A New Year Eve In Kabul’s Ruins
Anwar Iqbal January 4, 2002
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#15 Posted by Darkhorse on January 10, 2002 9:23:29 pm
Here is another:
Islamabad downplays Musharraf speech
By Mark Kukis
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Pakistani officials on Thursday downplayed expectations of President Musharraf`s upcoming national address, despite hopes by U.S. officials that the speech would cool tensions between India and Pakistan.
``The president will be addressing the nation soon,`` said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Khan. ``The president`s address always is an important occasion. And the rest I think you`ll have to wait for the address to be able to determine how to classify it.``
Khan`s remarks to reporters in Islamabad marked a step back from statements made by U.S. lawmakers who recently visited the Pakistani capital for talks with Musharraf. After meeting with Musharraf earlier in the week, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said Musharraf`s speech would bring a historic turn in relations between India and Pakistan, nuclear rivals who remain locked in a military standoff along their shared border.
Pressed on whether Musharraf`s speech would be a signal to India, Khan said, ``Wait for the speech is all I can say.``
Pakistani officials have yet to announce exactly when Musharraf will make his speech, but the self-styled military ruler is expected to speak live via television sometime Saturday.
The speech will precede a visit next week by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has been working to diffuse the military tensions between India and Pakistan with regular calls from Washington to New Delhi and Islamabad.
Powell will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to make an appeal in person to break the border stalemate, which has left massive forces from Pakistan and India eyeballing each other along the volatile border, where artillery duels and small arms fire are common.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited New Delhi and Islamabad in recent days in a similar effort, but tensions remain high despite U.K. diplomacy.
``There is no change in the situation on the ground,`` Khan said. ``An accidental outbreak cannot be ruled out.``
Since mid-December, both India and Pakistan have been massing troops and weaponry -- including missiles -- on the Line of Control in Kashmir. Troops have been firing mortars at each other for the past two weeks.
India blames Pakistan for fueling a 12-year-old separatist Islamic uprising in Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies. Pakistan does, however, openly admit to providing moral and diplomatic support to what it calls ``Islamic freedom fighters.``
More than 36,000 people have died in the insurgency. Rebels put the toll at 80,000.
The long simmering tensions reached a fever pitch shortly after Dec. 13, when gunmen stormed the Parliament building in New Delhi.
Islamabad downplays Musharraf speech
By Mark Kukis
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- Pakistani officials on Thursday downplayed expectations of President Musharraf`s upcoming national address, despite hopes by U.S. officials that the speech would cool tensions between India and Pakistan.
``The president will be addressing the nation soon,`` said Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Khan. ``The president`s address always is an important occasion. And the rest I think you`ll have to wait for the address to be able to determine how to classify it.``
Khan`s remarks to reporters in Islamabad marked a step back from statements made by U.S. lawmakers who recently visited the Pakistani capital for talks with Musharraf. After meeting with Musharraf earlier in the week, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said Musharraf`s speech would bring a historic turn in relations between India and Pakistan, nuclear rivals who remain locked in a military standoff along their shared border.
Pressed on whether Musharraf`s speech would be a signal to India, Khan said, ``Wait for the speech is all I can say.``
Pakistani officials have yet to announce exactly when Musharraf will make his speech, but the self-styled military ruler is expected to speak live via television sometime Saturday.
The speech will precede a visit next week by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has been working to diffuse the military tensions between India and Pakistan with regular calls from Washington to New Delhi and Islamabad.
Powell will be the highest-ranking U.S. official to make an appeal in person to break the border stalemate, which has left massive forces from Pakistan and India eyeballing each other along the volatile border, where artillery duels and small arms fire are common.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited New Delhi and Islamabad in recent days in a similar effort, but tensions remain high despite U.K. diplomacy.
``There is no change in the situation on the ground,`` Khan said. ``An accidental outbreak cannot be ruled out.``
Since mid-December, both India and Pakistan have been massing troops and weaponry -- including missiles -- on the Line of Control in Kashmir. Troops have been firing mortars at each other for the past two weeks.
India blames Pakistan for fueling a 12-year-old separatist Islamic uprising in Kashmir, a charge Islamabad denies. Pakistan does, however, openly admit to providing moral and diplomatic support to what it calls ``Islamic freedom fighters.``
More than 36,000 people have died in the insurgency. Rebels put the toll at 80,000.
The long simmering tensions reached a fever pitch shortly after Dec. 13, when gunmen stormed the Parliament building in New Delhi.
#14 Posted by Darkhorse on January 10, 2002 5:00:19 pm
Siddiqui Saheb, Salaam!
Here it is:
Pakistan to disband five militant groups
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 9 (UPI) -- Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf is expected to disband two Kashmiri militant groups India blamed for attacking its parliament on Dec. 13, official sources told United Press International Wednesday.
The anticipated ban on Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed marks a major departure from the country`s past Kashmir policy.
In the past, Pakistan supported Kashmir militants waging a guerrilla war in Indian Kashmir. India describes them as ``terrorist attacks`` while Pakistan calls them a ``freedom struggle.``
Sources say Musharraf may also disband three other Muslim militant groups -- Harkatul Ansar, a Shiite group called Tereek Nafez e-Fiqh-Jafariya and the Sunni extremist group Sipah-e-Sahaba.
Other restrictions might include far-reaching reforms for Pakistan`s madrasas, or religious schools, including their registration with the government. Many religious institutions in Pakistan have been accused of spreading anti-Indian, anti-Western propaganda.
Musharraf is also expected to call for a ban on the collection of funds for the conflict in Kashmir, and posters and publications supporting it.
However, he will reaffirm Pakistan`s stand regarding its political and moral support for Kashmiri militants. India claims Pakistan provides military support for Kashmiri separatist groups, sources said. Islamabad denies the allegation.
India blames Lashkar and Jaish for arranging the Dec. 13 suicide attack in which nine Indian guards and all five attackers were killed.
Since then, India has moved thousands of troops to its border with Pakistan and also has deployed nuclear-capable missiles, urging Pakistan to accept its demands if it wants to defuse tensions.
The demands include disbanding Jaish and Lashkar, arresting their leaders and ending cross-border guerrilla attacks inside Indian Kashmir.
New Delhi also has drawn up a list of 20 suspected terrorists it wants extradited to India.
A nine-member bipartisan U.S. Senate delegation on Tuesday held talks with Musharraf about the border situation. They later said that the steps to curb terrorism, to be announced soon by the Pakistani president, would change the course of relations between the two neighbors.
Reports say Musharraf will announce his decision during an upcoming national address.
Following his meeting with the visiting U.S. lawmakers Wednesday, Musharraf said he hopes to ease tensions this week with the address, which is meant as much for the leadership in New Delhi as Pakistanis.
``We spoke extensively about the present tensions with India,`` said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., who stopped briefly in Islamabad for talks after a tour of the region with a delegation of Senate lawmakers.
``It`s fair to say President Musharraf spoke quite seriously about the remarks that he will give to the people of Pakistan in the two or three days,`` Lieberman said. ``I hope and believe that they will be bold and principled -- and that they will be so bold and principled in fact that they will encourage a response from the Indian government.``
Lieberman said Musharraf previewed the speech to him and other visiting U.S. senators Tuesday in Islamabad.
Lieberman said Musharraf`s address would likely encourage India to scale down its military presence along the Pakistani border, where both sides have massed forces in the biggest buildup in decades.
``The consequences of proximity of these forces is very, very serious to the people of this region and to the world,`` Lieberman said ``So long as they are there with tension high, there is always the possibility of an accident or there is the possibility that someone who wants to inflame tensions between these two nations, terrorists, will take action.``
Lieberman added, ``I think the speech that President Musharraf will make in the next two or three days is going to be critically important.`` Lieberman also went as far as to say the speech could perhaps be ``transformational`` and open ``an entire new chapter in the relationship between Pakistan and India.``
#13 Posted by Ras Siddiqui on January 9, 2002 12:54:35 am
Anwar Sahib,
any insight that you can offer on what
is going to be announced by Musharraf in the coming week? Does UPI have any scoop on this?
Ras
#12 Posted by cutandpaste on January 8, 2002 7:39:55 pm
Pakistani militants undaunted
Musharraf`s Army quietly sympathizes with Pakistani jihadis who claim Kashmir.
Jan. 9,2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0109/p1s2-wosc.html
By Elizabeth Rubin | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN - The Jamaat-I-Islami calls its quiet compound on the Grand Trunk Road in Peshawar the Center of Islam. The party is the ideological nucleus for all the jihadi groups fighting to wrest the majority-Muslim state of Kashmir from Indian control.
On the walls of the guest house is painted a scene of Muslim fighters on horseback, men with camels walking out of the mountains, over the words: ``Muslims of the subcontinent want to fulfill the ideology which says Pakistan is for the Muslims, India is for the Hindus; it will not be fulfilled without Kashmir; and thus we need an Islamic revolution.``
Despite the fact that Jamaat-I-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad has been arrested and despite Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf`s crackdown on jihadi leaders and fighters in the weeks since the Indian Parliament was attacked by unknown gunmen on Dec. 13, life goes on as usual at the Center of Islam. Fighters from all the provinces of Pakistan, as well as from the disputed region of Kashmir are coming and going, taking respites from their fight in Kashmir at the placid guest house. They are men like Abdullah, serious and purposeful, in his tweed blazer, shalwar kameez, and hiking boots.
One early morning about 10 years ago, Abdullah was on his way to prayers at his neighborhood mosque in Kashmir when he saw the Indian Army surround the mosque and open fire. A few weeks earlier he`d seen his schoolteacher dead on the road, killed by the Indian Army. He was 14 and enraged. He joined the demonstrations outside the UN offices and was stunned by the seeming indifference of the UN. ``So I left behind my pen and took a gun, and until now, my parents don`t know whether I`m alive or dead,`` says Abdullah, a 25-year-old Kashmiri jihadi.
It`s been so long now, he can`t even remember his parents so well, he says. He has no family of his own. He sees all the women of Kashmir as his mothers, all the girls as his sisters. For the past 11 years Abdullah has fought, slept, eaten, and prayed with his brothers in the armed wing of the Jamaat-I-Islami. President Muharraf`s recent actions against them, Abdullah says, will do nothing to stop him. ``We did not start our jihad for the Musharraf government, and we are not obeying his orders,`` he says.
He`s just crossed the border from three months in the mountains of what Pakistanis call ``Indian-held Kashmir`` and Indians call ``Jammu Kashmir.`` And whenever his amir (commander) called him back, he`d go by night and cross over the border. ``Our stand is clear. There`s no compromise,`` he says. ``We demand the Indian Army to quit Kashmir and let us decide our fate according to the 1948 UN resolution, which says that Kashmiris have the right to a plebiscite.``
For Abdullah, jihad is very specific - to liberate Kashmir. He`s not interested in Afghanistan. But behind him sit the spiritual and religious fathers for whom Kashmir is the latest chapter in the struggle of the Muslim world against Western imperialism - and these days, America. ``Rulers may say anything, but listen to the Khateeb [the speaker at Friday prayers],`` says an elderly ideological leader who`s been popular among the Islamist groups since the days of the jihad against the Russians and asked not to be named. ``If all the ulema [Islamic clerics] say, `don`t use American goods,` it can be easily implemented. And ultimately it may go there.``
To the Islamic leaders here, Musharraf has become a puppet of the West. For years, it`s been an open secret that the Pakistani Army was supporting and aiding the jihadi groups. Today, the official Army line is that it will obey the president`s orders, and it is doing so. But a key unanswered question here is how long the Army will continue to do so.
``Our jihadi people are still working with the Army officers who`ve told us they are unhappy about the president`s decision on Afghanistan and our Islamic groups,`` says a professor of one Islamic party here whose leader was arrested. ``Junior officers and soldiers in the mountains are arriving in tears. They say, `We are with you, because you are the people. Now your people are under threat, and it`s painful for us.` But it`s not the right time for us to start street violence. Our enemies will only use it against us.``
Having supported and financed the Afghan jihad against the Russians, and then the Taliban regime, the Pakistani government and leaders paved the way for what many have called the Talibanization of Pakistan. One of those men is retired Gen. Anwar Sher, who unofficially represented the Afghan jihadi groups for the Pakistani Army, and was a strategic adviser to the Taliban in the early days of their emergence.
While he sees Musharraf`s moves as necessary to curb the internal extremism, he warns that no one can control the madrassahs or the jihadi groups unless the Kashmir issue is resolved, and more generally the issue of America`s ``bulldozer`` approach to diplomacy.
``The average Pakistani - in fact any Pakistani - cannot think of Pakistan as complete without Kashmir. It is an unfinished agenda of the partition. The Kashmiris and Pakistanis are so frustrated with the obduracy of India and the negligence of the major powers that they feel they have to do it alone, at any risk, at any cost,`` he says. ``No government can survive if they do not heed the general sentiments of the public, whether it is a military or civilian government.``
Musharraf`s Army quietly sympathizes with Pakistani jihadis who claim Kashmir.
Jan. 9,2002
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0109/p1s2-wosc.html
By Elizabeth Rubin | Special to The Christian Science Monitor
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN - The Jamaat-I-Islami calls its quiet compound on the Grand Trunk Road in Peshawar the Center of Islam. The party is the ideological nucleus for all the jihadi groups fighting to wrest the majority-Muslim state of Kashmir from Indian control.
On the walls of the guest house is painted a scene of Muslim fighters on horseback, men with camels walking out of the mountains, over the words: ``Muslims of the subcontinent want to fulfill the ideology which says Pakistan is for the Muslims, India is for the Hindus; it will not be fulfilled without Kashmir; and thus we need an Islamic revolution.``
Despite the fact that Jamaat-I-Islami leader Qazi Hussain Ahmad has been arrested and despite Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf`s crackdown on jihadi leaders and fighters in the weeks since the Indian Parliament was attacked by unknown gunmen on Dec. 13, life goes on as usual at the Center of Islam. Fighters from all the provinces of Pakistan, as well as from the disputed region of Kashmir are coming and going, taking respites from their fight in Kashmir at the placid guest house. They are men like Abdullah, serious and purposeful, in his tweed blazer, shalwar kameez, and hiking boots.
One early morning about 10 years ago, Abdullah was on his way to prayers at his neighborhood mosque in Kashmir when he saw the Indian Army surround the mosque and open fire. A few weeks earlier he`d seen his schoolteacher dead on the road, killed by the Indian Army. He was 14 and enraged. He joined the demonstrations outside the UN offices and was stunned by the seeming indifference of the UN. ``So I left behind my pen and took a gun, and until now, my parents don`t know whether I`m alive or dead,`` says Abdullah, a 25-year-old Kashmiri jihadi.
It`s been so long now, he can`t even remember his parents so well, he says. He has no family of his own. He sees all the women of Kashmir as his mothers, all the girls as his sisters. For the past 11 years Abdullah has fought, slept, eaten, and prayed with his brothers in the armed wing of the Jamaat-I-Islami. President Muharraf`s recent actions against them, Abdullah says, will do nothing to stop him. ``We did not start our jihad for the Musharraf government, and we are not obeying his orders,`` he says.
He`s just crossed the border from three months in the mountains of what Pakistanis call ``Indian-held Kashmir`` and Indians call ``Jammu Kashmir.`` And whenever his amir (commander) called him back, he`d go by night and cross over the border. ``Our stand is clear. There`s no compromise,`` he says. ``We demand the Indian Army to quit Kashmir and let us decide our fate according to the 1948 UN resolution, which says that Kashmiris have the right to a plebiscite.``
For Abdullah, jihad is very specific - to liberate Kashmir. He`s not interested in Afghanistan. But behind him sit the spiritual and religious fathers for whom Kashmir is the latest chapter in the struggle of the Muslim world against Western imperialism - and these days, America. ``Rulers may say anything, but listen to the Khateeb [the speaker at Friday prayers],`` says an elderly ideological leader who`s been popular among the Islamist groups since the days of the jihad against the Russians and asked not to be named. ``If all the ulema [Islamic clerics] say, `don`t use American goods,` it can be easily implemented. And ultimately it may go there.``
To the Islamic leaders here, Musharraf has become a puppet of the West. For years, it`s been an open secret that the Pakistani Army was supporting and aiding the jihadi groups. Today, the official Army line is that it will obey the president`s orders, and it is doing so. But a key unanswered question here is how long the Army will continue to do so.
``Our jihadi people are still working with the Army officers who`ve told us they are unhappy about the president`s decision on Afghanistan and our Islamic groups,`` says a professor of one Islamic party here whose leader was arrested. ``Junior officers and soldiers in the mountains are arriving in tears. They say, `We are with you, because you are the people. Now your people are under threat, and it`s painful for us.` But it`s not the right time for us to start street violence. Our enemies will only use it against us.``
Having supported and financed the Afghan jihad against the Russians, and then the Taliban regime, the Pakistani government and leaders paved the way for what many have called the Talibanization of Pakistan. One of those men is retired Gen. Anwar Sher, who unofficially represented the Afghan jihadi groups for the Pakistani Army, and was a strategic adviser to the Taliban in the early days of their emergence.
While he sees Musharraf`s moves as necessary to curb the internal extremism, he warns that no one can control the madrassahs or the jihadi groups unless the Kashmir issue is resolved, and more generally the issue of America`s ``bulldozer`` approach to diplomacy.
``The average Pakistani - in fact any Pakistani - cannot think of Pakistan as complete without Kashmir. It is an unfinished agenda of the partition. The Kashmiris and Pakistanis are so frustrated with the obduracy of India and the negligence of the major powers that they feel they have to do it alone, at any risk, at any cost,`` he says. ``No government can survive if they do not heed the general sentiments of the public, whether it is a military or civilian government.``
#11 Posted by cutandpaste on January 8, 2002 7:39:55 pm
`If You Won`t Talk to Us Now, You Will Later` - Then They Beat Him
Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Service Tuesday, January 8, 2002
Taliban`s Systematic Torture
http://www.iht.com/articles/44076.html
KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.
One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.
``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``
Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.
The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.
Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.
He felt a rush of fear.
Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.
``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``
``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``
The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``
Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.
When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.
Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``
The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.
Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.
Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.
After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.
Mr. Sayed handed it back.
``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.
The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.
``Do you want to write something now?``
Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.
They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.
He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.
He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.
One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.
The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``
Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.
The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``
The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.
A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.
``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.
``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.
An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.
The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``
In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``
It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.
BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.
Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.
Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.
``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.
``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``
The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.
Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.
He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``
Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Service Tuesday, January 8, 2002
Taliban`s Systematic Torture
http://www.iht.com/articles/44076.html
KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.
One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.
``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``
Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.
The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.
Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.
He felt a rush of fear.
Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.
``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``
``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``
The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``
Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.
When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.
Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``
The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.
Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.
Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.
After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.
Mr. Sayed handed it back.
``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.
The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.
``Do you want to write something now?``
Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.
They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.
He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.
He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.
One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.
The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``
Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.
The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``
The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.
A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.
``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.
``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.
An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.
The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``
In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``
It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.
BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.
Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.
Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.
``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.
``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``
The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.
Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.
He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``
#10 Posted by cutandpaste on January 8, 2002 7:39:55 pm
`If You Won`t Talk to Us Now, You Will Later` - Then They Beat Him
Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Service Tuesday, January 8, 2002
Taliban`s Systematic Torture
http://www.iht.com/articles/44076.html
KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.
One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.
``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``
Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.
The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.
Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.
He felt a rush of fear.
Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.
``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``
``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``
The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``
Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.
When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.
Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``
The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.
Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.
Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.
After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.
Mr. Sayed handed it back.
``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.
The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.
``Do you want to write something now?``
Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.
They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.
He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.
He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.
One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.
The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``
Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.
The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``
The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.
A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.
``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.
``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.
An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.
The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``
In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``
It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.
BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.
Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.
Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.
``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.
``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``
The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.
Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.
He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``
KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.
One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.
.
``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``
.
Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.
.
The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.
.
Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.
.
He felt a rush of fear.
.
Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.
.
``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``
.
``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``
.
The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``
.
Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.
.
When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.
.
Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``
.
The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.
.
Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.
.
Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.
.
After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.
.
Mr. Sayed handed it back.
.
``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.
.
The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.
.
``Do you want to write something now?``
.
Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.
.
They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.
.
He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.
.
He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.
.
One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.
.
The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``
.
Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.
.
The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``
.
The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.
.
A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.
.
``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.
.
``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.
.
An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.
.
The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``
.
In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``
.
It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.
.
BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.
Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.
Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.
.
``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.
``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``
The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.
Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.
He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``
Kevin Sullivan Washington Post Service Tuesday, January 8, 2002
Taliban`s Systematic Torture
http://www.iht.com/articles/44076.html
KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.
One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.
``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``
Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.
The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.
Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.
He felt a rush of fear.
Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.
``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``
``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``
The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``
Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.
When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.
Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``
The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.
Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.
Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.
After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.
Mr. Sayed handed it back.
``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.
The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.
``Do you want to write something now?``
Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.
They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.
He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.
He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.
One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.
The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``
Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.
The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``
The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.
A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.
``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.
``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.
An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.
The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``
In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``
It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.
BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.
Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.
Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.
``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.
``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``
The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.
Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.
He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``
KABUL The Taliban is on the run. But before the radical Islamic movement disappears down some dark alley of history, Sayed Abdullah wants the world to know what they did to him because they thought he was a Christian.
One afternoon late in 1999, Mr. Sayed, then a 26-year-old worker in a Red Cross medical-supply warehouse, was at home in Kabul with his mother, his wife and their two little girls, when Taliban soldiers surrounded the house.
.
``We are suspicious of you,`` Mr. Sayed remembers their leader saying. ``We want to ask you some questions.``
.
Mr. Sayed couldn`t imagine why.
.
The Taliban soldiers put him in a pickup truck and took him to the building that housed their Intelligence Division No. 1. They locked him in a cell not big enough to lie down in.
.
Hours later guards came and led him to a large room. He saw a table with metal legs and a wooden top. Next to the table stood the evidence the Taliban would use against him - his entire library of 500 books, many of them in English, which he had learned in school.
.
He felt a rush of fear.
.
Mr. Sayed says a Taliban commander picked up his two copies of the Bible, one in English and one in Dari, the main language of Afghanistan. Bibles were strictly forbidden by the Taliban.
.
``We have here a man who has converted from Islam to Christianity,`` the commander said. ``Who are you working for? Which country?``
.
``I`m a good Muslim,`` Mr. Sayed said he replied. ``I have those books for information, for learning, not for changing religions.``
.
The commander cut him off. ``If you won`t talk to us now, you will later.``
.
Guards tied Mr. Sayed face down on the table. They beat him until he passed out.
.
When he woke up, he was back in the tiny cell. Blood was on his face and his clothes. He called out, but no one came.
.
Later a group of Taliban soldiers came to taunt him. ``Come and see what an important person we have,`` one said. ``He converted from Islam to Christianity.``
.
The Taliban`s restrictions on women, its public executions, and its destruction of Afghan cultural treasures are well known. But only now is its practice of systematic torture becoming clear.
.
Mr. Sayed`s account of his ordeal has been supported by interviews with his doctor and aid workers, as well as by Taliban prison records. Yet the most telling evidence is Mr. Sayed`s scarred body. The torturers broke several bones in his back. He still wears a brace around his midsection to help him stand. He has chronic kidney problems. He takes painkillers, and antibiotics to fight recurring infections.
.
Non-Muslims were a common target of the Taliban`s wrath. With Mr. Sayed, the Taliban thought it had to set an example.
.
After the first beating, they took him back to the room with the bloodstained table. They handed him a piece of paper with written questions: Who do you work for? Name all the people you have taught and converted.
.
Mr. Sayed handed it back.
.
``I haven`t committed this crime,`` he said.
.
The guards again tied him on the table. This time, they poured water on his feet, then wound electrical wires around both of his big toes. The wires were attached to an old Soviet military field telephone. The guards turned the telephone`s crank, sending a searing electrical current into Mr. Sayed`s feet. He felt as if some powerful force was lifting him high off the table, then slamming him down again, over and over.
.
``Do you want to write something now?``
.
Mr. Sayed thought that if he continued to refuse he would convince them of his innocence. And he thought that if he confessed, they would kill him.
.
They cranked the phone. ``I swear to God I am innocent,`` he screamed.
.
He felt the current slam into his bones. Then he blacked out.
.
He passed the next week in the bug-infested cell. No one spoke to him. Twice a day, he was given a cup of tea and a piece of bread.
.
One morning Taliban soldiers dragged him to a pickup truck and drove him, along with all his books, to Intelligence Division No. 3, a walled compound with barred windows in central Kabul.
.
The guard who dragged him to his cell in the basement there said to the other Taliban members there: ``He will die soon. Pray for him.``
.
Two weeks passed. Then they took him upstairs to a torture room where Mr. Sayed was given even more hideous electric shocks that made him urinate blood.
.
The place is now a jail run by the Security Ministry of the new Afghan government. Shah Wali, the deputy director, said that when he arrived shortly after the Taliban fled on Nov. 13, he found a tattered yellow book of records. It notes that the 26-year-old prisoner Sayed Abdullah arrived in March 2000. It lists his crime as ``belonging to the Christian religion.``
.
The torture continued every few days for a month, until Mr. Sayed was ready to sign. He wrote made-up stories about spreading Christianity, about foreign money and shadowy networks of conversion-crazed preachers. Anything they wanted to hear. Anything to make the torture stop.
.
A few days later, Mr. Sayed was carried out into the courtyard. There were several high-ranking Taliban officials gathered there.
.
``It is shameful that you converted from Islam to Christianity,`` said an older man, who Mr. Sayed assumed was a government minister.
.
``I confessed, but I never converted,`` Mr. Sayed said.
.
An enraged guard ran to him, pulled his head by the hair and put a knife to his throat. ``Give me permission to cut his throat so I may be rewarded by God,`` he said.
.
The Taliban official waved him off. He told Mr. Sayed that he had been convicted. ``We will take you to the roof of the Ministry of Communications,`` he said, referring to the 18-story building that is Kabul`s tallest. ``First we will burn you. Then we will throw you over the edge so that everyone can see you and know the punishment for converting from Islam.``
.
In the months after his arrest, Mr. Sayed`s mother, Fokhraj, went several times to Taliban leaders, who denied that they were holding her son. Finally she spoke to a powerful commander. ``This is a difficult case, and you can`t solve it just by saying he is innocent,`` she recalls him saying. ``I can help, but you should please pay me $5,000.``
.
It was an enormous sum. She sold the house and almost everything in it, which yielded a little more than $5,000. She moved in with relatives, taking Mr. Sayed`s wife and daughters with her. She gave the money to the commander.
.
BY PULLING SOME STRINGS that are still unclear to Mr. Sayed and his mother, the commander got the case transferred to a civilian court, where the judges, though still with the Taliban, were more willing to deal. The commander apparently paid them well.
Things changed at the jail. There were no more beatings. Guards began putting sugar in Mr. Sayed`s tea. A Red Cross representative was allowed to visit him.
Early one morning, nearly six months after his arrest, the guards came for Mr. Sayed one last time. The Taliban commander handed him his Red Cross identification card, torn in half. Then it dawned on Mr. Sayed: The commander, illiterate like most Taliban soldiers, thought the cross on the card was a Christian symbol.
.
``Sign this,`` he said. He pushed a paper in front of Mr. Sayed. It said that the prisoner certified that he had been well cared for. Mr. Sayed, his fingers dislocated from the beatings, scratched a faint mark.
``I don`t know how this miracle happened, but you should be punished,`` the commander said. ``You didn`t die from the torture, but God will kill you soon. Or maybe the injuries from the torture will kill you.``
The guards dragged him outside, where the Taliban officer who had arranged his release was waiting. Mr. Sayed spent six months in hospitals. He says he still has difficulty hearing, his vision is weak and his short-term memory is sketchy. Now he is back at work, where he can perform only light physical duties because, at 28, too many parts of his body could give out.
Mr. Sayed`s house is gone. He lives with his in-laws. He has little money left. Afghanistan is moving on to what everyone hopes is a better future, but Mr. Sayed feels the past is not yet ready to release him.
He will not try to replace his library, which the Taliban burned. He says he can`t bear the sound of the word ``book.``
#9 Posted by Glen on January 8, 2002 7:39:55 pm
ttp://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1748000/1748711.stm
Tuesday, 8 January, 2002, 12:54 Fury over Mecca castle demolition
Turks say the Saudis are destroying Ottoman heritage
Turkey has accused Saudi Arabia of a ``cultural massacre`` following the reported demolition of an historic Ottoman castle near the holy city of Mecca. Ankara says it is lodging a protest with Unesco - the United Nations organisation responsible for the preservation of cultural relics.
This is a crime against humanity ... and cultural massacre
Turkish Culture Minister Istemihan Talay
It compared Riyadh`s actions to the destruction of the giant statues of Buddha by the ousted Taleban in Afghanistan last year. The Saudi authorities are said to have agreed to pull down the al-Ajyad Castle to build a housing complex to accommodate Muslim pilgrims visiting the holy shrines every year. The BBC`s Roger Hardy says the dispute is straining the normally close ties between two pro-Western Muslim states. The castle - on a hill overlooking the Grand Mosque - was built in 1780 by the ruling Ottomans to protect the city and its Muslim shrines from invaders. `Massacre` Turkey`s Culture Minister Istemihan Talay said his country wanted Unesco to condemn the Saudis. ``There is a similarity between the Taleban`s destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan and the Saudi authorities` enmity toward this legacy of the Ottoman era,`` Mr Talay told the Associated Press news agency.
``This is a crime against humanity and Unesco should expose this disgraceful and ugly destruction and cultural massacre,`` the minister said. The Saudi authorities have not confirmed the destruction of the fort. The Turkish Government says it was given assurances last year that the castle would be preserved. Anger Reports of the castle`s destruction angered many in Turkey. ``The Saudis appear to have made destroying Ottoman relics their goal,`` AP quoted Orhan Arslan, deputy chairman of the pro-Islamic Great Unity Party. ``Ottoman cultural heritage is being eradicated.`` The Turkish media followed suit.
There is a similarity between the Taleban`s destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan
Turkish Culture Minister Istemihan Talay
``King Fahd is erasing Turkish footprints,`` Hurriyet newspaper said in a front-page headline. Ottoman Turks once ruled a vast empire ranging from the Arabian peninsula to the Balkans and north Africa. The empire finally disintegrated at the beginning of the 20th Century - when modern Turkey was set up as a secular state. Ankara says everyone should protect the cultural legacy of the Ottoman empire. The Turks suspect that the Saudis saw the fort as an unwelcome reminder of Turkish rule. ``Cultural heritage in every country is everybody`s common property, no matter what their origin or the period they belong to,`` the Turkish culture minister said.
See also:
05 Mar 01 | Middle East
Hajj perils, ancient and modern
05 Mar 01 | Middle East
Pilgrims killed in Mecca stampede
05 Mar 01 | Middle East
In pictures: Death at the Hajj
12 Mar 01 | South Asia
Outcry as Buddhas are destroyed
Internet links:
Hajj Information Centre
Saudi Arabia Information Resource
Turkish culture ministry
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Top Middle East stories now:
Fury over Mecca castle demolition
Iranian dissidents` trial begins
Pakistan agree neutral venue
Arms ship captain acted `under ord
Tuesday, 8 January, 2002, 12:54 Fury over Mecca castle demolition
Turks say the Saudis are destroying Ottoman heritage
Turkey has accused Saudi Arabia of a ``cultural massacre`` following the reported demolition of an historic Ottoman castle near the holy city of Mecca. Ankara says it is lodging a protest with Unesco - the United Nations organisation responsible for the preservation of cultural relics.
This is a crime against humanity ... and cultural massacre
Turkish Culture Minister Istemihan Talay
It compared Riyadh`s actions to the destruction of the giant statues of Buddha by the ousted Taleban in Afghanistan last year. The Saudi authorities are said to have agreed to pull down the al-Ajyad Castle to build a housing complex to accommodate Muslim pilgrims visiting the holy shrines every year. The BBC`s Roger Hardy says the dispute is straining the normally close ties between two pro-Western Muslim states. The castle - on a hill overlooking the Grand Mosque - was built in 1780 by the ruling Ottomans to protect the city and its Muslim shrines from invaders. `Massacre` Turkey`s Culture Minister Istemihan Talay said his country wanted Unesco to condemn the Saudis. ``There is a similarity between the Taleban`s destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan and the Saudi authorities` enmity toward this legacy of the Ottoman era,`` Mr Talay told the Associated Press news agency.
``This is a crime against humanity and Unesco should expose this disgraceful and ugly destruction and cultural massacre,`` the minister said. The Saudi authorities have not confirmed the destruction of the fort. The Turkish Government says it was given assurances last year that the castle would be preserved. Anger Reports of the castle`s destruction angered many in Turkey. ``The Saudis appear to have made destroying Ottoman relics their goal,`` AP quoted Orhan Arslan, deputy chairman of the pro-Islamic Great Unity Party. ``Ottoman cultural heritage is being eradicated.`` The Turkish media followed suit.
There is a similarity between the Taleban`s destruction of the Buddha statues in Afghanistan
Turkish Culture Minister Istemihan Talay
``King Fahd is erasing Turkish footprints,`` Hurriyet newspaper said in a front-page headline. Ottoman Turks once ruled a vast empire ranging from the Arabian peninsula to the Balkans and north Africa. The empire finally disintegrated at the beginning of the 20th Century - when modern Turkey was set up as a secular state. Ankara says everyone should protect the cultural legacy of the Ottoman empire. The Turks suspect that the Saudis saw the fort as an unwelcome reminder of Turkish rule. ``Cultural heritage in every country is everybody`s common property, no matter what their origin or the period they belong to,`` the Turkish culture minister said.
See also:
05 Mar 01 | Middle East
Hajj perils, ancient and modern
05 Mar 01 | Middle East
Pilgrims killed in Mecca stampede
05 Mar 01 | Middle East
In pictures: Death at the Hajj
12 Mar 01 | South Asia
Outcry as Buddhas are destroyed
Internet links:
Hajj Information Centre
Saudi Arabia Information Resource
Turkish culture ministry
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Top Middle East stories now:
Fury over Mecca castle demolition
Iranian dissidents` trial begins
Pakistan agree neutral venue
Arms ship captain acted `under ord
#8 Posted by hamzadafaqui on January 7, 2002 12:12:25 am
What the CNN---Certainly Not News will never tell you.
From the daily ``Independant``--England.7/1/2002
_________________________________________________
Missing: crucial facts from the official charge sheet against Bin Laden
What the Government`s dossier against bin Laden doesn`t say and can`t say: One thing is missing from the document `proving` Bin Laden`s guilt – the proof.
By Chris Blackhurst
07 October 2001
It was too good to be true. We were told we would be getting evidence of Osama bin Laden`s guilt. Instead, close analysis of the 21-page document put out by the Government on Thursday reveals a report of conjecture, supposition and unsubstantiated assertions of fact. It uses every trick in the Whitehall drafter`s arsenal to make the reader believe they are reading something they are not: a damning indictment of Mr bin Laden for the events of 11 September.
No wonder Tony Blair and his officials are delighted with the reaction to publication of the dossier. One Whitehall source told the Independent on Sunday they were ``chuffed with two newspapers for hailing it as `proof` of bin Laden`s involvement and delighted it got such a good reaction overall``. Ministers believe the document has sealed the propaganda war, convincing the country of the need to move against Mr bin Laden and al-Qa`ida and to accept limited British and civilian casualties. To their relief they are not being subjected to rigorous questioning on the report, either from their own supporters, the Opposition, or much of the media. Officials are also pleased: the document successfully papers over the cracks in their own intelligence operations.
The report was put together by a committee which included senior members of MI5 and MI6, working round the clock, with drafts going backwards and forwards to Washington. Within Whitehall, the dossier was seen as vital to gaining the approval of a naturally cautious and sceptical British public. As a paper produced by mandarins anxious to brook no argument it is a classic of its kind, straight from the script of Yes Minister: short on checkable detail; long on bold assertion; highly selective with the choice of facts.
Officials when they prepare such reports operate to a set of principles. They know that unlike the US, and thanks to their efforts in suppressing freedom of information down the years, Britain is a secret society. We are not used to having anything presented to us about intelligence matters and threats to national security. That, plus the British characteristic of not defying authority, especially in times of crisis, means that if the Government says loudly enough that something is ``evidence``, even if it is not, we will accept it as such.
That is why the very first sentence in the paper, in the introduction, states: ``The clear conclusions reached by the government are: Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001.`` This is the introduction, not the conclusion or an executive summary. Introductions, as the authors knew too well, normally set up a document, relating the background as to why the book or, in this instance, a government document, has been written. Here, that convention was rejected: from the word go, the Government wanted to ensure the point of the document was conveyed.
The document carries a health warning that intelligence material has been withheld to protect the safety of sources. But, lawyers point out, this is not good enough. Assuming one aim of the military build-up is to try to capture Mr bin Laden and put him on trial, that so-far-unseen evidence would have to be displayed – because on the basis of what has been released there is no chance of his being prosecuted, let alone convicted. ``The Prime Minister told Parliament that this evidence was of an even more direct nature indicating guilt,`` said Richard Gordon QC. ``The document makes it clear that the additional evidence is `too sensitive to release`. That may be so, but in any criminal prosecution against bin Laden the necessary evidence would have to be adduced for the case to be proved.``
For page after page, the paper spews out facts about Mr bin Laden. In 1996, he issued a declaration of jihad, or holy war. In February 1998 he issued and signed a fatwa which included a decree to all Muslims that ``the killing of Americans and their civilian and military allies is a religious duty for each and every Muslim to be carried out...`` In the same year he also said that acquiring chemical or nuclear weapons for the defence of Muslims was a ``religious duty``. It might look like evidence of something, but it is not proof he organised the 11 September attacks. ``All this shows, in the language of the lawyers, propensity, but it proves little,`` said Mr Gordon.
More pertinent to 11 September were two TV interviews he gave, in 1997 and 1998, in which he referred to the terrorists who carried out the earlier attack on the World Trade Centre in 1993 as ``role models``. In December 1999, a terrorist cell linked to al-Qa`ida was discovered trying to carry out attacks in the US. Other attacks on US targets by al-Qa`ida or terrorists trained at bin Laden camps were made in January and October 2000.
Again, said Mr Gordon, it is not enough. ``This material shows that bin Laden may well have been responsible for the 11 September massacre but it does not, of itself, prove that he was.`` The document goes into great detail about the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But there is not one single fact presented that was not already known. While the operation was similar to 11 September – well planned, two attacks on the same day, suicide attackers indiscriminate killing of civilians, including Muslims – it does not prove anything.
Officials deny that the minute description of the previous bombings was designed to cover up cracks in their own intelligence about 11 September. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that in a 21-page document the overwhelming bulk of it is devoted to rehashing old information. It is not until page 18 and paragraph 61 that the reader is told something new about 11 September.
This is that three of the 19 hijackers have been ``positively identified as associates of Al Qaida`` and that one of them ``has been identified as playing key roles in both the East African embassy attacks and the USS Cole attack``. The word ``associates`` suggests the authorities lack intelligence on al-Qa`ida: they think they know who may be involved but they are not sure, and they are not certain where they come in the pecking order – hence the catch-all, ``associates``. The three are understood to be: Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, both filmed secretly in Kuala Lumpur meeting other al-Qa`ida members involved in the USS Cole bombing in Aden; and Mohamed Atta. Suspected of being the ringleader, Atta is believed to have been a member of Islamic Jihad, a major grouping within al-Qa`ida, and the authorities are convinced he received training at a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan. The hijacker who played a key role in the embassy, USS Cole and 11 September attacks, is thought to refer to Almihdhar. If there is a hijacker linking all three, that is a crucial piece of evidence since there is no doubt al-Qa`ida committed the earlier bombings.
The next paragraph, 62, promises much and delivers little. Prefaced with another rider about names remaining anonymous to protect sources, it begins by saying how, prior to 11 September, Mr bin Laden ``mounted a concerted propaganda campaign ... justifying attacks on Jewish and American targets``. It was well known in the Middle East that, earlier this year, a bin Laden recruitment video was in circulation, exhorting Muslims to lay down their lives for the jihad. The video makes no mention of any coming big assault nor does it refer to 11 September or possible targets in the US.
Last week it emerged that Mr bin Laden called his adoptive mother in Syria on 10 September to tell her there would be ``big news``, subsequent to which he might be out of touch for some time. It is hard to believe that someone as cautious as him would risk such a call. However, this is understood to be what is being referred to when the document says, in paragraph 62: ``We have learned, subsequent to 11 September, that bin Laden himself asserted shortly before 11 September that he was preparing a major attack on America.`` The document goes on, saying that in August and early September, close bin Laden associates were warned to return to Afghanistan by 10 September.
This is new, and odd. Since the attacks, known al-Qa`ida associates have been picked up or they are being watched. If there was advice to go to Afghanistan presumably they ignored it or did not receive it. The names of the ``close associates`` are not specified, neither is any more detail made available – which is a mystery. It is hard to see why giving a bit more detail would compromise anybody or a foreign intelligence service that may be monitoring their calls.
Again, this tantalising paragraph – by far the most intriguing in the document – says that just before the attacks ``some known associates of bin Laden were naming the date for action as on or around 11 September``. What associates? How? When? Again, no detail is supplied.
Then, the paragraph continues, ``one of bin Laden`s closest and most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of the attacks``. This is thought to be a reference to either Mohamed Atef, al-Qa`ida`s operations chief, or Ayman al Zawahiri, Mr bin Laden`s deputy. Another senior al-Qa`ida member being mentioned by those close to the investigation is Abu Zubeidah.
After all this, the most vital paragraph in the paper ends with this curious sentence: ``There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release.``
What this document is not is a detailed exposition of the investigation to date. To be fair, that is still ongoing, but providing that amount of information would distract from the paper`s main purpose, to blame Mr bin Laden. This is summarised in the final narrative paragraph, 69: ``No other organisation has both the motivation and the capability to carry out attacks like those of the 11 September – only the Al Qaida network under Osama bin Laden.`` This smacks of exasperation. To ram that point home, paragraph 70, ``conclusion``, repeats the message of the introduction. This, in the end, is what the paper is for, a Government plea for trust: it was Mr bin Laden. To which the response must be: we believe you – but prove it.
From the daily ``Independant``--England.7/1/2002
_________________________________________________
Missing: crucial facts from the official charge sheet against Bin Laden
What the Government`s dossier against bin Laden doesn`t say and can`t say: One thing is missing from the document `proving` Bin Laden`s guilt – the proof.
By Chris Blackhurst
07 October 2001
It was too good to be true. We were told we would be getting evidence of Osama bin Laden`s guilt. Instead, close analysis of the 21-page document put out by the Government on Thursday reveals a report of conjecture, supposition and unsubstantiated assertions of fact. It uses every trick in the Whitehall drafter`s arsenal to make the reader believe they are reading something they are not: a damning indictment of Mr bin Laden for the events of 11 September.
No wonder Tony Blair and his officials are delighted with the reaction to publication of the dossier. One Whitehall source told the Independent on Sunday they were ``chuffed with two newspapers for hailing it as `proof` of bin Laden`s involvement and delighted it got such a good reaction overall``. Ministers believe the document has sealed the propaganda war, convincing the country of the need to move against Mr bin Laden and al-Qa`ida and to accept limited British and civilian casualties. To their relief they are not being subjected to rigorous questioning on the report, either from their own supporters, the Opposition, or much of the media. Officials are also pleased: the document successfully papers over the cracks in their own intelligence operations.
The report was put together by a committee which included senior members of MI5 and MI6, working round the clock, with drafts going backwards and forwards to Washington. Within Whitehall, the dossier was seen as vital to gaining the approval of a naturally cautious and sceptical British public. As a paper produced by mandarins anxious to brook no argument it is a classic of its kind, straight from the script of Yes Minister: short on checkable detail; long on bold assertion; highly selective with the choice of facts.
Officials when they prepare such reports operate to a set of principles. They know that unlike the US, and thanks to their efforts in suppressing freedom of information down the years, Britain is a secret society. We are not used to having anything presented to us about intelligence matters and threats to national security. That, plus the British characteristic of not defying authority, especially in times of crisis, means that if the Government says loudly enough that something is ``evidence``, even if it is not, we will accept it as such.
That is why the very first sentence in the paper, in the introduction, states: ``The clear conclusions reached by the government are: Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001.`` This is the introduction, not the conclusion or an executive summary. Introductions, as the authors knew too well, normally set up a document, relating the background as to why the book or, in this instance, a government document, has been written. Here, that convention was rejected: from the word go, the Government wanted to ensure the point of the document was conveyed.
The document carries a health warning that intelligence material has been withheld to protect the safety of sources. But, lawyers point out, this is not good enough. Assuming one aim of the military build-up is to try to capture Mr bin Laden and put him on trial, that so-far-unseen evidence would have to be displayed – because on the basis of what has been released there is no chance of his being prosecuted, let alone convicted. ``The Prime Minister told Parliament that this evidence was of an even more direct nature indicating guilt,`` said Richard Gordon QC. ``The document makes it clear that the additional evidence is `too sensitive to release`. That may be so, but in any criminal prosecution against bin Laden the necessary evidence would have to be adduced for the case to be proved.``
For page after page, the paper spews out facts about Mr bin Laden. In 1996, he issued a declaration of jihad, or holy war. In February 1998 he issued and signed a fatwa which included a decree to all Muslims that ``the killing of Americans and their civilian and military allies is a religious duty for each and every Muslim to be carried out...`` In the same year he also said that acquiring chemical or nuclear weapons for the defence of Muslims was a ``religious duty``. It might look like evidence of something, but it is not proof he organised the 11 September attacks. ``All this shows, in the language of the lawyers, propensity, but it proves little,`` said Mr Gordon.
More pertinent to 11 September were two TV interviews he gave, in 1997 and 1998, in which he referred to the terrorists who carried out the earlier attack on the World Trade Centre in 1993 as ``role models``. In December 1999, a terrorist cell linked to al-Qa`ida was discovered trying to carry out attacks in the US. Other attacks on US targets by al-Qa`ida or terrorists trained at bin Laden camps were made in January and October 2000.
Again, said Mr Gordon, it is not enough. ``This material shows that bin Laden may well have been responsible for the 11 September massacre but it does not, of itself, prove that he was.`` The document goes into great detail about the bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. But there is not one single fact presented that was not already known. While the operation was similar to 11 September – well planned, two attacks on the same day, suicide attackers indiscriminate killing of civilians, including Muslims – it does not prove anything.
Officials deny that the minute description of the previous bombings was designed to cover up cracks in their own intelligence about 11 September. Nevertheless, it is noticeable that in a 21-page document the overwhelming bulk of it is devoted to rehashing old information. It is not until page 18 and paragraph 61 that the reader is told something new about 11 September.
This is that three of the 19 hijackers have been ``positively identified as associates of Al Qaida`` and that one of them ``has been identified as playing key roles in both the East African embassy attacks and the USS Cole attack``. The word ``associates`` suggests the authorities lack intelligence on al-Qa`ida: they think they know who may be involved but they are not sure, and they are not certain where they come in the pecking order – hence the catch-all, ``associates``. The three are understood to be: Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, both filmed secretly in Kuala Lumpur meeting other al-Qa`ida members involved in the USS Cole bombing in Aden; and Mohamed Atta. Suspected of being the ringleader, Atta is believed to have been a member of Islamic Jihad, a major grouping within al-Qa`ida, and the authorities are convinced he received training at a bin Laden camp in Afghanistan. The hijacker who played a key role in the embassy, USS Cole and 11 September attacks, is thought to refer to Almihdhar. If there is a hijacker linking all three, that is a crucial piece of evidence since there is no doubt al-Qa`ida committed the earlier bombings.
The next paragraph, 62, promises much and delivers little. Prefaced with another rider about names remaining anonymous to protect sources, it begins by saying how, prior to 11 September, Mr bin Laden ``mounted a concerted propaganda campaign ... justifying attacks on Jewish and American targets``. It was well known in the Middle East that, earlier this year, a bin Laden recruitment video was in circulation, exhorting Muslims to lay down their lives for the jihad. The video makes no mention of any coming big assault nor does it refer to 11 September or possible targets in the US.
Last week it emerged that Mr bin Laden called his adoptive mother in Syria on 10 September to tell her there would be ``big news``, subsequent to which he might be out of touch for some time. It is hard to believe that someone as cautious as him would risk such a call. However, this is understood to be what is being referred to when the document says, in paragraph 62: ``We have learned, subsequent to 11 September, that bin Laden himself asserted shortly before 11 September that he was preparing a major attack on America.`` The document goes on, saying that in August and early September, close bin Laden associates were warned to return to Afghanistan by 10 September.
This is new, and odd. Since the attacks, known al-Qa`ida associates have been picked up or they are being watched. If there was advice to go to Afghanistan presumably they ignored it or did not receive it. The names of the ``close associates`` are not specified, neither is any more detail made available – which is a mystery. It is hard to see why giving a bit more detail would compromise anybody or a foreign intelligence service that may be monitoring their calls.
Again, this tantalising paragraph – by far the most intriguing in the document – says that just before the attacks ``some known associates of bin Laden were naming the date for action as on or around 11 September``. What associates? How? When? Again, no detail is supplied.
Then, the paragraph continues, ``one of bin Laden`s closest and most senior associates was responsible for the detailed planning of the attacks``. This is thought to be a reference to either Mohamed Atef, al-Qa`ida`s operations chief, or Ayman al Zawahiri, Mr bin Laden`s deputy. Another senior al-Qa`ida member being mentioned by those close to the investigation is Abu Zubeidah.
After all this, the most vital paragraph in the paper ends with this curious sentence: ``There is evidence of a very specific nature relating to the guilt of bin Laden and his associates that is too sensitive to release.``
What this document is not is a detailed exposition of the investigation to date. To be fair, that is still ongoing, but providing that amount of information would distract from the paper`s main purpose, to blame Mr bin Laden. This is summarised in the final narrative paragraph, 69: ``No other organisation has both the motivation and the capability to carry out attacks like those of the 11 September – only the Al Qaida network under Osama bin Laden.`` This smacks of exasperation. To ram that point home, paragraph 70, ``conclusion``, repeats the message of the introduction. This, in the end, is what the paper is for, a Government plea for trust: it was Mr bin Laden. To which the response must be: we believe you – but prove it.
#7 Posted by Deodrant on January 6, 2002 9:01:15 pm
India While not being victim in the form of death of even 1 thusand death of its civilians & America with its measley 3000 dead in twin towers out of which more than thousands were of non Anglo saxon or Jewish descent
(but watch the 3 main channel you would think only white blond blue eyed were targetted -sickenig to see filthy rich shy lock like jewish stock brokers shedding crocodile tears for ..Kantor brokerage firm while not releasing insuraence money of its employees insurence money))
Real terrorist are scott free .........
I wonder what american sheeple say when confronted with reality?
http://www.abdulmalik.net/silence.php
If you are still shaken by the horrifying scenes of September 11, please observe a moment of silence for the 5,000 civilian lives lost in the New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania attacks.
While we`re at it, let`s have 13 minutes of silence for the 130,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 1991 by order of President Bush Sr. Take another moment to remember how Americans celebrated and cheered in the streets.
Now another 20 minutes of silence for the 200,000 Iranians killed by Iraqi soldiers using weapons and money provided to young Saddam Hussein by the American government before the great eagle turned all its power against Iraq.
Another 15 minutes of silence for the Russians and 150,000 Afghans killed by the Taliban troups who were supported and trained by the CIA.
Plus 10 minutes of silence for 100,000 Japanese killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Atomic bombs dropped by the USA.
We`ve just kept quiet for one hour: one minute for the Americans killed in NY, DC, and Pennsylvania, 59 minutes for their victims throughout the world.
If you are still in awe, let`s have another hour of silence for all those killed in Vietnam, which is not something Americans like to admit.
Or for the massacre in Panama in 1989, where Americans troops attacked poor villagers, leaving 20,000 Panamanians homeless and thousands more dead.
Or for the millions of children who have died because of the USA embargoes on Iraq and Cuba.
Or the hundreds of thousands brutally murdered throughout the world by USA sponsored civil wars and coups d`etat (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador to name a few).
Maybe, and although the memory of Americans claims otherwise, someone may remember the USA attack on Bagdad where 18,000 civilians were killed. Did someone see it on CNN? Was justice ever served? Or was there even any retaliation?
We hope that Americans finally begin to understand their vulnerability and the cowardly attacks and other tragedies that they have caused around the world.
The dead in other places hurt as much as the dead of the Towers.
Now, let`s talk about terrorism, shall we?
(but watch the 3 main channel you would think only white blond blue eyed were targetted -sickenig to see filthy rich shy lock like jewish stock brokers shedding crocodile tears for ..Kantor brokerage firm while not releasing insuraence money of its employees insurence money))
Real terrorist are scott free .........
I wonder what american sheeple say when confronted with reality?
http://www.abdulmalik.net/silence.php
If you are still shaken by the horrifying scenes of September 11, please observe a moment of silence for the 5,000 civilian lives lost in the New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania attacks.
While we`re at it, let`s have 13 minutes of silence for the 130,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 1991 by order of President Bush Sr. Take another moment to remember how Americans celebrated and cheered in the streets.
Now another 20 minutes of silence for the 200,000 Iranians killed by Iraqi soldiers using weapons and money provided to young Saddam Hussein by the American government before the great eagle turned all its power against Iraq.
Another 15 minutes of silence for the Russians and 150,000 Afghans killed by the Taliban troups who were supported and trained by the CIA.
Plus 10 minutes of silence for 100,000 Japanese killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Atomic bombs dropped by the USA.
We`ve just kept quiet for one hour: one minute for the Americans killed in NY, DC, and Pennsylvania, 59 minutes for their victims throughout the world.
If you are still in awe, let`s have another hour of silence for all those killed in Vietnam, which is not something Americans like to admit.
Or for the massacre in Panama in 1989, where Americans troops attacked poor villagers, leaving 20,000 Panamanians homeless and thousands more dead.
Or for the millions of children who have died because of the USA embargoes on Iraq and Cuba.
Or the hundreds of thousands brutally murdered throughout the world by USA sponsored civil wars and coups d`etat (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, Guatemala, El Salvador to name a few).
Maybe, and although the memory of Americans claims otherwise, someone may remember the USA attack on Bagdad where 18,000 civilians were killed. Did someone see it on CNN? Was justice ever served? Or was there even any retaliation?
We hope that Americans finally begin to understand their vulnerability and the cowardly attacks and other tragedies that they have caused around the world.
The dead in other places hurt as much as the dead of the Towers.
Now, let`s talk about terrorism, shall we?
#6 Posted by Sadhna on January 6, 2002 1:12:45 am
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jan05/ikash.htm
Pak position on Kashmir is very strong, says Blair
New Delhi, Jan 4 (PTI)
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who arrived in India today, made a surprise statement that Pakistan’s position on Kashmir was “very strong”.
In a television interview onboard his special aircraft, Mr Blair said: “Of course, Pakistan has a very strong position on Kashmir and they are entitled to that political position, but I think most people recognise and indeed the action of (Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf) has demonstrated that there cannot be any place for the type of terrorist act that we have seen in the past few weeks.... Therefore, what is necessary is for the action to be taken against terrorism and then for the situation to be de-escalated to be calmed down. I will try to talk to both sides in order to make sure that we exercise as great a calming influence as possible. Mr Blair is also scheduled to visit Pakistan.
INDIA DOWNPLAYS IT: However, in Kathmandu, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Nirupama Rao sought to downplay Mr Blair’s remarks saying they did not mean that terrorism should be supported or condoned. She said there would be an Indo-British joint declaration on terrorism during Mr Blair’s visit to India.
She maintained that while Mr Blair had said that Pakistan had a certain position on the issue, it did not mean that terrorism should be supported or condoned.
“It is a position that India has been taking all along,” she said.
She said Mr Blair was on an important bilateral visit to India and would be in Delhi on January 6.
“We certainly look forward to the visit. Obviously, it will focus on bilateral relations. Britain is an important investor in India and Mr Blair’s visit to Bangalore signifies it is entirely economic in nature.” Ms Rao said India and Britain were partners in the global coalition against terrorism.
© Copyright, 1999 The Printers (Mysore)Ltd.
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#5 Posted by cutandpaste on January 5, 2002 2:45:21 pm
Afghanistan leaps into Asian power politics
By Nathan Brown
STRATFOR.COM
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020105-80552250.htm
With threats on all borders, the new government of Afghanistan is plunging into the world of Central Asian power politics. Top Stories
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Hamid Karzai, the chairman of Afghanistan`s interim government, and other leaders are strengthening their ties with India in hopes of keeping neighboring Pakistan off balance.
Calling India his ``second home,`` Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said Dec. 30 that it should play a greater role than other countries in reconstructing Afghanistan, the Times of India reported. Mr. Karzai was speaking in Kabul to Indian special envoy Satish Lambah, who reiterated New Delhi`s support for the interim government in Kabul and for rebuilding Afghanistan.
Afghan leaders appear to be moving closer to India, which has been a longtime supporter of the Northern Alliance and a rival to Pakistan, which fostered the ousted Taliban regime. The move makes sense for several reasons. Ethnic Tajiks, who have strong ties to India, dominate the interim government. And because the Afghan government faces threats on all sides, it needs to play balance-of-power politics in order to survive.
The political leanings of the interim government will strain Afghanistan`s relations with Islamabad, which will complicate U.S. efforts to continue operating in Pakistan. Mr. Karzai`s remarks come as Kabul makes concerted efforts to forge links with the Indian government. Three Afghan officials — Interior Minister Younus Qanooni, Labor Minister Mir Wais Sadeq and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah — have visited India since mid-December.
The government`s entreaties will fall on receptive ears in New Delhi, which would love to reduce Pakistan`s westward influence. The Indian government may even hope eventually to use Afghanistan to keep Pakistan`s army committed to the western border — much as Islamabad uses the Kashmir insurgency to keep parts of the Indian army pinned down and bleeding.
While Kabul is strengthening its relationship with New Delhi, it is trying to make life difficult for Islamabad. On Dec. 30, Afghan Border Affairs Minister Amanullah Dzadran asked for international peacekeeping troops to be deployed along the border with Pakistan to combat what he claims is Pakistani intelligence assistance to Osama bin Laden. A day earlier, Mr. Qanooni, speaking on Iranian television, directly accused Pakistan`s intelligence service, the ISI, of helping bin Laden escape capture.
The intensity of Afghanistan`s new relationship with India is a bit surprising, but leaders in Kabul have both geopolitical and personal reasons for their actions.
The ethnic backgrounds of the new Afghan leaders create differences with Islamabad. This applies not only to the ethnic Tajiks, who occupy most ministerial posts and who spent the past five years fighting the Taliban, but also to Mr. Karzai. Although he is Pashtun, like many Pakistanis, Mr. Karzai belongs to the Durrani tribe, which historically has had cool relations with Pakistan. The Durranis have claimed the leadership of all Pashtun tribes, even those in Pakistan, and once supported a ``pan-Pashtun`` movement in the 1950s that proposed an independent Pashtun state. Wary of the Durranis, Islamabad supported a competing Pashtun faction during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The only instance of Pakistani support for Durrani Pashtuns occurred when a few of them, starting with Mullah Mohammed Omar, created the Taliban movement in the mid-1990s. However, Mr. Karzai accused the Taliban of being manipulated by Pakistan and started a competing Pashtun faction. Although Pakistan allowed Mr. Karzai to maintain his headquarters in its southwestern Baluchistan province, the two sparred regularly.
Afghan leaders are motivated by more than ethnic allegiances and personal history, however. They also are playing basic balance-of-power politics, following the traditional pattern of Afghan leaders, who are usually surrounded by more powerful nations and must play competing sides against each other. Pakistan, Iran and Uzbekistan surround Afghanistan. All three have interests in Afghanistan and control armed factions within the country. The United States, Russia and the European Union have their own plans for Afghanistan, and they have troops in the country as well. Mr. Karzai`s government, on the other hand, is weak and disorganized, and it faces huge humanitarian and security concerns.
Mr. Karzai needs to use every lever he has, and playing Pakistan off India is a very good one. India already has pledged $20 million in aid and will likely shell out more as a way to keep Pakistan off balance. Meanwhile, Mr. Karzai and others can use the threat of an alliance with India to force Pakistan into more agreeable policies on security and trade issues.
•STRATFOR.COM in Austin, Texas, is an Internet-based provider of global intelligence to private companies and subscribers.
By Nathan Brown
STRATFOR.COM
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20020105-80552250.htm
With threats on all borders, the new government of Afghanistan is plunging into the world of Central Asian power politics. Top Stories
• U.S. soldier killed in ambush
• Daschle blames GOP tax cuts for failing economy
• Israel captures 50 tons of Iranian arms
• Dolly`s arthritis becomes a pain for researchers
• Ex-Redskin told to clean plate
• Fiddlin` with a format?
• Students must get shots in a hurry
Hamid Karzai, the chairman of Afghanistan`s interim government, and other leaders are strengthening their ties with India in hopes of keeping neighboring Pakistan off balance.
Calling India his ``second home,`` Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said Dec. 30 that it should play a greater role than other countries in reconstructing Afghanistan, the Times of India reported. Mr. Karzai was speaking in Kabul to Indian special envoy Satish Lambah, who reiterated New Delhi`s support for the interim government in Kabul and for rebuilding Afghanistan.
Afghan leaders appear to be moving closer to India, which has been a longtime supporter of the Northern Alliance and a rival to Pakistan, which fostered the ousted Taliban regime. The move makes sense for several reasons. Ethnic Tajiks, who have strong ties to India, dominate the interim government. And because the Afghan government faces threats on all sides, it needs to play balance-of-power politics in order to survive.
The political leanings of the interim government will strain Afghanistan`s relations with Islamabad, which will complicate U.S. efforts to continue operating in Pakistan. Mr. Karzai`s remarks come as Kabul makes concerted efforts to forge links with the Indian government. Three Afghan officials — Interior Minister Younus Qanooni, Labor Minister Mir Wais Sadeq and Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah — have visited India since mid-December.
The government`s entreaties will fall on receptive ears in New Delhi, which would love to reduce Pakistan`s westward influence. The Indian government may even hope eventually to use Afghanistan to keep Pakistan`s army committed to the western border — much as Islamabad uses the Kashmir insurgency to keep parts of the Indian army pinned down and bleeding.
While Kabul is strengthening its relationship with New Delhi, it is trying to make life difficult for Islamabad. On Dec. 30, Afghan Border Affairs Minister Amanullah Dzadran asked for international peacekeeping troops to be deployed along the border with Pakistan to combat what he claims is Pakistani intelligence assistance to Osama bin Laden. A day earlier, Mr. Qanooni, speaking on Iranian television, directly accused Pakistan`s intelligence service, the ISI, of helping bin Laden escape capture.
The intensity of Afghanistan`s new relationship with India is a bit surprising, but leaders in Kabul have both geopolitical and personal reasons for their actions.
The ethnic backgrounds of the new Afghan leaders create differences with Islamabad. This applies not only to the ethnic Tajiks, who occupy most ministerial posts and who spent the past five years fighting the Taliban, but also to Mr. Karzai. Although he is Pashtun, like many Pakistanis, Mr. Karzai belongs to the Durrani tribe, which historically has had cool relations with Pakistan. The Durranis have claimed the leadership of all Pashtun tribes, even those in Pakistan, and once supported a ``pan-Pashtun`` movement in the 1950s that proposed an independent Pashtun state. Wary of the Durranis, Islamabad supported a competing Pashtun faction during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
The only instance of Pakistani support for Durrani Pashtuns occurred when a few of them, starting with Mullah Mohammed Omar, created the Taliban movement in the mid-1990s. However, Mr. Karzai accused the Taliban of being manipulated by Pakistan and started a competing Pashtun faction. Although Pakistan allowed Mr. Karzai to maintain his headquarters in its southwestern Baluchistan province, the two sparred regularly.
Afghan leaders are motivated by more than ethnic allegiances and personal history, however. They also are playing basic balance-of-power politics, following the traditional pattern of Afghan leaders, who are usually surrounded by more powerful nations and must play competing sides against each other. Pakistan, Iran and Uzbekistan surround Afghanistan. All three have interests in Afghanistan and control armed factions within the country. The United States, Russia and the European Union have their own plans for Afghanistan, and they have troops in the country as well. Mr. Karzai`s government, on the other hand, is weak and disorganized, and it faces huge humanitarian and security concerns.
Mr. Karzai needs to use every lever he has, and playing Pakistan off India is a very good one. India already has pledged $20 million in aid and will likely shell out more as a way to keep Pakistan off balance. Meanwhile, Mr. Karzai and others can use the threat of an alliance with India to force Pakistan into more agreeable policies on security and trade issues.
•STRATFOR.COM in Austin, Texas, is an Internet-based provider of global intelligence to private companies and subscribers.
#4 Posted by Chowk Staff on January 5, 2002 12:50:46 am
Anwar:
The version we received is the version that has been posted (including the 1998 year). If you want any revisions, these have to be forwarded to editors@chowk.com
regards
The version we received is the version that has been posted (including the 1998 year). If you want any revisions, these have to be forwarded to editors@chowk.com
regards
#3 Posted by Darkhorse on January 5, 2002 12:48:36 am
Siddiqui Saheb, Salaam!
The year indeed was 1988. That`s what I wrote. I re-checked the original and it still says 1988. Wonder why did the editors change it? Best. Anwar
#2 Posted by rozaiba on January 5, 2002 12:48:36 am
You mean 1988.
Good depiction of ravaged lives and country about to be engulfed by worse things to come.
Good depiction of ravaged lives and country about to be engulfed by worse things to come.
#1 Posted by Ras Siddiqui on January 4, 2002 9:46:39 pm
Not too sure about the first line Anwar. The year was 1988?
This appears to be one of your more hurried works. Enjoyed your last two writings here on CHOWK very much.
Ras
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