Having already agreed to condemn terrorism, leaders at the U.N. General Assembly urged quick adoption of a comprehensive global treaty that would put the words into action.

But one issue in particular is causing trouble - how to define terrorism amid concern independence struggles would be targeted.

A British-sponsored resolution accepted unanimously by the Security Council on the sidelines of the U.N. summit last week called upon all states to prohibit and prevent terrorism and deny a safe haven to anyone considered guilty of such conduct.

But delegates stressed the need for a broader convention that would serve as a framework for governments to work together to curtail international terrorism.

“The fight against terrorism must be continued in the most decisive manner,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the assembly.

Kazakhstan’s Foreign Minister Kasimzhomart Tokaev also called for the early completion of a comprehensive convention on terrorism.

He warned that poverty breeds extremism and that “young people are increasingly being sucked into the ideological orbit of international terrorism.”

Last week’s U.N. summit ended with world leaders adopting a watered-down document committing them to efforts to fight poverty, human rights abuses and terrorism.

The declaration put leaders on record for the first time as condemning “terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, committed by whomever, wherever and for whatever purpose ...”

But it failed to include a definition of terrorism that rules out attacks on civilians, as U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan had recommended.

Nonetheless, Annan said it was an important first step.

“You must build on that simple statement to complete a comprehensive convention against terrorism in the year ahead and forge a global counterterrorism strategy that weakens terrorists,” he told the assembly on Saturday. “We can do it and we must do it.”

The definition of terrorism has long stymied the United Nations and provoked bitter diplomatic disputes as some countries feared it would implicate those involved in independence struggles.

Washington also asked that the summit document make clear that it didn’t encompass military activities.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose country suffered deadly attacks on its transit system in July, said the ratification of a comprehensive convention on terrorism was a high priority.

“None of us is safe from the threat of terror,” he told the assembly. “International terrorism requires an international response; otherwise we all pay the price for each other’s vulnerabilities.”

The United States also called for a strong commitment to completing the broader treaty.

“No cause, no movement and no grievance can justify the intentional killing of innocent civilians and noncombatants,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told delegates on Saturday.

Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim stressed the importance of protecting civil and political liberties.

“The fight against terrorism cannot be viewed in terms of police repression alone,” he said. “Neither can such repressive acts result in absurd, indiscriminate deaths, similar to those caused by terrorism itself.”

The rash of car bombings in Baghdad in recent weeks has once again thrown into debate whether the American and Iraqi counterinsurgency strategy is working.

The explosions underscored how the loosely knit and elusive networks of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, former Baathists and other extremists still can recruit discontented Iraqis and foreign fighters to launch well-coordinated attacks, even as American and Iraqi forces stage offensives intended to root out the insurgents.

Before the latest round of bombings, one senior officer at the United States Central Command conceded that Mr. Zarqawi''s organization remained "a very robust network" despite the heavily touted capture and killings of numerous underlings in Mosul, Tal Afar and other communities where the insurgents found refuge and even safe haven.

Melting away ahead of gathering forces, only to set up planning and bomb-making cells in another hideaway, the insurgents have avoided calamitous defeats.

But recent changes in American and Iraqi tactics, plus gains in their intelligence on the insurgency - offered mostly by Iraqis angered at the antigovernment violence - have helped them capture or kill many fighters, including some identified as leaders, American commanders say.

The latest offensives against the insurgents and their rampage of violence in Baghdad come at a crucial time, as Iraq prepares for a constitutional referendum on Oct 15.

Although the attacks in Baghdad suggest that there may be cells of insurgents there, or at least that they can sneak into the city to plant bombs, senior officials at the Pentagon and in Iraq say they believe that Mr. Zarqawi and the insurgency''s "center of gravity" is now in the bends and towns of the Euphrates River valley near the Syrian border.

Commanders say they plan to squeeze the Zarqawi leadership and Iraqi insurgents in those areas. Throughout the spring and summer marines and Army forces staged raids into those same towns, confiscating weapons and killing scores of insurgents. But many fighters melted into the countryside, and there were not enough coalition troops to keep a sufficient presence in the villages.

Commanders say new offensives in Anbar Province in coming weeks will be modeled on the siege of Tal Afar, which used 8,500 American and Iraqi troops. The weeklong offensive at Tal Afar, and the major fight for Falluja last year, demonstrated that insurgents could not be wholly bottled up and prevented from fleeing.

But independent analysts suggest that the strategy of driving the insurgents from urban centers and trying to capture or kill as many as possible, aiming especially at leaders, may be flawed. The violence in Baghdad is only one problem. Another is that the fighting may work against the search for political consensus among Iraqis.

Iraqi defense officials insist they are still trying to come up with a political solution that will avoid an all-out battle in Samarra, another insurgent base, because the offensive may further alienate the Sunni minority, who would view it as a means of suppressing the Sunni vote. Similar attempts failed to head off the offensive at Tal Afar, as they did a year ago in Falluja.

The insurgency knows it cannot win a conventional battle with American forces, but it has become quite proficient at fighting "the asymmetric war," said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"They are protected by the sheer number of cells and elements and different groups involved," he said. "There is no central structure to attack."

Some independent critics say that the unabated violence suggests the military has been focusing too much on hunting down and killing insurgents and not enough on providing security in population centers like Baghdad - safe zones that could spread like "oil spots," as Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr. wrote in the current issue of Foreign Affairs.

The offensive near Tal Afar is far from major populated areas, "so you are not building from your base of support out," said Mr. Krepinevich, executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, in an interview. "The way you really defeat an insurgency is not so much by killing them, but by asphyxiating them."

Military sweeping operations are "like sticking your fist in a bucket of water," he said. "Things are changed as long as you''re standing there, but they change back to the way they were when you pull our fist out."

Mr. Krepinevich''s assessment is that the United States currently has "more than enough firepower in Iraq" to secure Baghdad and other significant population centers, should that become the military''s focus. The real shortfall, he said, "is a matter of intelligence."

Commanders say their intelligence on the insurgency is improving. Col. Robert Brown, commander of the 25th Infantry Division''s First Brigade, operating in northwest Iraq, said the best intelligence sources were Iraqis whose family members had been killed by insurgents and, in revenge, offer their services to the American military or the new domestic security services.

A senior Central Command officer said insurgents had detonated over 300 bombs so far this year. The officer said insurgents had launched 65 to 75 attacks a day against coalition forces in Iraq - 30 to 35 of them in Baghdad alone - a number that had remained steady for two months until this week''s attacks.

Military and intelligence officials are reluctant to provide assessments on the size of the insurgency, since it is hard to count, drawing its members from foreign fighters, former Baathists, radical Shiites, disenfranchised Sunnis and criminals.

The number of insurgents, which some have placed at 8,000 to 12,000, swells when sympathizers or covert accomplices are included. Officials estimate that there could be as many as 1,000 foreign fighters active in Iraq.

General Abizaid discounted the idea that more American troops were necessary, noting that many of the more than 180,000 newly trained Iraqi soldiers and police officers were flowing into the region, and taking larger roles in operations.

When asked how long the United States would remain in the lead in the military effort, General Abizaid said: "It''s certainly our goal that in 2006 the Iraqis are out in front in counterinsurgency operations. However, I can''t tell you that we will achieve that goal."

There has been a significant increase in search operations and the harassment of civilians by Sri Lanka’s security forces in and around the Northwestern town of Mannar, according to local community organizations. Residents have complained that Mannar has turned into a ‘garrison town’ with increases in arbitrary detentions, road blocks, cordon and search operations and the blockade of essential items.

The Mannar Citizens’ Committee (MCC) last Friday complained to the local Government Agent of the district that their town has become heavily militarized with the deployment of several hundred additional government troops and establishment of new checkpoints and sentries. Civilians are harassed by troops at roadblocks, it said.

After 10 pm Sri Lankan troops routinely enter the premises of private residences in the town, scaling over the boundary walls and creating panic among the occupants. Even the residence of Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Mr Vino Noharathalingam was searched on Thursday by the Sri Lankan military. The TNA is a coalition of Sri Lanka’s four main Tamil parties. It is a closely allied to the Liberation Tigers’ of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

Selvam Adaikalanathan, TNA parliamentarian for Vanni, said that rising tensions are an inevitable consequence of escalating threats and harassment of district residents by SLA soldiers.

Soldiers conduct cordon and search operation in the middle of night directing the occupants to come out of their houses. Residents are experiencing untold hardships and are forced to spend sleepless nights, the MCC told the GA.

The security forces also increased surveillance of the Mannar district by establishing several roadblocks and sentry points in several key roads and junctions in the town’s environs. Residents of complained of the increasing roadblocks and the severe body checks passing through newly set up roadblocks and checkpoints. The soldiers said the increase in checks were as a result of direct orders from Colombo.

Apart from searches of homes and persons at checkpoints, arrests and detentions of residents have also increased dramatically in the recent months.

Last month, fifteen Tamil girls were arrested in a combined search operation conducted by the Sri Lanka Navy, Army and Police in the village of Thullukuddiruppu in Mannar district. They were later released. The police said they had been arrested on ‘wrong information’ received by the Navy. The girls were not produced in court.

A fourteen year old boy and a local man were also arrested in two separate incidents last month. No reasons were given.

Recollections of past abuse by Sri Lanka’s security forces fuels the sense of fear and anxiety amongst the local population amid heightened activity by the military

The girls’ arrests, for example, came on the same day that three Sri Lankan police officers and nine soldiers of the Sri Lanka Navy are indicted in the Anuradhapura High Court for the rape and torture of two Tamil women Sivamani Weerakone and Wijakala Nanthan of Uppukulam, a suburb of Mannar town four years ago.

Oone of the two women complainants in the rape incident, Ms Ehambaram Wijakala, was this week reported to be missing and the other, Ms Sinnathamby Sivamani, has received threats that she will be killed if she gives evidence in Anuradhapura.

A blockade on essential items has also been implemented on parts of Mannar. On August 31, Sri Lanka Police arrested two employees of Talaimannar Village Fisheries Co-operative Society with 2100 liters of fuel, which was taken in a society lorry to be supplied to member-fishermen. The police said they had not “obtained permission from the relevant authorities” to transport fuel. The fuel was confiscated.

But Talaimannar Village Fisheries Co-operative Society supplies fuel to about eighty-five fishing boats in the area on daily basis. About 250 fisher families live in the village. With the confiscation of 2100 liters of fuel, the society is struggling to supply their members fishermen to ply their trade in the Mannar Sea.

Goods are also being restricted from entering LTTE held areas. Construction work on new buildings in two schools in the LTTE controlled areas of the Mannar district has come to a halt due to the ban imposed by the Army on the transportation of building materials through Uyilankulam and Madu road army checkpoints.

The reconstruction works of the two schools, Palampiddy Government Tamil School and Thadchanamaruthamadu Government Tamil School in the LTTE held areas began in March this year with the financial allocation of Asian Development bank (ADB) funded North East Community Restoration Project (NECORD). The NECORD allocated about 2.7 million rupees each for the reconstruction of these schools.

Contractors who undertook to construct these new building first attempted to transport building materials through the Uyilankulam army checkpoint. Soldiers manning the checkpoint refused to allow the building materials through their checkpoint.

Community groups met with the international ceasefire monitors of the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) last week to complain about the rising harassment and interference by the Sri Lankan security forces.

They also appealed to the appealed to the SLMM to take steps to ensure the return of LTTE political cadres withdrawn from government controlled areas and to provide necessary support in enabling the LTTE to recommence political activities.

The LTTE withdrew their political cadres in the region after attacks by suspected paramilitary organizations associated with the Sri Lankan military and the increasing harassment of political cadres by Sri Lanka’s security forces.

Tamils in Mannar district are anxious over the withdrawal of LTTE political cadres, local residents told reporters. The local LTTE offices provided a point of support amidst harrasment by the security forces as the cadres there could readily access the SLMM, they said.

Compiled from TamilNet reports

Tens of thousands of residents of the Mullaitivu district converged on the Malathi Sports Ground in Puthukudiyiruppu on September 14 to express their support for self-determination and to appeal to the international community to recognize their right to greater autonomy from Colombo.

The ‘Tamil Resurgence’ event in Mullaitivu is the fourth in a recent series of public gatherings for Tamils of Sri Lanka’s Northeast express their political sentiments. Previous events held in Kilinochchi, Vavuniya and Batticaloa, drew large crowds, some in excess of a hundred thousand people.

Increasing frustrations following the Sri Lankan state’s obstruction of the implementation of the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure (P-TOMS) have resulted in public frustrations and given fresh impetus to demands for greater Tamil self rule.

The ruling by a Sri Lankan court two months ago impeding the implementation of the aid distribution agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have reaffirmed Tamil sentiments that they cannot continue to be vulnerable on Colombo’s whim.

Tamils from all walks of life including academics, politicians and religious dignitaries lent their support to the various declarations made at the forum. Reflecting another popular sentiment, one of the handbills issued at the event called on the International Community to support Tamil self rule.

“Extend your moral support achieve self rule with just peace and dignity in our traditional homeland. Help us to live in our homeland with Self Rule in peace with the Sinhala South,” the declaration said. “Peace, Reconciliation and Co-existance are norms set and insisted upon by the International Community. We respect these norms. We Tamils too aspire for same.”

The declaration, which included elemetns of the Vavuniya rally’s statement, called upon the international community to exert their influence on Sri Lanka to allow the Tamils to have greater self-rule without the resumption of the war.

Since the February 2002 ceasefire, residents of the Northeast have been able to use public demonstrations as a means of expressing political opinions supporting the Tamil Tigers, without fear of a backlash from the Sri Lankan state.

Similar political events have been held in different parts of the Northeast in the past two months. Kilinochchi, the administrative capital of the Vanni region in Northern Sri Lanka saw another huge demonstration on September 1 by the region’s residents, appealing to the International community to recognize Tamils’ right to self-determination.

Over a hundred thousand people turned out in Kilinochchi to voice their support for the call for greater self-governance. “We, as Tamil people request the international community to recognize our just struggle for freedom with dignity,” said Bishop Dr. Jebanesan of the Church of South India, addressing the rally.

Speakers at rallies argue the residents of the North-East had lost confidence in the democratic rule of the Sri Lankan state after its transition to a mono-religious, mono-linguistic country, and the subsequent oppression of the minorities on the island.

A month before the Kilinochchi event, another rally took place in Batticaloa, despite a bombing by suspected Sri Lankan military-backed paramilitaries.

The district level conference at the grounds of Batticaloa Hindu College attracted thousands of participants from various parts of the districts, including academics, writers, religious dignitaries, representatives of civil organisations and politicians.

The first of the recent series of public events was held in Vavuniya in late July. The declaration of the event called for an environment to be created to enable Tamils to decide their own political destiny. It also demanded that occupying Sinhala forces must vacate with immediate effect homed and villages they are occupying in defiance of the February 2002 ceasefire.

That proclamation, like others, concluded urging the International Community to recognise the “basic rights and life of freedom with peace on the basis of our traditional homeland, our nationhood and self rule and struggle for sovereignty.”

Responding to Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s speech last week at the United Nations where she accused the Liberation Tigers of not respecting the ceasefire agreement (CFA) and promised to implement a federal solution, the LTTE said this week it “is still ready for immediate talks on the implementation of the CFA, outside the island.”

“We see a lot of contradictions in the speeches of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, made abroad and in the south,” Mr. S. P. Thamilchelvan, Political Head of the LTTE, told TamilNet in an exclusive interview Friday.

“The fact is the Tamil people have lost faith in Kumaratunga’s statements, speeches and promises. It is high time the international community takes this into consideration,” he said.

Mr. Thamilchelvan emphasised that the LTTE was ready for immediate talks on the implementation of the CFA provided they are held in an international venue, rather than in the insecure south of Sri Lanka.

While it had become the accepted practice to conduct talks outside the island, Kumaratunge government’s sudden insistence on having talks in Sri Lanka was to conjure a new ploy that would help scuttle the talks, he observed.

“We consider Kumaratunga’s speech in New York a pack of chicaneries trying to hoodwink the international community. During her ten-year period of presidency Kumaratunga failed to implement anything to enhance the welfare of the Tamil people,” Mr. Thamilchelvan said.

“It is ludicrous for Kumaratunga who is at the tail-end of her presidency to pontificate now that she is committed to a federal system for the resolution of the Tamil national question,” he also said.

The LTTE’s Political chief pointed out that Kumaratunga tried desperately to prevent the then United National Front (UNF) government from holding talks with the LTTE on the proposal of Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA), which she vehemently criticized. At her earliest opportunity, she dismissed the UNF government, jeopardising the chance for the resumption of the peace talks centred on the ISGA proposals.

“She failed to take action using her executive power to solve the humanitarian problems of Tamil people when misery struck them. It was because of the international pressure that she signed the P-TOMS agreement with the LTTE. But she did not make any move to implement it.”

“She has now rushed to shift the blame for the non-implementation of the P-TOMS on to the Supreme Court and the Sinhala extreme nationalists. Hence we see no credibility in the speeches and statements made by her abroad. They ring hollow.”

“Even last year, when she went abroad, she spoke profusely in favour of a political solution based on federal concept, with a view to win the hearts of the international community. But once she returned to Sri Lanka, it became a forgotten tale,” he said.

Commenting on the reports that that Mr. Jayantha Dhanapala, the head of Sri Lanka’s Peace Secretariat, had requested Ms Christina Rocca, US Assistant Secretary of State that the international community should exert pressure on the LTTE to come to the negotiating table, Mr Thamilchelvan said, “southern politicians and diplomats are used to giving a picture of deceit to the international community regarding the problems affecting the Tamil people in Sri Lanka.”

Sri Lankan politicians and diplomats are now engaged in disrupting the good relations and understanding the LTTE has built up with several countries, he charged.

“We also consider the Sri Lankan government’s insistence on holding future peace talks in Sri Lanka and not abroad is with a view to sever the rapport the LTTE has built up with the international community,” Mr. Thamilchelvan added.

“The Sri Lankan government’s strategy is to marginalize the Tamil people and weakening the LTTE on one hand, while assuring the international community it is prepared to hold peace talks with the LTTE, on the other. Sri Lankan diplomats including Dr. Jayantha Dhanapala are now engaged in the implementation of this strategy of duplicity,” Mr. Thamilchelvan further said.

“If Sri Lanka is seriously committed to taking forward the peace process, it should have first agreed to hold talks on the implementation of the ceasefire agreement in a neutral country, without breaking the status quo, for which the LTTE is always ready,” Mr. Thamilchelvan assured.

“We have categorically informed the Norwegian government that the talks on the implementation of the ceasefire agreement should be held in a neutral country. But due to the pressure of the Sri Lankan government, probably from the President herself, the Norwegian government proposed Sri Lanka,” replied Mr. Thamilchelvan to a question from the correspondent.

“The Norwegian government did not impose on us its decision on a venue in Sri Lanka. We have now received news that Norwegian government is considering our proposal regarding venue for talks,” Mr. Thamilchelvan added.

“We have also pointed out to the Norwegian facilitators that the contradictory statements and speeches by President Kumaratunga who is on the verge of leaving her post are causing serious impediment to the peace process. We are sure the Norwegian authorities are quite aware of the development.”