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January 29, 2003 News http://www.aljazeerah.info |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah Cities, localities, and tourist attractions
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The Israeli parliamentarian elections ended with a big winning for the ruling Likud Party, which won 36 seats out of the 120 seats of the Israeli parliament. The Labor Party came second with only 18 seats, which is a big loss from its previous status. The third was Shinui, with 17 seats, then Shas with 13 seats. Israeli Arab parties won 11 seats, one more seat than in the previous parliament. The turnout was the lowest in the history of Israeli elections. It was 54 percent, compared to 71 percent in 1999, and even 8% earlier. The main reason is the disenchantment of voters from the political establishment, which failed to bring peace or security to Israelis. The surprise was the big winning of the Shinui Party, particularly because of its one-issue platform. Shinue is a secular party that focused on addressing the problem of the extreme influence of the religious parties on the state of Israel. Shinui argued that religious Israelis should pay taxes, should be enlisted in the armed forces, and should be barred from access to the public treasury. It is less likely that Sharon will have a coalition with Shinui because this will anger the religious groups, particularly settlers who are the backbone of his Likud Party. There fore, he needs the Shas and the Labor Parties. The Labor Party Chief, Amram Mitzna, announced that he would not join a coalition with Sharon. Therefore, there is a possible crisis unless Sharon persuades Mitzna to join him. The problem is that Mitzna wants peace with the Palestinian people, which is not a good idea from the viewpoint of Sharon. It is also not a good idea from the viewpoint of the extremists in his party, and their supporters in Washington, who conditioned the implementation of the "Road Map" to peace to the Palestinian surrender to the Israeli occupation (they call it stopping the violence). Something that is hard to imagine happening. Bad news to peace in the Middle East and the world.
Sharon's Likud wins Israeli election — TV poll TEL AVIV (R) — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Likud Party swept to victory in Israel's general election on Tuesday, paving the way for him to form a coalition government and press on with his tough line against a Palestinian uprising. But he could face weeks of political wrangling to put together a stable coalition in a fragmented parliament. Television polls after voting ended showed Likud winning 32 to 36 seats in the 120-seat Knesset and the centre-left Labour 17 to 19 seats, a dramatic decline for the party that blazed the trail of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. The centrist secular party Shinui (Change) made a big surge into third place, with a projected 14 to 17 seats, potentially gaining the "kingmaker" role historically held by ultra-Orthodox Jewish politicians. Two hours before polls closed, election officials said turnout among the 4.7 million registered voters was one of the lowest in Israel's history. Unofficial near-final results were due early on Wednesday. President Moshe Katzav is now expected to ask Sharon, as the leader of the biggest party in parliament, to form a new government to tackle a deep economic crisis and the 28-month-old Palestinian uprising for an independent state. The future of peace-making with the Palestinians will be shaped largely by which parties the 74-year-old former general can lure into a coalition with him. Sharon will have 28 days to form a government but can be given up to 14 more days if, as expected, he finds it difficult to build a coalition. If Sharon fails, Katzav will ask another party leader to form a government. Although Sharon has not brought the peace and security he promised when elected in February 2001 — and few expect him to do so now — he flaunted his credentials as a veteran general and experienced politician to convince Israelis he was the best person to lead them through such troubled times. "Instead of peace and security, the sales pitch is 'The people want Sharon'," said Yoel Marcus, a prominent columnist with the liberal Haaretz newspaper. Sharon has said painful concessions are needed to make peace but in his election campaign offered no new ideas for ending a conflict in which more than 1,800 Palestinians and almost 700 Israelis have been killed since September 2000. Troops killed four Palestinians, including three resistance fighters, in the West Bank on election day, and an explosion at a resistance activist's house killed three Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians, who are resisting nearly 36 years of Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, said Sharon's reelection would bring more hardship. "Sharon winning will only mean more destruction, more of our blood," said Raed Qalaja, a taxi driver in Gaza City. Daunting challenge Sharon faces a daunting challenge trying to forge a stable coalition among rival parties which reflect not only divisions between the right- and left-wing but also the growing secular versus religious divide in Israeli society. Sharon has said he hopes to lure Labour, led by dovish Amram Mitzna, into a broad coalition. "The public is saying clearly today that it supports the prime minister and his policies...along with the message that it is tired of elections every two years — and that's why we need a broad coalition," Likud cabinet minister Limor Livnat told Israel's Channel One minutes before polls closed. But Labour, which triggered the election by bolting Sharon's coalition in October, said before the ballot that it would not join a Likud-led government. If Labour does not change its mind, and Shinui leader Yosef "Tommy" Lapid sticks to a vow not to join any government with religious parties, Sharon could be forced into a coalition with only right-wing, ultra-Orthodox and ultra-nationalist parties. Such a partnership could harden Israeli government policy towards the Palestinians and put Sharon at odds with his country's main ally, the United States, over issues such as building Jewish settlements on occupied land in the West Bank, as Washington prepares for possible war with Iraq. Israel's battered financial markets, suffering from more than two years of bloodshed and a global slowdown, would prefer to see a secular unity government led by Likud, Labour and Shinui to address urgent budget cuts and economic reform. Voting took place under a cloak of heavy security. About 30,000 police officers and soldiers were deployed at polling stations and public places across the country following warnings that Palestinian militants were planning election day attacks. Palestinians spent the day under a blanket travel ban imposed by the army in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, a measure they condemned as collective punishment. Israelis voiced weariness. Many predicted Sharon would be unable to form a government that would hold together for long. "I'm not voting because anyway in another two years we'll have elections again," said Arieh Geiger, a young Israeli. Mitzna, 57, failed to generate support for his more conciliatory approach to the Palestinian uprising, advocating immediate peace talks and unilateral Israeli pullbacks from Palestinian areas if fresh negotiations failed. Labour was divided by his policies and his position could be in jeopardy after the election.
Sharon storms
to victory, humiliates Israeli left
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Murder in Zawatta — a
US-financed death squad -
Today (Jan. 24) was an even worse day than its predecessors. Everyone
asks, "Is ‘worse’ possible?" Mrs. Sou’ad Godola, aged 54
and Aiman Hanlawi, aged 22, became two more murder victims of the Israeli
terrorist army, in this terrible war of attrition which it is waging
against an unarmed civilian population with ever-increasing ferocity. We
do not yet have the name of the third seriously injured and unconscious
man. At 10.00 a.m, in response to an emergency call, our ambulance left the
center for the village of Zawatta where it was reported that a car had
been attacked by a helicopter gunship — two persons had been killed and
another seriously injured. On board were Jarere and Ahmed Kanadiloe
(driver and volunteer paramedic) and Abed Shahin, a UPMRC volunteer. At the very dangerous and difficult Beit Iba ‘Checkpoint’ the
ambulance was held for one and a half hours, during which the crew was
continually verbally abused by very aggressive soldiers. Ahmed, a tall,
well-built, good-looking 22- year-old was singled out for particular
hostility. Whilst awaiting ‘permission’ to pass, the crew were witness
to three cases of human rights abuse — these happen all the time but are
not always documented. In the first, Ahmed was told by a 21-year-old
nurse, manacled and sitting on the ground, that she had been on her way to
work when her ID was taken away without explanation — she had sat there
for four hours. Later, he saw her again — her ID was only returned to
her after six hours. They also saw a man who was forced to strip-naked and
crawl a half-mile through the mud. The third incident was very violent and was actually witnessed in full
by the crew. A man from the village of Beit Imrin was on his way to work
at 10.30 a.m. When he handed them his ID, all four soldiers surrounded him
and beat him very severely with their rifle butts, fracturing several ribs
which were pushed through the chest wall, when one of the soldiers then
squeezed his handiwork together. He had extensive internal and external
bleeding and, after first aid to keep him breathing, he was transferred by
another ambulance coming into Nablus, to hospital. Had our ambulance not
been there, he would have almost certainly died, as he was unable to
breathe by himself and his blood pressure was dangerously low. At Shaffi Shamran ‘checkpoint’ there was another one-and-a-half
hour wait. The crew were interrogated harshly (these ‘soldiers’ do not
ask polite questions — everyone barks or screams). They wanted to know
why there were three crew in the ambulance. Ahmed explained that the walk
to the bombed car was a kilometer down the mountain and they would then
have to carry two bodies back a kilometer uphill. The soldier says that he
does not see three every time and tries to hold Abed at the checkpoint.
Eventually even his demented brain can see that two men cannot carry two
dead people up a kilometer of mountainside, and lets him go. Another
ambulance comes for the injured person - from the Red Crescent, similarly
crewed. Their paramedic is held hostage at the ‘checkpoint’. Horrific injuries awaited them at the scene of the murders. Sou’ad
Godola’s stomach and lungs were hanging out and she had a huge,
large-caliber wound to the thigh. Not content with this, soldiers on the
ground had taken some parting shots - one hand-gun shot between the eyes,
which had taken off the back of her skull, and two shots in her chest
below each collar bone. Aiman Hanlawi’s lower ribs and abdomen had been
blasted to smithereens and he had a huge wound to the groin from a
large-caliber shot. His guts were hanging out in pieces. He also was given
a few parting shots in the head, arms and legs. Back at Shaffi Shamran with these two murdered corpses — the soldiers
laughing and jeering and dancing around with their rifles over their heads
— Ahmed asked, "why shoot a woman?" The deluded soldier said
that she was carrying an M16 machine-gun, a hand-gun, a bomb under her
coat and a bomb in a black plastic bag. When Ahmed asked, "where are
they?", the soldier said that the ambulance crew had hidden them! There are now seven checkpoints between Zawatta and the hospital in
Nablus — most of them impromptu jeep- or tank-points. Three of these are
manned by Druze police, surely the most evil, murdering group of
terrorists to hit the Near East — remember Sabra and Shattila for
example. I can personally testify to their brutality (since I was knocked
down by a blow to the back delivered by one), and to their eyes which
really do have the look of people ‘high’ on something very nasty —
their hysterical laughter and crazy screaming rings in my ears like the
stereotypical sound of the insane. At every checkpoint the bodies were examined by many soldiers with the
same laughing, singing and dancing. Each time our crew had to look again
at the horror beneath as they were instructed time and time again to
remove all covering from the dead. At Beit Iba the ambulance was held
again for one-and-a-half hours — the smell of blood, feces, urine,
stomach contents and gore was really getting to the crew. Ahmed pointed
this out to the soldiers, who thought it hysterically funny and did the
same maniacal jig. No 22-year-old should have to spend a day like this —
ever. At one of the Druze checkpoints the men poked and made obscene
gestures at the bodies. Screaming, shrieking and laughing, they demanded
that Ahmed tell them why these people were killed. He said that they
should know — he did not. More maniacal laughter. Finally, at 5 o’clock in the afternoon, the bodies were brought to
the mortuary at the hospital. The same hospital where we had brought our
patient, Targreed Doughlas, heavily in labor last night — her first
ambulance had been taken by the Israelis and she was thrown onto the
roadside, left to die. She waited there now to go home with her baby girl
a few hours old — this next trip for the ambulance was to be through all
these nightmare road-blocks yet again as she lives beyond Shaffi Shamran.
But, at Beit Iba, there was a very critically-ill patient in an ambulance
coming in to Nablus which was being held the other side of the
‘checkpoint’. Since the UPMRC ambulance was also prevented from moving
through, patients were exchanged and both ambulances drove off in a
satisfactory conclusion to a terrible day. Ahmed poured out the details of all this in a continuous stream of
horrific memories — a torrent of shock and grief and anger. Initially in
Arabic, but later on to me in such English that I think he did not know he
had! And he was very precise on all the details. Now, it is 9.30 p.m. in Nablus and Abed has just come in very upset; he
has written all the events of the day down on a sheet of paper, kept with
his ID. He has also written down all the details of the attack on Feras
earlier this week (which Feras cannot bring himself to tell me). At this moment I am awaiting the return of Feras and Jarere from a very
dangerous trip through Huwarra ‘checkpoint’ — Feras, as always, does
not want to put me in any danger, so he took Jarere who has been on duty
since 5 o’clock on Thursday afternoon. But he does not know how very much I want to ride with them — to help
them to move around and to keep them safe. Isn’t it outrageous that
someone my age and of no significance can get an ambulance through when
its driver cannot — are there stronger words? I can’t find any. I must
go now — I think I hear the ambulance. What will the rest of the night
bring? Maybe it will be quiet — who knows? — Anne Gwynne, Independent International, is currently working
with the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees in Nablus. She can
be reached at: gwynne_anne@hotmail.com
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Baghdad would retaliate
against American troops in Kuwait, if attacked
Arab News
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BAGHDAD/LONDON, 29 January 2003 — Iraq yesterday warned its tiny neighbor Kuwait of harsh retaliation in the event of a war in the Gulf as Britain said Baghdad had clearly ignored UN disarmament demands. "Kuwait is a battlefield and American troops are in Kuwait and preparing themselves to attack Iraq," said Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz late Monday in an interview with Canada’s CBC television. "If there is an attack from Kuwait, I cannot say that we will not retaliate. We will of course retaliate against the American troops wherever they start their aggression on Iraq. This is legitimate," he added. Asked whether Iraq would launch an attack on US territory, Aziz said: "No, because we don’t have the means and we don’t have the wish to make any mischief inside the United States." Warning Baghdad to stop its "game playing", British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was in "material breach" of UN Security Council resolutions, echoing Washington for the first time. Bush is expected to use his State of the Union address at 9 p.m. (0200 GMT Wednesday) to argue that war is becoming unavoidable after weapons inspectors told the United Nations on Monday that Iraq was dragging its feet in meeting their demands. US officials said Secretary of State Colin Powell may present new intelligence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the Security Council next week to try to rally US allies. One sign of a shift came when Russia, a veto-wielding member of the Council, signaled a tougher line against Baghdad, urging it not to hamper the inspectors’ work. "If Iraq starts to present problems for inspectors, then Russia could change its position and agree with the United States on new, tougher actions by the UN Security Council," said President Vladimir Putin. He was speaking to university students in the Ukrainian capital Kiev In Moscow, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov reiterated Putin’s message to Baghdad and said President Saddam Hussein must take note of the assessment of chief arms inspector Hans Blix that Iraq had not fulfilled its commitments to disarm. "We think that the work of inspectors must continue, while the leadership of Iraq must listen very seriously to the recommendations that were voiced Monday" at the United Nations during the arms inspectors’ report, Interfax quoted Ivanov as saying. But Putin also issued a stark warning to the United States not to launch military action against Iraq without a new resolution from the UN Security Council. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said there was an "overwhelming majority" in the UN Security Council on the need for a second resolution before any military action is taken against Iraq. "That is the position we have on this issue and also the position of the overwhelming majority of the Security Council," said Schroeder, whose country is to take on the presidency of the Security Council at the start of next month. In Iraq, Saddam warned army officers to be vigilant for any sign of treason. Washington has backed the idea of amnesty for senior Iraqis to encourage a change of leadership that could make a war unnecessary. "Treason is an unmanly act...It does not frighten. However, in times of inattention, it may produce a treacherous act," newspapers quoted Saddam as saying to a group of officers. Blix said yesterday that Iraq had demanded UN help in buying sophisticated radars for two airfields as a condition for safe overflights by a U-2 spy plane loaned to UN arms inspectors. UN inspectors have set up regional offices in Mosul to the north of Baghdad and in the southern city of Basra to help them in their work, and rely on nearby airfields in both cities. "They wanted us to support permission for them to import special radars for Basra and Mosul," said Blix. US and British coalition warplanes patrolling "no-fly" zones over Iraq have regularly targeted radar facilities and other strategic sites in recent months. Blix said he rejected the condition as inappropriate as the Iraqis had made no such demand on U-2 overflights under a previous UN inspection regime. The UN inspectors’ spokesman in Baghdad said the UN agency charged with disarming Iraq has failed to conduct interviews with all 16 Iraqi scientists it has requested to quiz in private. "To date, UNMOVIC has requested to interview in private 16 Iraqi individuals, but no private interviews have taken place so far," Hiro Ueki said, referring to the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC). Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said after talks with French President Jacques Chirac that a solution to the Iraqi crisis must be found to avoid a "calamity". The prince told journalists that during a 45-minute meeting the two men had discussed "what needs to be done to prevent a calamity and a crisis of immense proportion inside Iraq." "We all hope for a possibility of a solution that avoids the dismemberment and maintains the territorial integrity of Iraq," Prince Saud said. Chirac’s spokeswoman Catherine Colonna said the French leader and Prince Saud had "praised the work of the inspectors and want them to continue, while insisting that the cooperation from Iraq must improve." Colonna emphasized the importance of giving the UN inspectors the time they need to complete their mission. The two men said that "all alternative solutions to the use of force, which can only be justified as a last resort, must be explored," according to the spokeswoman. Later after talks with his French counterpart Dominique de Villepin, the Saudi foreign minister reiterated that a diplomatic solution was the best way to resolve the crisis. "War and diplomacy are just ways to find solutions to problems. And it’s clear that if we are able to achieve our goals through peace, it would be better than by doing so through war," Saud said. When asked about the possibility of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein being forced into exile, the minister said his country was not one "that intervenes in the internal affairs of others." Prince Saud said he would be in London today for talks with British leaders. (Agencies)
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Iraq invasion seen erupting
within weeks Arab News, 1/29/03 -
LONDON — The United States, wooing allies for war, may not wait much
beyond the next UN inspectors’ report on Saint Valentine’s Day before
unleashing an invasion to disarm Iraq and topple President Saddam Hussein,
analysts say. "We’ll hear a deafening drumbeat from the United
States in the run-up to Feb. 14," said Iraq expert Toby Dodge of
Warwick University. "I would be surprised if the air war had not
started within seven days of that." The tone from Washington and London is already grim, despite appeals
from many other capitals for the inspectors to be given more time to prove
whether Iraq is defying a Security Council resolution which effectively
told it to disarm or face war. Britain joined the United States in declaring Iraq in "material
breach" of UN disarmament demands on Tuesday, a day after chief UN
arms inspector Hans Blix told the council that Saddam had not come clean
about stocks of lethal weapons. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said
a further report by UN weapons inspectors on Feb. 14 was not an ultimatum,
but warned Iraq that its "unbelievable" refusal to comply with
UN demands had diminished chances of a peaceful outcome. "The US-British deployment will be in place toward the end of
February. They could start the air campaign a bit ahead of that, but
probably won’t," said Sir Timothy Garden, a defense expert at
London’s Royal Institute of International Affairs. "What happened
yesterday (at the Security Council) keep everything bubbling along till
mid-February when the Americans, Brits, Australians and anyone else
involved will say, ‘We are going to do this anyway’, and challenge the
council to come up with a resolution to support it," Garden said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has urged more time for the UN
experts and opposed any solo US action, said on Tuesday Moscow could
toughen its line if Iraq hampered the inspectors. Some oil experts pay more heed to US troop deployments and the
uncompromising rhetoric of US President George W. Bush than to the
diplomatic skirmishing at the United Nations. "What’s driving the
timetable for war is not diplomacy but military readiness," said
Roger Diwan of consultancy PFC Energy in Washington. "If the US needs
more time to get the military in place it will use that time to seek
diplomatic backing but, whether it gets that backing or not, we still
expect war to start some time between the middle of February and early
March." George Joffe, a Middle East specialist at Cambridge University, said a
ground war could not start before the end of February because US and
British forces were not yet in place. "They might start an air war,
but not before Feb. 14. That’s when they will say ‘enough is
enough’," he said, noting that the Muslim Haj pilgrimage to Makkah
would be over by then. Sir John Moberly, a former British ambassador to Baghdad, said attempts
by the United States and Britain to secure a second resolution might delay
war, but not indefinitely. "When they judge the moment favorable in
terms of international support and when they are militarily ready, they
will not wait. The machine is lumbering forward," he said. "Everyone is making clear the inspectors will have a bit more
time, but not very much," a British official said. "Unless Iraq
changes its fundamental attitude now, time is running out." Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak shares that conclusion. "The
United States is determined to get rid of weapons of mass destruction
regardless of the price," Al-Ittihad daily in the United Arab
Emirates yesterday quoted him as saying. "The strike is coming unless
Iraq abides by the resolutions of the international legitimacy and unless
it stops putting obstacles in front of international arms
inspections," he said. (R)
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Indian drone shot down by
Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, 29 January 2003 — Pakistan’s military said yesterday it
had shot down a pilotless Indian spy plane that crossed into Pakistani
airspace in the disputed Kashmir region. The military said two Indian "remote piloted vehicles" (RPVs)
had crossed over the Line of Control, or cease-fire line, in the past 48
hours. "Pakistani troops took appropriate measures which forced the
Indian RPV’s to abandon their spying mission. One intruding RPV was seen
falling in flames," the military said in a statement. The statement said more than 200 similar violations by India had taken
place in 2002, "the proof of which has been provided with the
shooting down of these unmanned aircraft in the past." India, however, denied the incident. "We have checked with all our
forward areas and no such incident has taken place," an Indian
defense spokesman told Reuters in Jammu, winter capital of Indian Kashmir. The nuclear-armed neighbors went to the brink of war last year after
New Delhi accused Pakistani-based militants of attacking its Parliament.
Tensions have since eased, although the two sides each expelled four
diplomats and embassy officials last week. The rivals also frequently exchange artillery and small arms fire
across the Line of Control and Pakistan said it had killed at least five
Indian soldiers in exchanges of fire on Monday. Pakistan said the Indian aircraft had crossed two km (one mile) and six
km (four miles) respectively into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. The
military-run Inter-Services Public Relations department said the
incursions took place beginning late Sunday, but didn’t say when the
plane was shot down. Earlier, Pakistani police said unprovoked Indian
firing had killed a 12-year-old boy in Pakistani Kashmir on Monday
evening. The two countries have fought three wars since gaining independence
from Britain in 1947. Last year, they deployed hundreds of thousands of
troops along their border in the biggest military buildup since their last
war in 1971. New Delhi accuses Islamabad of arming and training Kashmiris
who have waged a secessionist campaign in Indian-controlled Kashmir for
more than a decade. (Agencies)
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US forces kill 18 Afghans
BAGRAM, Afghanistan, 29 January 2003 — US and coalition forces were
battling 80 rebels aligned with renegade leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
yesterday in the largest-scale fighting in Afghanistan in 10 months, the
US military said. At least 18 rebels were killed in the fighting, which began Monday in
the mountains of southeastern Afghanistan, the military said. There were
no coalition casualties or civilian injuries. "It’s the largest concentration of enemy forces since Operation
Anaconda," US military spokesman Roger King said from Bagram Air
Base, referring to a fierce eight-day battle last March against Taleban
and Al-Qaeda holdouts in southeastern Afghanistan. King said up to 350 troops were involved in the fighting on the
American side, including troops from the 82nd Airborne division, US
Special Forces and allied Afghan militia troops. Fighters received aerial support from American B-1 bombers, which
dropped 19 2,000-pound (900-kilogram) bombs on enemy positions, including
deep caves, King said. F-16 fighters flown by unidentified European allies
had dropped a pair of 500-pound (225-kg) bombs, while AC-130 gunships and
Apache AH-64 helicopter gunships were also pounding the enemy with rocket
and cannon fire, King said. "We’ve had reports of various numbers of armed men, groups of
people trying to gather in order to carry out attacks on the
coalition," King said. "We’ve been actively engaged in trying
to develop intelligence that would lead us to a precise location and
yesterday (Monday) we did." The fighting — about 25 km (15 miles) north of Spinboldak and near
the border with Pakistan — was triggered by a small shootout pitting
armed attackers against US Special Forces and their Afghan government
allies who were working to clear a mud-walled compound. One of the attackers was killed, one injured and one detained, King
said. The detained suspect told questioners that a large group of armed
men had massed in mountains nearby, King said. Apache helicopters sent to
investigate came under small arms fire, and then fighter aircraft went to
pound the area, King said. "Our intelligence leads us to believe that they are most closely
aligned with the Hezb-e-Islami movement, which is Hekmatyar’s military
arm," King said. "We’ve had reports over several months that
he’s been attempting to consolidate with remnants of Al-Qaeda and
Taleban." Hekmatyar was a key guerrilla commander during the 1980s Soviet war in
Afghanistan. Later, in the civil war that paved the way for the Taleban
takeover, Hekmatyar’s men pounded the capital, Kabul, with daily rocket
barrages. He lived in exile in Iran during the five years of the Taleban
rule, and returned after US-led forces ousted the militia. His following
among ethnic Pashtuns is considered fairly significant. Reports that Hekmatyar was training suicide squads to target American
and government forces surfaced in September, when one of Hekmatyar’s
military commanders, Salauddin Safi, told the Associated Press that some
Taleban had formed an alliance with Hekmatyar’s followers called Lashkar
Fedayan-e-Islami, or the Islamic Martyrs Brigade. King would not speculate on what the guerrillas were planning, but said
that the largest contingent of coalition forces were stationed in nearby
Spinboldak. "That’s an obvious target," he said. King said the latest battle might last some time. "It’s a
relatively large area. It’s rough terrain. There are some caves, there
may be more that we don’t know about, so it could take a considerable
period of time," King said. He said fighting was centered on rocky,
unpopulated terrain around the Adi Ghar Mountain, which was near the
border, so it was possible that fighters of other nationalities were
involved. (AP)
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Israeli occupation army kills
7 Arabs as Israelis vote
JENIN, West Bank, 29 January 2003 — Seven Palestinians were killed yesterday during Israeli raids on Jenin and Gaza, as Israel chose a new government in a vote expected to be won by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on a tough security pledge. Sharon has vowed not to talk peace until Palestinians end their 28-month uprising against Israel’s occupation of the territories. This pledge that has attracted more support than Labour leader Amram Mitzna’s plan to renew peace talks with the Palestinians and quit the Gaza Strip. In a sign of Sharon’s tough policy, Israeli armored vehicles stormed into Jenin in the northern West Bank early yesterday They immediately ran into heavy resistance from armed Palestinians. Four Palestinian men were killed by tank-borne troops in the heavy clashes that erupted, while an AFP photographer was shot in the leg. Palestinian officials said two boys aged 13 and 11 were also wounded by Israeli sniper fire in the town’s refugee camp, devastated in an Israel invasion in April. In the northern Gaza Strip, three Palestinians were killed in an explosion overnight in Beit Lahia, Palestinian security officials said. One of them was a member of the armed wing of the Hamas, and the other two were the teenage children of another fighter. Palestinian officials said the blast was caused by an Israeli helicopter attack, but Israeli military sources quoted in the media suggested it could have been a premature explosion of a bomb the fighters were preparing. Meanwhile in Cairo, Hamas said inter-Palestinian talks had failed to reach agreement on a proposed moratorium on attacks against Israeli civilians and reiterated its position that resistance was "not negotiable". "We regret that the Palestinian factions meeting in Cairo failed to reach agreement on a final statement expressing the common denominators which unite them," a senior Hamas leader said. Palestinians fear bloody raids such as yesterday’s will go on when Sharon is re-elected, but despite being tipped to win up to 33 of the 120 seats in Parliament, Sharon aces tough horse-trading after the elections to form a new government. Sharon wants to build a broad coalition with centrist parties, and intends to make an emotional plea to Labour — set to win around 19 seats, down from 25 — to come on board to form a stable government to tackle the intifada and Israel’s worst ever economic crisis. But Mitzna has refused to join any government headed by Sharon, as he marks his distance from his hawkish predecessor Binyamin Ben Eliezer who served 20 months as the right-winger’s defense minister. Sharon has therefore concentrated his efforts on wooing the upstart secular party Shinui, tipped to increase its seats from six to 16 on an anti-religious ticket calling for subsidies to ultra-Orthodox families who refuse military service to be slashed. (Agencies) Seven Palestinians killed Jordan Times, 1/29/03 JENIN (R) — The Israeli occupation army killed four Palestinians, at least three of them gunmen, on Tuesday as it blockaded Palestinian inhabitants in the West Bank and Gaza Strip during Israel's election day. Three Palestinians were killed when an explosion levelled a house owned by an Islamic resistance activist in Gaza. Palestinians said the house was hit by an Israeli helicopter missile. The occupation army claimed the three were killed while making bombs. Palestinian medics said three Palestinian resistance fighters were shot dead in the northern West Bank city of Jenin during an exchange of fire with Israeli troops and that a 17-year-old was killed while running to the aid of one of the fighters. The army claimed the teenager was also armed and took part in the firefight with the invading troops during an operation to seize activists involved in a 28-month-old uprising for a Palestinian state. A Palestinian photographer working for Agence France-Presse was shot in the leg during the incident, the medics said. Captain Sharon Feingold, an army spokeswoman, said the photographer may have been hit by shrapnel from the gunfight. “He was not targeted. We do not target journalists,” she said. As Israelis began voting in their general election, 3.6 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip were barred by Israel's military from travelling between Palestinian towns and villages and entering Israel. Israeli security officials said the ban was issued due to intelligence information that Palestinian resistance fighters were planning attacks to disrupt the election. Palestinians condemned the measure as collective punishment. Palestinian residents of the West Bank cities of Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Nablus, Bethlehem, the Israeli-ruled parts of Hebron as well as Jenin were also under strict military curfew. Military clamp down Israel's military reoccupied six Palestinian-administered West Bank cities last year after a spate of suicide bombings and has frequently imposed curfews. Palestinians identified the three dead in Gaza City as two children of Hamas activist Mohammed Salameh, including a 15-year-old girl, and a bodyguard of a senior Hamas leader, and said they were killed in a helicopter missile strike. Israel said they were killed when bombs being made by two of them, whom it called Hamas militants, detonated prematurely. The large house was devastated by the explosion. Mourners, many of them masked Islamic militants, carried the bodies of the three dead wrapped in green Hamas flags through the streets of Gaza City amidst cries of revenge. “Sharon, prepare the coffins!” they shouted, in reference to Israel's right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon who, much to Palestinian dismay, is expected to win Tuesday's election. Sharon has taken tough military action against Palestinian violence and said peace talks envisaging a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, which deadlocked shortly before the revolt began, will resume only once militant attacks cease. Talks between Palestinian factions on a possible ceasefire brokeup in Cairo on Monday night without result. Violence escalated in the days before the election. The Israeli army launched its deepest raid into Gaza City since the Palestinian revolt began in September 2000. Twelve Palestinians, at least seven of them resistance fighters, were killed.
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Bush’s popularity falls The Independent, Arab News,
1/29/03
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WASHINGTON — George W. Bush is in trouble. This is not wishful thinking on the part of Europeans who cannot abide a man they see as a trigger-happy, unilateralist half-wit. It is a sober assessment of the 43rd president’s political standing at home on the day he delivers what is surely one of the most important State of the Union messages in modern times. Only ten weeks ago, Bush’s prestige was at its height — higher in many respects even than in the aftermath of Sept. 11. His personal campaigning had made the difference in securing absolute Republican control of Congress at November’s mid-term elections. Cowed by fear of his popularity, Democrats in Senate and House alike helped grant him a virtual carte blanche in dealing with Iraq. Today cracks have appeared in the seemingly impregnable facade. Not gaping cracks to be sure, but ones that, if not swiftly repaired, could yet bring down the entire Bush edifice. They are visible in tumbling consumer confidence, the Trent Lott affair which tarred the Republicans’ image on race, the growing unease at the prospect of war in the Gulf — and in the polls. Not a ruling politician on earth of course admits he will allow polls to influence his unswerving, high-minded pursuit of the national good. But this White House — the smoothest working, most efficient and most secretive in recent memory, pays as much attention to them as its predecessors. The indications are not good. Bush’s approval ratings have slipped to the mid-50s — respectable enough for a President in normal times half way through his term. But they have dipped 10 percent since the mid terms, bringing his popularity back to the levels before the 2001 terrorist attacks. A majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the faltering US economy, the pocket book issue that over the longer term will eclipse even Iraq as a priority for voters. Over 1.5 million jobs have been lost on this Bush’s watch. On Iraq, American public opinion is increasingly resembling that of the despised wimps in ‘old Europe.’ No less than seven out of ten believe that United Nations inspectors should be given "months" or more to complete their work. The country, according to one finding Monday, is split down the middle when asked whether it trusts the president or the UN to make the right decisions on Iraq. Though 60 percent broadly support military action against Iraq, Newsweek found that backing plummets if the US were to act alone, or with the backing of just "one or two" allies. This is the public mood Bush must turn around in his hour-long address to the Senate, House and a mass of other dignitaries. Hans Blix’ report to the Council Monday that Baghdad was not co-operating on the "substance" of the demands of resolution 1441 may help him. But he still has to make the case that Saddam Hussein poses a real and immediate threat, and spell out America’s responsibilities post-Saddam: Not least the cost of reconstruction, much of which will be borne by Washington, probably for years. There will be no declaration of war tonight, the White House assures, nor a specific date for Iraqi compliance. But nor is there likely to be the detailed proof of banned Iraqi weapons programs that opinion, at home as well as abroad, demand. And Iraq is not the only battleground. Bush must defend his $670 billion economic stimulus package, centred on the abolition of taxes on dividends. No amount of White House spin can hide the fact the package is heavily tilted towards the rich. If small-government, tax-hating Conservative true believers love the proposals, the country is unconvinced. The package has no chance of emerging in anything like its present form. Sensing Bush’s vulnerability, Tom Daschle and Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic minority leaders in Senate and House respectively, Monday made a new pitch for their party’s quick acting $130 billion package, explicitly targeted to the less well off. Bush’s underlying problem is that he is trying to achieve two goals which ultimately are irreconcilable: To unite a sceptical country behind him in launching an unprovoked war, and yet pursue nakedly partisan domestic policies — not just over the economy. Bush wants to further privatise healthcare, one-day even social security. He seems oblivious to the collapse of US public finances, from a federal surplus of $250 billion two years ago, to a similar deficit this year. "You’ve got to tend the garden," Colin Powell said the other day, apropos of America’s dealings with its allies. He was quoting a dictum of George Shultz, Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan — the President with whom George Bush is often compared in both style and policies. Bush has not done that. He is paying the price in the charges of arrogance and in the widespread personal dislike he inspires abroad. But he has also failed to tend the garden at home. The Democrats are furious about having been taken for a ride. Having given the President their backing over Iraq, runs their version of recent American history, they saw Bush throw it back in their faces -using the national security issue to beat his opponents, implying that any Democrat who questioned the merest sliver of his policy was unpatriotic. Of course, polls should not be taken as gospel. If Bush does choose war, even alone or virtually alone, and without specific UN Security Council approval, the country will rally behind him. The polls that matter are the ones after war, not before it. Only if things go wrong will public opinion turn against him. Even then an upturn in the economy could change every calculation. If Saddam is speedily and comprehensively defeated, and American casualties are few, Bush will bask in a victor’s acclaim. But that is scant comfort. Twelve years ago exactly that happened when his father put together a far wider coalition than any that is likely to be formed this time, to drive Iraq from Kuwait. Barely 12 months later Bush Senior lost the presidential election. (The Independent)
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Bush readies nation for war; Russia hints
at tougher stance Jordan Times, 1/29/03
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WASHINGTON (AFP) — As US President George W. Bush was expected to make his case for war on Iraq in a crucial State of the Union address late Tuesday [early Wednesday], Russia for the first time said it could toughen its position on the standoff. But in a sign that the United States may be weighing international concerns, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said a fresh UN resolution on Iraq would be “desirable but it is not mandatory” before striking Baghdad. Bush was to tell Congress that President Saddam Hussein “poses a serious threat to US interests” and that Baghdad is running out of time to abide by UN obligations and disarm, according to White House aides. But Washington also seemed to acknowledge international pressure for a second UN resolution mandating the use of force, something German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said an “overwhelming majority” of the Security Council would require before agreeing to any military action against Iraq. Bush's “preference at all times is to do things with the most international support possible,” said Fleischer, while warning that “insufficient support” for a new resolution “will not stop” Bush from acting alone. Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Baghdad to improve cooperation with UN inspectors or face losing support from Russia, a Soviet-era ally, in a sign that Moscow was losing patience with Saddam. “If Iraq starts to present problems for inspectors, then Russia could change its position and agree with the United States on new, tougher actions by the UN Security Council,” Putin said during a visit to Kiev. However, the Russian leader stressed that any action against Iraq must first be approved by the UN Security Council, where Russia wields veto power. Washington's key ally Britain rallied behind the United States, backing charges that Baghdad was in “material breach” of its UN obligations, as 12,000 of its troops prepared to head to the Gulf. Prime Minister Tony Blair launched an intensive round of diplomacy, following the presentation at the Security Council Monday of a key report on UN inspections, and ahead of his meeting with Bush. The Bush-Blair huddle planned Friday at the presidential retreat of Camp David, Maryland is already being described by political analysts as a “council of war” for the two Security Council members with the toughest approach to the crisis with Iraq. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw confirmed that a “period of intensive diplomatic discussion” was under way, as he declared Iraq to be in “further material breach” of UN Security Council Resolution 1441. Paragraph four of that resolution, the latest in a series going back to the 1991 Gulf War, demands that Iraq fully cooperate with UN inspectors and give an honest accounting of any weapons of mass destruction that it has. France, meanwhile, praised the “satisfactory conclusions” in the UN report of chief nuclear inspector Mohammed Al Baradei, who on Monday said no evidence of prohibited nuclear activity had been found yet in Iraq. Along with fellow permanent council members Russia and China, France has insisted that the inspections be allowed to run their course in the hope of reaching a diplomatic solution to the standoff. Paris has also allied with Berlin in spearheading European opposition to Washington's hawkish stance, standing firm against war with Baghdad. Amid the mounting US threats, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz warned Iraq would attack the 150,000-strong US force gathering around his country if Washington launched a strike. “We will of course retaliate against the American troops wherever they start their aggression on Iraq. This is legitimate,” Aziz said in an interview with Canada's CBC television. Saddam's adviser General Amr Rashid also challenged Washington to provide evidence that Iraq was developing chemical weapons, saying the VX nerve agent and anthrax it had once produced had since degraded. “If the United States has evidence, give it to UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission),” Rashid said in Baghdad, adding that Blix's report had “amplified” negative factors of the past two months of inspections. The Iraqi government overall seemed “surprised and disappointed” at the UN address, a Baghdad-based Western diplomat added. But Al Baradei, responding to Baghdad's criticism, said: “The report is balanced and complete.” If attacked, Iraq said it would also not rule out a strike on Kuwait, where an Iraqi invasion triggered the monthlong 1991 Gulf War, Aziz said, triggering a fierce reaction from Kuwait City. “If there will be an attack from Kuwait, I cannot say that we will not retaliate,” said Aziz, sending oil prices climbing. A senior official in the autonomous Kurdish north of Iraq said that Blix's report signalled that “war is coming.” “It seems that Blix's report implies that war is coming because America and the British and so many other countries no longer trust Iraq anymore,” said Fuad Masum of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, a day after other Iraqi Kurdish leaders called on the Security Council to bring down President Saddam. Blix, meanwhile, said he would appreciate an extension of his mission in Iraq, although he has not asked for one, European Parliament head Pat Cox said after meeting with the chief inspector. Bush's annual address, a likely bid to persuade both sckeptical voters and potential allies of the need to tackle Iraq head-on, comes after Blix and Al Baradei told the Security Council Monday that Iraq was defying international demands to disarm. “Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out,” Blix said, in the first major account of 60 days of inspections. Blix, who is charged with overseeing the elimination of Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, said UN inspectors had found no banned weapons. Tensions stirred by the report and heightened US rhetoric left world stock markets uneasy but showing signs of steadying Tuesday after heavy falls triggered by fears that war in Iraq was becoming inevitable. In Iraq, UN arms experts continued their work, fanning out for inspections of sites suspected of developing banned weapons. France's Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin urged the United States to hand over to UN inspectors intelligence reports it says it has on Iraq's arms programmes. His call came in reaction to comments by US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said the US had evidence proving its “worst fears were justified,” which he hoped to release within a week. Muslim states renewed calls for Iraq to comply with the United Nations. Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali said after talks with the emir of Kuwait: “We hope that Iraq will unconditionally and fully comply with all UN Security Council resolutions.” Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak added war was inevitable unless Baghdad backed down. Without full compliance, “It is clear that a strike is coming,” he told the official Emirati daily Al Ittihad. Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal said that a diplomatic solution must be found to avoid a “calamity,” while Minister of State for Political Affairs and Minister of Information Mohammad Adwan hoped “UN inspectors will have more time to complete their mission.”
Bush vows to disarm Iraq soon,
Powell
to deliver Iraq intelligence to UN
on February 5
Khaleej Times, 1/29/03
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WASHINGTON - In his annual State of the Union address, U.S. President George W. Bush promised to deliver new intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons programs and vowed to use the full force of the U.S. military to disarm Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein if necessary. Bush said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell would deliver new intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the U.N. Security Council next week to help convince the world Iraq poses a clear and present danger. In the lengthy speech on Tuesday night before a joint session of Congress, the American president accused Saddam of showing "utter contempt" for the United Nations by continuing to produce and hoard chemical and biological weapons and plotting to use them to dominate the Middle East. Bush said Saddam has failed to account for 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- which he said could kill millions -- and materials that could produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve gas. Bush said the United States will ask the Security Council to convene on Feb. 5 to hear fresh evidence of these and other intelligence findings that show Saddam has over the last 12 years systematically violated U.N. agreements that he should give up his weapons of mass destruction. "Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations, and for the opinion of the world. ... The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving." Bush said intelligence, including secret communications and statements from suspects now in custody, reveal Saddam "aids and protects terrorists" including members of Al Qaeda and could provide them with weapons of mass destruction. Earlier on Tuesday, Bush received strong backing from his main ally against Iraq when Britain said Baghdad was in "material breach" of U.N. disarmament demands. On Friday, Bush meets British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is expected to urge further patience with the U.N. approach for now. Britain has consistently backed America but had until now avoided directly alleging a "material breach" of November's U.N. resolution 1441 demanding Iraqi disarmament, which Washington argues is the trigger for war. "As of today, according to the reports we have received, Iraq is now in further material breach. So it is profoundly serious for Iraq," Foreign Minister Jack Straw told BBC radio. Inspectors say Iraq not cooperating Bush's State of the Union address came just one day after weapons inspectors led by Swedish diplomat Hans Blix told the Security Council Iraq was not fully cooperating with them and dragging its feet in meeting their demands. The U.S. president's arguments in favor of toppling Saddam by force if necessary have left many countries unconvinced that Iraq poses an immediate threat and could arm anti-Western groups like those that carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Many U.S. allies have called for the inspectors to be given more time to work in Iraq and on Tuesday Blix said he would welcome this if the U.N. Security Council offered it. "Of course I would welcome more time," Blix said in an interview with Reuters television. "It would be natural for us... to want to continue the search. "If I were to say I wanted a few months that would imply that I think that would be attainable. But with the present Iraqi attitude, I do not see that this is attainable, " Blix said. "I don't want to raise any expectations." The intelligence Bush has promised to provide would form one part of the U.S. push to persuade key countries -- including permanent Security Council members France, Russia and China -- and a wary U.S. public that military force may be necessary to disarm Iraq. One sign of a shift came when Russia, a veto-wielding member of the council, signaled a tougher line against Baghdad, urging it not to hamper the inspectors' work. Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said Baghdad was prepared to improve cooperation with the inspectors but said it would attack American troops in neighboring Kuwait if necessary. "They will be received with bullets, not flowers," Aziz told Canada's CBC television in an interview in Baghdad. Kuwait said Iraq would "pay a high price" if it carried out that threat. On world markets, analysts said the inspectors' report seemed to make war virtually inevitable. Nikkei tumbles on Iraq fears Worries that the United States is moving closer to war with Iraq sent Tokyo's Nikkei average tumbling more than two percent to an 11-week low on Wednesday. "We are close to war in Iraq and the North Korea issue remains unsolved. Investors are worried these problems will hurt the global economy and are selling stocks," said Yoshihisa Okamoto, senior vice president at Fuji Investment Management. Selling picked up in the afternoon after Bush made his case against Iraq in his State of the Union address, saying crucial hours may lie ahead for U.S. troops. To U.S. forces in the Gulf region expected to be ready for combat next month, Bush said: "Many of you are assembling in and near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lie ahead. In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you." He added: "If war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military -- and we will prevail." Sending Americans into battle, he said, is "the most profound decision a president can make." In early international reaction to the Bush speech, Australia, a staunch U.S. ally, gave its full backing on Wednesday to Washington's decision to present the United Nations with new evidence of Iraq's failure to comply with demands to disarm. "Iraq is not complying with the resolution (to disarm), Iraq is thumbing its nose at the rest of the world, and the Security Council must see that its own resolution is enforced," Prime Minister John Howard told reporters after Bush's address. - Reutres
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Butler says US guilty of double standards
on Iraq Jordan Times, 1/29/03 -
SYDNEY (R) — Former UN arms inspector, Richard Butler, said on Tuesday that Washington was promoting “shocking double standards” in considering taking unilateral military action to allegedly rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. Butler, who led UN inspection teams in Iraq until they left in 1998, said Iraqi President Saddam Hussein undoubtedly possessed weapons of mass destruction, and was trying to “cheat” his way again out of the latest UN demand to disarm. But a US attack, without United Nations backing, and without any effort to curb the possession of weapons of mass destruction globally, would be a contravention of international law and sharpen the divide between Arabs and the West. “The spectacle of the United States, armed with its weapons of mass destruction, acting without Security Council authority to invade a country in the heartland of Arabia and, if necessary, use its weapons of mass destruction to win that battle, is something that will so deeply violate any notion of fairness in this world that I strongly suspect it could set loose forces that we would deeply live to regret,” Butler said. Butler's successor as the chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, Hans Blix, reported on Monday to the 15-member Security Council that Baghdad had only reluctantly complied with its latest demand to disarm. Washington is pressing the United Nations to take firm action but says it is prepared to go it alone and has amassed a considerable military force in the region. Butler, addressing a conservative Australian think tank, The Sydney Institute, said the stated US motive — to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction — lacked credibility because of Washington's failure to deal with others on the same terms. Countries such as Syria are suspected of possessing chemical or biological warfare capabilities, he said. US allies Israel, Pakistan and India have nuclear arsenals but have not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The United States and other permanent Security Council members were themselves the possessors of the world's largest quantities of nuclear weapons, he said. “Why are they permitting the persistence of such shocking double standards?” Butler said. He said that, instead of beating the drums of war, the US should propose an international mechanism — similar to the Security Council — to enforce the application of the three main conventions controlling the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry. Saudi FM warns of 'calamity' in Iraq PARIS (AFP) — A solution to the Iraqi crisis must be found to avoid a "calamity," Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal said on Tuesday after talks with French President Jacques Chirac. The minister told journalists following the 45-minute meeting that the two men had discussed "what needs to be done to prevent a calamity and a crisis of immense proportion inside Iraq." "We all hope for a possibility of a solution that avoids the dismemberment and maintains the territorial integrity of Iraq," Saud added. When asked about the possibility of preventing a war in Iraq, the minister said nothing and simply crossed his fingers.
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Arab news highlights
Jordan Times, 1/29/03 -
Pray to stop war in Iraq, Pope urges Christians VATICAN CITY (AFP) — Pope John Paul II on Tuesday invited members of Christian churches gathered at the Vatican to pray that a war in the Middle East can be avoided. The pontiff was addressing members of an ecumenical committee of Catholic and several eastern Orthodox Churches gathered at the Vatican. "Many of you come from the Middle East and surrounding countries. Let us pray together that this region will be preserved from the threat of war and further violence," he said. "May our ecumenical endeavours always be directed to the building up of a 'civilisation of love,' founded on justice, reconciliation and peace," he said. The Pope and senior Vatican figures have consistently opposed a preventive war on Iraq. The US ambassador to the Holy See, Jim Nicholson, said recently that the Pope had exchanged letters on the possibility of a conflict with US President George W. Bush. Also recently, the Italian magazine Civilita Cattolica (Catholic Civilisation), said that the principle of "a preventive" war was to be "condemned morally," except in a case where a country was defending itself from attack. Top Sunni Muslim cleric okays contraception for married couples CAIRO (AFP) — The head of the world's leading Sunni Muslim authority, the sheikh of Al Azhar, gave his blessing Tuesday to the use of contraception by married couples. "Birth control is authorised by Islam if the two spouses are in agreement and in cases decided by their attending physician," Sheikh Mohammed Sayed Tantawi was quoted by the official MENA news agency as saying. Egypt had a population of 67.9 million at the beginning of last year and has a birth every 23.6 seconds. Asked by a group of visitors from Nigeria about artificial insemination, Sheikh Tantawi said that was also permitted by Islam "on condition that the procedure is applied only by the couple." Eight killed at wedding in Upper Egypt MINYA, Egypt (AFP) — Eight people were killed and 16 injured Tuesday when a crowded wooden balcony collapsed under the weight of guests attending a wedding in a village in Upper Egypt, police said. Of the eight dead, seven were from the same family, including four children and two women. There were also eight children among the injured. The accident happened in Al Sahala village in the province of Minya, 300 kilometres south of Cairo. Schwarzkopf has doubts about another war with Iraq WASHINGTON (AFP) — Retired US Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, who emerged a hero after leading allied forces to victory in the 1991 Gulf War, is sceptical about another war with Iraq, saying UN arms inspectors have not yet produced enough evidence to justify one. "The thought of Saddam Hussein with a sophisticated nuclear capability is a frightening thought, OK?" he said in an interview published in the Washington Post Tuesday. "Now, having said that, I don't know what intelligence the US government has. And before I can just stand up and say, 'Beyond a shadow of a doubt, we need to invade Iraq,' I guess I would like to have better information." Interviewed by the Post at his Tampa, Florida, home, Schwarzkopf, 68, said he would like to give UN weapons inspectors more time to complete their task before starting a war. "I think it is very important for us to wait and see what the inspectors come up with, and hopefully they come up with something conclusive," he said. Two grenades thrown at home of Palestinian official in Lebanon AIN AL HILWEH, Lebanon (AFP) — Two hand grenades were thrown near the home of a Palestinian official in this southern refugee camp, but caused no injuries or damage, a Palestinian source said Tuesday. The grenades exploded near the home of Hussein Massaad, an official of President Arafat's Fateh movement, in the main street of Ain Al Hilweh late Monday, the source told AFP. A quarter of an hour later, a stick of dynamite also exploded in the same street, and an hour after that another grenade was lobbed close to the offices of Al Saiqa, a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction. In response, gunmen guarding the offices fired shots into the air. "The explosions that have become an almost daily occurrence in Ain Al Hilweh cause more noise than harm. These attempts to destabilise security in the camp have been going on since last August but without success," a Palestinian official told AFP, requesting anonymity. Since August, more than 30 bomb attacks have been recorded in Ain Al Hilweh, home to some 60,000 Palestinians on the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon. Saudi pilot killed in a small plane crash RIYADH (AFP) — A Saudi pilot was killed when his small plane crashed while chasing a number of intruders into a nature reserve north of the kingdom, an official was quoted as saying Tuesday. Head of the National Wild Life Conservation Agency Abdul Aziz Abu Zanadah told Al Jazirah daily that agency pilot Tareq Munzel Al Naseeri, 40, flew at a low altitude over the reserve near Al Jouf. Abu Zanadah could not confirm if the intruders fired shots at the small plane causing it to crash. Israel says 10,000 Palestinians to be allowed to make Mecca pilgrimage OCCUPIED JERUSALEM (AFP) — Some 10,000 Palestinian Muslims will be allowed to make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca in Saudi Arabia next month, the Israeli defence ministry announced on Tuesday. The ministry said in a statement that a number of Palestinians had already started leaving via the Israeli-controlled borders between the Gaza Strip and Egypt and the West Bank and Jordan. But Palestinian officials said some 300 would-be pilgrims were prevented from crossing the Rafah crossing point in Gaza last week, saying Israel had given them a list of 838 Palestinians who would not be allowed to leave for security reasons. Some 5,000 Russian Muslims to set off on pilgrimage to Mecca MOSCOW (AFP) — Some 5,000 Russian Muslims are expected to go on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca this year, European Russia's top Islamic spiritual leader, Talgat Tadzhuddin, said in a newspaper interview Tuesday. "A large majority of the 5,000 Russian believers who will perform the Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage) are from the North Caucasus," the mufti told the Izvestia newspaper. The Russian pilgrims will travel mainly by plane and pay themselves for the fare, which will cost between $1,200 and $1,500, for some of them the equivalent of a year's salary. "Saudi Arabia has significantly toughened the entry rules this year: You have to get vaccinated and organisations must provide guarantees for the pilgrims," said Tadzhuddin. According to Izvestia, some 200 inhabitants of the war-torn separatist republic of Chechnya have applied to the local mufti to go on the pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia's holy places, which begins on Feb. 7. Last year, only nine Chechens were able to travel to Mecca, the others having failed to get their passports in time, the Vremya Novostei daily said.
Britain said Tuesday that Baghdad had
ignored United Nations disarmament demands, rallying behind President
George W. Bush as he prepared to set out his case for war to American
voters and skeptical allies.
DAMASCUS: Ariel Sharon’s widely expected
continuation as prime minister of Israel makes it clear Israeli voters do
not want peace in the Middle East and prefer only the candidate who is
most hostile to Arabs, Lebanese leaders and Syrian media said Tuesday.
-
Bush
promises "full force" if there is Iraq war
-
Tests
on empty warheads show no violations
Iraq has declared that the 12 empty
warheads that the Unmovic weapons inspectors discovered two weeks back had
never been used for any banned military action.
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Peaceful
settlement of Iraq crisis urged, Pakistan
Pakistan yesterday called for peaceful settlement of the Iraq crisis
and urged President Saddam Hussain to ensure cooperation for full
implementation of UN Security Council disarmament resolutions.
Russia sees no grounds for use of force in Iraq
MOSCOW - Russia, said on Wednesday it saw no grounds yet for using force against Iraq and called for U.N. arms inspectors to have more time, a day after U.S. President George W. Bush sought support for a possible war. "We are guided by the principles of international law and the prerogatives of the U.N. Security Council and, as we have said before, we do not see grounds for the use of military force," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said. "The potential for political and diplomatic regulation has not been exhausted and we think that international inspectors should be given the opportunity to continue their work." A day after Bush promised to fight with the full force of the U.S. armed forces, Moscow said in the statement it agreed on the need to resist "terrorism" but did not see eye to eye with Washington on the source of threats. "We support the thesis that, to oppose terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other global security challenges, decisive joint efforts are needed from the whole of the world community," Yakovenko said. "Of course, we do not always assess the concrete source of threats in the same way." Russia, one of five veto-wielding permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, has consistently opposed unilateral U.S. action against Iraq. But President Vladimir Putin, speaking in Kiev on Tuesday, said Moscow could harden its position against Baghdad if it hindered the work of U.N. inspectors. Russia has big oil interests in Iraq and is owed several billion dollars in Soviet-era debt. Yakovenko said Moscow was ready to listen to fresh U.S. evidence against Iraq, due to be presented by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to the Security Council next week. "Of course, we are ready to listen carefully to and to analyse the additional information which the U.S. secretary of state plans to present to the U.N. Security Council," he said. - Reuters
Islamist group vow more attacks on Americans in Kuwait
DUBAI - A clandestine Islamist group that claimed responsibility for last week's attack on Americans in Kuwait vowed to carry out more operations to "liberate Kuwait from colonialism", a pan-Arab newspaper reported on Wednesday. The London-based Asharq Al-Awsat said a man it interviewed over the Internet and who identified himself as leader of the "Daa'wa and Jihad" group disclosed that his organisation was affiliated with Saudi-born Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. "We are fighting to get the infidels out of the Arabian Peninsula, to liberate Kuwait from colonialism and fighting to liberate our prisoners in Cuba, as well as in support of our brothers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine," said the man who identified himself as Abu Osama al-Kuwaiti. Kuwait, where thousands of U.S. troops are assembling for a possible invasion of Iraq, has recently witnessed a string of isolated attacks against U.S. forces. "We took the initiative to unify these efforts under the name of Daa'wa and Jihad and we carried out attacks against the enemy's equipment," he added. Asked if his group was linked to bin Laden, al-Kuwaiti said: "Yes. We consider Sheikh Osama bin Laden as our leader and we are careful to work under all the directives issued by the Sheikh to the youths of the Islamic nation." "But obviously, there are no direct contacts with the Sheikh because of the well known circumstances," he added, referring to bin Laden who is being sought for his alleged involvement in the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities in 2001. In last Tuesday's attack near a military base in northern Kuwait, gunmen shot dead Michael Rene Pouliot and injured his colleague David Caraway. Police have said Kuwaiti Sami al-Mutairi, 25, confessed to the killing and that three other men were being held for providing him with rifles. Kuwaiti denied that Mutairi was involved in the ambush and said it was the work of another member of the group called Abu Hadhifa al-Kuwaiti. He said his group would not hesitate to target Kuwaiti officials who might try to obstruct members of the group. Officials in Kuwait have said Mutairi was a self-professed supporter of bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. Asharq al-Awsat published a copy of the group's statement claiming responsibility for the attack. - Reuters
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