U.S. fight may not be conventional: Bush

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, SEPT. 29. The U.S. President, Mr. George W Bush said on Friday that the United States was in ``hot pursuit'' of the terrorists responsible for the horrific acts of September 11.

While welcoming the visiting the Jordanian King Abdullah, Mr. Bush said his administration had taken note of the lessons learnt by Russia in Afghanistan. ``It is very hard to fight a...guerilla war with conventional forces,'' the President remarked, adding that ``there may or may not be a conventional component'' to the U.S. fight against terrorism. ``But make no mistake about it, we are in hot pursuit. We're going to enforce the doctrine,'' the President said, stressing that it was not merely Osama bin Laden that Washington wanted to bring to justice but also the organisation directly associated with him and any terrorist outfit that was ``housed and fed'' in Afghanistan.

Mr. Bush used the occasion to talk about the Al Qaeda group. ``The Al Qaeda people do not represent Islam as far as America is concerned. They represent evil. They're evil people. And that's not the Muslim faith that I know and understand...,'' the President said. The King of Jordan agreed with the American President. ``...As the President so well put it, what these people (Al Qaeda) stand for is against all the principles the Arab and Muslims believe in,'' King Abdullah said.

`Freedom will prevail'

Reuters reports:

Mr. Bush said today his campaign against those responsible for the September 11 attacks would be waged ``wherever terrorists hide, or run, or plan.'' ``We did not seek this conflict, but we will end it. America will act deliberately and decisively, and the cause of freedom will prevail,'' he said. With international attention focussing on the large U.S. military deployment assembling around Afghanistan, Mr. Bush used his weekly radio address to make clear that ``this will be a different kind of war.'' ``Our war on terror will be much broader than the battlefields and beachheads of the past,'' Mr. Bush said.

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Section  : International
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