of war."
He says international freezing of assets and accounts will not affect the working of Al-Qaida "as we have alternate arrangements". According to the newspaper, bin Laden says Al-Qaida has three alternate financial systems, which are being run separately and independently by those "who love jihad," he said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:25 pm ||
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BBC
Emergency supplies have started arriving in Pakistan for an anticipated mass influx of Afghan refugees. The World Food Programme (WFP) has sent planes carrying 100,000 tonnes of high-energy biscuits to the city of Peshawar. The United Nations has been trying to put sufficient emergency supplies in place since it became clear that a huge number of people could flee Afghanistan. The WFP and other UN agencies fear that up to 1.5 million Afghans could flee into Pakistan if the United States carries out military strikes in Afghanistan. Warehouses in and around Peshawar have been stocked with tens of thousands of blankets, plastic sheets, tents and other items. Large amounts of food have been stockpiled and more is on the way. UN officials said the United States had promised to provide enough wheat to feed a million people for a year.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:32 pm ||
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CNN
A Pakistani delegation was headed home from Afghanistan on Friday after leaders of the ruling Taliban refused new appeals to hand over suspected terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. The Taliban also refused to free eight international aid workers accused of trying to spread Christianity in Afghanistan, where the Taliban have imposed a severe Islamic regime since they seized power five years ago. It is the second time in two weeks that Pakistan has pressed the Taliban to hand over bin Laden without success. Friday's mission hoped to convince the Taliban that the international community would be against them unless they turn over bin Laden, whom the United States suspects in the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. Pakistan's government wants to be seen as taking every step possible to try to bring about a diplomatic solution to the crisis. But U. S. officials have made it clear that they don't want to enter into negotiations with the Taliban or bin Laden -- they simply want him and his associates turned over.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:42 pm ||
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AFP
The leader of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, Mullah Mohammad Omar, said countries which help the United States in any military action against his country may "be considered enemies," in an interview with an Iranian newspaper. "It is possible that those who help (the United States) from the inside or outside be considered enemies," Omar told the Entekhab daily in an interview to be published on Saturday. The newspaper had asked Omar how the Taliban "will really react" to countries which help the United States in any attack against Afghanistan in connection with the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 06:17 pm ||
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This is London
There are now signs that the concerted pressure on the Taliban may be having an impact. The movement's religious leaders say they have delivered an edict requesting chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden to leave Afghanistan promptly. It had to be delivered by hand to Bin Laden, and a Taliban spokesman last night said the messenger had some difficulty in finding the hideout of the Saudi guerrilla leader. "It's not like we can pick up the phone and talk to Osama, or fax a message to him. He has no such facilities," said the Taliban's information minister Qudrutullah Jamal. He said the message had now got through, but so far there was no reply. "I have no reason to believe Osama has left Afghanistan. He is still here," said Jamal.
Bin Laden has tried to leave Afghanistan several times in recent months, according to refugees, but he found difficulty in finding a country to take him. He could try to get to Sudan or Somalia - both countries are high on America's list of sponsors who have provided bases for Bin Laden's Al Qaeda group. Last night there was doubt in official circles in London and Washington that the Taliban's move to expel him would be enough to save them from attack.
This article starring:
QUDRUTULLAH JAMAL
Taliban
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 06:20 pm ||
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By KPIX - The PIXPage Staff
A controversial Sacramento teacher will find out October 9th if he still has a job. Kory Clift, a 6th Grade teacher at North Avenue Elementary School, burned part of an American flag last week in his Social Studies class. Parents who met with school officials Thursday night have strong feelings on both sides of the issue. "He burned the flag," said Diana Dahley. "Fire him."
This article starring:
Diana Dahley
Kory Clift
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:45 pm ||
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At first glance, shadowy Islamist terrorists look very different from any enemy we have ever faced. And indeed, the tactics they employ are novel, as are the tactics that must be used to defeat them. But the fundamental nature of our present adversaries, once seen plainly, is all too familiar. The evil we confront today is the evil of totalitarianism: Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, and their coconspirators are the modern-day successors of Lenin and Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot.
The misbegotten secular religions of totalitarianism won their devoted and ruthless followings by offering an escape from the stresses of modernity specifically, from the agoraphobic panic that liberal open-endedness roused. They aspired to "re-enchant" the world with grand dreams of class or racial destiny dreams that integrated their adherents into communities of true believers, and elevated them from lost souls to agents of great and inexorable forces. With their insidiously appealing lies, the false faiths of communism and fascism launched their mad rebellion against the liberal rigors of questioning and self-doubt and so against tolerance and pluralism and peaceable persuasion. They inflicted upon a century their awful, evil perversion of modernity: the instrumentalities of mass production and mass prosperity twisted into engines of mass destruction and mass murder.
Despite the trappings of religious fervor, Islamist totalitarianism is strikingly similar to its defunct, secular cousins. It is an expression, not of spirituality, but of anomie: in particular, a seething resentment of Western prosperity and strength. Consider the origins of the Muslim Brotherhood. Founded in 1928 to resist the British presence in Egypt, the Brotherhood was the original radical Islamist terror network. As detailed in David Pryce-Jones' powerful The Closed Circle, the official account of its formation records this statement at the group's initial meeting: "We know not the practical way to reach the glory of Islam and serve the welfare of Muslims. We are weary of this life of humiliation and restriction. Lo, we see that the Arabs and the Muslims have no status and dignity."
And just like its Communist and fascist predecessors Islamist totalitarianism seeks redemption through politics. It is animated by the pursuit of temporal power: the destruction of the "decadent" (i.e., liberal) West and creation of a pan-Islamic utopian state featuring unrestrained centralization of authority. Whether the utopian blueprint calls for mullahs, commissars, or Gauleiters to wield absolute power is of secondary importance: It is the utopian idea itself the millennial fantasy of a totalitarian state that unites all the radical movements of the Industrial Counterrevolution.
Today, the sectaries of radical Islamism continue to uphold various collectivist strains of "Islamic economics" trumpeted as righteous alternatives to the secular and individualist corruption of "Eurocentric" globalization.
But this much is clear: The United States is now at war with the totalitarians of radical Islamism. And in prior conflicts with the totalitarian impulse of the Industrial Counterrevolution, the United States has been undefeated. Americans triumphed first over fascism, then over Communism movements with ideologies of potentially global appeal, and with political bases in militarily formidable great powers. Americans will rise again to this latest challenge. Unlike its predecessors, radical Islamism speaks only to the disaffected minority of a particular region, and none of the governments of that region holds any hope of prevailing against the resolute exercise of U.S. power. However long the present war must last, and however costly it must be, the final outcome cannot be doubted: interment of Islamist totalitarianism in what President Bush so stirringly referred to as "history's unmarked grave of discarded lies."
This article starring:
David Pryce-Jones
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:38 pm ||
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Kaus Files
You know the 9/11 angle that implicitly criticizes the U.S. government because earlier this year it "gave the Taliban a forty-three-million-dollar grant for banning poppy cultivation," as a New Yorker lead editorial put it? It turns out to have been too good to check. Dan Kennedy has what seems to be the real story (which is that the money was Afghan relief aid specifically not given to the Taliban). ... The main culprit in fathering the falsehood seems to have been the LAT's Robert Scheer, who apparently misread a NYT story when writing a column back in May. (Scheer didn't respond when asked to comment, Kennedy reports.) Scheer tried to discreetly clean up his mess in a post-9/11 column, but too late to stop the mostly-bogus angle from being prominently recycled, in the New Yorker and elsewhere. ... (9/27)
This article starring:
Dan Kennedy
Robert Scheer
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:59 pm ||
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Donna De La Cruz Associated Press Writer
A man who told police his 6-year-old daughter and ex-wife were missing in the World Trade Center attacks was charged with filing a false report after his relatives said he was lying. Alan Braker, 41, was arrested Thursday at his East Orange, N.J., home and could face additional charges, said Lt. Elias Nikas, a police spokesman. Braker's story was widely reported, but days later his relatives - including his mother, two of his sisters and his estranged wife - told reporters his story was false. His motives were not immediately known, Nikas said.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 06:01 pm ||
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CNN
Indian police Friday continued a crackdown on members of the Students Islamic Movement of India Friday, arresting the group's president, Sahid Badr. The latest developments came after the Indian government banned the organization, a move that sparked riots in Uttar Pradesh that left four people dead. The Indian Interior Ministry said the group was being banned because of its links to al Qaeda and other pan-Islamic movements. The Indian government said the group is also linked to terrorist organizations in Kashmir, and has promoted "communal tensions" in India in the wake of the September 11 attacks. An Indian official also said Friday that SIMI had come to the government's notice recently for "eulogizing Osama bin Laden and his ideology." On Thursday, thousands of protestors took to the streets in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh to protest the ban. Vehicles were burned and the mobs threw stones at policemen. When the protests turned violent, police officials say they had to open fire in retaliation, killing four.
This article starring:
SAHID BADR
Students Islamic Movement of India
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:41 pm ||
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Far-fetched conspiracy theories are common here, but there's a particularly insidious story spreading so widely among some Pakistanis now that it may fundamentally distort their view of what happened on Sept. 11. The theory which lacks a shred of evidence goes like this: The attacks were actually carried out by the Israeli government, in an effort to both defame Islam and strike a secret blow against Christianity. The claim is that some 4,000 Jews who worked in the World Trade Center were told to either skip the day or show up late, thus saving them from the destruction that followed.
Americans recognize the story as a particularly cruel one, of course, since hundreds of Jews perished in the Twin Towers, along with an estimated 100 Israeli citizens. And many responsible Pakistanis dismiss the reports. But that hasn't stopped a wide range of others from spreading the tale with an alarming degree of detail and consistency. "Ask yourself why more than 4,000 Jews working at the Twin Towers didn't go to work on the day of the attack," proclaimed a "fact sheet" issued by an Islamic student group that gathered outside the U.N. offices in a protest on Friday. "Either the Mossad did it and warned the Jews some time before, or the Jews ... warned the other Jews but did not warn the Americans."
Similar rallies around the capital in recent days have sounded the common theme that the U.S. investigation should be directed at Israel rather than Usama bin Laden. "All Pakistani newspapers, all the papers in the area, they all write it here," shouted a protester at one rally, jabbing copies of articles proclaiming Israel's guilt, but offering no evidence. "They could not be wrong. They could not be wrong."
Several Pakistani media experts said the disinformation plan would not have much effect on the government's pro-U.S. policy. But that could change, said one leading newspaper editor, if the size of public protests grew dramatically. That has yet to happen. Most such theories quickly pass through the usual circles of conspiracy enthusiasts and mutate into even more unbelievable tales before dissolving into the background of hyperbole. And that may happen here. But this story has been told so often, by so many people, that it is simply taken as fact no matter how wild it really is. "I know every Jew working in the World Trade Center personally received a phone call to warn them," insisted Rashid, a restaurant worker. He dismissed a reporter's suggestions it would be quite impossible for such a large group of any workers to receive the calls without telling their bosses, co-workers and loved ones, or the police.
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:50 pm ||
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BBC
Syria will only support an international campaign against terrorism if it is clearly defined and spares the lives of civilians, it has told a delegation of European Union leaders. Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said it was crucial that such a mission should be within a United Nations framework and that the meaning of terrorism be clearly defined. He was speaking after a meeting in Damascus between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and a high-level delegation from the EU.
The delegation, consisting of Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and EU External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten, has been touring the Middle East and South Asia trying to drum up support for the US-led coalition against terrorism. Syria's stance makes it unlikely that it will support tough military action against Afghanistan, which the US says is sheltering Osama Bin Laden, its prime suspect for the attacks.
This article starring:
Chris Patten
Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa
Javier Solana
Louis Michel
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:30 pm ||
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CHRIS TOMLINSON The Associated Press
The leaders of Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, militant Islamic groups labeled terrorist organizations by the United States, accused Washington on Friday of launching a war on Muslim nations in retaliation for terror attacks at home. At a rally marking the first anniversary of the latest Palestinian uprising against neighboring Israel, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Lebanon's Hezbollah, said his group would "consider any attack on Afghanistan to be a blatant aggression against innocent Muslim people, and it would be condemned and rejected by all the people in the Arab and Muslim world."
This article starring:
SHEIK HASAN NASRALLAH
Hezbollah
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 06:11 pm ||
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Jim Knipfel NY Press
In what is being referred to as an incredible gaffe, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi pissed off Muslim nations and sent European and American leaders scurrying for cover after proclaiming that Western civilization was simply better than that of Islamic nations. We should be conscious of the superiority of our civilization, which...guarantees respect for human rights and religion. This respect certainly does not exist in the Islamic countries, he said, during a visit to Berlin yesterday.
Now, President Bush is in the middle of trying to strengthen ties with as many Muslim nations as he can right now. As a result, hes finding himself going around telling people to be nice to Arab-Americans, that Islam is a good and peaceful religion, and that this conflict is not about religion or culture.
But come now -- how strongly do you think he really believes all that? How strongly do you think the leaders of Britain, France, Germanyany of the Western nationsreally believe that? Theyre just making nice because its judicious of them to do so. Deep in their hearts, you know they agree with him.
This article starring:
Silvio Berlusconi
Posted by: Fred Pruitt ||
09/28/2001 05:26 pm ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
