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Taliban appears to be regrouped and well-funded
Christian Science Monitor Affirms Taliban's Resurgence

uploaded 09 May 2003
Source: CS Monitor

[Excerpted: Propaganda material inserted in the article has been deleted. Only factual aspects are retained.]

A new hierarchy of leaders has emerged across parts of Afghanistan.................

Justice Salam is back, talking to a foreign reporter for the first time since the Taliban fell a year and a half ago, but he says the Taliban are back as well. Regrouped, rearmed, and well-funded, they are ready to carry on guerrilla war as long as it takes to expel US forces from Afghanistan.

It's what Afghans want, "because during the Taliban times, there was peace and security," says Salam, who retains the long gray beard that marks him as a devout Muslim.

Across the southern portions of Afghanistan, where the Taliban found strong support among the rural conservative Pashtun populations, there are definite signs that the Taliban are making a comeback. Some Taliban leaders, such as Salam and Taliban commander Mullah Muhammad Hasan Rehmani, are giving interviews once again. Others are dropping leaflets, calling for a jihad against US forces and against the new Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai. Still others are increasingly willing to discuss the secret hierarchy that is directing this jihad and the sources of funding that keep it running.

It's this confidence that undercuts recent assertions by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that major combat operations in Afghanistan are over, and that the focus will now be on reconstruction. "The general idea that was being put forward by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld last week, is that the Afghan military, backed by US forces, is engaged in mopping up some remnants of the past

The reorganized Taliban are mounting increasingly brazen attacks on Afghan soil. In Zabul Province last month, for instance, Taliban forces took control of two remote districts near the Pakistani border for nearly a week. Afghan military forces, backed up by US Special Forces and helicopter gunships, eventually dislodged the Taliban fighters.

New hierarchy emerges
Taliban sources in Pakistan and Afghan intelligence sources say that the Taliban now has a recognizable hierarchy of leaders - some operating from Afghanistan and some from the Pashtun tribal areas of Pakistan's volatile Northwest Frontier Province.

At the top of the military command structure is Mullah Beradar, who hails from Deh Rawood in Urozgan, the home village of former supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Underneath Mullah Beradar are a number of Taliban commanders and religious leaders assigned to different territories.

The most active region - from Nimroz Province to Helmand, on up to Kandahar, Zabul, and north to Urozgan - is under the joint control of Beradar's top three deputies. Akhtar Usmani was the Taliban corps commander in Kandahar. Mullah Abdur Razzaq was the Taliban Interior Minister. And Mullah Dadullah was the military chief in the northern city of Kunduz, on the front lines against the Northern Alliance when the Taliban lines crumbled.

The Taliban has commanders all across the country. In Paktia, Paktika, Khost, and Ghazni provinces, Mullah Saifur Rehman is in charge. He was the commander of Taliban forces during the US coalition's indecisive battle, Operation Anaconda, in the Shah-e Kot mountains.

In Nangrahar, Laghman, and Konar provinces, the Taliban's former deputy prime minister, Mullah Kabir, is supreme commander, working along with activists of the Hizb-i Islami.

Anwar Panghaz commands the Taliban guerrillas operating in the provinces that ring the capital city of Kabul - Parwan, Kapisa, Kabul, Wardak, and Logar. Afghan security officials say that operations there have been light in recent months.

Salam, who lives in his native Logar Province, neighboring Kabul, refuses to talk about his own activities in the Taliban today. Days after the Taliban fell, Northern Alliance troops surrounded his home, but eventually left without explanation. Salam has remained free since and admits that he maintains contact with the Taliban movement.

Salam says Afghans would prefer to rely on their own resources, even if the jihad takes years or decades. "We don't want the interference of foreign countries like Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. We want Afghan people to be united and select their leaders. We want Afghanistan to solve its problems through discussion."

But there is no use discussing peace when the US-led military coalition continues to patrol Afghan territory, he adds. "The last loya jirga [national council] was done by force," says Salam, pointing a finger to his head like a gun. "But if there was a real loya jirga, and the people who were appointed were good, then I would work with my head and feet and heart for my country."
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HIZBUT TAHRIR FACES TORTURE UNDER UZBEKISTAN'S STALINIST REGIME
U.S. SUPPORTS STALINISTS BECAUSE THEY ARE ANTI-ISLAM

uploaded 09 May 2003
Source: BBC Monitoring

Uzbekistan: four jailed on charges of links to Hizb-ut-Tahrir
Text of report by banned Muslim Uzbekistan web site on 6 May

According to a report by Radio Liberty, sentences were recently passed on four people charged with involvement in Hezb-e Tahrir banned religious movement . According to the report, Rasul Ismoilov, 27, and Umrzoq Gadoyev, 28, were given 10 years in jail. Bahriddin Kholiqov, 24, was sentenced to six years in prison. One more accused, Nihoyat Karimova, 28, a mother of four, was put on probation for three years.

On 16 January 2003 Bahriddin Kholiqov, Umrzoq Gadoyev, Sirojiddin Ahmedov, Samariddin Ahmedov, Jamshid Khudoyberdiyev, Akmal Sharipov, Rasul Ismoilov and Nihoyat Karimova were detained by regional security service officers. Five of them were set free on 24 January.

Sharofiddin Kholiqov, who is a relative of one of those accused, Bahriddin Kholiqov, said the investigation had been conducted without lawyers present. The lawyers recommended by the defendants' relatives were rejected by the court in contravention of the law. In an interview with a radio correspondent, he said that the defendants had been subjected to torture
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ATTACK ON ISRAEL Is a CRIME AGAINST U.K.?
Women in Mujahid's family Family Brought to Court
[Resistance to occupation is an internationally recognized right. Is Blair's England the same as Israel?]
May 09, 2003
Source: Albawaba.com
Three relatives of a Briton wanted for a suicide bomb attack in Israel are appearing Friday in a London court charged in connection with the blast. According to Sky News, the wife, brother and sister of Omar Sharif, 27, were arrested in Derbyshire under anti-terrorism laws.

Israeli authorities said Sharif, from Derby, is on the run after trying to blow himself up in the attack on a Tel Aviv bar about ten days ago. Three people were killed when another Briton, Asif Muhammad Hanif, 21, from London, detonated explosives strapped to his body.

Sharif's wife Tahari Shad Tabussum, 27, brother Zahid Hussain Sharif, 46, and sister Paveen Sharif, 35, are appearing at Bow Street magistrates court. They are charged under anti-terrorist laws relating to the failure to disclose information about acts of "terrorism."
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2003-05-10 Sat 17:37ct