ISLAMABAD | Monday
AFGHANISTAN’S hardline Taliban regime vowed on Monday to avenge US and British air strikes against its territory which London said caused ”very considerable damage” and the Afghans claimed killed more than 25 people.
The Taliban’s ambassador in neighbouring Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, condemned the air assault as ”horrendous terrorist attacks” that targeted ”the whole Muslim world” and which would have ”severe” consequences for the attackers.
The Afghan Islamic Press agency reported the assaults killed more than 25 people in and around Kabul, and Zaeef said the dead included ”women, children and the elderly.”
Zaeef also claimed that Afghan rockets shot down one attacking plane ”and there are rumours that three more were shot down.”
But a US Defence Department representative in Washington said, ”I don’t have any information on any US planes down.”
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the US-British strikes retaliating against the September 11 terror attacks against the US, blamed on Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaeda network and their Taliban protectors, caused ”very considerable damage” to 30 targets.
Bin Laden and Taliban spiritual leader Mullah Mohammad Omar survived the attacks, Zaeef said, although bin Laden had not been in touch since.
Straw said the attacks ”will continue until there is an assessment made by President (George W Bush) and our prime minister as to their effectiveness in terms of dealing with the threat of terrorism.”
In Paris, Defence Minister Alain Richard said the attacks appeared to have achieved their initial objective of securing control of Afghan airspace.
Northern Alliance ready
Jubilant forces of the Afghan opposition Northern Alliance, boosted by the strikes, unleashed an onslaught on Taliban positions north of Kabul, predicting the Afghan capital would fall in days.
An alliance representative in Charikar, northern Afghanistan, told AFP that their troops were on standby for an infantry assault on Taliban-held cities, saying Sunday’s attacks hit Taliban bases in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Herat, Kunduz and Mazar-i-Sharif — ”That means all over around Afghanistan.”
Pakistan braces itself
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, erstwhile backer of the Taliban and the only country to still recognise the regime, warned that Afghanistan could be plunged once again into anarchy.
”Certainly the Northern Alliance must be kept in check so that we do not return to the period of anarchy” that prevailed between feuding militias before the Taliban seized power in 1996, he said.
A future government in Afghanistan should be ”friendly” to Pakistan, he told reporters.
Musharraf, under attack from a considerable number of conservative Pakistani Muslims for his support of the US, revealed on Monday that he had reshuffled his top brass on the eve of the air attacks.
The secretive move was seen as a way of ousting the powerful chief of military intelligence, Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed, who has close ties with the Taliban.
Violent protest in Muslim countries
Violent anti-US protests broke out in several Pakistani cities, with police firing volleys of tear gas and witnesses reporting exchanges of automatic weapons fire, although there were no immediate reports of casualties.
In the largest demonstration, 10_000 to 15_000 students and Islamic militants took to the streets of Quetta, setting fire to a cinema, a block of flats, a shopping plaza and several other buildings.
Chanting ”Down with America” and ”Death to President Bush,” they smashed the windscreens of parked cars and threw stones at police.
The protests came after clerics in several mosques announced over public address systems that jihad (holy war) was now ”mandatory” for Pakistani Muslims.
Violent protests erupted in Srinagar, capital of India’s Muslim-majority Kashmir state, as people poured into the streets, stoning vehicles and chanting anti-US slogans.
In Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-populated country, the Front for the Defenders of Islam urged Jakarta to sever diplomatic ties with Washington and its allies and expel their citizens under the threat of Muslim ”sweeps” to drive them out and destroy their assets.
Jakarta police reinforced barbed-wire barricades outside the US embassy and positioned water cannon and armoured cars in anticipation of anti-US demonstrations.
Indonesia said it was following events ”with deep concern” and urged that the military operation remain ”limited in nature” in order to ”reduce or minimise the number of innocent victims.”
Spontaneous demonstrations also took place in German cities overnight in response to the US-led strikes against Afghanistan.
Small groups of pacifists and leftists held candlelight vigils in Berlin, Cologne, Hamburg, Bonn, Muenster and Dresden, police said.
World on alert
Governments around the world boosted security as the assault on Afghanistan heightened fears of revenge attacks.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s office said all necessary measures had been taken to ensure the Israeli population’s security, but gave no details. Moscow security services prepared to foil possible terrorist bombings as well as chemical and biological attacks weapons, the Interfax news agency said.
Japanese police beefed up security at key US and British facilities, surrounding the two countries’ embassies in Tokyo and dispatching about 400 riot police to Okinawa to provide special security for US bases there.
US allies gave their full backing to the attacks, and Straw said the UN Security Council would be briefed during the day on details of the strikes.
The only countries to condemn the US action were Iraq, Iran and Vietnam. – Sapa-AFP