Laden trying to forge ties with extremist groups in Mid-East

Laden trying to forge ties with extremist groups in Mid-East
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

FEB 13: Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda group is trying to forge ties with Hizbullah, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and could strike any time, media reports said here today.

Increasingly linked by the internet "Islamic extremists are on the move and in contact with each other--think of it as Jihad Inc., together with its subsidiary Jihad.com. Bin Laden's movement has gone as transnational as any global corporation," Newsweek said in its latest issue.

It said that out of the turmoil of Afghanistan has emerged "a new breed of Muslim--one who is orthdox, highly politicised, hostile to the West."

"Militant organisations have been training people, acquiring arms, and now are threatening to dictate to the State in almost all spheres of life," says IR Rehman, director of Pakistan's Human Rights Commission, adding "This is a major threat."

Many Pakistanis, it said, feel let down by the country's secular ruling elite. "What has been called democracy," it said, "has done little but sap the country of its money and morale."

Corruption too is endemic. In recent years, thegovernment has discovered thousands of 'ghost' institutions--schools, mostly--in rural areas that had been set up (on paper) by corrupt politicians to bilk the government. District health departments paid doctors who never showed up for work, the magazine said.

"It was as though the whole elite were hellbent onenriching themselves," it quoted Pakistan's former President Farooq Leghari as saying.