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NEWS & LETTERS, October 2002
OUR LIFE AND TIMES
Afghan war continues
A year after September 11, Afghanistan remains at war. U.S.
troops continue to hunt for remnants of Al Qaeda, killing hundreds of innocent
civilians in the process. The U.S.-installed government of Hamid Karzai
continues to draw strength from the Northern Alliance, a collection of warlords
and clerics, many only slightly less fundamentalist than the Taliban. In Kabul, thousands of women have been able to attend
school and work outside the home for the first time since 1996, with some of
them also daring to take off their suffocating burkhas. However, in the
predominantly Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, millions of rural women
remain trapped under nearly Taliban-type restrictions, with no recourse in
sight. Despite hammering by U.S. and Northern Alliance troops, the
Taliban and Al Qaeda retain some organization. On Sept. 5, they were apparently
responsible for a terrorist bomb that killed 30 people in the Kabul marketplace.
A nearly simultaneous assassination attempt on Karzai took place in Kandahar,
some 300 miles away. Many signs suggest that the Al Qaeda leadership has moved back to Pakistan. One of their leaders, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, gave an interview to Al Jazeera TV on Sept. 11 in which he gloated over the murder of innocent U.S. civilians. Although the foolhardy al-Shibh was arrested only two days later after a shoot-out between his followers and police, his presence in Karachi suggested that this port city, long infested by fundamentalists, was becoming a new center for Al Qaeda. This could not be happening without the complicity of some elements of the military and police. |
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