Pakistan captures spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud

By MUNIR AHMAD, Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD – Security forces have captured the Pakistani Taliban's top spokesman in an operation near the Afghan border, intelligence officials said Tuesday.

The seizure of Mauvi Omar, a high-profile figure in the Taliban, was the latest blow to the militants after the reported death of top leader Baitullah Mehsud in a U.S. missile strike Aug. 5 and Monday's capture of another leading commander.

Three intelligence officials said Tuesday that Omar was seized in a village in the Mohmand tribal region Monday night while he was traveling in a car with two associates to South Waziristan, a Taliban stronghold.

Local tribal elders assisted troops in locating Omar in the village of Khawazeo, the intelligence officials said. Pakistan army or government spokesmen were not immediately available for comments.

As the official spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Omar frequently called journalists to claim responsibility for terrorist attacks in Pakistan.

The intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media, said Omar's arrest would likely be publicly announced later Tuesday.

Omar's capture was the second high-profile arrest of a senior Taliban figure this week.

On Monday night, police said they arrested a militant commander and close Mehsud aide who was being treated in a private hospital in Islamabad, the capital.

Militant commander Qari Saifullah, who also has links to al-Qaida terrorists, told police he had been wounded in an American missile strike in South Waziristan, said two police officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information. It was unclear if it was the same strike believed to have killed Mehsud.

Gaza: Children Have a Way With Miracles

By Mohammed Omer

AMSTERDAM, Aug 16 (IPS) - Call it that choice between looking at the half-full or half-empty part of the results. And it is almost half; 55 percent of schoolchildren passed their exams in Gaza this year.

The results in the humanities section in the exams, the Tawjihis as they are called, were 4 percent better than last year, and in the sciences they were better by 2 percent. So much for the impact of the Israeli bombardment last December-January, on most of the children anyway.

Hanan Al-Manameh scored 99.4 percent in science, the sixth highest in the exams conducted both in Gaza and the West Bank. "The war and the siege on Gaza will not break us down," she tells IPS on phone from Gaza City. "The war didn't put an end to the school year, and it didn't kill the motivation inside me."

Mahmoud Al-Segali, 18, scored 99.5 percent. "My family had to move from one shelter to another while Israeli F-16s bombed the houses around us. Then, and later, we have been short of electricity, and short of paper, but I still managed my dream result."

School children are getting used by now to studying without paper – and that's not because they have computers. "I had to use my textbooks as my class notebooks as well," says secondary student Dua'a Khalil. The siege has brought shortage of paper among other things.

Of the 47,469 students who passed the exam, 1,189 scored more than 90 percent. They had to survive more than three weeks of Israeli bombing – though that killed many children. Disruption came earlier after hundreds of teachers went on strike. Many were threatened with salary cuts as a way of exerting pressure on Hamas (the teachers in Gaza are paid by the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority based in the West Bank).

"The results of the secondary school exams of this year have a special meaning, because it was difficult and full of obstacles and blood during the aggression on both the West Bank and Gaza," Hamas de facto Prime Minister in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh said at a rare public appearance to honour students who had excelled. The government also awarded certificates posthumously to 23 high school students and to 12 teachers killed during the Israeli bombing.

But then, there is the other half that failed. No doubt the successes, and the overall improvement in the pass percentage can be summoned as argument that the Israeli bombing made no difference. But there is no simple statistical way of determining such an effect. Some children are more affected by such upheavals than others; that's just the way children are.

What is doubtless is the mountainous difficulties in the way, for those who overcame them, and for those who could not. And these are not the sort of difficulties children face in many schools around the world.

"Gaza has suffered severe shortage of paper; many books did not arrive till late in the year, and some did not arrive at all," Gaza-based education ministry spokesman Khalid Radi told IPS. "Supplies of ink and paper are no longer available."

Many teachers "are concerned about students' inability to concentrate, and this has become worse after the war on Gaza." Sometimes it is a far more basic issue than concentration, says Radi. "In many schools children can't see what is written on the blackboard because of inadequate lighting due to shortage of electricity."

Seventy-five new schools were due to be constructed in Gaza, but the Israeli siege means there are now no construction materials to build them with. The average number of children in a classroom has meanwhile risen from 40 to 55. Thirteen schools in Gaza were demolished in the bombing, 176 were damaged.

Diab Jumma, 18, is among those students who did not clear the exam. "My mother fainted when she heard," he says. "It's not that I don't have the time to read, but when I do I am just not able to understand. I get nightmares about the bombing, and when I sit to read a book I find it hard to collect my thoughts and put them into studies."

Such problems are common, deputy minister for education Dr. Yousif Ibrahim tells IPS. He speaks of the Al-Samnouni family. "How is it possible for a student to focus when he has seen the flesh and blood of his parents' body stuck on the walls of a room of what was once his home?" Twenty-eight members of that family were killed in the bombing.

And yet Gaza's results are comparable with those in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, says Dr. Ibrahim. "And imagine, in those countries they have all the budgets, the stability, the means to create a proper atmosphere for education."

But some children will always triumph. And they set their own standards for success. Al-Segali with his 99.5 percent marks failed in his own way. "It was his handwriting that prevented him from getting that extra 0.5 percent," says Dr. Ibrahim. "He must work on that."

5th century skeleton found in Byzantine cathedral in Syria

London, August 17 : An archaeological team has unearthed a cathedral with a skeleton remains in it in Tal Al-Hasaka site, north eastern Syria, dating back to the Byzantine era during the 5th century.

The cathedral ,which dates back to the Early Christianity Era, is 18 meters long, and includes a four meter wide northern hall, a 6.5 meter wide middle hall and a three meter wide southern hall, Al-Hasaka Archeology Director Abdul-Maseeh Baghdo, told the Global Arab Network.

It also includes two column bases, and the floor is inlayed with reddish-yellow baked clay.

In the cathedral’s northern hall, an entrance leading to the service area was discovered where a grape squeezer and a skeleton of a human who died of torture were found.

The excavation team also found the cathedral’s stairway exit consisting of four steps, with another four steps facing them the opposite way.

Moreover, the team found intact columns reaching five meters in height with ornaments, as well as the cathedral’s collapsed ceiling which was built from baked clay and basalt stones.

A bimah - a platform where a religious preacher stands - was uncovered, confirming that this site is a cathedral, according to the Archeological director.

Subway excavation uncovers Algeria's past

'No one could have imagined that the earth was hiding these relics'

By Christian Lowe

ALGIERS - Work to build a subway line through Algeria's capital has given archaeologists a chance to uncover traces of their country's ancient history that they thought had been erased by French colonial rule.

When engineers closed off part of Algiers' bustling Martyrs' Square to build an underground railway station, archaeologists seized the opportunity to investigate the site and, beneath layers of concrete, found a 5th century basilica.

They also found Ottoman-era metal forges and recovered cannonballs and a primitive pistol - an echo of the period in the 16th and 17th century when Barbary pirates used Algiers as a base to terrorize shipping in the Mediterranean Sea.

Historians are excited because the finds give a rare glimpse of the heart of ancient Algiers, the lower Kasbah, which was partially destroyed by 19th century French occupiers to make way for a parade ground and the colonial seat of government.

"This is our heritage," said Kamel Stiti, director of the team of Algerian archaeologists working on the site, as he sat in his office at the dig, a dusty steel container the other side of a metal fence from a busy bus stop.

"No one could have imagined that the earth was hiding these relics," he said. "Little by little we are in the process of rediscovering ... the Algeria which resisted colonization."

For centuries Algeria's coastline, with its fertile farmland and strategic ports, has attracted waves of invaders: Phoenicians, the Romans, Arab rulers, Ottoman governors and finally France, which ran Algeria until independence in 1962.

But now Algerian historians are focused on studying the indigenous cultures that lived alongside the occupiers — part of the process of forging a national identity after French rule and a war of independence that killed around a million people.

Native cultures
The dig, on a section of Martyrs' Square that until a few months ago was a bus depot, has largely confirmed what archaeologists had found at sites elsewhere in Algeria.

Research there has uncovered evidence of habitation by successive generations of Amazigh societies, the indigenous people of Algeria and large parts of North Africa.

But its location — and the rare opportunity to peer beneath Algiers' densely populated streets — have meant the site is attracting keen interest. Passers-by peer through gaps in the metal fencing or clamber up lamp-posts to see what is happening.

Since archaeologists made their discoveries, work on the subway station has been put on hold.

The Algerian archaeologists, working alongside a team of French researchers, have dug two pits about seven meters deep.

Visible at the bottom of one pit are sections of mosaic from the floor of the basilica, made from ceramic pieces in green, white, blue and red arranged into intricate geometric patterns.

That structure was fresh evidence that Algeria's natives adopted Christianity. "It's true today that we are Muslims but perhaps before, the population came to worship God in the Christian style in the 5th century," said Stiti.

Tombs found underneath could be even older than the basilica: the archaeologists said radiocarbon dating on the skeleton fragments found there should reveal their age.

The cannonballs were found nearer the surface, in an area that made up part of an Ottoman-era artisans' quarter.

Five hundred years ago, craftsmen there could have manufactured the weapons the Barbary pirates used to strike fear into their victims.

"It shows the force of the region that dominated the Mediterranean for three centuries," said Stiti.

Fatah: A New Beginning or an Imminent End?

By Ramzy Baroud

This is hardly the rational order of things. An overpowering military occupation was meant to be resisted by an equally determined, focused and unyielding national movement, hell-bent on liberation at any cost and by any means. This is the unwritten law that has governed and shielded successful national liberation projects throughout history. The Fatah movement, under Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, however, wants to alter that order, meeting Israeli colonialism with ill-defined ‘pragmatism’, extreme violence with press statements laden with endless clichés that mostly go unreported, and a determined Israeli attempt at squashing Palestinian aspirations with political tribalism, factional decay and internal divisions.

Indeed, the long delayed Fatah Congress, held in Bethlehem on August 4 has underscored the obvious: the all-encompassing movement which was meant to exact and safeguard Palestinian national rights has grown into a liability that, if anything, will continue to derail the Palestinian national project. This comes at a time when the Palestinian people are in urgent need of a collective response that is strong enough to withstand Israeli military pressure and coercion at home, eloquent enough to communicate the Palestinian message to a global audience, and astute enough to galvanize international support and sympathy to the benefit of Palestinian freedom and independence.

But what we witnessed in Bethlehem was a bizarre manifestation of the discord of self-seeking and self-imposed elites vying for empty titles, worthless positions and hollow prestige. The mockery started when hundreds of additional delegates were invited to join in the already bloated number of Fatah members with the hopes that their presence would bolster the position of this factional leader or that. Oddly, the meeting place was occupied Bethlehem. The delegates of the ‘resistance’ movement must’ve passed through Israeli checkpoints and metal detectors to reach their meeting place and talk of hypothetical revolutions and imaginary resistance. Excluded were Fatah members who didn’t pass Israeli screening. Perhaps, they were not ‘revolutionary’ enough for Israeli taste.

Then the show started. One would hope to take an iota of pride in the fact that the delegates were not participants in a typical meet of conformists as is the case in ruling party conferences throughout the region. But this would be self-deceiving. The heated discussions which evolved into screaming matches, were of little relevance to the struggles and challenges facing the Palestinian people at home and abroad. It was not the plight of Gaza, nor the cause of the refugees, nor the best method of garnering international solidarity that invited the ire of most respected members. The disputes were most personal. A so-called younger generation trying to exact greater representation in the movement’s 21-strong Central Committee and the 120-member Revolutionary Council from the so-called Old Guard.

Many news reports reduced the ongoing turmoil in Fatah to sound bites and half-truths. The old recycled gibberish of ‘moderate’ Fatah was once more juxtaposed to ‘extremist’ Hamas; the latter’s violence with the former’s investment in a pretend ‘peace process’, those who want to live in peace, ‘side-by-side’ with Israel and those who want to ‘annihilate’ the Jewish State.

“Now the Palestinians – like the Israelis and the international backers of Fatah – are waiting to see the results,” reported the New York Times. True, but Palestinians were waiting for entirely different reasons.

Fatah has changed over the years. It started as a resistance movement of well-intended members, mostly students and young professionals in the 1950’s and 60’s. The young leadership was motivated by various factors, chief amongst them were the plight of the refugees, the lack of a truly independent Palestinian leadership and the failure of Arab governments to deliver on their promises to liberate Palestine. Resistance was in fact the core of Fatah’s liberation program.

One of the movement’s founders once wrote: “It was not only the experiences and the errors of our predecessors which helped guide our first steps. The guerrilla war in Algeria, launched five years before the creation of Fatah, had a profound influence on us. We were impressed by the Algerian nationalists’ ability to form a solid front, wage war against an army a thousand times superior to their own, obtain many forms of aid from various Arab governments, and at the same time avoid becoming dependent on any of them.”

Over the years, whether out of political of military necessity, internal divisions or any other factors, Fatah grew into a melting pot encompassing romantic revolutionaries and poets, wealthy elites and shifty politicians. It was a strange balance, but a balance nonetheless, which kept suspicious Palestinians hopeful that the revolutionary elements in Fatah would eventually prevail. But following Yasser Arafat’s signing of the Oslo Accord with Israel, in 1993, the millionaires and their dubious politician allies won, turning Fatah into a giant company, feeding on the empty rhetoric of ‘peace’, financed by international donors, and operated by the movement’s ‘pragmatic’ elements, who allied themselves with Israel to preserve their gains, however insignificant.

That is why “Palestinians (were) waiting”, perhaps with the hope that Fatah would once more revert to its founding principles, with a coherent national project, stipulating unity of purpose and clarity of aim. It was not that Palestinians were hungry for violent resistance and eager to blow things up, but they longed for a Fatah that would once more institute resistance as an idea, as a culture, with all of its manifestations, infused as necessary. They wanted Fatah to go back to the basics, own up to the struggle of its people, as opposed to the quisling rhetoric that turned Palestine into a collection of political tribes, each armed with NGO’s, newsletters and bloated bank accounts in various European capitals.

One wants to decry this shameful episode in the history of the Palestinian struggle, but one ought to remember that history has a way of repeating itself. The faltering Fatah that was once established to represent the aspirations of the downtrodden Palestinian refugees is now facing the same historical imperative that other failed movements have faced in the past. If Fatah fails to reclaim itself as a true national liberation movement, an umbrella that unites every facet of Palestinian society, then it will soon splinter and eventually dissolve, if not entirely disappear. But true challenge will remain; whether those who will carry the torch will learn from the “experiences and the errors of (their) predecessors.” Time will tell.

Shiite rebel leader among dozens killed in renewed Yemen clashes

SANAA, Yemen: Yemeni security forces killed a Shiite rebel leader in renewed clashes in the north of the mainly Sunni Muslim Arab country, in which dozens of troops and rebels also died, government sources said on Monday. Fighting in the Yemen’s north appeared to escalate Monday with the rebels claiming in statements to have made a number of advances, including taking control of several strategic areas in the northern Saada Province which borders Saudi Arabia.

The rebels also claimed to have launched Katyusha rockets on an army camp in Saada and promised more strikes in the future.

The rebels’ claims came after Yemen’s defense minister earlier in the day said a stepped-up counteroffensive by government troops had paralyzed the rebels’ movements and dealt them a severe blow.

A government official told Reuters that Hussein Kamza, who led rebels in the northern Amran Province loyal to Abdul-Malik al-Houthi of the Houthi tribal group, was killed during fighting on Sunday.

Fighting in Saada between Yemeni troops backed by fighter aircraft and Shiite rebels has killed dozens on both sides since the government launched a wide offensive against the rebels earlier this month after weeks of skirmishes.

Saada is also where the rebels kidnapped 15 local aid workers last week, according to the province’s governor.

Yemen on Thursday announced conditions for a ceasefire to end its offensive, but the rebels rejected the truce offer and denied holding any kidnapped civilians.

The province has been closed to journalists, and the reports could not be independently verified.

The current round of fighting that began last week marks a major escalation in the five-year-old conflict.

The Shiite rebels complain the government ignores their needs and has allowed Wahhabis – people adhering to an ultraconservative version of Sunni Islam found in Saudi Arabia – too strong of a voice in the country. The Wahhabis, who consider Shiites to be heretics, gained influence after helping the Yemeni government win the 1994 civil war with the secessionist south.

The Yemen government has portrayed the rebels as a fundamentalist religious group supported by Iran.

The stability of Yemen – the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden – is a key concern for both Saudi Arabia and the US who worry that the lawlessness there could provide cover for Al-Qaeda militants who have sought sanctuary in the impoverished nation.

Along with rampant lawlessness, Yemen is also struggling with a worsening economy as a result of falling oil prices.

Meanwhile, also on Monday, a delegation of US senators led by John McCain and the president of Yemen discussed ways to help the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country battle another threat the country faces – that of Al-Qaeda.

The state SABA news agency said the American team and Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh focused on “bilateral issues and fields of joint cooperation.” No details immediately emerged from the meeting, but McCain spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan confirmed earlier that the talks would include counterterrorism cooperation and Guantanamo detainees.

Yemen has been a professed US ally in the fight against terrorism but President Barack Obama has hesitated to send home the nearly 100 Yemeni inmates held at Guantanamo Bay prison because of Yemen’s history releasing extremists.

The country, which is the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, has been the site of numerous high-profile, Al-Qaeda-linked attacks, including the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the Gulf of Aden, which killed 17 American sailors.

The US visit comes at a particularly difficult time for Yemen.

In addition to the Al-Qaeda threat and the escalating tribal Shiite rebellion in the Saada province, Saleh’s Sunni-led government is facing a vigorous southern secessionist movement.

Threat of violence looms over Afghan vote

By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer

KABUL – The threat of violence looms over Afghan presidential election Thursday. And not just from Taliban militants.

Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who is President Hamid Karzai's top rival, told a crowd of flag-waving supporters in Kabul on Monday that he will win the election — "if they don't steal your votes," confident rhetoric that analysts say could stoke a violent backlash if his supporters believe they've been cheated.

Serious questions over the fairness of the balloting could result in a winner without real legitimacy — a serious problem in a country where the central government is struggling to exert control beyond the capital. The U.S. is spending millions of dollars and pressing a new military offensive this month to make sure the voting comes off well.

Abdullah, a trained ophthalmologist who has railed against government corruption, isn't the only one who expects fraud. Voting observers warn that cheating will most likely take place at polling stations in remote or dangerous areas where independent monitors won't be able to be present.

A black market for voter registration cards is said to be flourishing, and a suspiciously high number of women — far more than men — have been registered to vote in culturally conservative provinces where Karzai expects to do well among his fellow ethnic Pashtuns who form the majority there.

Mindful of the possibility of cheating, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called Monday for "credible, secure and inclusive elections" and urged Afghans "to make election day secure, to eliminate fraud, and to address any complaints fairly and quickly."

"We call on candidates and their supporters to behave responsibly before and after the elections," she said in a statement.

Abdullah's core group of supporters — ethnic Tajiks — have taken to the streets before. In May 2006, a U.S. military truck crashed into a line of vehicles, sparking riots by hundreds of Tajiks who rampaged through Kabul. About 20 people were killed in the crash and subsequent unrest.

Abdullah's campaign manager was quoted last month as predicting street violence if Abdullah doesn't win, contending that Karzai can't prevail unless he steals the vote — an allegation similar to those which triggered violent protests in Afghanistan's western neighbor, Iran, after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed victory in the June 12 balloting.

Following an uproar over his comments, campaign manager Abdul Satar Murad said he was misquoted. But the language he purportedly used is almost the same Abdullah now employs on the stump.

"If there is no fraud in the election, it is clear for the nation who the winner will be and who the next president will be — if they don't steal your votes," Abdullah told thousands of supporters at Kabul's main sports stadium on Monday, the last day of the two-month campaign. Thousands of supporters energetically waved baby blue flags as Abdullah spoke, but most of the stadium's seats sat empty.

Murad told The Associated Press afterward that Abdullah's prediction of victory is correct, but that he is not stoking violence among supporters in the case of a loss.

"Indeed they will not do that," Murad said. "They will be watching the process, and if things are fair and impartial, this (an electoral defeat) is part of the game. ... There are diplomatic channels to go through and express your feelings."

Peaceful protests, though, are not part of Afghanistan's history, said Haroun Mir, the director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies.

"Unfortunately, in any demonstration in Afghanistan's history, the demonstration comes with violence, and if the result of the election is not acceptable for one of the candidates, a candidate that has, say, 30 to 40 percent of the vote, if there is a protest it will be violent," Mir said, alluding to Abdullah.

U.S. and NATO military commanders are planning for this possibility. Most U.S. troops are stationed in the country's south and east, but the Americans have several quick reaction forces stationed in and around Kabul.

If Abdullah supporters believe the election is stolen, they aren't likely to go file protests with the country's Electoral Complaints Commission, because they will view the body as an arm of Karzai's government, said John Dempsey, a Kabul-based analyst with the U.S. Institute of Peace.

"Some angry mobs may smash things up, even attack people, but I don't think it's going to be too widespread, and I don't think it would be too long-lasting," Dempsey said.

On the other end of the spectrum, militant violence looms over the election as well. The Taliban have warned Afghans not to cast ballots, saying that voters might be the victims of attacks on polling sites.

Rumors have circulated that villagers with indelible ink on their fingers — a fraud prevention method to deter repeat voting — could be attacked, or even have their fingers chopped off. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, has denied that militants would cut off fingers. But the Taliban is a loose collection of militant leaders, and individual insurgents could still carry out such attacks.

Militant threats in Afghanistan's south and east — where Taliban militants are strongest — could lower turnout among Karzai's fellow ethnic Pashtuns, boosting Abdullah's chances.

Recent opinion polls in Afghanistan point to a Karzai win, with the president leading Abdullah by about 20 percentage points. None of the polls, however, has Karzai with more than about 45 percent support, and the president needs 50 percent of the votes to avoid a two-person run-off, likely with Abdullah.

Abdullah's hard line and hints of street unrest could be a way to increase his standing if talks with Karzai to share or distribute power in a future government take place.

Such a deal would likely be welcomed by U.S. and other foreign powers that bankroll the Afghan government and are working to prop up its weak institutions. Karzai has already said that if he wins he will offer Abdullah and other top presidential hopefuls jobs in his government.