Bush rejects latest Taliban offer
October 16, 2001
United States are continuing air strikes on Afghanistan on Monday, following President George Bush's rejection of a new offer from the Taliban to negotiate over Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban said it would hand over Bin Laden to a third country, if the United States provided evidence of his involvement in last month's attacks on New York and the Pentagon.
Bush dismissed the offer. He demanded the destruction of Taliban military training camps and the release of those foreign aid workers currently detained in Afghanistan.
Bush said the bombing would not stop, unless the Taliban "turn him (Bin Laden) over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over, destroy all the terrorist camps".
However, some commentators say what Washington most fears, is that the Taliban hand over Bin Laden for trial, giving him a propaganda platform for his terrorist philosophy.
Air strikes enter second week
The US air strikes enter their second week. Daylight bombing was reported on Monday in Jalalabad and in the capital Kabul.
The US military said it flew follow-up missions on targets missed in earlier raids. In Kabul, an international telephone exchange is said to have been destroyed. Witnesses reported little Taliban anti-aircraft response, suggesting the Taliban's capacities to strike back may have been badly damaged.
Western journalists travelled to Khorum on Sunday, a village 50 kilometres from Jalalabad. Khorum was destroyed in US air strikes last Wednesday. According to Taliban reports, 200 people were killed in the attack. The journalists said they only found about a dozen freshly dug graves. But villagers were still digging through the rubble for bodies.
US military officials have not confirmed the attack yet.
Powell on Pakistan mission
United Secretary of State Colin Powell is due to meet with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf on Monday. Powell's visit comes amid a wave of anti-American demonstrations in Pakistan.
Details of his schedule remain secret for security reasons. But he is expected in Islamabad on Monday, where he will be discussing plans for a future government for Afghanistan.
Radical Islamic groups in Pakistan have called a general strike for Monday in protest.
Violent protests against the US-led attacks erupted on Sunday in Jacobabad in southern Pakistan and in the northern town of Peshawar. Many Pakistanis belong to the same ethnic group as the Taliban, the Pashtun. They share their hatred of the United States with their Taliban neighbours in Afghanistan.
Anti-US sentiment became violent when Islamabad gave Washington the go-ahead to use Pakistani military bases for its operations against the Taliban.
Meanwhile, police in the Indonesian capital Jakarta used tear gas and water cannons to break up yet another demonstration against the US-led campaign in Afghanistan. Several hundred protestors gathered in front of the parliament calling for an emergency session to condemn the US-led attacks. Monday's protest followed a quiet weekend after last week's angry demonstrations outside the American embassy.
On Sunday President Megawati Sukarnoputri said no country had the right to attack another country. She appeared to be criticising the US air strikes - marking a shift in her initial backing of a limited military campaign.
Anthrax outbreaks "acts of terrorism"
US Health Secretary Tommy Thompson described the anthrax scares as "acts of terrorism", but admitted that no direct link had been found to Bin Laden's terrorist network.
Authorities in the US have now confirmed three more cases of anthrax contamination in New York. Mayor Rudy Guiliani said all three were related to an envelope which infected an employee at the US television network NBC.
Officials are concerned that public anxiety is mounting out of proportion to the real threat. One person in Florida died earlier this month from an anthrax infection - but there have also been numerous false alarms across the country.
The Bush administration is doing its best to reassure the public. But with the number of suspected cases in New York rising to five, anxiety is growing. Pharmacies are now limiting supplies of ciprofloxacin, an antibiotic used to treat anthrax, after a surge in demand.
At Florida's American Media publishing house the number of anthrax cases has now risen to eight. The company was the first site of the anthrax scare, after three people tested positive for the bacteria, and one of them died. Biological containment experts are back on site, a picture which provides no reassurance for a worried public.
Experts believe the bacteria contained in the anthrax-contanimated letters is not the specially-made type of disease used in biological warefare.
Many US media companies are refusing to accept new mail as a result of the scare.