The ANO (Abu Nidal Organization), even at the height of its activity, has never enjoyed broad popular support among the Palestinian people, and its active members have never exceeded a few hundred.

Although it was among the world's most violent organizations engaging in terrorism in the 1970s and '80s, the group's activities had diminished in the 1990s.

Abu Nidal is condemned to death, again in absentia, by a court in Jordan in 2001 for the 1994 murder of a Jordanian diplomat.

On January 8, 2001, Taliban forces initiate a four-day massacre of 300 civilian adult males, primarily Hazara, including staff members of local humanitarian organizations.

The men are herded to assembly points, and then shot by firing squad in public view.

According to Human Rights Watch, about 170 men are confirmed to have been killed.

According to Amnesty International, eyewitnesses report the deliberate killing of dozens of civilians hiding in a mosque: Taliban soldiers fire rockets into a mosque where some 73 women, children, and elderly men had taken shelter.

In January 2001, the Vienna-based UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention releases the World Drug Report 2000, which states that coca and opium production is now limited to fewer countries than ever before.

Afghanistan and Myanmar together account for about 90 per cent of illicit global opium production with Colombia alone responsible for two-thirds of the production of coca leaf.

Drug trafficking, however, has proliferated due to globalization: the number of countries reporting seizures has risen from 120 in 1981 to 170 in 1998.

The UN report estimates that some 180 million people- 4.2 per cent of all persons aged 15 years and above-were consuming drugs in the late 1990s.

Cannabis headed the list, followed by amphetamine-type stimulants, cocaine and opiates.

Due to multiple drug use, these numbers do not add up to the 180 million global estimates.

The report also points to the broader implications of the world's drug problem, including the spread of HIV, AIDS, and other diseases, money laundering, corruption and financing of insurgents and terrorists.
(Source: EuropaWorld)

President Clinton makes one last attempt to bridge the gap between the Palestinians and the Israelis, but neither side accepts his "parameters."

On January 30, former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Basset Al-Megrahi, 48, one of two Libyans accused of murdering 270 people in the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, is found guilty of murder.

The second defendant, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, 44, is found not guilty.

The Pan Am Boeing 747 aircraft blew up above the Scottish town on December 21, 1988, killing all 259 passengers and crew, and 11 people on the ground.

Al-Megrahi and Fhimah had pleaded not guilty to murder charges.

The trial, held at the Camp Zeist former U.S. air base in the Netherlands, was conducted under Scottish law and presided over by a panel of three Scottish judges.

Al-Megrahi faces life imprisonment in a special cell that has been built in Glasgow, Scotland.

Hamas activists further escalate their attacks on Israelis and engage in a number of suicide bombings in Israel itself.

A car bomb explodes in west Jerusalem on January 1, injuring a woman.

On February 13, the Northern Alliance captures the strategic town of Bamiyan after several days of fighting, but the Taliban recapture the town four days later.

According to a report by Rahul Bedi in Jane's Intelligence Review, India is believed to have joined Russia, the USA and Iran in a concerted front against the Taliban.

India reportedly supplies the Northern Alliance leader, Ahmed Shah Massoud, with high-altitude warfare equipment.

Indian defense advisors, including air force helicopter technicians, are reportedly providing tactical advice in operations against the Taliban.

Twenty-five Indian army doctors and male nurses reportedly treat Northern Alliance troops at a 20-bed hospital at Farkhor, close to the Afghan-Tajikistan border.

The Statesman newspaper quoting Indian officials says the medical contingent is being financed from Delhi.

(Source: India joins anti-taliban coalition - Jane's Intelligence Review)

Following the ban on poppy cultivation issued by the head of the Taliban in July 2000, the United Nations Office for Drug Control is able to verify thousands of hectares of poppy-free land in February 2001.

This translates to the potential reduction of opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan by at least 70,000 hectares this year.
(Source: United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention)