Afghanistan:  Concern For Kunduz

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is "very concerned" about the besieged city of Kunduz, Afghanistan, where rebel Northern Alliance forces aided by U.S. bombing have surrounded the city and are seeking a surrender by troops from the recently ruling Taliban, but the United Nations has not been asked to mediate a surrender, a U.N. spokesman said yesterday.

"The secretary general, (who) is very concerned about the situation, has been in touch with the coalition forces, which have the capacity to deal with the situation," Manoel de Almeida e Silva said in New York, adding that U.N. Special Representative for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi has discussed the situation with the International Committee of the Red Cross and with Deputy Special Representative Francesc Vendrell, who is in Kabul (U.N. Newservice, Nov. 19).

The Northern Alliance today said it will launch an all-out assault on Kunduz if Taliban forces there do not surrender within three days.  Non-Afghan soldiers aligned with Osama bin Laden, the Taliban guest accused by the United States of being behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks, are preventing Taliban fighters from surrendering, Northern Alliance spokesman Attiq Ulah said from Mazar-e Sharif.

"If there is a fight in Kunduz, it will be a bloody one," Ulah said, "because there are 3,000 foreign fighters, and they have nowhere to go" (Kathy Gannon, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, Nov. 20).

Northern Alliance commander Abdul Rashid Dostum is to meet in Mazar-e Sharif with two Taliban commanders to discuss safe passage for Taliban troops in Kunduz, Reuters reports.  Dostum said foreigners, though, will be treated differently from Taliban soldiers.  "We'll deal with the foreigners according to international laws and human rights conventions," he said (Russell/Elsner, Reuters, Nov. 20).

Mohamed Daoud, the Northern Alliance general in charge of the Kunduz offensive, said today that he is "not optimistic that foreign Taliban and some of the Taliban leaders are ready to surrender," adding that "war is essential" if they do not (Ellen Knickmeyer, AP/Miami Herald, Nov. 20).

Washington yesterday took a hard line on the Taliban in Kunduz, with U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld stressing the danger of freeing non-Afghan fighters loyal to bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network.  "My hope is that they will either be killed or taken prisoner," he said.  "They're people who have done terrible things."

Rumsfeld also expressed opposition to any deal that would allow Taliban Supreme Leader Mohamed Omar to escape from the Taliban's southern home base, the besieged city of Kandahar (Reynolds/Richter, Los Angeles Times, Nov. 20).  The New York Post reports today that Northern Alliance and Taliban officials have been discussing a deal under which Omar would go free and the alliance would get Kandahar (Niles Lathem, New York Post, Nov. 20).

The Portuguese daily Diario de Noticias reports that Juma Namangani, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, has been killed in Kunduz, where he had come with hundreds of his men to aid the Taliban (Diario de Noticias, Nov. 20, UN Wire translation).

The Taliban also suffered a loss on the diplomatic front yesterday.  Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdus Sattar said Pakistan will no longer "conduct business between the government of Pakistan and whatever is left of the Taliban government," adding that "relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan continue, and they will be maintained according to our best intentions."  Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef has been allowed to stay in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad (Amir Zia, AP/Miami Herald, Nov. 19).  Islamabad has shut down Taliban consulates in Peshawar and Quetta, a Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman said (Raja Asghar, Reuters, Nov. 20).

Meanwhile, the United States continues to hunt for bin Laden.  U.S. President George W. Bush has said "the noose is beginning to narrow" around bin Laden, and Rumsfeld yesterday said a $25 million reward for turning over the al-Qaeda chief or any of several senior lieutenants may inspire Afghans to "begin crawling through those tunnels and caves" looking for him.  U.S. planes are dropping leaflets over Afghanistan advertising the reward (Robert Burns, AP/Yahoo! News, Nov. 19).

Berlin Meeting to Begin Monday, Vendrell Says

Vendrell today said the Northern Alliance has agreed to meet next week in Berlin with other relevant parties to discuss Afghanistan's political future.  The deputy special representative expressed hope that the meeting will start Monday, while Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah called that "tentative timing" (Reuters/Yahoo! News, Nov. 20).

Vendrell, who has been holding talks with various parties about the proposed meeting, met last night with Abdullah, Defense Minister Mohamed Fahim and Interior Minister Yunus Qanooni (U.N. release, Nov. 20).

The U.N. envoy met Sunday with Burhanuddin Rabbani, the president of the country's U.N.-recognized government, of which the Northern Alliance is the military wing and which the Taliban unseated when it took power (U.N. Newservice).  U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said yesterday in Islamabad that the government headed by Rabbani, who has entered Kabul and declared himself head of state, will retain Afghanistan's U.N. seat until a new government is formed (Out There News, Nov. 19).

Speaking Saturday in Ottawa after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Annan said, "We are trying to get all the Afghan parties together. ... Obviously, we hope all Afghan parties and leaders will understand the need to form a broad-based government and set up an administration in Kabul that will be acceptable by all" (U.N. Newservice).

De Almeida e Silva said yesterday that Northern Alliance leaders have asked the United Nations to find representatives of the Pashtun ethnic group, from which the Taliban draws most of its members, to participate in the constitution of a new government (Kathy Gannon, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov. 20).

At a meeting presided over by anti-Taliban Pashtun leader Sayed Ahmad Gailani, the Assembly for Peace and National Unity, a grouping of 18 Afghan groups, yesterday called for representative government for the country (Out There News II, Nov. 19).

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky yesterday at the White House stressed the need for women to participate fully in Afghanistan's future.  For a U.S. State Department transcript of their remarks, click here.

Malloch Brown Vows Quick Start on Recovery

Mark Malloch Brown, named Friday by Annan to head U.N. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, yesterday promised to act quickly.  "The system is braced and poised for a major effort here, and what I can do is offer it the leadership at the global level and try to make sure that we have a strong partnership with others," Malloch Brown said in New York (U.N. Newservice II, Nov. 19).  The U.N. Development Program administrator added that rebuilding Afghanistan will take more than $6.5 billion over five years (Hoyos/Cottrell, Financial Times, Nov. 20).

An Afghan reconstruction meeting co-sponsored by the United States and Japan and attended by donors and international organizations was to take place today in Washington (AP/ABCNews.com, Nov. 20).  A three-day conference on "preparing for Afghanistan's reconstruction," hosted by the UNDP, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, begins next Tuesday in Islamabad.  More than 200 participants are expected (World Bank release, Nov. 19).

Journalists' Bodies Recovered

The bodies of four foreign journalists apparently slain yesterday by pro-Taliban elements as they traveled from Jalalabad, Afghanistan, to Kabul were recovered and identified today.  The journalists killed were identified as Harry Burton and Azizullah Haidari of Reuters, Maria Grazia Cutuli of the Corriere della Sera and Julio Fuentes of El Mundo (Chris Tomlinson, AP/Miami Herald, Nov. 20).

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British Response:  Controversial Anti-Terrorism Law Approved

British legislators yesterday approved an anti-terrorism bill which could violate human rights treaties, according to the Associated Press.

The Anti-Terrorism, Security and Crime Bill passed a second reading in the House of Commons 485-5.  The legislation includes measures such as powers to detain suspected terrorists and the ability to freeze suspected terrorists’ funds. It also makes incitement of religious hatred a crime.  The bill must pass one more House of Commons vote and be approved by the House of Lords before it can become law.

The new legislation was a “rational, reasonable and proportionate response” to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, said British Home Secretary David Blunkett.  “Circumstances and public opinion demanded urgent and appropriate action,” Blunkett said.

Some human rights lawyers, however, have questioned whether the bill’s measure to detain suspects without trial violates the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the Britain is a signatory.  The convention bans the indefinite detainment of suspects without trial, but has a provision that countries may opt out during war or other public emergencies, according to the AP. 

Britain, however, did not qualify for the exception, human rights lawyer David Pannick said in a legal opinion for the British civil liberties group Liberty.

“There [have] been no terrorist incidents in this country associated with the Sept. 11 attacks,” Pannick said. “Indeed, there have been grave terrorist outrages in England in recent years (attributed to the Irish Republican Army) which did not lead the government to conclude that detention without trial is appropriate” (Polly Stewart, Associated Press/Miami Herald, Nov. 19).

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U.S. Response: 

State legislators throughout the United States are considering proposals to grant broad powers to state governments in the event of bioterrorist attacks, the Washington Post reported today.  In the United States, police powers to protect the public during disease outbreaks generally belong to states and not to the federal government, according to the Post (Justin Gillis, Washington Post, Nov. 19).

Many lawmakers are considering legislation based on a model law written by Georgetown University law professor Lawrence Gostin and Johns Hopkins University public health professor Stephen Teret and approved by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Nancy Shute, USNews.com, Nov. 19).

Current state laws are often brief, granting emergency powers such as quarantine to health authorities with only a paragraph or a sentence, according to the Post. Laws based on the Gostin and Teret model would allow authorities to impose large-scale quarantines and mandatory medical exams, vaccination and treatment (see GSN, Nov. 8). Officials could also destroy contaminated property—including corpses—without the owners’ consent and forcibly seize hospitals, other businesses and medical supplies. The model law would require that governments compensate property owners for their losses.

The legislation proposed by Gostin and Teret would also require various authorities to share information that could help them recognize and investigate bioterrorist attacks. For example, a pharmacist who noticed a sudden increase in sales of medicine for a suspicious symptom would be required to tell the health department and provide the names and addresses of the patients, the Post reported.

Current state laws often prohibit private businesses from sharing information with health authorities and prohibit health authorities from sharing information with state police, according to the Post.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has backed the legislative proposals, and several state attorneys general, governors and other groups have also provided advice, the Post reported. Some critics have complained, however, that the 40 pages of proposals are too complicated to be an improvement upon the simpler existing laws, according to the Post (Justin Gillis, Washington Post, Nov. 19).

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U.S. Response: APHA Calls For More Funding

The American Public Health Association has asked U.S. President George W. Bush to provide $10 billion over the next five years to U.S. public health departments to prepare for bioterrorism (see GSN, Nov. 5), the Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA reported yesterday. State health departments are currently preparing to spend $250 million to respond to the recent anthrax incidents, the APHA said.

Almost 25 percent of local public health agencies have no response plan for bioterrorism incidents, according to a survey released by the National Association of County and City Health Officials.  The survey also found that only 20 percent of local public health departments have a plan in place while 56 percent have one in development.

“Public health departments nationwide are not fully prepared to handle these growing bioterrorist attacks,” said APHA Director Mohammad Akhter.  “The demands to investigate these latest anthrax cases are rapidly outpacing our ability to act.  We need urgent action on this funding” (Medical Letter on the CDC & FDA/NewsRx.net, Nov. 18).

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