August 28, 2002 news

August 28, 2002 News

Pakistan warns of terror attack on 9/11 anniversary
Khaleej Times, 8/28/02

KARACHI - Pakistan is on the alert for a possible terrorist attack on the first anniversary of the September 11 strikes against the United States, a top security officer said on Wednesday. "We have credible information about a possible terrorist attack on September 11," Major General Salahuddin, Director General of Pakistan's paramilitary Rangers, told reporters in this violence-strewn commercial port city.

"We also have information about their specific targets," he said, declining to reveal details. Salahuddin said security and intelligence agencies had been put on the alert and adequate measures were being taken to thwart any attacks. "We are also coordinating with intelligence agencies, particularly in regards to the coming anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks on the United States." Enraged militants have executed a series of deadly attacks on Christian and Western targets since Pakistan split with Afghanistan's fundamentalist Taleban militia after the September 11 attacks and joined the US-led global war on terrorism. Three of them occurred in Karachi, prompting one of the city's senior police commanders to dub it "a hub of terrorists."

Twelve people, all Pakistanis, were killed in a bomb blast outside the US consulate here in June, almost a month after an attack on French naval technicians bus outside the city's Sheraton Hotel left 14 people dead including 11 Frenchmen. - AFP

Corruption "rampant" in two-thirds of countries
Khaleej Times, 8/28/02

BERLIN - Over two thirds of the world's countries are rife with corruption -- a spectre haunting Latin America, the former Soviet states and vast swathes of Africa, Transparency International said on Wednesday. The Berlin-based anti-corruption group said 70 percent of the 102 countries it surveyed for its 2002 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) scored less than half-marks, a clear deterioration from last year.

"Corruption is perceived to be rampant in Indonesia, Kenya, Angola, Madagascar, Paraguay, Nigeria and Bangladesh," the organisation said. Latin America in general has slipped down the rankings of perceived corruption of its politicians and public officials. "In the past year, we have seen setbacks to the credibility of democratic rule. In parts of South America, the graft and misrule of political elites have drained confidence in the democratic structures that emerged after the end of military rule," TI chairman Peter Eigen told a news conference.

For example, Argentina, ranked 57th last year with a score of 3.5 out of a potential 10, dropped to 70th and a 2.8 rating. Eigen, speaking before heading to the United Nations Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, said corruption ruined a nation's chance to relieve poverty and heal the planet. There were a few positive signs in former communist nations. Slovenia showed improvement, climbing from 5.2 points to 6.0, although many nations of the former Soviet Union were still riddled with corruption.

Russia, for example, had improved yet still had a long way to go and like Uzbekistan, Georgia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Azerbaijan, it still scored below three points. Finland topped the table, as it did last year, followed by Denmark, New Zealand, Iceland, Singapore and Sweden. However, many developed countries had no cause for pride.

Among the nations of the European Union and North America, Greece was the lowest-ranking country at 44th. Italy was ranked 31st. Ireland's rating had slipped from 7.5 to 6.9.

BRIBERY

Eigen said the corporate scandals of Enron and WorldCom had highlighted a need for the United Nations to initiate reforms to strengthen social responsibility. The institute's Bribe Payers Index, published earlier this year, demonstrated that businesses in top exporting countries were fuelling corrupt politicians in the developing world.

The survey revealed high levels of bribery by firms from Russia, China, Taiwan and South Korea, closely followed by Italy, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, the United States and France. The corruption survey failed to include every country. Afghanistan was omitted as well as almost any country from the Middle East or North Africa in the absence of sufficient data.

Eigen welcomed U.S. President Bush's commitment in March to tie billions of dollars of development over the next three years to a commitment to good governance and anti-corruption measures. Likewise, a plan called the New Partnership for Africa's Development, which calls for investment in return for political progress launched by African leaders in October 2001 - Reuters

Israel army violating "human shields" ban: rights group
Khaleej Times, 8/28/02

JERUSALEM - A leading Israeli human rights group on Wednesday accused the army of violating a Supreme Court injunction on the use of Palestinian civilians as "human shields," forcing two men to try and evacuate an injured militant armed with a grenade. The B'Tselem group said in a statement that on August 23, Israeli troops hunting for a wounded militant, who had tried to attack a Jewish settlement in the Gaza Strip, forced two Palestinian civilians to locate the gunman, who had hidden in one of the man's yards. B'Tselem said the troops told Samir Abu Amra to go in and tell the man to surrender. Abu Amra found the man clutching a grenade and refusing to give himself up.

When he told Israeli troops of the situation, they forced him back into the yard with his neighbour, Ahmad Abu Amra, to fetch the man out, as shots were fired over their heads, B'Tselem said. They failed to persuade the gunman to come out, and he later died, either of his injuries or through the explosion of the grenade. "When the incident was over, Samir Abu Amra collapsed and required medical treatment," the statement said. B'Tselem denounced the use of "human shields" and the so-called "neighbour procedure" of forcing civilians to act as go-betweens with militants "blatant" violations of international law and of an August 18 Supreme Court interim ban on both practices.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday prolonged the ban by two weeks. The court slapped the first temporary ban on the controversial practices after a Palestinian teenager was shot dead when the army used him as a go-between with a holed-up leader of Hamas in the northern West Bank village of Tubas. The court is still waiting for the state to respond to charges lodged by seven human rights groups that such use of civilians violates the fourth Geneva Convention.

Ofir Feuerstein, a B'Tselem spokesman, said the group was preparing to submit its findings to the court. A military spokesman said the army was looking into the incident. - AFP

16 killed in Kashmir violence
Khaleej Times, 8/28/02

SRINAGAR, India - Sixteen people, including 12 militants, were killed while four members of a pro-India militant group were wounded in Indian-administered Kashmir in the past 24 hours, police said. Indian security forces shot dead four militants at Patrigalli Gala in southern Kashmir's Poonch district Wednesday, a police spokesman said.

He said a security force personnel was also killed during the encounter that lasted for several hours. Four AK rifles, two radio sets, 53 grenades, eight anti-tank rifle grenades and other arms and ammunition were recovered from the encounter site. Indian troops shot dead two rebels along the Line of Control (LoC) -- the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan -- in the Gurez sector of the northern Kupwara district overnight.

Police said the militants had infiltrated into Indian Kashmir from across the border. In the southern Kashmir's Pulwama district, police said militants shot dead an unidentified man on Wednesday. Militants also shot dead on Wednesday a member of Ikhwan, a pro-India militant group formed by turncoat rebels, in the southern Kashmir town of Anantnag, 50 kilometres (31 miles) south of Srinagar, Kashmir's summer capital.

Ikhwan members assist the army, police and paramilitary in their counter-insurgency operations across Kashmir, where 36,500 people have died since the start of an anti-India rebellion in 1989. Separately an Ikhwan commander was killed and four of his colleagues injured in an ambush by suspected rebels in north Kashmir, a police spokesman said.

The Ikhwanis were attacked in the village of Nadihal, near Bandipora township, 60 kilometres (38 miles) north of Srinagar, injuring five of them and a woman passerby. Two more militants were killed in southern Kashmir's district of Doda.

Official sources said three more militants were shot dead in Mohore area of Udhampur district,175 kilometres north of Kashmir's winter capital Jammu. Another rebel was killed by army and police in Kasabladi area of Mendhar in a seperate incident. - AFP

Iraq says U.S. attacks civilian airport
Baghdad |Reuters | Gulf News, 28-08-2002

U.S. warplanes struck targets in Iraqi "no-fly" zones yesterday, with Washington saying they attacked air defence positions but Baghdad saying a civilian airport was one of the places hit.

The U.S. military, citing repeated Iraqi attempts to shoot down U.S. and British warplanes, said its jets attacked a radar site in northern Iraq and an air defence command facility in southern Iraq, in its sixth and seventh raids within a week.

But the official Iraqi News Agency said U.S. and British jets fired two bombs at Mosul civilian airport, 450 km (270 miles) north of Baghdad.

"The aggression led to the destruction of windows in the passenger terminals and of the airport radar system," a Transport Ministry spokesman told the agency.

An Iraqi military spokesman said Allied jets bombed civilian targets in the south of the country, but reported no casualties.

Hundreds of such tit-for-tat exchanges have occurred since the 1991 Gulf War, but they have increased sharply as speculation grows that President George W. Bush will order the U.S. military to invade Iraq and remove President Saddam Hussein.

Washington accuses him of developing weapons of mass destruction, and on Monday U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said it was time to oust Saddam.

According to the Pentagon, Tuesday's raids against air defences in the two zones were the sixth and seventh in just over a week with the total number reaching 32 this year.

In a tough speech Cheney called for a liberated Iraq, saying that now, not later, was the time for a pre-emptive strike.

He noted that many U.S. allies, former senior U.S. officials and even congressional leaders in his own Republican Party, were cautioning against military action now.

"Some concede that Saddam is evil, power-hungry and a menace, but that until he crosses the threshold of actually possessing nuclear weapons we should rule out any pre-emptive action," Cheney said.

"Yet if we did wait until that moment, Saddam would simply be emboldened and it would become even harder for us to gather friends and allies to oppose him."

U.S. action against Iraq "attack on Arabs" - Saddam
Baghdad |Reuters | Gulf News, 28-08-2002

U.S. action against Iraq would be an attack on all Arabs, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) quoted President Saddam Hussein as saying yesterday during a meeting with Qatar's Foreign Minister.

"The American threats do not target Iraq alone but all the Arab nation," Saddam said.

Saddam's comments came after U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney laid out the case for pre-emptive action against Iraq citing mortal danger to the United States.

Cheney on Monday warned of the danger of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists and said: "The risk of inaction is far greater than the risk of action."

"Iraq has implemented all obligations imposed on it by (U.N.) Security Council resolutions," Saddam said, accusing the international body of not implementing its commitments, including respecting Iraq's independence and sovereignty and lifting sanctions imposed on Baghdad following its invasion of Kuwait, sparking the 1991 Gulf War.

"If there is a genuine desire to find a solution, it has to be based on international legitimacy, international law and the U.N. charter...and has to include implementing commitments by all parties," the Iraqi leader added.

Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani said his visit to Baghdad, which ended yesterday, was aimed at averting a "catastrophe", in clear reference to looming U.S. threats of military action to oust Saddam.

The Iraqi president appeared to be "well aware of all that is happening around him," Sheikh Hamad told Doha-based al-Jazeera television upon his return from Baghdad.

Qatar has joined other Arab countries in opposing a possible U.S. military attack against Iraq. "We are of course against any military action," Sheikh Hamad told reporters on Monday.

Sheikh Hamad said Washington had not asked Qatar to provide military facilities to U.S. troops to attack Iraq. "America has not yet asked us to provide new military facilities or informed us that it is intended to launch a military action," he said.

Sheikh Hamad told Jazeera that his country would "make it known to all if an attack against Iraq was to be launched from here, but we do not favour any such action or want it."

"We (Arab countries) have no power to stop a strike but we are against a strike or military action," he added.

INA said Sheikh Hamad conveyed to Saddam a message from Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani concerning "current Arab conditions, chief among them U.S. threats against Iraq".

Bush reaffirms "eternal friendship" with Saudi Arabia
By a Staff Writer, Arab News

JEDDAH/CRAWFORD, 28 August — US President George W. Bush yesterday called Prince Abdullah, the regent, by telephone to reaffirm the "eternal friendship" between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The president played down the anti-Saudi campaign in the United States and said such talks did not reflect the strength and solidity of Saudi-US ties.

"It only reflects the opinion of the person who said it and it cannot affect the eternal friendship between the two countries," the Saudi Press Agency quoted Bush as saying.

The talks between Prince Abdullah and Bush came few hours before the president met with Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar ibn Sultan at his Crawford, Texas, ranch.

The anti-Saudi comments, including one at a Pentagon briefing that the Saudis should be considered adversaries, has raised Saudi ire and sparked rare calls within the Kingdom to review relations with its main Western ally.

A trillion-dollar lawsuit by relatives of Sept. 11 victims against Saudi banks and charities also raised questions in the Kingdom about the strength of Saudi-US ties, although the administration is not a party to the legal action.

"The president did say that the recent Pentagon briefing did not reflect his views or the views of the secretary of defense," a White House official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "It was a warm conversation."

Prince Abdullah told Bush that "he and the Saudi people are upset over the tragedy of the Palestinian people under the Israeli occupation," and called on the US leader to support a pan-Arab peace plan. Bush said his administration would continue its efforts to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East, recalling his stand that called for an independent Palestinian state. Prince Abdullah expressed his appreciation of the president’s noble feelings and affirmed the strength of Saudi-US relations.

Bush’s talks with Prince Bandar focused on bilateral relations, Iraq and Palestine, spokesman Ari Fleischer said. He said Bush insisted that Riyadh keep its pledges to help rebuild Afghanistan.

The president also told the ambassador that he believes the Iraqi leader is a menace to world peace but has made no decision on the best course of action to achieve Washington’s policy of ousting him, said Fleischer.

Asked whether Bush lessened Saudi opposition to military action, Fleischer replied that "every time the president meets with foreign leaders and the topic of Iraq comes up, the president thinks it’s a constructive exchange of ideas."

Fleischer called Prince Bandar "a very seasoned diplomat, ambassador to a very important country" and a man Bush enjoys. "He’s a very affable fellow, very good humor, speaks English better than most Americans," he said.

Saudis join hands to fight back slander
By Javid Hassan, Arab News Staff

RIYADH, 28 August — The ongoing media onslaught on Islam and charitable organizations and multitrillion dollar lawsuits against Saudi citizens and institutions have inspired the launch of a legal society for the defense of Islam and Islamic causes.

The society has been formed by a group of Saudi lawyers and businessmen who will pool their resources to counter the onslaught. The smear campaign has also driven the Ibn Baz Foundation, named after the former grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, to take up an ambitious project for the production of a one-hour documentary in English and French for release in 10 countries.

At another level, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs has set up an Islamic studies and research center to counter the malicious attacks on Islam. Websites on Islam have also been set up by the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and Muslim World League as part of a concerted move in the same direction.

The legal society, founded by Saudi lawyer Dr. Saleh Bakr Al-Tayar, founder of the newspaper Al-Watan, would respond to authorities that assail Islamic states and causes. The other mandates of the society, to be based in Paris, include taking up the cause of the oppressed, war victims, illegal detainees such as those languishing in the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

"It will also react to American lawyers who have filed suits seeking financial compensation for families of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks," Dr. Al-Tayar said. Saudi lawyers and charitable organizations have already declared their resolve to sue the US administration for causing physical and mental harm to Saudi nationals by implicating them in the terrorist attacks on the basis of mistaken identity or false charges. Scores of Saudis have been detained in Guantanamo on grounds of their alleged association with Al-Qaeda.

According to Ahmed Ibn Baz, director-general of the Ibn Baz Foundation, it will be their first documentary for promoting a better understanding between Islam and the West. The documentary will be distributed through Saudi diplomatic missions abroad.

The documentary treats the subject of human rights in Islam covering both legal and minority rights. It also discusses women’s rights and how Islam safeguards their honor and dignity.

"This film shows clearly a relationship between Islam and the West in recent times. It highlights the interaction between the two that increased during the Crusades and the subsequent waves of colonialism leading to the disintegration of the Othman Caliphate.

Rafiq Ahmed, who works in the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, told Arab News that the ministry’s Islamic studies and research center has been active in rebutting charges against Islam. "We have a website in English for responding to such attacks. Jihad is now being waged mainly on the intellectual and ideological fronts to protect Islam and its foundations," he added.

Israel arrests 2 PFLP leaders
By Phil Reeves, Arab News

RAMALLAH, West Bank, 28 August — Israel arrested two political leaders of a Palestinian party yesterday, pressing ahead with its policy of arrests in the West Bank even as Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer prepared to hold fresh security talks with Palestinian Interior Minister Abdel Razaq Al-Yahya.

The army captured three members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in the West Bank city of Ramallah, two of them senior political leaders, Palestinian security sources said.

"This means Israel is continuing its policy of assassination and arrests to weaken the PFLP, because it is the second most important faction in the PLO and because it is a faction which will prevent Israel from implementing its vision of a political and security solution," senior PFLP official Kaid Al-Ghul told reporters.

"It is no coincidence that this happened on the anniversary of the assassination of Abu Ali Mustapha," he said, in reference to the then leader of the secular movement killed in an Israeli helicopter attack last Aug. 27. The PFLP retaliated two months later by assassinating Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi.

Israeli troops combing the West Bank, which they have reoccupied almost entirely since June 19, also rounded up three members of the resistance group Hamas yesterday, as well as another 10 suspected activists in Ramallah, Nablus and Hebron.

Moving to capitalize on a prolonged lull in the 23-month conflict, Yahya said he would meet in Tel Aviv today with Ben-Eliezer to discuss a plan under which Israeli forces would gradually leave reoccupied areas as Palestinian security forces took control of them.

Security commanders discussed the plan in a meeting late Monday, but neither side disclosed any details. Israel has balked at extending the move from the West Bank town of Bethlehem, which it evacuated last week, to Hebron, citing security risks. Continued unrest in Gaza has also stalled a proposed series of withdrawals there.

The plan is opposed both by Palestinian hard-liners, who see it as a threat to them, and by far-right Israeli groups, who believe Israel should hang on to areas they have seized in the past two months.

Among the Israeli opponents are hard-line settler groups, whose communities built on land seized in the 1967 war have been the focus of the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, which has cost more than 2,400 lives.

The Jewish Settlers Council launched a campaign yesterday aimed at convincing the government to "defeat the Palestinians and finish the war."

The settlers’ decision came two days after the Israeli chief of staff, Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said "Palestinian terrorism was spreading like a cancer" and called for tough military action to "defeat the Palestinians."

In a statement, the settlers urged the government to order the army to continue its policy of systematic sweeps across the Palestinians territories for wanted militants.

The settlers also backed the hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s other tough policies, such as deterring future attacks by rounding up suspects’ relatives, demolishing their homes and threatening them with expulsion to the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Israel reeled from the arrests of seven Israeli Arabs accused of involvement in a bus bombing which killed nine people on Aug. 4. The new arrests came a week after a Hamas cell accused of some of the bloodiest attacks in months was dismantled in east Jerusalem.

The Israeli Army said yesterday it would relax restrictions on some Palestinians entering Israel from Bethlehem after "relative quiet" took hold in the West Bank city under a new security plan.

The United States urged the Israelis and Palestinians to renew efforts to revive the stalled Gaza-Bethlehem plan, which has been seen as a test case for a wider truce in the 23-month Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.

Under the plan agreed last week, Israel ended military operations in Bethlehem a week ago but, underscoring the deal’s fragility, kept its troops on the outskirts while Palestinian police were deployed in the city to ensure calm. Israel has not carried out its pledge to ease military closures in the Gaza Strip.

More than 150,000 Palestinians live in Bethlehem and the adjacent towns of Beit Jala and Beit Sahour. Some of them dart through olive groves and over surrounding hills to evade army checkpoints and try to reach jobs in Jerusalem. (The Independent)

Lawsuit against US planned
By a Staff Writer, Arab News

JEDDAH, 28 August — The father and brother of Abdullah Saad Al-Matrafi, who died in US bombings on Afghanistan, said they were planning to file a lawsuit against the US government seeking compensation.

Abdullah died last Ramadan while he was working as an Islamic consultant for Al-Wafa charitable organization in Afghanistan, Al-Watan reported yesterday.

"Abdullah was in constant contact with us. He was actually planning to come back from Kabul. On Ramadan 13, we were shocked to hear the news of his death," his father Saad told the daily.

UK Chief Rabbi says Israeli policy incompatible with Judaism
By Ha'aretz Service, Arab News, 8/28/02

The Chief Rabbi of Britain Jonathan Sacks harshly criticized Israel in an interview published Tuesday in The Guardian, saying that the current situation in Israel has caused the country to adopt a stance "incompatible" with the deepest ideals of Judaism and that the current Palestinian conflict is corrupting Israeli culture.

"You cannot ignore a command that is repeated 36 times in the Mosaic books: 'You were exiled in order to know what it feels like to be an exile.' I regard that as one of the core projects of a state that is true to Judaic principle. I regard the current situation as nothing less than tragic, because it is forcing Israel into postures that are incompatible in the long-run with our deepest ideals," Sacks said.

Sacks said that "there are things that happen on a daily basis which make me feel very uncomfortable as a Jew." He said that he was "profoundly shocked" at the recent reports of IDF soldiers smiling while posing for photographs over the corpses of dead Palestinians.

"There is no question that this kind of prolonged conflict, together with the absence of hope, generates hatreds and insensitivities that in the long run are corrupting to a culture," he said.

Asked if he would join other rabbis who have described the IDF occupation of the territories as immoral, Sacks said that already in 1967, after the Six Day war he "was convinced that Israel had to give back all the land for the sake of peace. My father, bless him, was convinced that Israel's neighbors would never make peace. Thirty five years later, I think we were both right."

Sacks said that he would be willing to hold talks with Sheikh Abu Hamza - the fundamentalist north London Muslim religious leader who describes himself as a Taliban sympathizer and admits to sharing Osama bin Laden's views. On Monday, the sheikh was quoted saying it was "OK" to kill non-Muslims, and equated Jews with Satan.

Sacks said that a meeting between the two is "a thought worth pursuing. I absolutely don't rule it out."

Sacks also revealed in the interview, that he met one of Iran's highest-ranking religious leaders, Ayatollah Abdullah Javadi-Amoli in New York in 2000.

"We established within minutes a common language, because we take certain things very seriously: we take faith seriously, we take texts seriously. It's a particular language that believers share." A language, Sacks said, which most Muslims feel the west is incapable of understanding.

Sacks said that he would not sit and talk with people "who kill those with whom they disagree." He said that he would not sit down with a would-be suicide bomber. "In order to listen, I have to be alive," he said.

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.