November 27, 2001	Tuesday	Ramazan 11, 1422

RIYADH: As concern over the fate of thousands of Arab Afghans holed up in Afghanistan is rising in this part of the world, the Saudi Arabian government is reportedly in contact with Pakistan and other governments on the issue, the Arabic daily Al-Hayat newspaper revealed here. It said it was ready to repatriate those who surrender to or are taken prisoner by the Northern Alliance.

Second deputy premier and Saudi minister of defence and aviation, Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz has meanwhile, expressed hope that Arab nationals who have fought alongside the Taleban will be allowed to return safely to their respective countries. Worries are increasing here on the fate of ‘Arab Afghans’ currently besieged along with the Taleban fighters in Afghanistan.

“We hope that all people who are of Arab or Islamic origin in Afghanistan can return to their native countries,” the prince told the press here after presiding over a meeting in Riyadh yesterday. “The matter is now under the supervision of the United Nations and we believe that this will mean human rights will be taken into consideration. We hope that no one will be subjected to injustice,” he told the press here.

Prince Sultan said Riyadh had not received any official confirmation of the number of Saudis being held in Afghanistan for taking part in the fighting alongside the Taleban. No reliable figures about the ‘Arab Afghans’ are available. But according to some estimates, they may number between 1,000 and 2,000. Some 600 pro-Taleban foreign fighters have surrendered in Kunduz, reports here are suggesting. Prince Sultan also reiterated the stance that he opposed moves to attack any Arab or Islamic country without genuine reasons

Meanwhile the Qatari foreign minister Sheikh Hamad ibn Jassem Al-Thani was reported here today as saying that the US Secretary of State Colin Powell has assured him that the Arab fighters who surrendered would not be ‘exterminated’.

Kuwaiti MP Ahmad Al-Rabei wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat daily that there was “no readily available answer to the complex problem” of Afghan Arabs. Arab states should not sit back and watch others handle an issue that concerns them most, he emphasised in his write-up in the Arabic daily.

The Saudi ambassador to Pakistan has also been quoted here as saying that Saudis returning from Afghanistan after fighting alongside the Taleban would be questioned by security officials and “suitable punishments would be meted out to those proven to have been Al-Qaeda members.”

Mohammad Salah, a Cairo-based journalist while writing for Al-Hayat said there could not be more than a “few dozen” Arabs fighting with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. But there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of “Afghan Arabs” who married Afghan women and became part of Afghan society after the anti-Soviet jihad ended in 1989, he said. Salah said Arab states have an interest in interrogating any nationals suspected of belonging to Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network.