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Northern
Alliance Advancing Towards Mazar-e-Sharif
Excerpts
from an article describing gains by the Northern Alliance in
its efforts to overtake the key north Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif:
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Aided by heavy U.S. bombing, Afghan opposition forces said Wednesday
that they were on the outskirts of the Taliban-controlled northern
city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
A
senior Pentagon official said the opposition troops, some of
them on horseback, were making advances with the help of U.S.
special forces, but he cautioned that the situation was “very
fluid.”
A
day after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to assess
the rebels’ progress around Mazar-e-Sharif, the vice chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff acknowledged Wednesday that “we
know that the opposition is making gains.”
The
officer, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, said at the daily Pentagon
news briefing that “we do have, as you know, some of our
special forces folks on the ground with them” and that
“they’re able to report on some of what they see in
the battlefield.”
...
Pressed to characterize the progress, Pace said: “We do
know that the opposition have been attacking. They have been
defending. They have inflicted casualties. And with our assistance,
we have been putting airstrikes onto the Taliban forces.”
He
cautioned that “information is hard to come by. It’s
very fluid. There is an ebb and flow to these situations, and
it can take days or even longer before you can really characterize
how something is going.”
Pace
described a battle zone where Northern Alliance troops were
mounting old-fashioned cavalry charges, “riding horseback
into combat against tanks and armored personnel carriers.”
“So
these folks are aggressive,” he said. “They’re
taking the war to their enemy and ours. We are supporting as
best we can.”
...
“The Northern Alliance can be characterized as a very light
infantry force,” the official told Reuters on condition
of anonymity. “It’s one of their strengths that they’re
accustomed to fighting with low food supplies, low ammunition,
with horses aiding their mobility.”
The
official said a cavalry charge could be effective against tanks
because most tanks in northern Afghanistan were buried and used
as artillery.
The
official estimated that Northern Alliance forces had several
hundred horses and said it was a logical assumption to conclude
that U.S. special forces in the area could be on horseback,
as well.
...
Near Kabul, the capital, which has emerged as a second major
battleground between the Taliban and opposition forces, witnesses
said at least five waves of U.S. B-52 bombers flew Wednesday
over the Taliban front line.
Plumes
of smoke and dust rise after B-52
bombing near Bagram airport, 18 miles
north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, 11/07/01
Those
raids and others overnight “have hit the right places,”
Northern Alliance commander Asil Khan said, adding that the
planes had targeted bases of Arab and Pakistani fighters from
Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network who had taken up positions
at the front lines.
Witnesses
said enormous bombs were dropped. They may have been BLU-82
“daisy cutters,” the largest conventional bombs, which
U.S. forces have employed in Afghanistan to clear areas as large
as 650 square yards at a time.
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Source:
'Shortsighted'
World Lets Population Swell
Excerpts
from article detailing United Nations warnings regarding the
way in which developed countries are, thus far, failing to adequately
address pressing problems of population growth:
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The
United Nations says developed countries are not paying their
share of controlling world population growth.
(click for large-size image)
...
The report says human numbers have doubled since 1960 to 6.1
billion people, with most of the growth in poorer countries.
World
population will grow by 50% to a medium projection of 9.3 billion
by 2050, it says. The highest estimate is 10.9 billion people;
the lowest is 7.9 billion.
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Source:
Landmark
Smallpox Vaccine Study Underway
Excerpts
from article describing one aspect of current government efforts
to prepare for a potential smallpox bioterrorist attack:
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Volunteers
are lining up this week to be vaccinated against smallpox, a
once routine occurrence now considered extraordinary yet necessary
because of recent events.
A
total of 684 healthy individuals will participate in the study
in an effort to increase the number of available doses from
existing stocks of smallpox vaccine.
...
The research study is part of an effort by the U.S. government
to extend the supply of the vaccine in case the deadly virus
is released as part of a bioterrorism attack.
The
nation has about 15 million doses on hand; millions more are
being made by pharmaceutical firms but are not yet available.
The
vaccine contains no smallpox virus, and doctors stress that
there is no risk of developing smallpox from the vaccine.
Indeed,
prior to 1972, getting the vaccine was regarded as a harmless
rite of passage: Schoolchildren received the vaccine, then went
back to the classroom the same day and compared scabs later
in the week.
...
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Source:
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Early
Clues to Modern Humans
Excerpt
from article
describing the discovery of 70,000 year old bone tools in Africa:
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A
collection of bone tools dating back 70,000 years is raising
new questions about human evolution.
The
discovery suggests that our early human ancestors were far more
sophisticated than previously thought.
The
bone tools and flaked stone points, possibly used as spear heads,
were found in a cave on the South African coast, east of Stillbaai.
...
Bone tools need a high degree of skill and labour to produce,
which is why archaeologists consider them a significant indicator
of human development.
...
According to archaeologist Christopher Henshilwood, of the Iziko-South
African Museum in Cape Town, the tools show that people in Africa
exhibited "modern" behaviour as far back as 80-100,000
years ago.
...
This find may mark the beginning of a new understanding of the
human fossil record. ...
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Source:
Taleban Murders and Rapes of Refugees
Excerpts
from two articles with refugee descriptions of murders and rapes
by the Taleban upon non-combatants:
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Amid
scenes of poverty, chaos and piteous despair, Afghan refugees
told yesterday how the Taleban have unleashed a new wave of
terror in direct retaliation for America’s B52 bombing
raids.
Chanting
Islamic militiamen swarmed into villages behind their front
lines just hours after the high-level attacks began a week ago
and murdered hundreds of men, raped women and girls, and conscripted
teenage boys.
The
revenge attacks have triggered a fresh exodus of refugees who
brave the journey across no-man’s-land to Northern Alliance
territory, crowding into camps already teeming with thousands
of families living with little food and no housing.
“They
came the day after the bombing started and accused people of
being American spies,” Buzar Boy, a farmer from the village
of Dasht-i Archi, said yesterday after slipping across the front
lines on horseback with his wife and five children, aged between
two and thirteen.
“They
raped some of the women and took away more than 100 men. Some
of the younger men have been forced to join the Taleban and
others have been taken to prisons in Kandahar and Mazar-i Sharif.
But some have just disappeared, and we are certain that they
have been killed.
“This
has happened not just in our village, but in every other village
in the region. The Taleban looted homes, poured petrol into
the front doors and then set them ablaze.
It
was not just Afghan Taleban who did this, but Pakistanis and
Chechens. Uzbeks, too. And they were all as bad as each other.
They screamed at us we were taking the Americans’ side,
but none of us were. We just wanted to farm our land.”
It
was nothing new to the people of Dasht-i Archi. When the Taleban
overran the village 17 months ago they killed 50 men in a 30-day
spree, shooting them and beating them to death in their homes
and in the streets. The victims were ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks,
whom the largely Pashtun Taleban suspected of supporting the
Northern Alliance.
Buzar,
a careworn figure who looks a decade or two older then his 30
years, gazed around the makeshift camp at Khojamala that is
now his family’s home.
The
more fortunate here are living under tarpaulins, but most are
surviving under shelters made of rush matting, and a few have
retreated into holes that they have hacked into earth baked
hard by four years of drought.
The
only food is from aid agencies. Three children, aged five, three,
and eight months, have died of hypothermia in the past two weeks.
More
than 150 refugees have come from Dasht-i Archi since the bombing
started, joining almost 1,000 people from the same village who
fled to Alliance-held territory during the previous killing
spree.
The
refugees here say that countless families have been caught by
the Taleban in the past week as they attempted the eight-hour
horse ride across Kalakata ridge at night. The men are always
shot and the women and children are simply sent back.
Refugees
in nearby camps at Nowabad and Lala Gozar had similar tales
of the Taleban terrorising civilians in retaliation for the
bombing. They all said one man appears to be in command of the
vengeful Taleban: Mullah Mira Ahmad, a fanatic known as “The
Killer from Kandahar”. ...
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Source:
- The Times
[link inactive]
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Fleeing
Afghans gunned down - The Taliban are slaughtering Afghans who
try to flee the country, gunning them down in cold blood, refugees
who have made it to Pakistan say.
Of
a dozen Afghans interviewed, all had tales of random killings,
human rights abuses and persecution. Some told of mass murders.
Ovr
Mohd, 65, fled to the hills from Bamiyan to avoid the Taliban.
When he returned he found his three sons shot dead.
Mr
Mohd said they were targeted because they were ethnic Hazaras,
whose sympathies lie with the Northern Alliance.
"When
we decided to leave Afghanistan we saw the Taliban attacking
people who were fleeing. People were gathering on the road to
leave and they were shot. We have seen this," he said.
"I
saw 50 people in front of me who were killed. They were women,
children and men," Mr Mohd added, claiming the killings
happened a month ago.
About
100,000 Afghans are believed to have crossed the border illegally
since the US began pounding Afghanistan.
They
have no identity papers and officially do not exist in Pakistan.
They refuse to move into refugee camps for fear of deportation.
Consequently they receive no help from aid groups.
Saeed
Zaman, 35, said he witnessed similar killings in Kabul. "There
is a chowk [roundabout] where the people go when they want to
leave," he said.
"The
Taliban are attacking them there. I saw dozens killed [on Friday].
The people were pleading to leave but the Taliban shot them.
They left the bodies where they fell. The animals were eating
them." ...
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Source:
Walking
With Beasts
Excerpts
from article describing a BBC web site / series detailing creatures
appearing after the age of Walking With Dinosaurs had passsed:
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Walking
with Beasts, the BBC's new digital animation of the post-dinosaur
era, reveals "a land where birds eat horses".
...
Beasts is the sequel to the internationally successful series
Walking with Dinosaurs. It recreates the bizarre animals that
emerged after dinosaurs' extinction 65 million years ago. The
six-part docu-drama, constructed Jurassic Park-style using robotic
models and digital animation, leads up to the emergence of modern
humans. ...
Walking
With Beasts
(click Brontotheres' image to access
BBC's "Walking With Beasts" web site)
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Source:
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