Saturday, October 20, 2001 Al-Qaeda puts $50,000 bounty on US soldier http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=9788 By Muhammad Sadik, Arab News Staff WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, 13 October - US jets and missiles blitzed the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday as US President George W. Bush offered Afghanistan's ruling Taleban militia a surprise "second chance" to surrender Bin Laden, who is accused by Washington of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. Taleban supreme leader Mulla Muhammad Omar had on Thursday declared he would not hand over Bin Laden. "If you cough him up and his people today ... we will reconsider what we're doing to your country. You still have a second chance," Bush said, in his first full news conference since Sept. 11. "Bring him in - and bring his leaders and lieutenants and other thugs and criminals with him," he said. Opposition Northern Alliance warned that the Taleban would produce "hundreds of other Osamas" if the United States made the mistake of giving the hard-line rulers a second chance. Osama Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization, meanwhile, has offered a $50,000 bounty to Afghan fighters for capturing an American solider, Asharq Al-Awsat Arabic newspaper reported quoting informed sources. Sources close to the Taleban said the Al-Qaeda had also offered $3,000 to Afghan fighters who come away with an American military dress or any part of a US weapon and $1,500 to those bringing an American gun. The Awsaf newspaper of Pakistan said Bin Laden had placed these rewards after reports that American special forces had taken position on ground. An American military official, meanwhile, said the United States had stopped its bombing campaign on Afghan targets during the time of Juma prayer yesterday. In another development, Jordanian sources said that four Jordanians, who had gone to Afghanistan to fight on Bin Laden's side, were reported killed. The wife of one of the victims confirmed the death of her husband. A number of Jordanians had left for Afghanistan last year to join Al-Qaeda. As America marked the first monthly anniversary of the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Taleban said the bodies of more than 160 Afghan civilians had been pulled from the ruins of a village hit by US bombs "So far 160 bodies have been recovered, mostly women and children," a Taleban spokesman told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP). He said the civilians had been killed in the village of Kadam, 40 kilometer west of the city of Jalalabad. "This is not an exaggeration. More bodies are still being recovered. There are government relief teams in the area and local people are involved in the rescue operation," the Taleban said. Body parts, household belongings and at least one unexploded bomb litter the countryside around an Afghan village destroyed in a US attack, a Taleban official who said he had witnessed the devastation told AFP yesterday. Sher Sha Hamdard, an official with the Taleban's Bakhter news agency in the eastern city of Jalalabad, said the stench of corpses and rotting livestock around the village of Kadam was almost unbearable. "I hate to say this, but I'm glad I saw these things because the world has to know what the Americans have done here," he said after his visit to the village. In Kabul, a dozen big explosions rocked the city overnight, hitting a munitions dump that exploded like a fireworks display as residents cowered in their homes, unable to flee due to a curfew and the fear of being hit by the rain of US bombs. US planes also bombed the Mazar-e-Sharif airport and the 18th Army Division of the Taleban. The AIP said details of the attacks carried out on Mazar-e-Sharif overnight were not known. AIP said US planes also bombed Taleban's Qargha army division positioned west of Kabul and the Daman and Arghandab districts of Kandahar, the Taleban leadership's stronghold in southern Afghanistan. "The whole area is enveloped in clouds of dust. The sky is not visible," a Kandahar resident told the AIP after the heavy airstrikes on the city and its suburbs overnight. In Kabul angry prayer leaders during Friday sermons urged people to fight to the last breath against the US. "America can destroy our country but not our faith and our principles, we will fight till the last breath," AIP quoted a prayer leader as saying at a sermon in the southern city of Kandahar. In London, British Junior Defense Minister Lewis Moonie said the onset of winter in a few weeks' time was "a decisive factor" in planning for a possible deployment of ground troops in Afghanistan. Moonie was careful to stress that no decision on the use of ground forces had been taken. Britain is playing the most active support role in the US-led coalition that has launched repeated air and missile attacks on the Taleban. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that the armed opposition in Afghanistan should move against the Taleban in areas where the United States has bombed. "We feel we have done a certain amount with respect to those Taleban and Al-Qaeda military targets and it may very well be more appropriate for ground forces to be moving in areas where we previously have been bombing," Rumsfeld told reporters. Asked if he was referring to US ground forces, he said: "No. There are a variety of forces on the ground that oppose Al-Qaeda and oppose the Taleban, there are even some in the Taleban that oppose the senior elements of Taleban, (leader Mulla Muhammad Omar and his lieutenants that have connected themselves so closely to Al-Qaeda." A Northern Alliance commander claimed more than 4,000 troops, including two military commanders, of the ruling Taleban group had joined the Northern Alliance. The 4,000 joined the Northern Alliance with all military equipment in their possession in the Seryl province, and the two commanders, Gen. Kazi Hayt and Gen. Yusseg Tufan, would soon hold a press conference, Gen. Shafi, a commander of the alliance, told Iranian News agency in Tehran. In another development, Taleban forces recaptured a western district from the opposition Northern Alliance yesterday and also launched attacks in the central province of Bamiyan, an Afghan news service said. After five nights of US-led bombing, the Taleban took Qadis district of Badghis province after killing or wounding 30 opposition fighters and capturing 50, the AIP quoted sources in the area as reporting. In Islamabad, Pakistani officials said yesterday that Pakistan paramilitary troops and Taleban fighters exchanged gunfire overnight along the Pakistani-Afghan border. The 30-minute gunbattle between Pakistani paramilitary troops and Taleban forces took place at Tormandi, in the tribal area of Southern Waziristan in northwestern Pakistan, the officials said. There were no casualties on the Pakistani side, they said, and it was not possible to determine whether there had been any Taleban casualties. Troops have been deployed to secure the southern Pakistani town of Jacobabad where US forces have arrived to back up strikes in Afghanistan and are carrying out daily exercises, officials and residents said. The Pakistan Army have been deployed to back up paramilitary rangers and police who have thrown down a security cordon several kilometers from the airport, one of two in Pakistan where US military personnel have arrived as part of Islamabad's pledge to offer Washington non-combat logistical support for its strikes on Afghanistan. A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Islamabad said Pakistan would not deliver US President George Bush's "second chance" offer to Afghanistan's Taleban leaders. "We don't plan to act as interlocutor or intermediary any more," Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Muhammad Khan told reporters in Islamabad when asked to comment on the offer. Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said in an interview US military operations against Afghanistan should be brought to an end after the capture of Osama Bin Laden, warning that an extended campaign would cause collateral damage throughout the Islamic world. THE END ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrHhl.bVKZIr Or send an email To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] This email was sent to: [email protected] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
