At 1,800 dead, that’s only a quarter of the number killed on 11 September. Syrians in Hama would like to put Rifaat Al-Assad, the brother of the late president, on their list of terrorists for the mass killings perpetrated by his Defence Brigades in the city of Hama in the same year. At 20,000, that’s more than double the 11 September death toll.The Lebanese would like trials for the Israeli officers who planned the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which killed 17,500 people, most of them civilians – again, well over twice the 11 September statistic. Christian Sudanese would like President Omar al-Bashir arraigned for mass murder.But, as the Americans have made clear, it’s their own terrorist enemies they are after, not their terrorist friends or those terrorists who have been slaughtering populations outside American “spheres of interest”. Even those terrorists who live comfortably in the US but have not harmed America are safe: take, for example, the pro-Israeli militiaman who murdered two Irish UN soldiers in southern Lebanon in 1980 and who now live in Detroit after flying safely out of Tel Aviv. The Irish have the name and address, if the FBI are interested – but of course they’re not.So we are not really being asked to fight “world terror” We are being asked to fight America’s enemies. If that means bagging the murderers behind the atrocities in New York and Washington, few would object.

But it does raise the question of why those thousands of innocents are more important – more worthy of our effort and perhaps blood – than all the other thousands of innocents. And it also raises a much more disturbing question: whether or not the crime against humanity committed in the US on 11 September is to be met with justice – or a brutal military assault intended to extend American political power in the Middle East.Either way, we are being asked to support a war whose aims appear to be as misleading as they are secretive. We are told by the Americans that this war will be different to all others. But one of the differences appears to be that we don’t know who we are going to fight and how long we are going to fight for. Certainly, no new political initiative, no real political engagement in the Middle East, no neutral justice is likely to attend this open-ended conflict. The despair and humiliation and suffering of the Middle East peoples do not figure in our war aims – only American and European despair and humiliation and suffering.As for Mr bin Laden, no one believes the Taliban are genuinely ignorant of his whereabouts He is in Afghanistan.

But has he really gone to ground? During the Russian war, he would emerge, again and again, to fight Afghanistan’s Russian occupiers, to attack the world’s second superpower. Wounded six times, he was a master of the tactical ambush, as the Russians found out to their cost. Evil and wicked do not come close to describing the mass slaughter in the US. But – if it was Mr bin Laden’s work – that does not mean he would not fight again And he would be fighting on home ground There are plenty of dark defiles into which we may advance And plenty of cheap rifles to shoot at us And that wouldn’t be a “new kind of war” at all.. Benchmark, the property group that specialises in central London, yesterday cemented its bullish outlook by announcing a special dividend of 60p per share. Benchmark, the property group that specialises in central London, yesterday cemented its bullish outlook by announcing a special dividend of 60p per share.
The company, which focuses on the West End, said the appetite for property in the capital had “long-term strength and resilience”. Nigel Kempner, the chief executive, said the market had never been in better shape to deal with any possible fall-out from this month’s terrorist attacks in the US.The company said that the supply of new space in central London was restricted, which helped to make the market “relatively stable”.

The amount of office space in the West End due to come on the market is expected to meet only half of present demand, according to Mr Kempner.Benchmark yesterday reported a 39 per cent leap in full-year profit before tax to £21.5m. Its net asset value per share, an important measure of performance for property stocks, rose 10.5 per cent to 373.9p. The special dividend was in addition to a 9.6 per cent rise in the regular full-year dividend to 4.55p.The company is setting up a property unit trust, WELPUT, with Schroder to buy larger West End lots than Benchmark would normally consider Its shares gained 4.5p to 231p.. Up to 7,000 UK jobs were at risk last night as crisis talks continued in an effort to prevent the collapse of the Norwegian engineering group Kvaerner. Up to 7,000 UK jobs were at risk last night as crisis talks continued in an effort to prevent the collapse of the Norwegian engineering group Kvaerner.
Negotiations with bankers, shareholders and financial institutions broke off last night without agreement and will resume this morning in an attempt to thrash out a 4bn crown (£328m) rescue package.Kvaerner, which took over the UK conglomerate Trafalgar House in the mid 1990s, is seeking around 2bn crowns in new debt finance from the state-owned Norwegian bank DMB.