LONDON, Oct 4 (Reuters): Baroness Margaret Thatcher has attacked British Muslims for not being vocal enough in their condemnation of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
"The people who brought down those towers were Muslims, and Muslims must stand up and say that that is not the way of Islam," she told the Times Newspaper today.
"Passengers on those planes were told that they were going to die, and there were children on board," the Former Conservative Prime Minister said.
"They must say that it was disgraceful.
I have not heard enough condemnation from Muslim priests." The Times said her remarks had been greeted with surprise by the Church of England, which said as far as it was concerned there had been a "rapid and vocal" condemnation by Muslim leaders.
The paper also said the foreign office was planning to recruit British Muslims to explain British lifestyles and western thought to communities in their countries of origin.
Japanese paper says Pak to sever Taliban ties TOKYO, Oct 4 (Reuters): A Japanese newspaper has said that Pakistans president, General Pervez Musharraf, has said Islamabad plans to sever ties with Afghanistans ruling Taliban.
Quoting an unspecified Pakistan government source in Islamabad, the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper said Musharraf told Pakistans National Security Council on Wednesday his country would reverse its policy on Kabul and cut diplomatic ties.
Pakistan is the only country that recognises and maintains diplomatic relations with the Taliban.
Musharraf said he had decided to sever ties with the Taliban because he wanted to place top priority on Pakistans National interests, Mainichi quoted the source as saying.
The Taliban are under threat by the United States, which has pledged to hunt down Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, suspected of the deadly attacks in New York and Washington on September 11, and to punish those who protect him.
The United States, which has massed military forces within striking distance of Afghanistan and is busy orchestrating international support for a possible strike, has told the Taliban to surrender bin Laden or face the consequences.
Masood sorely missed 4 weeks after death KHOROQ (AFGHANISTAN), Oct 4 (Reuters): For all the brave faces among Afghans in strongholds of the opposition Northern Alliance, the loss nearly one month ago of legendary leader Ahmad Shah Masood in a suicide bomb attack is still keenly felt.
And at a time when the small but tenacious fighting force needs to be at its most ferocious to aid western attempts to oust its enemy, the ruling Taliban militia, the assassination of a legend has dealt the alliance a body blow.
Masoods portrait is everywhere the piercing but tired brown eyes, slightly graying beard, hooked nose and traditional Afghan Pakul hat pushed back at a jaunty angle.
It is pasted on the windscreens of cars, above desks in offices and on walls in towns across the opposition-held northeast.
He was the lion of the Panjsher, so called for his heroic fighting in and around the valley of that name first against Soviet forces and later against the hardline Islamic Taliban militia.
He was instrumental in causing Moscows humiliating retreat in 1989, and doggedly fought to defend the ten per cent of North Eastern Afghanistan still outside Taliban control.
His commanders and soldiers say the fight goes on and there will be no about-turn in tactics.
But read between the lines, and his death in a suicide assassination on September nine has left a huge hole both psychological and operational.
"We will continue his ways," said Mamadusmon, a 20-year-old Alliance fighter who lost his right forearm in fighting two weeks ago.
"I will fight the Taliban with one hand.
I am just waiting for the order," he said from his hospital bed in the opposition centre of Khoja Bahawuddin.
About 30 km to the West, frontline commanders echoed his words.
But the eyes of hardened war veterans mist over when they speak of Masood.
"Masood was a special leader and we will not find another like him," said Abdul Rasul, a commander in the frontline rear base of Deshitiqala.
"He could do everything he could lead men, but also fought for democracy and freedom in the future.
I met him many times.
He was very friendly with the soldiers and came to the frontline many times." That vital personal touch and charisma appear to have disappeared with ,Masoods successor, General Muhammad Fahim.
He has yet to visit the front around the abandoned village of Khoroq where Alliance forces are dug in against the Taliban.
"He has not come to us yet," Rasul said of Fahim.
He and other commanders at the front appear to be waiting for orders, with little sense of direction.
Western leaders building a military response against the Taliban, blamed for harbouring Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden who is believed to be behind the September 11 attacks, would surely rather Masood were still alive.
But he was never the magic ingredient for lasting peace in the impoverished, war-ravaged country.
His own political ambitions locked him into a five-year battle with former mujahideen allies for control of Kabul that reduced much of the capital to rubble and left his popularity among ordinary Afghans in tatters.
Even more important, as an ethnic Tajik he represents a minority vastly outnumbered by the Pashtuns who are the Talibans main followers.
"In general, the dilemma he had will not change," said Joerg R.
Mettke, correspondent for Germanys Der Spiegel, who has covered Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion.
"If he had taken (the capital) Kabul, or if his successors take Kabul, they will have the same problems in forming a government of national unity." Bdesh coalition party vows Islamic state DHAKA, Oct 4 (Reuters): Bangladeshs Jamaat-e-Islami party is already flexing muscles inside the coalition that will form the next government with a long-term plan to turn the country into an Islamic republic.
Jamaats prime objective is to drop secularism from state policy, implement Islamic statutes and gradually turn overwhelmingly Muslim Bangladesh into an Islamic republic.
"But we are not in a hurry," its chief, Moulana Matiur Rahman Nizami, said.
"We dont expect anything to happen overnight but pursue a slow but steady policy towards total Islamisation of the country." Nizami said Jamaat opposed Bangladeshs decision to allow the United States to use its airspace, ports and other facilities in a likely offensive against Afghanistan.
US president George W.
Bush has said Afghanistan, or more precisely its purist Islamic Taliban rulers, must be punished for harbouring Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the September 11 suicide attacks in New York and Washington.
"We cannot support the United States using Bangladesh territory for attacks on any Muslim country," Nizami told Reuters at his office.
"I can tell you that we are not extremists, fanatics or communal.
But we are surprised that both the Awami League and BNP (Bangladesh Nationalist Party) have offered unqualified support to the US for their possible attack on Afghanistan," Nizami said.
Jamaat leaders insist Islam and fundamentalism are not synonymous.
"Islam means peace, fundamentalism means a kind of extremism," one leader said.
The party made a strong showing in parliamentary elections this week, securing 16 seats compared to just three at the previous poll in 1996.
Nizami credits the gain to his partys coalition with the biggest winner, Begum Khaleda Zias bnp, which has bagged 185 of 283 parliament seats unofficially declared so far.
Khaleda, together with Jamaat, said she hoped to form a government in a weeks time.
Nizami said the BNP and Jamaat shared common policies regarding religion and government, and had joined forces to eliminate their common enemy, the awami league of outgoing prime minister Sheikh Hasina.
Nizami said Hasinas government acted against Islam.
"We want total Islamisation.But before that we must create a truly conducive atmosphere," he said.
He did not explain.
Nizami said both the Jamaat and BNP gained from the alliance and that he believed the awami league would never be able to regain power so long as the pact holds.
The election, held under a non-party caretaker government, handed down a crushing defeat for Hasina.
Hasina accused Jamaat of having opposed Bangladeshs independence from Pakistan through a nine-month bloody war in 1971, which killed an estimated three million people in what was then known as east Pakistan.
She also accused many Jamaat leaders, including Nizami, of collaborating with the Pakistani army in the massacre of Bengali nationalists during the war, charges Nizami rejected.
"The Awami league has paid a price for its falsehood and for trying to hoodwink people," he said.
"Our success is that we could substantially cut back on the Awami Leagues strength in parliament and ensure its defeat in the election." Jamaat, virtually pushed into oblivion following Bangladeshs independence, resurfaced during the rule of General Ziaur Rahman, Khaledas husband, who was killed in a 1981 army mutiny.
The Jamaat leaders and workers have since regrouped and participated in all three parliamentary polls since 1991, when Khaleda was elected the first woman prime minister.
Politics of confrontation grips Bdesh DHAKA (BANGLADESH), Oct 4 (UNI): Politics of confrontation will continue to grip Bangladesh even after the Bangladesh Nationalist Partys two-third majority in the 300-member Jatiya Sansad (parliament).
While the Awami league has announced its decision to launch a six-day agitation beginning tomorrow demanding fresh elections throughout the country, the BNP-led four-party alliance leader and former prime minister Begum Khalida Zia called on president justice Shahabuddin Ahmed and urged him to speed up the process of formation of the new government.
The prime minister-designate of the four-party alliance, Begum Zia who led the opposition parties to agitate against the previous Awami League government, tried to contact the former prime minister Sheikh Hasina which, however, proved futile.
The BNP chief, however, said she would avoid any confrontation and sought cooperation from the Awami League for smooth functioning of the government, expected to be formed after October 10.
But the opposition Awami League is not prepared to wait and announced its decision to take to agitational path protesting what it called "doctored election" with the help of the administrative machinery.
Meanwhile, justice Lutfur Rahman, the chief advsiser to the present care-taker government, said the election was free and fair and rejected the allegations of the "rigged polling." He said his administration was now working out programmes to handover power to the elected government in the country.
While the BNP leadership is keen to see that its elected members take oath in the nations eighth Sansad at the earliest, the Awami League has decided to lay a seige in the capital on October 10 and go for the non-cooperation movement, if their "genuine demands" are not met by then.
The Awami League president made it clear that the partys elected members to the new Sansad would not take oath to protest what she called the "crudely rigged polls." Mrs Hasina said she did not knew how 101 per cent and 99 per cent votes had been cast in the elections.
She pointed out that it was not possible for the foreign observers to understand how polling was rigged.
"It is not possible for them to understand the manipulations done with the help of the care-taker government." She said she had promoted the idea of a care-taker government for ensuring a free and fair polling in the country for the sake of the promotion of democracy but regretted that the same machinery had been "misused".
"It is very unfortunate," she added.
The opposition party leaders are expected to meet the chief election commissioner soon to place its demands for holding "free and fair polls" again in all the 300 constituencies.
Even though the main opposition party is getting ready to launch political agitation demanding fresh polls, the BNP-led four party alliance is expected to form the new council of ministers early next week.
Russia to evacuate citizens from Pak MOSCOW, Oct 4 (UNI): Prompted by the uncertain situation in Pakistan following a threat of US attack on its neighbour Afghanistan, Russia has decided to evacuate its citizens from Pakistan.
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovlev said here that the country will evacuate some of its citizens residing in Pakistan, reports Russian news agency Novosti.
The decision concerns employees of Russian missions to Islamabad and Karachi and other people who wish to leave the country.
In all, the list of evacuees contains more than 100 names, Yakovlev said.
The evacuating procedure, which involves a number of Russian ministries and departments, including the emergencies ministry, would start soon.
Laden behind Masood killing: witness BERLIN, Oct 4 (Reuters): An eyewitness who survived the suicide bomb attack that killed Afghanistans Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Shah Masood last month was quoted today saying he believed the assassins were sent by Osama bin Laden.
In an interview with Germanys Deutsche Welle television, Masood Khalili said he had been serving as a translator on September 9 for an interview between Masood and two men with a television camera when the camera exploded.
He said they were "two terrorists who were sent by Osama bin Laden, the intelligence service of Pakistan, and the Taliban.
They were Arabs originally, came.
In the name of journalists to interview him." The Deutsche Welle interview was conducted in English.
The United States has massed military forces within striking distance of Afghanistan to root out bin Laden, Washingtons prime suspect for last months suicide airliner attacks on the United States.
Khalili, recuperating from Shrapnel wounds and burns at a central European hospital, was being protected by special police.
The attack happened in Masoods office in Northern Afghanistan.
"We were in a room at around noon," Khalili told Deutsche Welle from a hospital bed at an undisclosed location in "central Europe", where he has been treated for his wounds.
"The journalists started with some questions before filming.
The one who was shorter.He was interviewing and saying that one of the questions was."When you go to Kabul, what will you do with Osama bin Laden?" Khalili said he translated the question for Masood.
But as soon as Masood started to answer, a bomb that he believes was hidden in a video cassette exploded.
He said another bomb strapped to the waist of the interviewer also exploded.
"They both said they belonged to Islamic Centres in Europe and they wanted to know the problems of Muslims in the world," Khalili told Deutsche Welle, a German-government backed network that is only broadcast abroad.
Khalili, who is described as the Northern Alliances "ambassador to India", said the two men had been searched before the interview.
He said nothing unusual had been found in their equipment.
He said he believed the explosive device had been hidden in a video cassette.
He said a third man who was outside the room when the bomb exploded was caught and killed.
Masood was called the lion of the Panjsher, given the name for his heroic fighting in and around the valley of that name , first against Soviet forces and later against the hardline Islamic Taliban Militia.
He was instrumental in causing Moscows humiliating retreat in 1989, and doggedly fought to defend the 10 percent of northeastern Afghanistan still outside Taliban control.
Taliban to put UK reporter on trial ISLAMABAD, Oct 4 (Reuters): Afghanistans ruling Taliban plan to put British journalist yvonne ridley on trial for illegally entering the country, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said today.
"She will be tried because she broke the laws of our land and entered our country without permission," AIP quoted Taliban deputy foreign minister Mullah Abdur Rahman Zahid as saying.
"Right now the investigation of the British journalist is under way and then her case will be sent to the courts for a trial," he was quoted as saying, adding that it was irrelevant whether she was a journalist.
Ridley, 41, who works for Britains Sunday express newspaper, was picked up along with her two guides close to the eastern city of Jalalabad last Friday while dressed in an all-enveloping Afghan Burqa.