(23 Sep 2001)
Torkham crossing
1. Zoom out of Torkham village to surroundings
2. Pakistani police and soldiers in the hills
3. Various of trucks crossing the border area from Afghanistan to Pakistan
4. Pakistani police checking trucks
5. Various journalists waiting in the border area
6. Afghan helicopter hovering above
Hayat Abab
7. Panoramic shot of Hayat Abab
8. SOUNDBITE: (Pashtu) Shawale, Afghan refugee
"We have faced the Soviet Union in the past and we'll face the U-S. Why should we hand him (Bin Landen) over to them ? We'll accept martyrdom for the defence of our own country."
9. People reading the newspapers
10. SOUNDBITE: (Pashtu) Ahmed Gul, Afghan refugee
"They know that we will launch a movement against those who want to attack us. The U- S should know that we are so far it. How can we cause such a damaged to the U-S."
11. Various street scenes
12. SOUNDBITE:(Pashtu) Sayid Rafiq, Afghan refugee
" We are ready for sacrifices. We will lay down beneath the chains of the tanks and we'll not accept bullying."
13. Car loaded with people driving by
14. Various shots of Hayat Abab market
STORYLINE:
Pakistan virtually shut down its border with Afghanistan on Tuesday, halting the flow of everything but food and calling in police to implement a new order to confine Afghan refugees to dozens of camps in Pakistan.
Nothing was allowed to enter Afghanistan except for a few trucks carrying food, such as wheat and flour and people with valid travel documents, said Farooq Shah, border official at Torkham, the Pakistani border town.
On the Afghan side, thousands of refugees fleeing hunger, drought and the possibility of a U-S military strike also attempted to cross, but were turned away.
Both Afghanistan and Pakistan have amassed new troops and weaponry along their 1,560-mile (2,500-kilometre) border in
anticipation of a possible U-S assault.
In New York, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said he was traveling to Washington to urge U.S. policy makers to take into account the humanitarian consequences of any possible retaliatory attack on Afghanistan.
Afghans, fearing a U-S strike, have been lining up at a barbed wire fence at Torkham and other crossings trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to get into Pakistan.
The closure of the border was one of several requests made of Pakistan by the United States.
Other requests include the use of Pakistan's airspace and soil, and an exchange of intelligence material, all in preparation for a possible retaliatory strike against Afghanistan for the deadly terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
The provincial government of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province on Sunday ordered refugees, who usually move
freely, to stay within their camp limits.
Officials called it a precautionary measure in the event of a U-S strike.
On Monday, they began assembling additional police forces to implement the order gradually.
Pakistan worries that those loyal to the Taliban among the refugees might turn violent if the United States uses either Pakistani airspace or soil to attack Afghanistan.
Many residents have been fleeing Afghanistan's cities in the week following the terrorist attacks and the withdrawal of international relief workers, U.N. officials said on Monday.
In the past two decades, Afghanistan has endured Soviet invasion, civil war, the rise of the radical Taliban regime and widespread hunger and drought.
Although no exact numbers are available, last week's terror attacks appear to have intensified Afghanistan's refugee crisis, which the United Nations says is already the worst in the world.
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