SEPTEMBER 11, 2001:
Remember
this? A blind lion in a Kabul zoo; Afghan
scene; Guantanemo
locus; Tora Bora caves, view.
Eight years on...
4 suicide attacks hit Afghanistan; at
least 30 die
YAHOO
By NOOR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
13 March 2010
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – The Afghan
president's half-brother says at least 30 people have died and dozens
more hurt in four suicide attacks in the southern city of Kandahar.
Ahmed Wali Karzai, a member of the
Kandahar provincial council, says a main target of the Saturday night
attacks was a prison, but no prisoners escaped. In June 2008 a suicide
bomber blew apart the Kandahar prison gates and a nearby checkpost.
That freed hundreds of prisoners, many of them suspected insurgents.
Karzai, the half-brother of
President Hamid Karzai, says a second explosion occurred close to the
police headquarters, and casualties were reported at a wedding hall
nearby.
Police officer Mohammad Nahim says
at least four policemen were killed.
US troops close Taliban escape route
before attack
YAHOO
By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU and CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA, Associated Press
Writers
Feb. 11, 2010
NEAR MARJAH, Afghanistan – U.S. and Afghan soldiers linked up with
Marines on the outskirts of the Taliban stronghold of Marjah on
Thursday, sealing off escape routes and setting the stage for what is
being described as the biggest offensive of the nine-year war.
Taliban defenders repeatedly fired rockets and mortars at units poised
in foxholes along the edge of the town, apparently trying to lure NATO
forces into skirmishes before the big attack.
"They're trying to draw us in," said Capt. Joshua Winfrey, 30, of
Tulsa, Okla., commander of Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines.
Up to 1,000 militants are believed holed up in Marjah, a key Taliban
logistics base and center of the lucrative opium poppy trade. But the
biggest threats are likely to be the land mines and bombs hidden in the
roads and fields of the farming community, 380 miles (610 kilometers)
southwest of Kabul. The precise date for the attack has been kept
secret. U.S. officials have signaled for weeks they planned to seize
Marjah, a town of about 80,000 people in Helmand province and the
biggest community in southern Afghanistan under Taliban control.
NATO officials say the goal is to seize the town quickly and
re-establish Afghan government authority, bringing public services in
hopes of winning support of the townspeople once the Taliban are gone.
Hundreds of Afghan soldiers were to join U.S. Marines in the attack to
emphasize the Afghan role in the operation.
A Taliban spokesman dismissed the significance of Marjah, saying the
NATO operation was "more propaganda than military necessity."
Nevertheless, the spokesman, Mohammed Yusuf, said in a dialogue on the
Taliban Web site that the insurgents would strike the attackers with
explosives and hit-and-run tactics, according to a summary by the SITE
Intelligence Group, which monitors militant Internet traffic.
In preparation for the offensive, a U.S.-Afghan force led by the U.S.
Army's 5th Stryker Brigade moved south from Lashkar Gah and linked up
Thursday with Marines on the northern edge of Marjah, closing off a
main Taliban escape route. Marines and Army soldiers fired colored
smoke grenades to show each other that they were friendly forces.
The Army's advance was slowed as U.S. and Afghan soldiers cleared the
thicket of mines and bombs hidden in canals and along the roads and
fought off harassment attacks along the way by small bands of
insurgents. Two U.S. attack helicopters fired Hellfire missiles at a
compound near Marjah from where insurgents had been firing at the
advancing Americans. Marines along the edge of the town exchanged
fire with insurgents. There were no reports of casualties.
"I am not surprised at all that this is taking place," said the
battalion commander, Lt. Col. Brian Christmas. "We are touching their
trigger-line," referring to the outer rim of the Taliban defenses.
A far greater obstacle lies in the hundreds, if not thousands, of
mines, makeshift bombs and booby traps which the Taliban are believed
to have planted around Marjah.
"This may be the largest IED threat and largest minefield that NATO has
ever faced," said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of Marines in
southern Afghanistan.
A British soldier was killed in a bombing Thursday in Helmand province,
the Ministry of Defense announced in London. It was unclear whether the
soldier was part of the Marjah operation. In eastern Afghanistan,
the spokesman for Paktia province, Roullah Samoun, said five Americans
were wounded when a suicide attacker wearing a border police uniform
blew himself up at a U.S. base near the Pakistan border. A U.S.
statement said "several" U.S. service members were injured in an
explosion at a joint U.S.-Afghan outpost in Paktia, but gave no further
details.
To combat the mines around Marjah, Marines planned to use their new
72-ton Assault Breacher Vehicles, which use metal blows to scoop up
hidden bombs or fire rockets to detonate them at a safe distance.
Once the main attack begins, U.S. commanders are eager to avoid
civilian casualties, hoping instead to win over support of the Pashtun
townspeople, who are from the same ethnic group as the majority of the
Taliban. American officers have been instructing troops to hold their
fire unless they are sure they are shooting at insurgents and not
innocent villagers.
On Thursday, Afghanistan's interior minister, Hanif Atmar, met with a
group of tribal elders explaining the goals of the operation and asking
for their support.
"This operation is designed to open the way for those Afghans who want
to join the peace process and to use the military power against those
foreign terrorists who are hiding here," Atmar told the elders during a
meeting in Lashkar Gah, the Helmand provincial capital about 20 miles
northeast of Marjah.
The elders told Atmar that their support depended on how the operation
was carried out and whether a large number of civilians were killed or
injured in the fighting.
One elder, Mohebullah Torpatkai, said that if the operation improved
the lives of civilians, "we the people of Marjah will fully support it."
As the Marines waited for battle, they received their first mail
delivery since arriving in the Marjah area. Some Marines burned
their letters after reading them, either because they didn't want to
carry any extra weight or have the letters fall into the wrong hands if
they lost them in the fighting. Others held on to them.
"I'm not burning any of my pictures or letters," said Cpl. Christian
Martir, 23, from Northridge, Calif., as he stared at photos from his
girlfriend. "She also sent a little letter. I'm keeping all of it," he
said.
Page last updated at 12:26 GMT, Friday,
4 December 2009
Timeline: The search for Bin
Laden
Osama Bin Laden: Top of Washington's
'Most Wanted' list
|
Since the 11 September 2001 attacks, a number of video
tapes,
audio recordings, faxes and other statements have been attributed to
Osama Bin Laden.
But although the US has hunted the al-Qaeda
leader using satellite tracking systems and sophisticated spying
systems, Bin Laden remains at large.
He is widely believed to
be hiding in the remote tribal region along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
border with his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri. US officials insist his
capture remains a top priority.
DECEMBER 2009
A Taliban detainee in Pakistan tells the BBC he met a trusted
contact in January or February of 2009 who had just come from a meeting
with Osama Bin Laden.
The detainee said his contact, a Mehsud
tribesman, had come from Ghazni in Afghanistan. "I think that's where
the Sheikh was," he said.
The BBC's Orla Guerin, who
interviewed him, says his account suits Pakistan, which maintains that
Bin Laden is not on its soil, although the British and US think
otherwise.
However, former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel says his story is
plausible, and is an important new lead and should be investigated.
NOVEMBER 2009
A US Senate report says American forces had Bin Laden "within
their grasp" in Afghanistan in 2001.
It
said Bin Laden and his bodyguards "walked unmolested out of Tora Bora
and disappeared into Pakistan's unregulated tribal area".
"Failure
to finish the job" laid the foundation for "today's protracted Afghan
insurgency and inflaming the internal strife now endangering Pakistan,"
the report, prepared by the Foreign Relations Committee Democratic
staff, says.
It rebuffs claims by the Bush administration at the time that
intelligence about Bin Laden's location was inconclusive.
JUNE 2009
An audio message purported to be from Bin Laden accuses US
President
Barack Obama of fuelling hatred of the US in Pakistan, blaming American
pressure for the Pakistan army's crackdown on militants in its Swat
Valley region.
The tape is aired by al-Jazeera as Mr Obama
arrives in Bin Laden's Saudi Arabia for a brief visit at the start of a
Middle East tour, which sees him make a keynote speech to the Muslim
world in Cairo.
N0VEMBER 2008
CIA director Michael Hayden says Osama Bin Laden is probably
hiding
in the tribal area of north-west Pakistan and is "putting a lot of
energy into his own survival". He says Bin Laden appears to be isolated
from the day-to-day operations of al-Qaeda, but that the organisation
is still the greatest threat to the US.
SEPTEMBER 2007
Bin Laden appears in a 30-minute video posted on an Islamist
website
- his first video appearance in three years. The video is undated, but
in it, Bin Laden makes reference to recently elected leaders such as
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon
Brown.
The broadcast comes days before the sixth anniversary of
the 9/11 attacks, and Bin Laden urges the US public to embrace Islam
"in order to stop the war in Iraq".
JANUARY 2007
Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar says his fighters helped
Bin
Laden escape a US assault on the Tora Bora mountains in late 2001. In
the rare interview with Pakistan's private Geo TV network, he said they
helped the al-Qaeda leaders "out of the caves and led them to a safe
place".
JUNE 2006
In his fourth audio message of the year, Osama Bin Laden
praises Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed three
weeks earlier. The 19-minute message, posted on an Islamist website,
shows a still picture of Bin Laden and moving pictures of Zarqawi.
APRIL 2006
In an audio tape attributed to Osama Bin Laden, the speaker
cites
the cutting of Western funding to the Hamas-led Palestinian government
as proof of a "Zionist-crusader war against Islam".
Western
involvement in the troubled Darfur region of Sudan is also criticised
in the tape, aired by Arabic TV station al-Jazeera.
JANUARY 2006
After a silence of more than a year, al-Jazeera aired an
audio tape which CIA analysts say was made by Osama Bin Laden.
In
it, the speaker said new attacks on the US were being planned, but
offered a "long-term truce" to the Americans, an offer the US quickly
rejected.
MARCH 2005
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf says Pakistani troops
had
their best chance of capturing Bin Laden from May-July 2004, after the
army launched an offensive along the border with Afghanistan. But he
says the trail has now gone cold.
In the US, President George W
Bush makes a rare mention of Bin Laden, saying the US is "working day
and night" to bring him to justice.
DECEMBER 2004
An audio tape attributed to Osama Bin Laden calls on Iraqis
to boycott January's election.
The voice, whose identity cannot be confirmed, names the
Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as "emir" of al-Qaeda in Iraq.
OCTOBER 2004
A Bin Laden videotape surfaces just days before the US
presidential election.
In
the tape, aired on the Arabic television station al-Jazeera, Bin Laden
says the reasons behind the 9/11 attacks are still present and he
threatens fresh attacks on the US, whoever is elected.
It is Bin Laden's clearest claim of responsibility so far for
the 2001 attacks.
In an embarrassment for the Pakistani president, al-Jazeera
says the tape was delivered to its Islamabad bureau.
JANUARY 2004
Al-Jazeera releases an audio tape in which Bin Laden talks
about the
capture of Saddam Hussein and attacks Arab states for backing the
US-led war on Iraq.
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2003
In audio tapes aired by al-Jazeera television station, Bin
Laden
praises the 11 September hijackers and calls for new attacks on the US.
APRIL 2003
An audio recording said to be of Bin Laden, in which he calls
for
attacks on the governments of the Gulf states, is released by the
Associated Press news agency.
MARCH 2003
Senior al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is arrested in
Pakistan. Investigators believe he kept in contact with Bin Laden
through e-mails and hand-delivered messages.
FEBRUARY 2003
An audio tape purporting to be from Bin Laden calls for
attacks on
US and British targets if Iraq is attacked. The US-led invasion of Iraq
takes place the following month.
NOVEMBER 2002
In a tape broadcast on Arabic TV station al-Jazeera, Bin
Laden
refers to attacks in Bali, Yemen and the Moscow theatre siege which had
recently taken place.
SEPTEMBER 2002
An alleged planner of the 11 September attacks, Ramzi
Binalshibh, is captured in the Pakistani city of Karachi.
APRIL 2002
Old clips of Bin Laden and some of his top aides are aired on
al-Jazeera, along with footage of an 11 September hijacker reading what
appears to be his suicide note.
DECEMBER 2001
US forces apparently intercept radio messages in which Bin
Laden is
directing troops from Afghanistan's mountainous region of Tora Bora,
but the trail goes cold and US officials admit they have no information
on the al-Qaeda leader's whereabouts.
Meanwhile, al-Jazeera television airs footage of Bin Laden in
which he refers to the attacks.
NOVEMBER 2001
A letter said to be from Bin Laden calls on Muslims in
Pakistan to
stand up for Islam as the country supports the US-led campaign against
Afghanistan.
OCTOBER 2001
Bin Laden warns in a statement - broadcast on al-Jazeera two
hours
after the US-led coalition begins military strikes against Afghanistan
- that it will have no rest until the Middle East conflict is resolved
and US military bases in the region are shut down.
Karzai rival Abdullah quits Afghan
run-off
YAHOO
By Golnar Motevalli and Sayed Salahuddin
November 1, 2009
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah quit
an election run-off on Sunday after accusing the government of not
meeting his demands for a fair vote, leaving a cloud over the
legitimacy of the next government.
A weakened Afghan government under President Hamid Karzai would also be
a blow for U.S. President Barack Obama as he decides whether to send up
to 40,000 more U.S. troops to fight a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan.
Election officials said hours later that the November 7 vote would go
ahead with both names on ballot papers but with Karzai as the only
candidate.
"Based on election laws and based on the constitution there should be a
second round. The constitution is clear," Daoud Ali Najafi, chief
electoral officer of the government-appointed Independent Election
Commission, told Reuters.
However, a spokesman for U.N. mission chief Kai Eide voiced doubt about
the practicality of carrying on with the election.
"It's difficult to see how there can be a run-off with only one
candidate," spokesman Aleem Siddique told Reuters.
Abdullah, an eye doctor and Karzai's urbane former foreign minister,
appeared to rule out any immediate chance of a power-sharing deal with
Karzai in return for withdrawing, but also told his supporters not to
boycott the run-off.
His voice faltering and his eyes welling with tears, Abdullah told
hundreds of supporters, including white-bearded tribal elders, in a
giant tent used for grand assemblies that he had reached the decision
"in the interests of the nation."
"As far as I'm concerned, the decision I have reached is not to
participate," he later told reporters at his Kabul home.
"I have strong, strong reservations about the credibility of the
process," he said.
Karzai had been favorite to win the run-off after getting the most
votes in a fraud-marred first round on August 20. His campaign team
said the run-off would go ahead despite Abdullah's withdrawal.
Afghanistan has been racked by weeks of political uncertainty, with
security also a major concern after the Taliban vowed to disrupt the
run-off.
TALIBAN UNMOVED
The Taliban said Abdullah's withdrawal made no difference.
"There will be no change of policy as far as we are concerned," Taliban
spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf told Reuters by telephone from an
undisclosed location.
Obama met his top military leaders on Friday as part of a strategic
review. Some analysts were scathing in their assessment of what was
seen as a flawed election staged against the backdrop of increasing
violence after eight years of war.
"It is a shocking failure of efforts by the West and other
international communities to build a democracy in Afghanistan," said
Norine MacDonald, president of policy research group The International
Council on Security and Development.
"The election should be postponed and reorganized in a manner that
would yield a legitimate government and allow the Afghan people to
participate effectively in a legitimate election." A spokesperson for
the White House could not immediately be reached for comment on
Abdullah's decision, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on
Saturday a decision by Abdullah to pull out would not affect the vote's
legitimacy.
The United Nations praised Abdullah for acting in a statesmanlike and
dignified manner, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the
decision was carefully considered and that he looked forward to working
with an inclusive government.
"I am confident that Afghanistan's leaders will support the remaining
steps of the democratic process," Brown said in a statement.
DEMANDS NOT MET
Abdullah said he quit because the demands he had sought from the
government and the Independent Election Commission (IEC), including the
sacking of Afghanistan's top election official in the wake of the
tainted first round, had not been met.
He said there would be no demonstrations and urged his supporters "not
to take to the streets, not to feel grief."
Western diplomats said that talks between Karzai and Abdullah last week
on ways to break the deadlock had foundered, but Abdullah later left
the door open for future discussions.
A possible power-sharing deal had also been suggested but Abdullah said
no such arrangements had been made.
"This decision has not been made in return for anything or for
anybody," Abdullah said.
Analysts and diplomats had seen a power-sharing deal, perhaps in return
for a top government post for Abdullah in Karzai's next government, as
a way to spare the country further political pain and insurgent
violence.
The run-off was triggered when a U.N.-led investigation found
widespread fraud, mainly in favor of Karzai, had been committed during
the first round.
Alleged 9/11 Plotters Offer to Confess at Guantánamo
NYTIMES Break,ing News...
By WILLIAM GLABERSON
December 9, 2008
GUANTÁNAMO
BAY, Cuba — All five of the Guantánamo detainees charged with
planning and coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks have asked a military
judge to accept their confessions in full. The request appeared to be
intended to cut short any effort to try them, and to challenge the
United States government to put them to death.
At the start of what had been expected to be routine proceedings
Monday, the military judge, Col. Steven Henley, disclosed that he had
received a written statement from the five men. The statement said the
five planned to stop filing written motions and instead “to announce
our confessions to plea in full.”
As he questioned one of the men, Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, who has
described himself as the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, Judge Henley
of the United States Army asked whether Mr. Mohammmed was prepared to
enter pleas to the charges against him today. “Yes,” Mr. Mohammed
answered brusquely.
“We don’t want to waste our time with motions,” Mr. Mohammed said. “All
of you are paid by the U.S. government. I’m not trusting any American.”
Military prosecutors have sought the death penalty against all five
men.
Judge Henley began methodically questioning each of the five men to
determine if they agreed with the joint statement, which was written
after lengthy meetings among them that military officials had permitted
them to hold in recent weeks.
But the judge said that even if he agreed to accept the pleas on
Monday, he would hold a later session to examine the full facts behind
the detainees’ decisions to plead guilty.
The unusual events were not a complete surprise. There had been
indications for months that the detainees were resisting working with
the military lawyers assigned to represent them. In addition, a move to
cut short the proceedings had been seen by some lawyers working in the
system here as a way Mr. Mohammed and the other men could draw maximum
public attention to their cases and, potentially, to make statements
about their political views without the government having the
opportunity to detail their acts, including the specifics of the plot
that caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, in court.
The American political calendar may also be a factor. Many people
inside and outside the government expect President-elect Obama to close
down the military commissions that have been used by the Bush
administration, and to direct that many detainees now held in
Guantánamo Bay be prosecuted in the conventional American legal
system instead.
If that indeed happens in the first days of the Obama administration,
then Monday’s proceedings will have been the detainees’ last
opportunity to challenge the widely criticized system here with guilty
pleas that could yield them the opportunity for martyrdom.
US detains 'top al-Qaeda figure'
I-BBC
14 March 2008
A top al-Qaeda figure suspected of having close ties to Osama Bin Laden
has been taken to the US-run Guantanamo Bay detention camp, the
Pentagon says.
The man, named as Muhammad Rahim, helped arrange Bin Laden's escape
from his Tora Bora hideout in Afghanistan in 2001, US officials say.
He was transferred to the Pentagon from CIA custody, a Pentagon
spokesman said.
It is not yet clear when or where the CIA captured him, or how long he
has been in US custody.
'Most trusted'
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Rahim was a close associate of
Bin Laden and had ties to al-Qaeda groups throughout the Middle East.
"He is one of [Osama Bin Laden's] most trusted facilitators and
procurement specialists," Mr Whitman said.
"He helped prepare Tora Bora as a hideout for Osama Bin Laden. He
assisted al-Qaeda's exodus from the area in late 2001."
US forces are believed to have come closest to trapping Bin Laden in a
complex of caves in the mountainous Tora Bora region near the Pakistani
border. The hunt for him began following the 11 September, 2001,
terror attacks on the US by al-Qaeda operatives.
Meet the Uighurs: What the
press doesn't report about some of the Gitmo detainees released this
week.
The Weekly Standard
by Thomas Joscelyn
06/12/2009 8:00:00 PM
This past week, the Obama administration announced the transfer of four
ethnic Uighurs from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to
Bermuda. The South Pacific island nation of Palau has agreed to take a
number of the remaining Uighurs, possibly all of them, as well. Thus,
all seventeen of the Uighurs who were detained at Gitmo at the start of
the Obama administration could soon be freed.
The agreements with Bermuda and Palau represent the end of a
months-long problem for the administration. When the president
announced that Gitmo would be closed within one year of his taking
office, he and his administration clearly anticipated the Uighurs'
cases would be among the easiest to settle.
Easy it wasn't. The New York Times reports that the administration
contacted "around 100" foreign nations about the Uighurs. Only two, one
of which (Palau) is heavily dependent upon U.S. aid, agreed to take
them. For its troubles, Palau will also receive an additional $200
million in U.S. aid. (The administration disputes the notion that the
aid was tied to Palau's decision to accept the Uighurs. But it is
unreasonable to assume that hundreds of millions of dollars did not
sweeten the deal.) Leading European nations, Canada, and Australia all
rejected overtures from Obama. Needless to say, this does not bode well
for the administration's other efforts to relocate detainees.
But, why were so many nations reticent to take the Uighurs? And why did
the Obama administration, which initially considered releasing at least
some of the Uighurs outright on American soil, decide not to free them
here?
According to the U.S. media, the answer to the latter question is
political pressure. For example, William Glaberson of the New York
Times said the releases of the four Uighur detainees, as well as two
other non-Uighur detainees, were "the biggest steps the administration
has taken toward" its goal of closing Gitmo. Glaberson went on:
But the moves did not address central questions, including whether
political pressure had made the administration back away from meeting
the demand of some countries that the United States accept some
prisoners for resettlement to gain their cooperation in accepting
others.
Clearly, Republicans did make political hay out of the Obama
administration's attempts to release the Uighurs in the United States.
And without pressure from leading Republican congressmen and senators,
the administration may very well have done so. But there is more to
this story than the Times and other press shops let on. After all,
"around 100" other nations decided they did not want the Uighurs
released onto their soil either. It was not just the Republicans who
objected.
The truth is that the Uighurs' stories, like so many other Gitmo
detainees, have been colored by shoddy reporting. Most journalists
start with the assumption that inmates at Gitmo are wrongly detained.
The seventeen Uighurs who were detained at Gitmo have repeatedly been
portrayed as either mere Chinese "separatists," who are not interested
in attacking America, or even obvious innocents.
The reality of the matter is much more complicated.
All seventeen Uighurs were members or associates of the Eastern
Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), otherwise known as the Turkestan
Islamic Party (TIP). The ETIM/TIP is a U.S. and UN designated terrorist
organization that is affiliated with al Qaeda.
Not only are all seventeen of the Uighurs allied with this group, but
most of them were also trained in the ETIM/TIP's pre-September 11
training camp in Tora Bora, Afghanistan--a longtime stronghold for the
Taliban and al Qaeda. There, their training was supervised by a
noteworthy terrorist named Abdul Haq. Earlier this year, the Obama
administration's Treasury Department designated Haq as an al Qaeda
terrorist. The Treasury Department also noted that Haq is a member of
al Qaeda's elite Shura (consultation) council, which is reserved for
only those al Qaeda terrorists who are in its innermost circles. We
know that the seventeen Uighurs were trained by Haq because at least
eight of them have conceded as much during their hearings at Gitmo.
Some have argued that the ETIM/TIP is only focused on attacking Chinese
targets and, therefore, the Uighurs once detained at Gitmo are not our
concern. Indeed, the Uighur detainees repeatedly claimed that they were
only interested in fighting China.
But this argument is incredibly myopic. It ignores the fact that the
ETIM/TIP has already plotted against the U.S. embassy in Kyrgyzstan,
according to the State Department. And members of the group have fought
alongside the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
There is a reason the ETIM/TIP self-identifies as an al Qaeda
affiliate. In addition to cooperating with al Qaeda in a variety of
ways, including shared training facilities, the group adheres to the
same jihadist ideology that drives al Qaeda. The ETIM/TIP believes it
is the religious duty of its members to conquer the infidel world, not
just China, in the name of its radical creed. The group's stated goal
is to create a radical Islamist state stretching from Western China,
through Central and South Asia, and beyond. There is no dispute over
this. The ETIM/TIP makes its intentions clearly known in its propaganda
videos. On video, its members have repeatedly stood proudly in front of
al Qaeda's black flag while declaring their allegiance to global jihad.
Therefore, there are good reasons to be concerned about the former
Uighur detainees' ties to international terrorism. It is understandable
that American citizens, as well as the citizens of other nations, would
not want them released in their community. This is not to say that we
can know for certain that any of the former Uighur detainees will
pursue violent jihad once again. It is possible that they will go to
live quiet lives.
But, there is a real problem in how the Uighurs' cases have been
reported. All of the facts cited above about the Uighur detainees are
publicly available. And yet, most of the media's reporting ignores all
of it.
Ironically, the Times itself hosts electronic copies of the
government's files for each of the Uighurs in a section of its web site
called the "Guantanamo Docket." You can find many of the more troubling
facts about the Uighurs in those files, including their admitted ties
to Abdul Haq. The Times's reporters and editors have offered various
accounts of the Uighurs, but they have ignored these files, which are
just a few mouse clicks away from their paper's own home page.
Such poor reporting is, unfortunately, typical of how Gitmo-related
stories are produced. We should be mindful of that sad fact as the
Obama administration moves forward with its plans to transfer other
detainees.
Thomas Joscelyn is senior editor of
the website Long War Journal.
Afghan, U.S. forces assault al Qaeda in
Tora Bora
By Hamid Shalizi
16 August 2007
KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. and Afghan air and ground forces pounded al
Qaeda militants for a second day on Thursday in the Tora Bora mountains
close to the Pakistan border where Osama bin Laden once fled in the
wake of the 2001 invasion.
The steep slopes of the mountains are riddled with cave and tunnel
complexes built by Afghan and Arab fighters during the 1980s struggle
against the Soviet occupation and provide an ideal hideout for
guerrilla fighters.
"It is a joint operation conducted by Afghan and U.S. forces, divided
by ground and air assets," said Captain Vanessa Bowman, spokeswoman for
U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan.
"Afghan and U.S. forces engaged al Qaeda and other violent extremist
fighters in the eastern Afghanistan region in Tora Bora," she said,
adding that the operation began on Wednesday.
Pakistan has deployed a "limited number" of regular army troops in
Kurram tribal region in its side of the Tora Bora range, a security
official said.
"It has been done over the past three days and it was done in
coordination with allied forces in Afghanistan," he said. "We have made
all arrangements to block any infiltration of militants from the other
side. So far there has been no attempt of any infiltration."
VILLAGERS FLEE
Afghan media quoted local government officials as saying some 50
militants had been killed in the fighting.
Local residents said dozens of families have fled the area and three
villages had been bombed by U.S. and Afghan forces and up to 30
civilians had been killed in the fighting.
The U.S. military said it had no substantiated reports of any civilian
casualties.
"We are not targeting any villages and the operation are specifically
being conducting away from populated areas," a U.S. spokesman said.
It was not possible to independently verify any casualties.
Aid organizations had suspended projects in the Tora Bora region, said
a Western security official in the city of Jalalabad, some 50 km (30
miles) north of the mountains.
"We see a lot of air activity going towards that region, it looks like
it's quite intense today," he said.
Three coalition soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb in the Khogiani
district near Tora Bora on Sunday and a U.S. base in the area also came
under rocket attack in the last few days.
U.S. soldiers and Afghan militia forces launched a major assault on
Tora Bora in late 2001 in pursuit of al Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin
Laden, who was thought to be hiding in the mountain range after the
toppling of the Taliban government.
But U.S. military leaders allowed the Afghan militiamen to spearhead
the assault and bin Laden managed to escape.
Al Qaeda forces and their Taliban allies use the rugged and
semi-lawless border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan to plan,
train and launch attacks in both countries.