WITH the serious escalation in world events, our thoughts go out to the people directly affected by the catastrophe in America.

Immediately after the event, President Bush promised to hunt down an elaborate network of terrorists operating from various parts of the world and nations that harbour them, albeit not really knowing who had actually organised and put this act into practice.

The media jumped on the bandwagon of blame and nations like Libya, Iraq, Iran and others were being fingered. Some Muslim voices openly blamedpointed at US policy in the Middle East was the first to blame.

The US shifted concentration to Afghanistan and focused on Pakistan for a while. Even more worrying was the talk of weapons of mass destruction to target the enemy.

But, Afghanistan vehemently denies any involvement in such a sophisticated act coming from its barren country.

In a world of changing and new alignments, it could be viewed as an abuse of this simple patch called Afghanistan.

The Balkans, for instance, are still burning from policies of the outside world and the Western World had to step in to resolve the Kosovo crisis and during the bombing of Serbia the Chinese Embassy was hit by a stray American missile.

We are now told the Americans were in talks with India, Pakistan and several of the newly-formed Central Asian republics to combat these poverty-stricken Afghans.

In the spirit of the US rhetoric, India and Pakistan should tread carefully in the region as the 'Sleeping Giant' has been 'roused' in the Far East.

N MOMONIAT (address supplied).