Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September-October 2002, pages 98-100

Facts for Your Files

A Chronology of U.S.-Middle East Relations

Compiled by Sara Powell

June 1: Israel invaded Nablus, Bethlehem, Tamoun, and Tulkarm, killing one Palestinian in Nablus and kidnapping at least 59.

•Saudi Arabia sentenced some of the suspects in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 U.S. servicemen.

•In an attempt to rally support for pro-Western Islamic countries, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz addressed the Asia Security Conference in Singapore.

June 2: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to insist that Pakistanis stop crossing into Kashmir.

•As its forces raided Nablus for a third day, Israel complained that six Palestinians jailed in Jericho under U.S. and UK supervision had too many freedoms.

•CIA Director George Tenet met in Cairo with President Hosni Mubarak while Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs William Burns flew to Jordan, where he told King Abdullah that the U.S. supported a summer international Mideast conference.

•As U.N. relief agencies warned that funds for Afghan relief were running out, voters in four Afghan provinces began choosing delegates for the Loya Jirga, or grand council.

June 3: Ottowa refused to extradite Canadian citizen Liban Hussein to the U.S. for lack of evidence.

•Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon approved a proposal to build a fence from 70 miles northeast of Tel Aviv to southeast of Haifa, incorporating about 31 square miles of Palestinian land and 11 Palestinian villages.

•The Palestinian cabinet overruled a Palestinian court’s order for the release of PFLP leader Ahmed Saadat, imprisoned under U.S. and UK oversight in a deal with Israel.

•Pakistan banned government assistance to Islamic schools associated with groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

June 4: As the Pentagon announced plans to sell 80 air-to-air missiles to Kuwait, Washington announced plans for a July Middle East peace conference to be held in Turkey.

•The Bush administration proposed photographing, fingerprinting, and conducting background checks on thousands of Middle Eastern and Muslim visitors.

•The Israeli press reported that a Palestinian Cabinet decision overruling Ahmed Saadat’s release was based on Israeli threats to assassinate him and renew the siege of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

•In Ramallah, Arafat presented CIA Director Tenet a reorganizing plan for Palestinian security forces, as crowds protested Tenet’s visit.

•A former Human Rights Watch researcher testified at the U.N. war crimes tribunal that Slobodan Milosevic was kept informed of human rights abuses against Kosovo Albanians, while a Serbian witness was held in contempt for refusing to testify following what he called “unrelenting psychological pressure.”

•Iranian leader Ayatollah Khameini accused the U.S. of massacring Afghan civilians.

•As leaders of both countries attended a regional summit in Kazakhstan, Indian and Pakistani forces exchanged mortar and machine-gun fire on the Kashmiri border.

June 5: As U.S. citizens were warned to leave the two countries, President Bush telephoned Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Musharraf in an attempt to ease Kashmir border tensions.

•As FBI director Robert Mueller said several people suspected of ties with al-Qaeda were under 24-hour surveillance, the INS took Lebanese flight student Zakaria Soubra into custody for visa violations.

•On the 35th anniversary of Israel’s 1967 occupation, Israeli helicopters and tanks attacked Jenin after Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed 16 Israelis, including 13 soldiers. The PA said it would arrest those involved.

•Former South African President Nelson Mandela announced plans to visit Libyan Abdel-Basset al-Megrahi, convicted of the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland.

•Turkey expressed concern over reports that Iran had test fired a long-range missile.

•Ethnic Albanian leader Ali Ahmeti launched a new political party promising to work for peace in Tetovo, Macedonia.

•Eight Afghans were killed during the delegate selection process to the Loya Jirga.

•Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee proposed joint monitoring of the Kashmiri border.

June 6: President Bush announced the formation of a cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security.

•Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. and its allies must not wait for proof of an impending terror attack before acting to preempt it.

•U.S., UK and Libyan officials met in London to discuss demands that Libya accept liability for the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

•Israeli infantry attacked Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah headquarters, killing at least six. As the Israeli press discussed “expelling” the Palestinian leader, the Bush administration said Israel had a right to defend itself.

•Witnesses in southern Lebanon said gunfire from an Israeli military position across the border struck a nine-year-old child in the leg.

•As India and Pakistan traded fire on the Kashmir border, Indian security forces in Srinagar shot and killed Mohammed Lone, chief of a pro-Pakistan group in Kashmir.

•A bus explosion in a remote area of central Indonesia with a history of Christian/Muslim violence killed four people and injured 17.

June 7: In Washington, Egyptian President Mubarak said stopping attacks against Israelis was unrealistic without a U.S.-backed plan for early Palestinian statehood.

•In U.S. District Court in Boston, Zachary J. Rolnik pleaded guilty to threatening death to Arab American Institute President James Zogby and his children. Meanwhile, Mohammed Azmath, jailed since Sept. 12 for having a box cutter on a train, pleaded guilty to credit card fraud.

•After meeting with both leaders for two days, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage reported that tensions had eased between India and Pakistan. Meanwhile, Pakistani fighter planes shot down an unmanned Indian spy plane near Lahore.

•American missionary Martin Burnham and Philippine nurse Ediborah Yap were killed and missionary Gracia Burnham wounded in a Philippine army attempt to free them from a year-long captivity by the Abu-Sayyaf group.

June 8: Meeting with Egypt’s President Mubarak at Camp David, President Bush said that he did not know what “was feasible” toward a Middle East peace plan and declined to set a timeline.

•Israeli forces invaded Jenin, and two Palestinians killed three Israelis and wounded three in a West Bank settlement near Hebron.

June 9: Egyptian President Mubarak called Israeli settlements a “time bomb.”

•Northern Alliance chief Burhanuddin Rabbani withdrew his candidacy for Afghan head of state.

June 10: After Apache helicopters fired on Ramallah at 4:00 a.m., Israeli troops invaded the city, killing a Palestinian policeman and kidnapping 27 civilians and 30 police. Meeting with Prime Minister Sharon in Washington, President Bush approved the invasion.

•The State Department announced it had met with Iraqi opposition leaders to discuss mobilization against Iraq.

•The U.N. war crimes tribunal ruled that a U.S. journalist must testify in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.

•Accusing the FBI and CIA of leaking false reports in an effort to escape blame for their intelligence failures, Germany said there was no record of suspected al-Qaeda planner Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ever having been in the country.

•In Bahrain, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said Iraq had chemical weapons ready for attack and was developing nuclear and biological weapons.

•Amid speculation of U.S. interference, former Afghan King Mohammad Zahir Shah declined any but a symbolic role in the new Afghan government, backing interim leader Hamid Karzai.

•India lifted a five-month ban on Pakistani commercial flights over its airspace and pulled back a flotilla of naval vessels from the Pakistani coast.

June 11: Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal flew to the U.S. for an unannounced meeting with President Bush and Secretary of State Powell, while Israeli Prime Minister Sharon remained in Washington to meet with congressional leaders.

•An anonymous government official announced that the INS had orders to thoroughly search all baggage belonging to all Yemeni citizens entering or leaving the U.S.

•In Herzliya, north of Tel Aviv, a Palestinian blew himself up, killing one child and injuring eight Israelis, and, near Hebron, three Israeli teens were wounded when a bomb exploded as they boarded a bus. Israel continued its siege of Arafat’s Ramallah compound, and Israeli forces briefly invaded Tulkarm and Dheisheh refugee camp. Meanwhile, al-Aqsa Brigade leader Majed al-Masri announced a halt to attacks inside Israel.

•Morocco announced the earlier arrest of three Saudis for alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Police had arrested the wives of two of the men the previous day.

•Alleged Islamists attacked a bus in Medea, Algeria, killing 11 and wounding 10.

•Iran began transmitting a shortwave radio program in Hebrew aimed at “breaking the one-sided news monopoly.”

•The Loya Jirga convened in Kabul to choose a new Afghan government.

•As President Musharraf told visiting Defense Secretary Rumsfeld that Pakistan had done more to ease tensions than India, and that lifting air restrictions was not enough, two rockets were fired at a building used by U.S. and Pakistani troops to hunt al-Qaeda operatives near the Afghan border.

June 12: Secretary of State Powell said President Bush was considering backing a Palestinian state immediately, but White House spokesman Ari Fleishcher demurred.

•The U.S. interned 34 more men in Guantanamo Bay, bringing the total to 468.

•Federal officials arrested Adham Hassoun on visa violations, claiming that he was acquainted with Jose Padilla, detained on suspicion of plotting to create a “dirty bomb.”

•Israel transferred $1.2 million stipulated for Palestinian aid to security for Israeli politicians.

•As Israeli Prime Minister Sharon arrived in London seeking European support, British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged a quick return to peace talks.

•German security officials said that information from the U.S. warned that al-Qaeda might use model airplanes for attacks.

•French police arrested two Pakistanis and three North Africans for alleged ties with “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.

•Saying the vote was not free, some 60 to 70 delegates to the Loya Jirga walked out of the council. Human Rights Watch representative Sam Zarifi concurred, accusing the Bush administration of “brazen interference.”

•Three U.S. military personnel died and seven were wounded in a supply plane crash near Kandahar.

•As the World Bank approved a $500 million loan for Pakistan, a Pakistani official announced the arrest over the past few weeks of several Muslim American citizens suspected of ties with al-Qaeda.

•The Free Aceh Movement was suspected of killing local Muslim parliamentarian Taslim Jalil in Indonesia.

June 13: Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal met with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in Washington.

•U.S. officials announced the arrest of a Sudanese who apparently confessed to having launched a small missile at a U.S. warplane in Saudi Arabia in 2001.

•The Israeli Interior Ministry razed 17 Bedouin houses in southern Israel.

•As Cyprus reunification talks stalled, Turkey threatened to annex the island’s northern sector.

•Bosnian Serb television reported that NATO forces beat up and hooded a Bosnian Serb secretly indicted by the U.N. war crimes tribunal as they arrested him.

•Hamid Karzai was elected head of Afghanistan.

•Pakistan denied rumors of al-Qaeda operatives in Kashmir.

•Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was quoted in a Russian newspaper as saying Osama bin Laden was alive and well in Afghanistan.

•A Malaysian woman held without charge for two months for allegedly giving a letter of introduction to suspected “20th hijacker” Zacharias Moussaui was freed in Kuala Lumpur.

June 14: Secretary of State Powell met separately in Washington with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, Israeli armed forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Shaul Mofaz, and Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath, who submitted a proposal for formal statehood. Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Burns, EU Special Envoy to the Middle East Miguel Moratinos, U.N. Special Envoy to the Middle East Terje Roed-Larson, and Russian Middle East envoy Andrei Vdovin convened in Washington to discuss prospects for peace.

•The U.S. accused Iraqi U.N. diplomat Abdul Rahman Saad of spying and demanded his removal by the end of the month.

•The EU added the al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade, the PFLP, and the Palestine Liberation Front to a list of terrorist organizations whose assets must be frozen in all member states.

•As Israel began building its version of the Berlin Wall, Arafat swore in five new cabinet ministers, including Interior Minister and security chief Gen. Abdel Razak Yehiyeh, who disavowed the use of terror. In a pre-dawn invasion of Hebron, Israeli forces kidnapped three Palestinians and destroyed a building.

•U.S. and UK warplanes bombed southern Iraq, hitting civilian areas in Amarah.

• Urging attention to the Israeli military occupation of Palestine, Arab League Secretary Amr Moussa warned the U.S. against equating terrorism with Islam.

•In Karachi, at least 11 were killed and 45 injured when a car bomb hit a wall in front of the U.S. consulate.

June 15: Israel invaded Jenin before dawn, and, in a gun battle in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinians killed two Israeli soldiers and wounded four others.

•Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai asked Loya Jirga delegates to unify in electing a National Assembly.

•Suspected Islamists failed in an assassination attempt on Farooq Abdullah, chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, while, east of Jammu, unknown assailants killed two children and injured two others in a grenade and gunfire attack on a group of Hindu pilgrims.

June 16: President Bush formalized his new first-strike policy.

•As Israeli troops briefly invaded Jenin, Prime Minister Sharon rejected the establishment of even a provisional Palestinian state.

•Afghan leader Hamid Karzai said he wished to choose his own cabinet.

June 17: The State Department and First Lady Laura Bush commented that Israel’s “security fence” was not the way to peace.

•The U.N. announced that more than one million refugees had returned to Afghanistan.

•U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan received letters from Kuwait and Iraq agreeing on a method for Iraq to return archives taken from Kuwait during the Gulf war.

•Israel acknowledged assassinating Palestinian Walid Sbeh near Bethlehem, and refusenik Lt. David Zoshein demanded a public court- martial rather than a closed military hearing.

•As peace talks opened, the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army rejected a cease-fire.

• As President Bush supported an expanded U.S. presence in the Philippines, U.S. forces returned fire on unknown attackers.

June 18: U.S. officials said Morocco had detained and turned over to Syria al-Qaeda leaders Abu Zubair and Mohammed Haydar Zammar.

•As the U.S. commander in Afghanistan said U.S. troops would remain there at least another year, two bombs exploded near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

•Washington said that two U.S. citizens of Afghan origin detained the previous day by Pakistan had no ties to terrorists.

•Saudi Arabia arrested 13 alleged al-Qaeda members suspected of firing a small missile at a U.S. aircraft.

•Israel invaded Qalqilya in retaliation for a Hamas bus bombing that killed the bomber and 18 others, including a child, and injured 54 near a Jerusalem settlement .

June 19: The Bush administration argued in court that it was legal to detain a U.S. citizen designated an enemy combatant without charges or access to legal counsel.

•The Pentagon announced that two al-Qaeda messages designating Sept. 11 as “zero day” had been intercepted, but not translated, Sept. 10.

•As over 50 prominent Palestinians, including Hanan Ashrawi and Sari Nusseibeh, placed an ad condemning suicide bombings in the leading Palestinian newspaper al-Quds, Israel announced a policy of seizing and holding Palestinian land.

•A U.S. fighter jet bombed an anti-aircraft site in northern Iraq, injuring one.

•As Hamid Karzai was sworn in for a two-year term as president of Afghanistan, the country’s first U.S. ambassador in 23 years, Ishaq Shahryar, presented his credentials.

June 20: The U.S. told the U.N. it would not participate in peacekeeping missions unless U.S. troops received immunity from prosecution by the International Criminal Court.

•As Yasser Arafat again condemned suicide bombings, Israeli troops invaded Tulkarm, Bethlehem and Dheisheh refugee camp and, in Jenin, attacked a hospital and rounded up some 2,500 Palestinian men and boys.

•A car bomb explosion killed a British banker in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

•Britain handed over to Turkey command of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan.

•In conjunction with the FBI, Pakistani police arrested seven Arabs for alleged al-Qaeda ties and seven Pakistanis for questioning regarding attacks on Americans in Pakistan.

•Indian Army chief Gen. Sunderajan Padmanabhan said Pakistani infiltration into Kashmir had dropped significantly.

June 21: North Carolina businessman Mohamad Hammoud was convicted in federal court of funding Hezbollah.

•Canadian police arrested Adel Tobbichi, suspected of being involved in a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Paris.

•The U.N. Security Council postponed a vote extending until the end of the year its Bosnian peacekeeping mission.

•As Israel invaded Nablus, settlers killed a Palestinian and burned cars and a home in Hawara, and Israeli tanks fired on a market in Jenin killing four Palestinians, including three children, and wounding 24.

•In court, Omar Saeed accused Pakistan of fabricating a case against him for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

•Clashes left 13 Kashmiri separatists dead, and a senior activist of Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party was assassinated.

•Philippine forces allegedly killed Abu Sayyaf leader Abu Sabaya in a gun battle at sea.

June 22: Citing violation of due process, a Los Angeles federal judge dismissed charges against seven Iranians accused of funding terrorism via humanitarian aid.

•Defense Secretary Rumsfeld accused Iran and Iraq of allowing al-Qaeda members to escape Afghanistan.

•Lebanon and Israel were removed from an international list of money-laundering states.

•An earthquake measuring 6.3 killed over 200 and injured 1,500 in northern Iran.

•A Serbian court convicted the former head of Serbian state television of failing to protect 16 employees killed by a NATO bomb in 1999.

June 23: Israel invaded Qalqilya, and called up 4,000 more reservists.

•An audiotape purportedly made by al-Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith claimed that Osama bin Laden was alive and that al-Qaeda was responsible for an April explosion in Tunisia that killed 17.

•British marines found a cache of weapons in southeastern Afghanistan allegedly belonging to Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

June 24: Sanctioning Israel’s “defense” tactics, President Bush called for an Israeli and Palestinian state, but only after Palestinians changed their leadership, abandoned fighting for their freedom, and accepted a provisional state within a three year timeline.

•Calling Bush’s speech a “serious effort,” Yasser Arafat put Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin under house arrest in Gaza and arrested 15 other Hamas members. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sharon announced a broader military offensive to include Gaza, and Israel tightened controls on the occupied West Bank, holding 600,000 Palestinians under 24-hour curfew and curtailing the movement of some two million people, and resumed its siege of Yasser Arafat’s Ramallah compound.

•Following several political crises, President Karzai swore in Afghanistan’s new cabinet.

June 25: Leading congressional Democrats expressed concern that Jewish voters were turning to the Republican Party in support of the Bush pro-Israel policy.

•Israel invaded Hebron, killing four Palestinian policemen.

•Pakistani forces raided an alleged al-Qaeda stronghold where 10 soldiers and two al-Qaeda suspects were killed. Most of the suspect, thought to be mainly Chechens, escaped.

June 26: At a G-8 meeting in Canada, President Bush announced that Palestinians would lose U.S. aid if they re-elected Arafat.

•A Belgian appeals court ruled that Israeli Prime Minister Sharon could not be tried in absentia for the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacres in Lebanon.

•Palestinian officials in Jericho released a plan for reform, including January elections. In Jenin, Israeli forces abducted Mahmoud Issa of the Abu Mustafa Brigades.

•Iranian President Mohammad Khatami accepted U.S. NGO aid for earthquake victims.

•President Musharraf unveiled a plan to restructure the Pakistani government, increasing the powers of the presidency.

June 27: In a third day of siege, Israeli forces bombed and machine-gunned the PA’s Hebron headquarters. In Tel Aviv, a Lebanese-born Israeli citizen was charged with spying for Hezbollah.

•U.S. forces raided an Afghan village near Gardez in the middle of the night, capturing five men and prompting residents to compare the U.S. with the former Soviet occupiers.

•A land mine killed three Indian soldiers south of Srinigar, and two were killed and four wounded when suspected separatists attacked a patrol in Srinigar. Five Muslim villagers were found shot to death in southern Kashmir.

June 28: The Supreme Court ruled the government may continue secret immigration hearings while an appellate court considers the policy’s legality.

•Two investigations of a “friendly fire” incident in southern Afghanistan which killed four Canadian soldiers and wounded eight found two U.S. F-16 pilots responsible.

•Gen. Wayne A. Downing, the White House official in charge of coordinating the counter-terror offensive, resigned unexpectedly.

•Israel lifted a 10-day-old ban on foreign journalists in the West Bank and blew up the PA headquarters building in Hebron.

•U.S. and UK warplanes made 32 bombing runs over Iraq.

•At an Organization of the Islamic Conference meeting in Sudan, 57 Muslim nations pledged support for Palestinians.

•A senior Indian official in Kashmir announced Indian soldiers would stop forcing people to vote at gunpoint.

•Philippine President Gloria Arroyo said the military had seized four Abu Sayyaf camps.

June 29: Pakistan published a “most wanted” poster linking suspects in three attacks against Westerners.

•Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee named as his deputy prime minister hawkish Hindu nationalist L.K. Advani.

June 30: The U.S. vetoed a six-month extension of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia after the Security Council refused to grant U.S. forces immunity from international accountability.

•Israeli forces assassinated Hamas regional leader Muhanad Taher and two other Hamas members in Nablus.

•A bomb was found attached to a U.S. worker’s car in Saudi Arabia.