World News

Anthrax scare grips US as US pounds Kabul

Bombs shook the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and the capital, Kabul, CNN and witnesses said, after a brief Friday lull in what Washington said was deference to the Muslim holy day.

"From my house I could see a bomb land on the airport, I saw a fireball, debris flying up into the sky and the initial big fire then dimming," one Kabul witness said.

The Taliban estimated that more than 300 people, mostly civilians, had been killed since the raids began last Sunday.

Yet the ruling Islamic fundamentalists remained defiant in the face of American might, flatly rejecting an offer by President George W. Bush to halt air strikes if they handed over bin Laden. They said they would fight until their last breath.

"We once again want to say that their (the U.S.) intention is a war against Muslims and Afghans," Taliban Information Minister Mullah Qudratullah Jamal told Reuters.

On Thursday, in what he called a second chance, Bush offered to halt the air strikes if the Taliban "cough up" bin Laden, prime suspect in the suicide air attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania in which some 5,500 people are believed killed.

"Osama is not the issue," Jamal said, adding: "Our jihad (holy struggle)... will continue until the last breath for the defence of our homeland and Islam."

The Taliban have given no word of their military casualties, but a senior official of the opposition Northern Alliance said six days of U.S. strikes had robbed Taliban fighters of the ability to launch a counter-offensive.

"In the last one week there have not been any counter-offensives from the Taliban," alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah told a news conference in Jabal-us-Saraj.

"That is significant. They have lost their capacity to launch counter-offensives," he said.

Asked about casualties among foreigners fighting for the Taliban, many of them Arabs, Abdullah said that the bases of "foreign friends of the Taliban" had been hit. "The number of (casualties) should be hundreds not dozens."

In the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney said there could be links between bin Laden and the spread of anthrax in America after a fourth case of the potential germ warfare agent was discovered at NBC Television headquarters in New York.

"I think the only responsible thing for us to do is proceed on the basis that it could be linked," Cheney said. He added that the United States had ample evidence that bin Laden's followers were trained in how to spread biological and chemical weapons.

A 38-year-old woman aide to NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, who in late September handled a letter addressed to him that contained a white powdery substance, tested positive for rare skin anthrax on Friday but was expected to recover fully.

The skin variety is not as deadly as the inhaled version that killed a 63-year-old employee of American Media Inc in Florida, and was found in two other employees at the same company.

But it comes a day after the FBI warned Americans of possible new attacks on U.S. soil in the next few days.

"Our nation is still in danger," President George W. Bush told a White House ceremony. He assured Americans the government was doing everything it could "to protect our citizenry".

"SUSPICIOUS"

Cheney said that although there was not enough evidence positively to pin down a connection to bin Laden, the cases in Florida and New York were "suspicious". The U.S. post office warned people to be on alert for suspicious packages.

The bacteria which cause anthrax can form spores, which have been known to kill 89 percent of patients who are not treated.

In Nevada, a branch of software giant Microsoft Corp received a suspicious letter filled with pornography that passed one test for anthrax but failed another and now awaits a final test on Saturday, company officials said.

NBC said its staffer probably became infected after handling a letter sent from Florida.

A similar letter was sent to New York Times correspondent Judith Miller, the co-author of a book about germ warfare, but she turned it over to police before opening it. That powder tested negative for anthrax.

Scores of businesses across the country clamped down on opening suspicious mail and turned their mail rooms into "hot zones" where employees wore gloves and deposited suspect packages into special containers.

Employees at the Los Angeles Times were locked in the newspaper building for 90 minutes on Friday night in an anthrax scare caused by the discovery of white powder near a computer keyboard in the book review department.

The United Nations reported receiving letters containing a white powdery substance.

Taliban leaves, Afghans dance and then - the bombs fell

By Catherine Philp in Quetta

Every night for the past month, as Taleban soldiers and police fled the city in fear of airstrikes, the residents of Kandahar came out to enjoy long-forbidden freedoms without fear of punishment by the religious police.

"When night came and the Taleban were gone, people would hold weddings and parties with music and women danced because there was no-one there to stop them," Mr Ahmed said. "For just a few weeks, it was like another time, long ago."

Those brief nocturnal pleasures came to an abrupt halt when the bombing began last Sunday, sending panic through the city.

"As soon as the explosions started, the children began to scream in their beds," Humaira Ahmed, his wife, said. "I stuffed their ears with cotton wool so they wouldn't be able to hear.

" Mrs Ahmed herself lay huddled in bed, listening to the bombs drop and willing them to stop. "I was so frightened. I couldn't sleep at all," she said. 

Her husband took out a copy of the Koran and read to the family, trying to soothe them back to sleep. But in his head he had another prayer to say. "I prayed that the bombs would destroy everything the Taleban had so they would be finished," he said. 

By morning, however, the panic was largely over and people began filtering back into the market, where a handful of shops had reopened, selling supplies for people to stock up their cupboards before the next round of attacks. 

"The mood was one of relief, people could not believe that no civilians had been killed in the explosions," Mr Ahmed said. "They realised that the bombs could not have been aimed at them. They were still afraid, but they were also happy because they were thinking it would be the end of the Taleban."

With most Taleban gone from the city both night and day, Mr Ahmed hauled out a television and video from their hiding place, and friends and neighbours crowded around to watch Hindi musicals before the bombing began again and they had to take cover in their homes. 

Things changed again on the fourth night of bombing, the heaviest to hit Kandahar. Only minutes after the bombardment started, people all over the city saw a huge fireball rise above the cantonment area where a Taleban arms depot had been hit. 

"For hours we could hear the weapons exploding and bullets whizzing through the air," Mr Ahmed said. In their home, only a short distance from the depot, the noise was deafening. 

Mrs Ahmed spent the night crouched under a table with their two children, terrified in case a stray bullet came their way. As the morning came, they heard that two neighbours had been killed by flying shrapnel and decided it was time to leave. - Times London

Charles had dinner with a bin Laden

Charles met Bakr bin Laden, a prominent Saudi businessman, to discuss the Islamic faith, said a spokeswoman for St James' Palace, the prince's official residence in London."

We can confirm that the prince did attend a dinner for the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (in central England) and that a member of the extended family of Osama bin Laden was at that dinner," the spokeswoman said."

It is a recognised centre which promotes greater understanding of the Islamic faith and the arrangement was made months ago," before the atrocities in New York and Washington, which Osama bin Laden is suspected of having masterminded.

Indian flight school says two students missing

The men were training at the Jamshedpur Flying Club in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand and disappeared in the second week of September, the Pioneer newspaper reported.

Security agencies were worried about the timing of the disappearance of the two men and were searching for them, it said.

The disappearances came to light when security agencies began inspecting the record books of flying schools across India to check up on trained pilots and technicians in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when hijackers seized control of four passenger aircraft.

Bin Laden's message to America

By John Miller

The gunfire started with a few shots, but in seconds it was thundering. On cue, dozens of Arab men began firing their rifles into the air as the headlights of the first four-wheel-drive crested the hilltop.

I turned, expecting to see a cannon, but instead it was just a smiling boy - he might have been 15 - and he was firing his machine gun an inch from my ear. Just before this welcome I had been told: "Mr bin Laden will be here shortly."

Trails from tracer bullets streaked at odd angles across the black, star-crowded skies. Fireworks shot up and sparks fell like orange rain. Into the din of gunfire, he walked quickly, surrounded by seven bodyguards. Each had an AK-47. Their eyes darted in every direction for any attacker.

Bin Laden, with his white turban and black beard, stood 6ft 3ins and was the tallest man in the group.

Despite the chaos, his eyes were calm, fixed and steady. He walked by me and ducked to step into a hut set up for our meeting.

After his guards crowded in behind him, I followed. Aside from his height, the first thing that struck me was his voice. It was soft and slightly high, with a rasp that gave it the texture and sound of an old uncle giving good advice.

Bin Laden has a firm handshake. We exchanged pleasantries in the polite but stilted manner one uses when speaking via a translator.

Osama Bin Muhammad Bin Awad Bin Laden was born 42 years ago in Saudi Arabia, one of 20 sons of wealthy construction magnate Muhammad bin Laden.

The kingdom's bin Laden Group is a £3billion concern. Its ties to the Saudi royal family made it easy to get government contracts to build roads through the cities and deserts.

It is likely Osama would have gone to school, settled in London then lived comfortably - if history hadn't intervened.

On December 25, 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Bin Laden, then 22, left for the fighting immediately. When he arrived, he wasted no time.

He financed the recruitment, transportation and arming of thousands of Palestinians, Saudis, Tunisians, Somalians, Egyptians and Pakistanis to fight.

Bin Laden brought his own bulldozers and dumpers. Mujahedeen men still tell of the young man who rode the machines himself, digging trenches at the front.

By his own account, he was in the thick of the action.

I asked why a man of his wealth and from a powerful family had gone to live and fight in trenches of Afghanistan.

"It is hard for one to understand if the person does not understand Islam," he said, patiently explaining his interpretation of Islam.

By the time of our meeting, the enemy had shifted.

It was now the US. And when I asked bin Laden if he was worried about being captured in an American raid, he dismissed the possibility, turning instead to the reasons he hates the States.

He said: "The American imposes himself on everyone. Americans accuse our children in Palestine of being terrorists, those children, who have no weapons and have not even reached maturity."

Bin Laden added: "At the same time, Americans defend a country, the state of the Jews, that has a policy to destroy the future of these children. We are sure of our victory against the Americans and the Jews as promised by the Prophet, judgement day shall not come until the Muslim fights the Jew, where the Jew will hide behind trees and stones, and the tree and the stone will speak and say: 'Muslim, behind me is a Jew. Come and kill him."'

Bin Laden never raises his voice, and to listen to his untranslated answers, one could imagine that he was talking about something that did not much concern him.

Nonchalant, he does not smile. He continued: "Your situation with Muslims in Palestine is shameful, if there is any shame left in America.

"Houses were demolished over the heads of children. Also, by the testimony of relief workers in Iraq, the American-led sanctions resulted in the death of more than one million Iraqi children. All done in the name of American interests.

"We believe the biggest thieves in the world and the terrorists are the Americans. The only way for us to fend off these assaults is to use similar means.

"We do not worry about American opinion or the fact they place prices on our heads. We as Muslims believe our fate is set." His interview technique was formidable. It could have been taught by a PR advisor - first, get out your message. Then, if you like, answer the question.

He believes the US, so heavily involved in supporting the Afghan rebels, missed the profound point of that exercise - through sheer will, even superpowers can be defeated.

He said: "There is a lesson to learn from this for he who wishes to learn.

For the future, bin Laden said his first priority is to get the US military out of Saudi Arabia, the holiest Islamic land.

He said: "Every day the Americans delay their departure, they will receive a new corpse.

"It does not make a difference if the government wants you to stay or leave.

"You will leave when the youth send you in wooden boxes and coffins. And you will carry in them the bodies of US troops and civilians. This is when you will leave."

Does that include civilians? He replied: "We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians. 

They are all targets in this fatwa."

Bin Laden argued that US outrage at attacks on American civilians constitutes a great double standard.

He believes what we consider to be terrorism is just the amount of violence required to get the attention of the US people. - Daily Mirror

£500,000 tag on young Osama photos

It seems that the terrorist warlord was just a shy teenager learning English at Oxford with his elder brothers, both aged 17, when he befriended a couple of older girls from Spain. 

Language teachers in Oxford said yesterday that bin Laden would probably have been attending a summer school because under-16s are rarely allowed to attend classes during term-time. 

After seeing a picture in the media of bin Laden on holiday with his family in 1971, the Spanish woman recognised him as the young Osama she had known during a bucolic trip to Oxford in the same year. 

Looking through her old photographs, she found a series of mementoes of the tall, slim Arab boy, punting on the Thames, picnicking and walking in a park in sunny weather. 

The woman walked into the offices of El Correo, a Basque newspaper, with her album, wondering if the shots would be of any interest. She was featured in the newspaper with the album open on her knee. A floppy sunhat hid her face. 

"We have had a great exclusive and we have been drinking champagne since," an executive said. "Now we have sold the world rights." He declined to say who would be handling the sale of the photographs. The pictures show Osama wearing typical 1970s fashions: white flared trousers, a short-sleeved shirt and a bracelet. A pretty Spanish girl has her arms around Osama and one of his long-haired brothers. The other girl is in a miniskirt and knee-length white boots. Osama's father, Muhammad Awad bin Laden, died in a plane crash in 1968. The boy was the 17th child out of more than 50 fathered by the Yemeni-born tycoon. Osama's mother was Muhammad's 11th wife. 

By the time Osama reached Oxford, he was already proficient in English. He attended the exclusive al-Thaghr school in Jedda where a class of 30 boys were taught grammar and comprehension four times a week. – Times, London