The Michigan Daily - Monday, October 15, 2001 - 7A
For Afghan people, life goes on despite bombing
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AP) -
Horns blare as cars weave to avoid horse-
drawn carts. Cows saunter across the street,
pushed by young herdsmen. Women con-
cealed from head to toe carry infants
through Jalalabad's dusty bazaar.
A week after the United States and
Britain began their bombardment of
Afghanistan, life appeared relatively nor-
mal yesterday in this capital of the eastern
province of Nangarhar.
Residents said nightly raids have been
relentless in the area until Friday. "But the
Afghan people are not afraid," insisted one
1 man, Mohammed Agjan.
Still, many residents of this city of 500,000
have left. fleeing, he said, to nearby villages or
to the countryside to stay with relatives.
U.S. raids have struck around all of
Afghanistan's major cities during the cam-
paign. In the Jalalabad area, Osama bin
Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11
attacks on the United States, is believed to
operate camps of his al-Qaida terror net-
work in the charcoal-gray mountains visi-
ble in the distance.
This past weekend, the ruling Taliban
militia allowed foreign journalists into their
besieged nation for the first time since the
campaign began Oct. 7. The goal: to demon-
strate the effects of the bombing campaign
upon Afghan civilians.
The Taliban say 200 people died in Karam,
some 25 miles from Jalalabad over a road that
resembles a dried river bed. The parched plain
shows no sign of water; even the tumbleweed
seems thirsty.
In the bright daylight yesterday, the bombing
campaign seemed a long way off.
In a dirty stream that runs along the road-
side, small girls, struggling with head scarves
that keep tumbling down, wash fire-blackened
pots. On a cart piled high with sugar cane, two
young boys sit cross-legged, cutting the
unwieldy cane into pieces.
Buses cramped with villagers careened
around city corners. Men clung to the vehicles'
sides, hugging the railing on the roof to stay on.
The backs of pickup trucks were packed with
men coming in for the day.
Outside Jalalabad, farmers tilled the fields,
many of them women wrapped in giant shawls.
Beyond them, apple orchards sat in the dusty
distance.
But the reality of war is never too far away.
Taliban soldiers on rooftops clean a bandolier
of bullets and ready their machine gun, perched
on a shaky tripod. Dozens of turbaned men,
beards long and unkempt in keeping with Tal-
iban directives against shaving, roar through the
streets on pickup trucks packed with rocket
launchers.
Suddenly a group of children from a reli-
gious school in Surkho, on Jalalabad's out-
skirts, come running. They have been told of
the arrival of foreign journalists.
"Death to America!" they scream at the for-
eigners. "Death to Bush! Long live Islam!"
A teacher at the religious school, Shafiq
Ullah, screamed passionately, his fists
clenched. "Why are you doing this? Our life
is miserable. All the night we stare at the sky,
waiting for the bombs. There is no life here
for us. Why? Why?"
An old man, his front teeth missing and the
remaining ones yellow, rips his dirty white tur-
ban from his head and begs.
"Please stop," he beseeches. "You are
killing us. We don't know where Osama is.
We have nothing to do with Osama."
The demonstration was staged by the Tal-
iban, and emotion takes over. The young stu-
dents pound the bus, roaring their
condemnation of America. Heavily armed Tal-
iban guards rush to regain control and hustle the
journalists onto the bus.
The Taliban have refused access to jour-
nalists until now, insisting they couldn't
guarantee their safety because Afghans are
angry. But in a country at war for more than
two decades, there is a sense of weary resig-
nation.
"Everything always comes down on our
heads. It is always the same. It never changes,"
said Amir Khan, a Jalalabad resident.
KOESTNER
Continued from Page 1A
several weeks and had become close with.
"When I was 18, date rape did not exist,"Koestner
said.
Koestner used her story to implore students to recog-
nize that rape can occur easily on college campuses
and that they have the chance to try to prevent it.
"It is very easy to stand for any cause when dignity
is at stake," she said.
The event also featured attorney Brett Sokolow, pres-
ident of the National Center for Higher Education Risk
Management, who specializes in sexual assault policy
and law. He spoke with students regarding the role that
alcohol plays in date rape and the definition of sexual
consent. '
Many students who attended said they left with posi-
tive feelings about Koestner's account.
"It struck a lot of emotions because she told her
story through a voice that I could relate to," said LSA
freshman Marina Katz, a member of Alpha Epsilon
Phi's pledge class.
Although students pledging fraternities and sorori-
ties this semester were required to attend the event,
members of the Greek system said they did not feel
that the event was stereotypically geared toward them.
Mann said the Greek system was included because a
large portion of University community is Greek.
"I don't -know if I would say (date-rape) is more
prevalent in the Greek system," she said.
Other students felt that more members of the Univer-
sity should have been involved.
"While fraternities are given a negative reputation, I
think this is something that non-Greeks could have
benefited from," said Kinesiology junior Brad Spiegel
after the presentation.
AFGHANISTAN
Continued from Page 1A
States launched the bombardment of Afghanistan
on Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused for weeks to
comply.
Al-Qaida has released three videotaped state-
ments since the start of the air campaign, the lat-
est on Saturday, warning of new terror attacks
against the United States.
Kuwait decided yesterday to strip the citizen-
ship of the spokesman who appeared in the tapes,
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a former Kuwaiti teacher.
Once Kuwait's emir approves the government
decision, Abu Ghaith will share the same state-
less status as bin Laden, who was stripped of his
Saudi citizenship.
Meanwhile, a commander in the coalition bat-
tling the Taliban said opposition leaders have
organized a 2,000-strong security force to main-
tain law and order in Kabul if they capture the
city.
The lightly armed force would secure the city
until a new government can be established, Gen.
Haji Almaz Khan said in Charikar, an alliance
stronghold 25 miles north of Kabul.
The United States and its partners have been
urging the opposition to avoid launching an
all-out attack on Kabul until a broad-based
government can be formed to replace the Tal-
iban. Most of the Taliban are ethnic Pashtun;
the alliance is dominated by ethnic Tajiks and
Uzbeks.
Taliban intelligence chief Qari Ahmedullah
appealed to opposition fighters yesterday to join
in the battle against America for "our religion
and country."
"We will forget our past differences with those
who join us now' he said in a statement distrib-
uted by the Afghan Islamic Press.
Since last month, the Taliban have banned
most foreign journalists from entering the rough-
ly 90 percent of Afghanistan under the religious
militia's control. This weekend, however, they
allowed a group of international journalists to
visit Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan,
where U.S. jets allegedly destroyed a village last
week.
When the journalists arrived under Taliban
escort at the village, Karam, angry residents
pointed to ruined mud and stone homes and
freshly dug graves as evidence of the purported
American attack.
"What do I have left? Nothing," said one
villager, Toray, in the roofless hut where he
said his wife and five children died. He
waved a shard of jagged metal, which had the
words "fin-guided missile" printed in English
on its side.
Taliban officials insisted there were no military
targets in the area. However, bin Laden was
believed to operate terrorist training camps in the.
province.
Reports of civilian deaths have caused unease
in Pakistan, where small but vocal Islamic politi-
cal parties that admire the Taliban are already
enraged by government support for campaign on
Afghanistan.
Yesterday thousands of Muslim extremists
converged on the city of Jacobabad, site of one of
two airfields that Pakistani officials privately say
the Americans have been allowed to use to sup-
port the campaign, though not to launch attacks
on Afghanistan.
After the bombing
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ANTHRAX
Continued from Page1A
is taking antibiotics after displaying
possible symptoms of the disease.
The anthrax scare began Oct. 4
when it was confirmed that a Florida
tabloid editor had contracted the
in'haled form of the bacteria. His
death a day later was the first result-
ing from the disease in the United
States since 1976.
Seven other employees of Ameri-
can Media Inc. have tested positive
for exposure and are being treated
with antibiotics. None have devel-
oped the disease. A second round of
blood tests for more than 300 of the
company's employees is expected
this week.
News of the exposures has caused
jitters around the world, with a num-
ber of false or pending cases report-
ed over the weekend. Among them:
In Hawaii, hazardous-materials
teams were called to Lihue Airport
after passengers on a flight from Los
Angeles discovered a white powder
on their luggage after they arrived.
Tests were being conducted on the
powder.
In Uniontown, Pa., a 49-year-
old woman was given Cipro, an
antibiotic for anthrax, and was tested
for exposure after receiving an enve-
lope containing a powdery sub-
stance. She was later released from a
hospital.
In England, several hundred
people were evacuated from Canter-
bury Cathedral after a worker said he
saw a man dropping a white powder
in one of the chapels. Workers wear-
ing chemical protection suits cleared
up the powder and took samples for
analysis.
In New York, Giuliani said the
officer and two technicians were
exposed while working on the
anthrax case involving Erin O'Con-
nor, 38, the assistant to NBC News
anchor Tom Brokaw. O'Connor is
expected to recover from the infec-
tion.
O'Connor was exposed when she
opened a letter, containing a brown
granular substance, that was mailed
to Brokaw from Trenton, N.J. It was
postmarked on Sept. 18, one week
after terrorist attacks on the World
Trade Center and Pentagon.
Federal officials in New Jersey
were continuing efforts yesterday to
trace the letter, but acknowledged it
would be difficult.
At first, O'Connor thought she
had thrown away the letter, but
remembered it Friday while being
interviewed, New York postal inspec-
tor Peter Nash said yesterday.
Investigators had initially focused
on a second letter - postmarked in
St. Petersburg, Fla. - as the likely
source of the anthrax.
Giuliani said the police officer had
the bacteria in his nose, as did one
lab technician.
Another technician had a spore on
her face. Both work for the city
health department, which conducted
the tests.
One-year-old Jan Bibi lies on her bed in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan
yesterday. The image was captured when Taliban officials brought journalists to
the village to see what officials say was devastation caused by U.S. airstrikes.
Learn More
About the
Peace Corps
Join us for a Peace Corps Information Meeting And Video
Tues., Oct. 16, 7 to 9p.m.
Int'l Cir, Rm. 9, Michigan Union, 603 E Madison St.
Interviews: Drop by the UMich Peace Corps Office (Interna-
tional Center), or call the Peace Corps Campus Recruiter at
734-647-2182 to schedule an INTERVIEW!
A look at the
underside of U of M
www.universitysecrets.com
http://www.peacecorps.gov
HOAXES
Continued from Page 1A
assault will mark the beginning of the third world war.
According to Urbanlegends.com, a website dedicated
to debunking rumors, Nostradamus died in 1566 and
such a prophecy is not included in any of his writings.
A rumor circulating in the Middle East blames Israel
for the terrorist attacks, claiming the Israeli govern-
ment warned 4,000 Jews not to go to work in the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11.
"This is an irrational, very damaging and very dan-
gerous rumor inciting hatred of Israel for no reason
whatsoever," said communication studies Prof. Antho-
ny Collings, who received the e-mail.
Psychology Prof. Rowell Huesmann said there are
several human motivations for forwarding these types
of letters including making the sender feel as if he is
doing something important by warning friends and
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family of future danger.
"Passing the rumor on is intended to prevent future
harm to people or make people feel less guilty," he
said. "The people passing the rumor on think of it as
warning friends not as passing rumors."
Mass e-mails also fill voids in people's basic knowl-
edge of what exactly happened, Huesmann said.
"They often build on most people's desire to blame
'bad things' on powerful forces over which we have lit-
tle control to believe that these forces hide the truth
from us," he said.
Communication studies Prof. Nicholas Valentino
said he believes the speed and the anonymity provided
by the Internet allow these letters to become so wide-
spread and well known.
"We are not very good at judging the credibility of
information we get over the Web or via e-mail," he said.
"Information gets passed around from person to person
until the original source is no longer identifiable."
CURRY
Continued from Page1A
offered medical attention and refused
it."
Curry, who was held in the Washte-
naw County jail Friday, was arraigned
that morning and released on $25,000
bond later that evening.
In a statement released by the athlet-
ic department Friday afternoon, Foot-
ball Coach Lloyd Carr said, "This is a
serious issue and it is very important
there be no rush to judgment. An
.investigationwill be made, the facts
will be revealed and a judgment will
* SORORITIES be made based on those facts."
DENT GROUPS Carr made no mention of the situa-
his semester with the tion in his press conference Saturday.
s nothree nv hourcredit Curry's brother, Julius, is a senior
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