Lots of interesting stuff...

More from MSNBC... I've highlighted some of the more interesting statements.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/629304_asp.htm

“WE PUT BEFORE the Pakistani government a specific list of things that we would like cooperation on, and they’ve agreed to all of those items,” said Powell during a meeting with President Bush and other national security chiefs at Bush’s Camp David retreat.

“I’m not prepared to announce today what those specific items are,” Powell said. U.S. officials have said Washington wants Islamabad to allow military overflights and close its border with Afghanistan.

Meantime, Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press quoted a Taliban foreign ministry statement Saturday requesting all foreigners to leave the country for their own safety because of a possible attack.

The international staff of the United Nations and those of non-governmental organizations have already evacuated the war-torn country amid strong indications that Washington may strike Afghanistan because of its protection of Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden who is among those suspected in the U.S. terror attacks.

FLEEING AFGHANISTAN

<B>Hundreds of refugees started streaming out of Afghanistan’s capital Saturday even though the Taliban’s supreme leader urged them to stay and fight a holy war for Islam. </B> Those who remained in Kabul spent their meager savings to stock up on food, grimly accepting their fate.

<B>“There is no pleasure in life anyway, so I don’t care if the bombs come and I have to die along with my children,” said Leilama, a 38-year-old mother of six in Kabul. “But the United States should know that the Afghan people are not their enemies.”</B>

As the prospects of a U.S. strike against the Taliban movement increased, Iran said on Saturday it would seal its border with Afghanistan to prevent the possible influx of refugees.

“Iran has called on the security forces ... to seal off the 560-mile joint border to encounter the consequences of probable U.S. retaliatory strikes against Afghanistan,” the official IRNA news agency quoted the interior ministry as saying. Iran and Pakistan each have about 2 million Afghan refugees already.

PAKISTAN IN A ‘BIND’

The White House has signaled that the Taliban could face a prolonged attack unless they gave up bin Laden. But the Taliban says bin Laden played no role in this week’s terrorism — and has portrayed Washington’s demands as an affront against Islam. On Friday, the U.S. Congress gave President Bush the go-ahead for military action directed against the people behind Tuesday’s attacks.

Pakistan, a Muslim country that is an ally of Washington as well as the Taliban, would play a key role in any U.S. military action against bin Laden and Afghanistan. Officials from both countries have been in talks since shortly after Tuesday’s attacks.

A Pakistani diplomatic source who requested anonymity told MSNBC.com that the government was put “in a bit of a bind” as it tried to balance its unique ties with the Taliban with its need for Western aid and international recognition for fighting terrorism.

Publicly, Pakistani officials said the government was still working on its official response to Washington’s requests. But privately, sources in Islamabad told the Associated Press and NBC News that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had agreed to cooperate fully with the United States.

<B>Pakistan, concerned about tension in the orthodox Islamic community at home and elsewhere, sought assurances that the ground troops would be multinational, not only American, one source said.</B> Musharraf, a military leader who seized power in a bloodless coup in October 1999, met twice with his senior commanders since Tuesday’s terrorist attacks in the United States.

<B>The military and diplomatic sources told AP that the United States was seeking a “comprehensive strike” to wipe out the Taliban</B> and a network of suspected terrorist bases in Afghanistan.

TALIBAN UNWILLING TO CHANGE

Pakistan has told the Taliban that a massive U.S. strike is in the making, Pakistani military sources said Friday. They said that despite the warnings, the Taliban were unwilling to change their stance on bin Laden, whom they have sheltered since 1996.

Instead, the Afghan Foreign Ministry announced that Taliban guerrillas — known as “mujahedeen” — could move against any neighbors who support a U.S. military strike.

<B>“If a neighboring country allows its soil or its air to be used in an attack against Afghanistan ... in that case the possibility cannot be ruled out that we attack that country,” the ministry said in a statement. “</B>We’ll be forced to send our mujahedeen into their territory. ... They will be responsible for the consequences.”

Daniel Goure, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Lexington Institute and an expert on national security policy, told MSNBC that Pakistan could handle any threat posed by Afghanistan, but he also acknowledged that the latest Afghan statement pointed to the possibility of a “wider conflict.”

OTHER NERVOUS NATIONS

In addition to Afghanistan, a handful of other nations have reason to fear the military might of the United States after President Bush said a U.S. offensive would target those who sponsor and shelter terrorists. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea and Sudan were identified as such in April by the U.S. State Department.

In his national address Tuesday, President Bush said, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbored them.”

The government singled out Iran as the most active state sponsor of terrorism because of its support for three prominent militant groups in the Middle East: Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The distinction may account for the swiftness of Iran’s condemnation on Tuesday, which included an unprecedented personal statement by President Mohammad Khatami and prominent religious leaders.

“This strange incident in America and the act committed by a group of terrorists is condemned from the Islamic republic’s point of view,” Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani told Muslim worshippers at Friday prayers in Tehran.

MIDEAST ROOTS

But the sympathy co-exists with a deep-rooted antagonism in Iran toward Israel, and by extension, its ally, the United States.
So as officials and clerics condemned the attacks, many warned that the situation might be used by Israel to discredit Arabs and Muslims.

Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi on Thursday accused Israel of exploiting the terror attacks in the United States to try to further complicate the volatile situation in the region.

“Even as all Muslim countries have condemned this incident, Israel is unfortunately after provocative measures,” he said during a telephone conversation with his Austrian counterpart, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, local media reported.

“The situation in the region is very complicated and difficult. Israel’s actions could leave a negative impact in Muslim countries,” he said, urging the world community to rein in Israel.

SENTIMENT IN IRAQ AND ELSEWHERE

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein struck a similar note Saturday, saying that grief-stricken Americans should not wage a “new Crusade” against Muslims, but rather learn from the pain that Iraqis and Palestinians have been suffering at the hands of the United States and Israel.

“Just as your beautiful skyscrapers were destroyed and caused your grief, beautiful buildings and precious homes crumbled over their owners in Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq because of American weapons used by the Zionists,” Saddam said in an open letter addressed to the American people, citizens of the West and their governments.

The Iraqi leader warned of a “new crusade” by the United States and its supporters against “an Islamic country.”

In addition to strong opposition in Iraq to the U.S. support for Israel, a driving sentiment of anger remains over the U.S.-supported embargo following the Persian Gulf War of 1991 — which Baghdad claims has impoverished the nation — and the growing number of military strikes against Iraqi defense sites. As a result, Iraq was notable in celebrating Tuesday’s terror.

Friday, an official newspaper said the strikes were a natural outcome of the United States’ involvement in other countries’ affairs.

Syria, which the U.S. State Department says offers a safe haven to several terrorist groups, condemned the attacks.

As for Sudan, the threat of U.S. retaliation is very real. In August 1998, U.S. missiles hit a pharmaceutical plant outside the capital after it alleged it was producing ingredients for chemical weapons and that bin Laden had a stake in the factory.

Tuesday, the country’s Islamist government condemned the attacks in the United States, saying it hoped “the incident would not lead to an explosion of the cycle of violence.”

TALIBAN URGES RESISTANCE

Meanwhile, in a radio address Friday, Mullah Mohammed Omar warned Afghans that they faced a military strike from the United States but called on them to stand steadfast “against the enemy.”

“Death comes to everyone. We must stand proud as Afghans in the defense of Islam,” Omar said. He said Afghanistan was being targeted because the United States felt threatened by Islam.

“Be ready for jihad,” he said, using the Arabic term for a holy war or struggle. “Each Muslim should be ready for a jihad against this and be ready for his religion if there is a need for him to sacrifice himself for Islam and his belief and make a sacrifice for the symbol of belief in Islam.”

<B>This week’s terror attacks have put the Taliban in a difficult position: If they were to hand over bin Laden, they would risk alienating thousands of foreign radicals who are indispensable in their civil war against a northern-based alliance. By continuing to harbor bin Laden, they are risking an attack by a U.S.-led multinational force.</B>

NEW BLOW TO TALIBAN OPPOSITION

A new development in Afghanistan’s civil war could change the nation’s internal political equation: opposition leader Ahmad Shah Massood died Saturday of wounds suffered in a suicide bombing last weekend, dealing a major blow to anti-Taliban forces.

<B>Massood, 48, died at 10 a.m. in Khodja Bahauddin in the northern Takhar province, his spokesman, Abdullah, confirmed in a Saturday telephone interview. Two men posing as television journalists blew themselves up on Sept. 9 while trying to kill Massood.

Abdullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, accused bin Laden of orchestrating the attack. Masood’s death eliminates the most influential opponent to the Taliban’s rule.</B>

WAR-WEARY AFGHANS

Over the past couple of days, war-weary Afghans have resigned themselves to the possibility of more bloodshed. Since the 1970s, the country has been wracked by successive disasters: a Soviet invasion, civil war, the rise of the radical Taliban, a devastating drought and famine. Many Afghans have been leaving Kabul in hopes of crossing the border into Pakistan.

“I don’t want my children to die in a war,” said Sabira, who like many Afghans uses only one name. She waited at a fence on the Afghan-Pakistan border with her four children.

But some Afghan refugees living in refugee camps — home to around 2 million people — have expressed a sense of fatalism and said they would return home to fight.

“We will go back and fight as we did with the Russians,” said Mohammed Ibrahim, referring to the ill-fated Soviet occupation of the 1980s. “We may have been fighting among ourselves, but when Afghanistan is under attack we will come together... we will unite.”

 

<B>Maybe it would just be easier if they gave us a list of the things that aren't an affront against Islam according to the Taliban.</B>

How funny would it be if Bush asked for that of part of a speech. Too bad world leaders don't seem to use sarcasm!