Sunday, December 06, 2009 KABUL: The Taliban said in a statement Saturday it would provide a "legal guarantee" that they would not intervene in foreign countries if international troops withdraw from Afghanistan.The Taliban have "no agenda of meddling in the internal affairs of other countries and is ready to give legal guarantee if the foreign forces withdraw from Afghanistan," the group said in a statement emailed to news organizations.The statement did not specify what such a guarantee would look like. A Taliban spokesman was not available for comment.U.S. President Barack Obama has said that the main purpose of the war here is to prevent al Qaeda from reacquiring a safe haven from which its member can launch attacks against the West. U.S. and Afghan officials have been looking for ways to exploit the differences between al Qaeda, a mostly Arab organization that is focused on fighting a global holy war, and the Taliban, an Afghan group that largely restricts its activities to Afghanistan though it has links to the Taliban in neighboring Pakistan.U.S. officials are skeptical that the Taliban can be taken at their word. "This is the same group that refused to give up (Osama) Bin Laden, even though they could have saved their country from war," said a U.S. official. "They wouldn't break with terrorists then, so why would we take them seriously now?"In the years immediately following the U.S. invasion, Taliban leader Mullah Omar repeatedly pledged his support for bin Laden. But in recent times the movement has fallen silent on the question of al Qaeda, with most of its communiqués repeatedly emphasizing the group's willingness to engage with the international community. In an October message, for instance, they attempted to reach out to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a mutual security organization comprising Russia, China and some Central Asian states.Such moves caused a flurry of dissent from al Qaeda-linked militants, who posted sharply critical statements on a number of Web sites. Al Qaeda has declared a global jihad and rejects any collaboration with what it views as enemy governments.Nonetheless, U.S. officials said that there is not enough evidence that these tensions exist at the leadership levels of al Qaeda and the Taliban. "If the Taliban really want to break with al Qaeda, they should say so openly and denounce terrorism," said the U.S. official. "Otherwise there is no reason we should trust them on anything.
Friday, August 14, 2009 MUMBAI: A 26-year-old woman died Thursday of H1N1 swine flu in the southern city of Bangalore, raising India's death toll from the virus to 20, authorities said.The death was the first reported in India's information technology capital, the Press Trust of India reported.Meanwhile in Pune, the worst-affected in India, two more victims of the virus died Thursday, raising the death toll in that western city near Mumbai to 12, the report said. The victims were an 11-month-old boy and a 75-year-old old woman.US media reported movie halls, schools and colleges were ordered closed Thursday for three days to a week in Mumbai, the commercial and financial capital of the country, as fear of the pandemic spread.Prajakata Lavangare, a spokeswoman for the government of Maharashtra state of which Mumbai is the capital, said similar orders were issued in Pune, which is also located in the state.The woman who died in Bangalore was identified only as Roopa, a teacher in
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