Jalalabad falls to United Front
By Juan 0. Tamayo, Andrew Maykuth
& Steven Thomma
Knight Ridder Newspapers
KABUL, Afghanistan (KRT) —
The rout of Afghanistan’s Taliban
extended into their ethnic Pashtun
homeland Tuesday with the capture
of Jalalabad, even as the Taliban’s
supreme leader urged his retreating
troops to regroup and stop running
around “like slaughtered chickens.”
Gunfire was also reported near
Kandahar, spiritual capital of the
Taliban, heartland of the Pashtuns
and a city where they may gather
their forces for a final stand against
opposition fighters in hot pursuit.
American warplanes struck fleeing
Taliban forces outside Kabul, the cap
ital, as United Front officials took con
trol of the city. Freed from five years of
Taliban rule, men in Kabul celebrated
by shaving off mandated beards and
throwing away turbans.
City residents also dug up once-for
bidden televisions and played music,
which also had been banned.
The U.S.-led anti-terrorism coali
tion is hoping that the United Front’s
victories in Kabul and the north will
persuade Pashtuns in southern
Afghanistan to rebel against the Taliban.
Two American missionaries held
prisoner by the Taliban in Kabul
had not been found in the city, and
Taliban officials told their families
they were taken to Kandahar.
Taliban leader Mullah Mo
hammed Omar and Osama bin
Laden and members of his al-Qaeda
terrorist network remained at large.
“We’re going to get them,” said
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rums
feld at a Pentagon briefing. “I doubt
that they’ll find peace wherever
they select.”
Rumsfeld said the Taliban and al
Qaeda “continue to have large num
bers of forces.” He cautioned that
neither the quick advances Tuesday
nor the eventual apprehension of bin
Laden would end what is still likely
to be a long war against terrorism.
“The war is not about one man or
one terrorist network or even one
country,” Rumsfeld said.
The United Front seized Kabul
and most of the Afghan north in a
four-day offensive. The alliance
sent troops into Kabul despite
American requests that it remain on
the outskirts until a new political or
der could be established. Alliance
officials said they ordered their mil
itary to enter the city after the Tal
iban abandoned Kabul and armed
groups began to loot it.
The fall of Jalalabad, 146 miles
southeast of Kabul, marked the first
Taliban loss of a city dominated by
Pashtuns, who make up 40 percent
of Afghanistan’s population of 25
million people and the overwhelm
ing majority of Taliban ranks.
Most of the United Front’s fight
ers are members of Afghanistan’s
Uzbek, Tajik and Shiite Muslim
Hazara minorities, traditional rivals
of the Sunni Muslim Pashtuns.
Taliban fighters stole out of Jalal
abad without firing a shot Tuesday
after receiving a warning from war
lord Abdul Qadir to leave or face at
tacks by his anti-Taliban forces,
journalists in the city reported.
The Taliban reportedly headed
east and then south to Kandahar,
birthplace of the Taliban in 1994.
Heavy gunfire was heard Tuesday
at the airport southeast of Kandahar,
but there was no immediate expla
nation, said three Afghan exiles
who have been in telephone contact
with relatives in Kandahar.
Several hundred Taliban were cut
off and surrounded in the northern
town of Kunduz, the anti-Taliban al
liance said. They included Pakista
nis, Chechens, Uzbeks, and Uighurs
fighting alongside the Taliban.
Among them, the alliance said,
were Juma Namangani and Tahir
Yuldashev, the leaders of a group
with ties to bin Laden called the Is
lamic Movement for Uzbekistan.
“We have surrounded Kunduz
and soon, we will attack,” said
Ashraf Nadeem, a United Front
spokesman, in a satellite phone in
terview from Mazar-e-Sharif. “The
foreign fighters with ties to bin
Laden are in the center of Kunduz.
They have played into our hands
and cannot escape. ”
©2001, Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Students protest federal drug law
■ Opponents of the provision
say the drug law unfairly
targets students of color
By Kara Cogswell
Oregon Daily Emerald
Thousands of students with drug
convictions lost financial aid this
year as the U.S. Department of Edu
cation began enforcing a 1998 provi
sion of the federal Higher Education
Act more strictly.
Now, student advocacy groups
across the country are putting more
pressure on legislators to repeal the
provision. Last weekend, the Stu
dents for Sensible Drug Policy spon
sored a conference attended by high
school and college students in
Washington, D.C.
Students who attended the con
ference plan to protest the law be
ginning Nov. 29 on more than 100
campuses nationwide. They will
ask university presidents to endorse
a resolution to repeal the drug pro
vision.
Students in Oregon, including
some at the University, are also
working on campaigns to change
the law.
Nearly 26,000 students were de
nied financial aid this year because
of a drug conviction, compared to
1,835 students last year, according
to Education Department spokes
woman Jane Glickman.
At the University, seven of the
9,701 University students who sub
mitted financial aid applications
this year lost aid because of the law,
Financial Aid associate director Jim
Gilmour said.
That number may be misleading,
Gilmour said, because students
who would have been denied aid
because of a drug conviction may
have chosen not to apply.
Glickman added that in the past,
if students did not answer the ques
tion about drug convictions on the
Free Application for Federal Stu
dent Aid, they were not penalized.
But this year, students who left the
question blank were sent a letter ad
vising them that their financial aid
eligibility would be jeopardized if
they did not answer the question.
Those who do not reply will auto
matically lose aid, Glickman said.
As of Nov. 7, about 9,500 students
who did not answer the question
were likely to lose aid because they
had not replied to the letter, Glick
man said.
Former University of Washington
student Jamil Scarberry, 24, lost his
financial aid because of the law. He
was arrested in California last year
with three friends after police found
drugs in their hotel room. Along
with marijuana, the police found
Valium bought by one of Scarberry’s
friends in Mexico.
Scarberry, who was not attending
school at the time, was convicted on
felony drug charges and was or
dered to return to school for the next
three years or spend 160 days in jail.
He chose school, but because of
the drug provision, he was no
longer eligible to receive financial
aid. Scarberry, who can no longer af
ford to attend the UW, now works
and attends classes part-time at
Seattle Central Community College.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,
the way they set it up,” he said.
The law has been criticized by
groups such as the NAACP, the Amer
ican Council on Education and the
National Association of Independent
Colleges and Universities.
Opponents of the law argue that
it disproportionately targets low-in
come and minority students. Some
say that it also penalizes students
for being honest and punishes them
twice for the same crime.
Gilmour said it is difficult to
check if students are telling the
truth when they say they have not
received any drug convictions be
cause there is no central database
containing those records.
But, he added, students can be
barred from receiving financial aid
forever and, in rare cases, even face
criminal charges if they are caught
lying on the FAFSA form.
Even Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind.,
who wrote the law, is not happy
with how it is being enforced. Soud
er intended the law to apply only to
students already receiving aid when
convicted, Souder’s spokesman
Seth Becker said.
Souder’s efforts to rewrite the pro
vision have failed in the past, but he
is continuing to work to change the
law. The Bush administration has
been receptive to his proposals,
Becker said.
But Souder does not support re
pealing the law, Becker said. Feder
al aid is “a privilege, not a right,” he
said, and students should not be al
lowed to break the law while receiv
ing taxpayer money.
“We do not think it is in any way
unreasonable to say to students that
if ‘you are receiving federal money,
we expect you to live within the
law,’” he said.
Students for Sensible Drug Poli
cy, one of the most vocal national or
ganizations working to repeal the
law, does not have an active chap
ter at the University. But while
SSDP leaders were rallying at the
U.S. Capitol, members of the Ore
gon Students of Color Coalition also
met to organize a campaign against
the drug provision. ASUO Multi
cultural Advocate Mario Sifuentez
is one University member involved
in the campaign.
Although the campaign is still in
the planning stage, OSCC members
will focus on education as a way to
raise support for their position,
OSCC field organizer Huy Ong said.
Ong said the drug provision dis
criminates against students of col
or. Although drug use rates are
fairly consistent among racial and
ethnic groups, he said, students of
color receive drug convictions at
a disproportionately high rate.
“Out of all drug arrests, 50 per
cent are African-Americans,” he
said. “When you look at convic
tion rates, that number skyrock
ets.”
SSDP Board Member Dan Gold
man said the law unjustly targets
those who need financial assis
tance the most and limits educa
tional opportunities.
“By its very definition, financial
aid goes to those who need it
most,” he said. “We feel that set
ting up a roadblock for students to
go to college is not in the govern
ment’s best interest.”
Kara Cogswell is a student activities reporter
for the Oregon Daily Emerald. She can be
reached at karacogsweil@dailyemerald.com.
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