JEFF FRANKS AND JACK REDDEN, Washington/Islamabad | Tuesday
US PRESIDENT George W Bush moved on Monday to freeze the assets of Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in the September 11 aerial assaults on America, while Russia offered to aid any US military operations in Afghanistan by funneling arms to anti-government forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to arm opponents of the Taliban leaders, who have given sanctuary to the Saudi-born militant as well as share information on the bases and operations of people Moscow categorises as ”intentional terrorists.”
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Colin Powell hinted in an interview that the last two countries to recognize the Taliban, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, would cut ties with the Afghanistan government, a move that would tighten a diplomatic noose around those harboring bin Laden.
In the interview, Powell referred to the ”Taliban regime posing as a government” and noted: ”…there are only two nations left that recognise it (Taliban) — and who knows they might be dropping shortly.”
Before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that left nearly 7 000 people missing or dead, only three nations had recognized the Taliban government in Kabul — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The UAE broke ties with the Taliban on Saturday.
Meanwhile, bin Laden vowed in a statement to a Qatar television station to wage a holy war and called on Muslims to fight ”the new Jewish Crusader campaign” on the soil of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In a televised speech Putin said Russia would arm anti-Taliban fighters and open its airspace to humanitarian aid flights if the United States launched retaliatory strikes against the Taliban. The move was welcomed by Powell, who said the United States would try to split the Taliban movement.
”We will try to find fissures within the Taliban and we will try to persuade everybody in the country that it is in their interests to do what (the president) calls for.”
Bush has demanded the Taliban hand over bin Laden and his lieutenants to be tried for the Sept. 11 attacks. The United States has deployed warships and fighter planes toward Afghanistan in readiness for a possible military operation against bin Laden’s al Qaeda movement and the Taliban if they refuse to cooperate.
Bush signed an order freezing the US assets of bin Laden and related groups and giving the Treasury Department authority to do the same for US assets of foreign banks that do not cooperate in shutting down militant groups. The president said the latter action was taken because little of bin Laden’s multimillion-dollar fortune is in the United States.
Meanwhile, a union representing US airline pilots said its members want the unprecedented right to carry guns to prevent future suicide hijackings.
The Air Line Pilots Association, the largest US commercial pilots union, said it would seek support from Congress to arm pilots as a last line of defense against hijackers.
”This is a radical change for airline pilots but it’s an indication of the threat,” union representative John Mazor said.
”This is a new type of hijacker. All they want to do is get control of the cockpit and crash the plane.”
The US stock market, which last week suffered its worst one-week loss since the Depression, surged on Monday in one of its best days ever as bargain hunters snapped up suddenly inexpensive shares. But it was far from clear whether the rally would last.
Investors returned to the market with a vengeance after a sell off last week in which the Dow Jones industrial average fell 15%, its worst week since 1933. The index rocketed 367,63 points, or 4,46%, in its fifth-largest one-day point gain ever. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 75,94 points, or 5,33%. ”Even in the worst crisis, there is always a snap-back. The question is how sustainable it is. The burden of proof is on the bulls,” said Larry Wachtel, a market analyst at Prudential Securities.
Meanwhile, the US government ordered crop-dusting planes grounded until Tuesday because the FBI had information they could be used in chemical or biological attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft told a congressional committee.
”The FBI assesses the uses of this type of aircraft to distribute chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction as potential threats to Americans,” he told the US House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.
Ashcroft said more than 350 people have now been arrested or detained for questioning in the government’s fast-growing investigation. The FBI wants to talk to another 400 people who remain at large, he said.
Bin Laden lashed out at Bush and the United States in a statement dated September 23 received by the Qatar television station. ”The new Jewish Crusader campaign is led by the biggest crusader Bush under the banner of the cross,” he said.
Bush angered many Muslims earlier when he used the word crusade to describe his ”war on terrorism.”
Along with his assertion of being ”firm on the road of jihad,” bin Laden said Pakistani protesters who died on the weekend during marches against the government ”are the first martyrs in the battle of Islam of this age.”
The statement’s authenticity could not be independently confirmed, but an editor at the Qatar station, which interviewed bin Laden two years ago, considered it genuine.
The statement did not indicate where bin Laden was. Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership said again it was unable to find the Saudi-born fugitive to tell him to leave the country.
The Taliban, an Islamic purist group, has refused to turn him over without proof, but Powell said much of the evidence against bin Laden is ”classified.”
In Pakistan, a US military team conferred with officials in preparation for a move against neighboring Afghanistan and the US ambassador signed a rescheduling of $396-million in debt. Earlier, the United States lifted trade sanctions after President Pervez Musharraf pledged to back Washington’s efforts.
As a precaution, Pakistan withdrew the staff from its embassy in Kabul, but a representative would not say if Islamabad intended to cut diplomatic ties with the Taliban government.
Musharraf’s support for the United States touched off disturbances in Pakistan over the weekend in which three people died. On Monday, pro-Taliban Islamic parties called for national protests on Thursday and on Friday.
In New York, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani told reporters it was unlikely they would find anyone alive among the 6 453 missing in the ruins of the World Trade Center. ”I believe that it is certainly time to say that the chances of finding anyone would now involve a miracle,” Giuliani said.
Americans have rallied to Bush’s side during the crisis, giving him a 90% approval rate in a poll for CNN and USA Today. That was the highest rating for an American president ever recorded by the Gallup polling group, overshadowing the previous record 89% scored by Bush’s father, President George Bush, at the end of the 1991 Gulf War against Iraq. – Reuters