MSK - Bush calls Putin before attack began
MOSCOW (AP) - In a show of strong support for the United States, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday that all means must be used in order to fight terrorism and warned that terrorists - wherever they are located - must know justice will catch up with them. The two-page statement marked Russia's first official reaction to Sunday's airstrikes. "Today the international community is united that the threat to international peace and security created by terrorist actions must be countered by all means - in accordance with the charter of the United Nations," the statement said. U.S. President George W. Bush had informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of his intention to order airstrikes against terrorist bases inside Afghanistan in a telephone conversation Sunday prior to the start of military action, the Kremlin press office said. Bush made the call to Putin, who was celebrating his 49th birthday Sunday, about 8 p.m. Moscow time (1600 GMT). Russia's air defense command did not receive any additional orders in conjunction with the U.S.-led air attack on Afghanistan, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported. The report added that Russia's air defenses are continuously at a level of combat readiness. Following the start of the attack, Putin met with Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, Anatoly Kvashnin, chief of the Russian General Staff, and Nikolai Patrushev, the head of the Federal Security Service, at his country residence outside Moscow. Putin has become an important supporter of the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism, opening up Russia's airspace to U.S. deliveries of humanitarian aid and helping lobby the Central Asian nations to lend their backing to the operation. The Russian Foreign Ministry statement blamed the Taliban, the Islamic militia that rules Afghanistan, for allowing Afghanistan to be turned into a center for international terrorists, who were committing crimes in many countries, including Russia. "Terrorist, wherever they may be located, in Afghanistan, Chechnya, in the Middle East and in the Balkans, must know that the law will overtake them," the statement said. Russia also called on the international community to use all its political strength to help Afghanistan overcome the current crisis to "assure its democratic future." -AP
