Afghanistan | Monday
AFGHANISTAN’S Taliban rulers have moved a large arsenal of weapons, including Russian Scud missiles, to positions near the border with Pakistan, a Pakistani army officer said on Monday.
”We are already prepared, we are ready to defend the motherland,” Captain Abid Bahtti told reporters, speaking at an army checkpoint just 2,5km from the border with Afghanistan.
”The Pakistan border is very secure.”
Asked if the situation was warlike, Bahtti said: ”Definitely, but it is not a declared war.”
The Taliban has deployed a force of between 20_000 and 25_000 fighters just across the border from the Khyber Pass into Pakistan, a Pakistani army officer said on Monday.
Reinforcements of Pakistani troops have fanned out along the 1_400-km long western border with Afghanistan, Pakistani army Captain Abid Bahtti said.
”We are also forming our forces, but there has been no firing,” Bahtti said, speaking at a military base in the Khyber Pass, some 200km west of Islamabad.
9.00AM:
A SENIOR Pakistani delegation began talks with the Taliban in their stronghold of Kandahar on Monday in a bid to persuade the Islamic militia to hand over Osama bin Laden, the Afghan Islamic Press reported.
Senior military intelligence chiefs and foreign ministry officials met Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel in the southern city where bin Laden owns a house and spends much of his time, the Pakistan-based private news agency reported.
”The delegation has arrived and the talks with the foreign minister are underway,” a Taliban representative said.
Pakistan has promised its unflinching support to the United States in its new war against terrorism, starting with efforts to ”smoke out” Saudi dissident bin Laden who is the prime suspect in investigations into the September 11 terrorist atrocities in New York and Washington.
Pakistan is one of only three countries which recognize the Taliban theocracy, and its military intelligence agency has been a strong backer of the Islamic militia since it emerged in 1994.
Meanwhile, US investigators said they had added at least 50 new names to the list of people wanted for questioning in a global sweep for the international network of militants believed to have killed more than 5 000 people in a devastating series of attacks.
The addition brought to more than 150 the total number of people wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for questioning in connection with the attacks, according to an FBI official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. ”The FBI would like to talk to them because they may have information that could be helpful to the investigation,” said the official, adding that at the moment, those on the list were not considered suspects.
Law enforcement officials believe some of the participants in the plot that resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and extensive damage to the Pentagon building here could still be inside the United States. Investigators have pursued more than 40 000 leads in what has become the largest criminal probe in US history.
”We do think that right now the most important thing we can do is identify whether there are potential threats and eliminate those threats,” said Justice Department representative Mindy Tucker.
The Washington Post meanwhile said Bush is planning to meet with Pentagon officials on Monday to review military plans.
”This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
”We will rid the world of the evil-doers,” he added.
Vice President Cheney said Bush, at his recommendation, had authorised the Air Force to shoot hijacked airliners out of the sky. In the interim, what started as a probe on the US east coast has now spread around the world, involving thousands of investigators on all continents.
”This is an enormous, worldwide terrorist effort. It’s a network. They operate around the world,” US Attorney General John Ashcroft told Fox television, describing the suspects.
Two people were in custody on Sunday on material witness warrants issued in the wake of Tuesday’s attacks, officials confirmed.
Authorities were also questioning 25 people detained for immigration law violations.
The group included two men detained at the train station in Forth Worth, Texas, last Thursday, local police officials said.
The men, identified as Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath, had $5 000 in cash in addition to box cutters, the same type of weapon allegedly used by hijackers on Tuesday to commandeer the planes that were later flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.
Khan and Azmath, who travelled on Indian passports, boarded a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to San Antonio, Texas, around the time of the attacks, according to the officials.
When their plane was forced to land in St. Louis, Missouri, after federal authorities had closed US airspace, the men took a train to Texas and were seized during a drug search.
A man named Albader Al-Hazmi was detained by federal authorities in San Antonio, Texas, and flown to New York on Friday for questioning, officials disclosed on Sunday. Authorities also carted out several boxes of materials from his home.
At least 13 New Jersey men — some found with box cutters, large sums of cash and, in one case, a one-way plane ticket to Syria — have been detained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for questioning, The Newark Star-Ledger newspaper reported.
The men acted suspiciously, professed not to speak English, were carrying a one-way airline ticket to Syria and more than $11 000 in cash, the report said. At least one may have been using stolen identification.
By late Sunday, the probe has widened in scope, as investigators in Europe, Asia and Latin America searched for possible clues to solving what was likely to become the crime of the century.
A man has been detained at the airport in Toronto on suspected links with the attacks against US targets and turned over to the FBI, a Canadian official said.
Sweden’s secret police have questioned several people with links to Osama bin Laden, the Aftonbladet newspaper reported.
One hundred and eighty corpses have been retrieved from the ruins of World Trade Center — 115 of them identified — and the number of people missing now stands at 5 097, said New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
The hope of finding survivors is fading as the days go by, he acknowledged.
”The recovery effort continues and the hope of finding someone alive is still there, but the reality is that we have not found anybody for four days … But we continue to look for lives.”
”The loss are staggering,” Giuliani said.
– Sapa-AFP
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Shattered World: A Daily Mail & Guardian special on the attack on the US
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The Guardian’s special report on the attacks