Deutsche Welle
English Service News
30 th, 2001, 16:00 UTC
Uniformed U.S. soldiers were in northern Afghanistan to help
coordinate U.S. air strikes and attacks by opposition forces on the
ruling Taliban, an opposition spokesman said on Tuesday. It was the
first time the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance had confirmed the
presence of armed and uniformed American troops in the less than 10
percent of Afghanistan it controls.Opposition forces said they were
in high-level talks with U.S. officials outside Afghanistan about
strengthening military cooperation. The talks come amid speculation
that the United States is gearing up to send ground forces, and even
set up a military base inside Afghanistan. U.S. aircraft, now in the
fourth week of a campaign to topple the Kabul government for
sheltering Osama bin Laden,bombed Taliban front lines in the north
and also struck the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in the south.
The U.S. government has issued a new public advisory warning that
additional terrorist attacks may come over the next week. Speaking
at a news conference in Washington, Attorney General John Ashcroft
said the warning was based on credible information he had received,
but could not offer more specific details regarding the type of
attack or exact targets. He warned Americans world wide to be on
guard against possible attacks.
An opinion poll for the Guardian newspaper showed British public
support for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has dipped in the past
two weeks with most Britons wanting a pause in the bombing for
humanitarian reasons. The ICM poll showed 62 percent surveyed
supported military action, down from 74 earlier this month. Some 54
percent said there should be a pause in the bombing campaign to allow
aid convoys to go into Afghanistan.Britain has committed 200 Royal
Marines for action in Afghanistan and put another 400 on high
readiness. Defence sources said on Tuesday Britain urgently needed
more intelligence before committing ground forces in Afghanistan.
Otherwise they would just be shooting in the dark.
Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said on Tuesday he was likely
to meet Palestinian President Yasser Arafat this weekend, when both
were to attend a conference on Middle East economies on the Spanish
island of Majorca. Mr.Peres's office also confirmed that he was
drafting a new peace plan. In the West Bank, Israel maintained its
hold on Palestinian-ruled cities in defiance of repeated U.S. calls
for a full withdrawal from areas occupied after Palestinian militants
killed an Israeli cabinet minister on October 17.On Tuesday, Israeli
troops and armour moved deeper into the West Bank city of Tulkarm.In
a separate incursion, Israeli tanks and two bulldozers levelled
agricultural land near Gaza City, witnesses and security sources
said.
At a special audience in the Vatican ,Pope John Paul met Palestinian
President Yasser Arafat on Tuesday and urged Israelis and
Palestinians to put down their weapons and return to the negotiating
table. Mr.Arafat in Europe looking for support for his call for
Israel to fully withdraw from occupied areas, told the Pope he was
opposed to every form of terrorism.He spoke privately for about 15
minutes with the 81-year-old Pontiff ahead of meetings with
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Foreign Minister
Renato Ruggiero. The Pope again proposed putting Jerusalem, which
Israeli's and Palestinians consider their capital under International
control.
Ukrainian military officials blew up the country's last Soviet-era
nuclear missile silo on Tuesday, the final step in meeting a pledge
to give up atomic weapons.The silo at the military base 300 km south
of the capital Kiev is the last of more than 170 missile silos
which in Soviet times stood poised to attack western Europe and the
United States. It sent the last of its nuclear warheads to Russia in
the 1990s and earlier this year destroyed its last strategic bomber
capable of being fitted with nuclear weapons.
French police arrested up to 200 would-be illegal immigrants who
broke into a freight yard near the Channel Tunnel in hopes of
reaching Britain, the SNCF French state railway said on Tuesday.The
Chunnel as it is called, connects Britain with France.Police are
still hunting for around 100 more refugees they believed could be
hiding in trains at the Calais-Frethun yard, which is near a Red
Cross camp that houses about 1,200 refugees, mainly Afghans, Iranians
and Iraqi and Turkish Kurds. Thousands of illegal immigrants try to
cross to Britain from France every year, running a gauntlet of barbed
wire and guard dogs to stow away on trains or trucks.
Serbian News Network - SNN
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.antic.org/
