Posted on 09/12/2001 11:24:56 PM PDT by Kerensky
KABUL, Sept 13 (AFP) -
The United Nations, Red Cross and other groups were closing their offices or reducing their presence here Thursday amid fears of US retaliation for the terror strikes in New York and Washington.
Without explicitly referring to Tuesday's deadly attacks in the United States, the Pakistan-based office of the UN coordinator for Afghanistan said Wednesday its international staff were "temporarily relocating."
"Due to the circumstances prevailing internationally, the United Nations system in Afghanistan is temporarily relocating international United Nations staff working in Afghanistan," it said in a statement.
"The relocation of up to 80 international staff began on September 12 and is expected to be completed by September 13."
The kamikaze-style attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have sparked fears of retaliatory US military strikes against accused terrorist Osama bin Laden, a Saudi dissident who lives in Afghanistan as a "guest" of the ruling Taliban militia.
US officials have said anonymously that bin Laden is the chief suspect behind the terror strikes believed to have killed thousands but he has not yet been formally accused of the attacks.
Germany said Wednesday the 23 German nationals in Afghanistan had been told to leave the country due to safety concerns.
Gunter Pleuger, a state secretary in the German foreign ministry, also said Western diplomats had held talks with the Taliban Wednesday in Kabul on the fate of four German, two Australian and two American aid workers on trial for allegedly preaching Christianity.
Pleuger said Germany hoped to obtain the release of the detainees soon.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced Wednesday in Geneva it was reducing its level of foreign staff in Afghanistan.
"Of the 70 ICRC expatriates in Afghanistan, some 15 have already moved to Pakistan and others will arrive there in the coming days, but some 40 will stay behind in Afghanistan," ICRC spokeswoman Antonella Notari said.
"Everyone expects tensions in Afghanistan in the coming days, but we are prepared to assist the population," she said.
Following the twin US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, also linked to bin Laden, Washington responded by firing scores of cruise missiles at suspected Islamic militant training camps south of Kabul.
That attack provoked revenge attacks on foreigners in Kabul, in which one Italian UN worker was killed.
Other non-governmental organisations were pulling their workers out of Afghanistan on the orders of their overseas headquarters, jeopardising the flow of badly-needed aid operations to the Afghan people.
Pia Karlsson of the Swedish Afghanistan Committee said an evacuation of its staff -- seven Swedish aid workers and a New Zealander -- was underway.
"I am very concerned about what is going to happen. The US has bombed the country before, and this time the damages in New York are so vast that the revenge can be expected to be terrible," Karlsson said. "We are going to get them out as fast as we can."
The pullouts are expected to severely disrupt aid programs in a country devastated by more than two decades of conflict and three years of drought which have left the population of around 21 million on the brink of famine.
Some 800,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since mid-2000 in search of food and shelter, adding to the more than three million Afghan refugees already living in Iran and Pakistan.
China is licking its chops for Taiwan and Putin would like to see it gone after the Soviet debacle(financed by our CIA).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.