AS AFGHANISTAN IS BOMBED, MORE PEOPLE TURN AGAINST THE WAR
LONDON-BERLIN 13 Oct. As the United States resumed bombing of Afghanistan, destroying more military bases and positions of the ruling Taleban, who, for the first time, invited a group of international newsmen, more, and bigger demonstrations were held in major European cities, including in London and Berlin, denouncing bombing of the war shattered Afghanistan.
Eyewitnesses described the demonstrations in London as "very impressive", adding that thousands of demonstrators took to the streets Saturday, denouncing peacefully the joint US, UK military operations in Afghanistan, aimed at destabilising the ruling Taleban regime.
"It was the largest peace rally since the 1991 Allied War against Iraq in 1991", one eyewitness told reporters about the London demonstrations, observing that a "good number" of the marchers were Muslims, many of them Pakistanis.
"We think very strongly that this bombing action that is being supported is counterproductive and is breaking up the coalition that has been carefully built up in the past", said Mr. Nigel Chamberlain, one of the organiser of the march.
Similar anti-war marches were also organised Saturday in the German capital Berlin and in Stuttgart, were demonstrators carried posters saying "Yes to Enduring Peace, Not to Enduring War", or "Peace, not War".
The demonstrations in London and in Berlin followed the one that had been held in Paris on Friday, called by the French Communist Party, the Green Party, both member of the Socialist-led coalition government and some other leftist organisations.
Organisers estimated the number of the protesters at more than 20.000, the largest ever since the start of the military operations over Afghanistan last Sunday.
Protesters criticised both the United States and Britain for the bombing of Afghanistan, a country well ruined by more than three decade of wars, describing the operations as "not logical", if it is meant to replace the Taleban and arrest Osama Ben Laden, the man the Americans suspect to be the mastermind of the 11 September suicide operations in New York and in Washington D. C.
The Taleban escorted Saturday the first group of western journalists to Afghanistan to show them causalities suffered by the civilians under the US and UK bombings.
Taleban claims that in the week that the bombing of Afghanistan has lasted, at least 300 people have been killed and wounded by American and British bombs and missiles.
This is the first time that the Muslim extremists who rule over the impoverished Asian nation allow journalists in Afghanistan.
A CNN correspondent said that the visit to hospitals and sites claimed to have been destroyed by the bombings, was organised by the Taleban and journalists had no freedom to go on their own reporting.
Washington confirmed that one of its jets had missed its target and the bomb it had dropped had destroyed a civilian area.
Meanwhile, Afghan sources opposed to the Taleban claimed Saturday that Taleban’s main arsenal in Qanahar had been "completely" destroyed by the US aviation.
Mohammad Mohaqqeq, a spokesman for the Hezb Vahdat Eslami, the Akbari branch, told the official Iranian news agency IRNA in Mash-had, the largest Iranian city near the Afghan border, that the Taleban have transferred most of their weapons and troops to the mountains in order to save them from American-British attacks.
On the other hand, informed sources in Peshawar and Quetta said "hundreds" of Afghan and Pakistani, of the Poshtoon tribes, are crossing the borders, joining the Taleban in Afghanistan.
In neighbouring Iran, where anti-American, anti-British and anti-war demonstrations were organised Friday by conservative-controlled clerics, President Mohammad Khatami said that the Afghan people were falling victim to a "twin calamity" in the wake of an ultra-Orthodox rulership of the Taleban militia group as well as the U.S.-led attack on the war-torn country which is taking its toll on the civilians, IRNA reported from Tehran.
In a meeting with the new Canadian ambassador to Tehran, Khatami regretted the September 11 terror attack on the U.S., calling it a move against humanity, but also said that the American military showdown in the region could lead to a backlash in an international anti-terrorism bid.
"The American people have fallen victim to terrorists' crimes and the innocent Afghan people, on the other hand, have become victims of two oppression: that of their ignorant rulers who generate and export hate, violence, terror and drugs and the oppression which they have to endure these days because of massive American attacks", IRNA quoted Mr. Khatami as having told the Canadian diplomat. ENDS ANTI AFQAN WAR DEMOS 131001