By empty (8/20/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

PRIVATE "TYPE=PICT;ALT=Taleban fighters" The Afghan Government has sharply rejected suggestions by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that the al-Qaeda network could be regrouping in Afghanistan. A spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Minister, Abdullah Abdullah, said the situation was already much better than a year ago. He said that although the war against al-Qaeda was not over, the government had managed to deny them safe havens in Afghanistan.

By empty (8/21/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

Tax officials forced members of the Committee to Protect the Rights of Ayaz Mutalibov to vacate their recently acquired office in Baku on 21 August, claiming that they have not yet signed a formal lease for the premises. Fourteen members of the committee intended to start a hunger strike on 21 August to protest the ongoing trial of five Mutalibov supporters charged with planning to stage a coup in October 2001. "Ekho" on 21 August quoted Mutalibov, who has lived in Moscow since 1992, as expressing support for the opposition's calls to boycott the 24 August referendum.

By empty (8/19/2002 issue of the CACI Analyst)

In a statement released on 19 August, the Georgian Foreign Ministry accused Moscow of encroaching on Georgia's sovereignty and demonstrating disrespect for a neighboring state by dispatching a Russian government delegation to Abkhazia earlier this month to discuss with the breakaway republic's leaders the prospects for expanding economic cooperation. The Georgian statement also criticized as "incorrect" an assertion by Russian Foreign Ministry representative Vasilii Kolotusha blaming Georgia for the outbreak of hostilities in Abkhazia in August 1992. (Caucasus Press).