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2002
THE ROVING
EYE
EXCLUSIVE: The last
battle
Part
2: Special Forces, ordinary
people
With Pepe
Escobar in hot pursuit, US soldiers
scour the remote regions of eastern Kunar
province in Afghanistan looking for ... well, they
refuse to say just whom. It doesn't take much to
work out, though, that the targets of the
Americans are members of the formidable
coalition now involved in a jihad to kick
foreign troops out of the country. (Sep 11,
'02)
 Part
1: Exit Osama, enter
Hekmatyar
THE ROVING
EYE
The
Panjshir Lion lives
 The
assassination a year ago of Ahmad Shah Masoud,
mujahideen hero and the Northern Alliance's Lion
of the Panjshir, at the hands of al-Qaeda
suicide operatives was aimed at eliminating the
final obstacle to complete Taliban control over
Afghanistan. His death, though, and the events
of September 11, led to precisely the opposite
happening. - Pepe
Escobar (Sep 11,
'02)
From the al-Qaeda puzzle,
a picture
emerges
Piece by piece,
the puzzle of al-Qaeda is becoming a picture of
an organization that had foreseen the possible destruction
of its Taliban hosts and planned for
a quiet shift of assets and personnel to
other, more secure nests. Two key questions remain:
"Where are those nests?" and "Are they
hatching a nuclear egg?" - Syed Saleem
Shahzad (Sep 10,
'02)
The
decline of the American
Century
The 20th century witnessed
the rise of an empire, much like the empires of
the Romans, the Byzantines, the caliphs, the
Ottomans, and the British. At its zenith, it
seemed invincible. Then a ragtag band of
latter-day Assassins struck at the very heart of
its economic, political and military might,
exposing the weakness within.
- K Gajendra
Singh (Sep 10,
'02)
The
simmering threat of Indonesian
radicalism
While much of the
Islamic world chose to view the US-led war on
terrorism as an attack on their religion, the
world's largest Muslim country clung to its
traditions of moderation and tolerance. But with
America poised to make war on another Muslim
country, and with a government in Jakarta that
has failed to seize the high ground, the
radicals may yet win over peace-loving
Indonesians. - Bill Guerin (Sep 11, '02)
Under
Russian eyes, Central Asia ponders
Iraq
With US
troops and aid pouring into formerly Soviet-bloc
Central Asia, the region is carefully weighing
its options regarding a possible US attack on
Iraq. One big question on every leader's mind:
Where does Moscow stand? - Sergei Blagov
(Sep 11, '02)
Battle is joined:
Chicken Hawks v Ostriches
The political
debate in the US over war with Iraq is
shaping up as a food fight between, on the one
hand, Republicans with loud opinions on war but
no actual experience of its brutal reality and,
on the other, Democrats with nothing to say on
that particular subject.
 Charge
on Baghdad, cry the Chicken Hawks
Baghdad?
What? whisper the
ostriches
HOW WE
COVERED THE STORY
 The first
plane hit the World Trade Center
at 8:45am EDT - or 7.45pm Bangkok time,
while we were uploading our
September 12 edition. Within 90 minutes, we received
and uploaded an eyewitness account from
Chawadee Nualkhair in New York
and a short report from Syed Saleem
Shahzad in Karachi which
pointed the finger squarely at Osama bin Laden
and al-Qaeda. The edition already contained
Pepe Escobar's exclusive interview with
Ahmad Shah Masoud, the leader of Afghanistan's
anti-Taliban forces who had been fatally
hurt by suicide bombers a few days before.
We continued uploading new material, and 24
hours after the World Trade Center collapsed,
the edition illustrated above was online. As one
of the world's few English-language publications
with correspondents already on the
spot, Asia Times Online
was able to provide world-beating
coverage from Asia, on which the world's spotlight would soon
fall so
strongly. |
EDITORIAL
Vulnerable
forever?
Today, one year after
disaster struck from the blue sky, the United
States and the other enemies of terrorism face
an urgent question: what to do about Iraq? Two
things are already clear: heinous acts of terror
must be pre-empted, and Saddam Hussein still has
time to prove he's not part of the
problem. (Sep
10,
'02)
COMMENTARY
Invading Iraq, no matter the
cost
There is no
doubt that the United States has both the will
and the power to attack Iraq on its own. But
whether this is the prudent, or even desirable,
course of action is another issue entirely. -
Ehsan Ahrari (Sep 10,
'02)
Who will police the world's
policeman?
|
Minds they
are a-changing |
Jan '02 |
Sep
'02 |
The war on terrorism in
Afghanistan
is going
well. |
89% |
65% |
Although President George W
Bush's preference for unilateralism finds
resonance among Americans, according to a new
poll, this should not be read by Washington as
an excuse to go it alone in solving the world's
problems. - Ehsan Ahrari (Sep 10,
'02)
MORE ARTICLES (Sep 10,
'02)
US
reaps strategic bonus in
Asia
IRAN:
Reformists feel the pinch
SOUTH
ASIA: Kashmir
reverberates
CENTRAL
ASIA: Political
landscape redrawn
MIDDLE EAST: Harder for
Palestinians
SYRIA: It's
politics as usual
Internet
restricted in the name of
terror |
|
|
2001
August 21
Osama bin Laden: The thorn in
Pakistan's
flesh
The US is
believed to be putting pressure on Pakistan to
assist in a military operation to pluck Osama
bin Laden from his adopted home in Afghanistan.
Islamabad is torn over the issue as it has to
balance the conflicting needs of its failing
economy, its divided army and the wishes of
Saudi Arabia. - Syed Saleem
Shahzad
August 29
THE ROVING
EYE
Get Osama! Now! Or else
...
Roving
correspondent Pepe Escobar,
last heard from more than a month ago when he
was stranded in Afghanistan, has resurfaced. We
pick up his trail in Peshawar, where Osama bin
Laden T-shirts are hot items among the locals,
but are unlikely to find many takers among the
US commandos said to be out to get the "world
hero of jihad".
September 11
THE
ROVING EYE
Masoud: From warrior to
statesman
The fate of 48-year-old
Ahmad Shah Masoud, leader of forces fighting the
Taliban in Afghanistan, is unclear following a
suicide bomb attack on him. Earlier, in an
exclusive interview with Pepe
Escobar, Masoud recounted that
according to astrologers he will live for
another 40 years, in which time he will be able
to stop Pakistan meddling in Afghanistan's
affairs and rid it of the fundamentalist
Taliban.
September
12
US courting a Muslim
backlash
United States retaliation against
Osama bin Laden, the man widely believed to have
masterminded the attacks on the United States,
could stir presently peaceful Muslims
around the world to militancy. - Syed Saleem
Shahzad
September
13
Osama bin Laden: Myths and
reality
Washington has long itched to get its
hands on Osama bin Laden. The Taliban government
in Afghanistan has refused to cooperate.
Syed Saleem Shahzad writes that it will
continue to do so, even in the face of a
military attack by the US.
For more of
the best of ATol's coverage, please go
to
War
and Terror4
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