11/14/2001

By The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Taliban fighters fleeing northern Afghanistan and heading south may be trying to find refuge in caves held by their home tribes and regroup for more combat, a Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

"It would appear to us they are abandoning cities they previously had control over," said Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem. "It's not clear why they're doing that. It may be that they're regrouping."

Stufflebeem told reporters at the Pentagon that southern Afghanistan is home to 23 or more Pashtun tribes, many of which appear to be turning against the Taliban. The militia forces have been fleeing the capital of Kabul and Stufflebeem said there was fighting around the airport in their stronghold of Kandahar.

"The are a number of Pashtun tribes in the south who would appear now to be opposing Taliban. Whether or not they're working in concert, we do not know. Whether or not they are organized to work together, we do not know," he said.

Stufflebeem said that while the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorism network has made tremendous gains in the past few days, it is too early to declare victory.

"We don't have enough factual information to assume that this war in Afghanistan is about to end," he said. "We still have the job of finding and getting al-Qaida, we still have the job of finding and getting Taliban leadership."

Earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney said the military defeats inflicted on the Taliban mark a good beginning to the longer-term struggle against terrorism, and jabbed at domestic "handwringers" who recently criticized the war effort.

"If anybody has any questions about whether or not we're determined to carry through ... all they have to do is go to Afghanistan today and interview members of the Taliban -- if they can find any," Cheney said in a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

At the Pentagon, senior defense officials said the sudden shift of fortunes had prompted Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in the war, to prepare a new military plan for tracking down and eliminating leaders of the al-Qaida and the Taliban regime that supports them.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that in the meantime, limited U.S. bombing will continue targeting pockets of Taliban resistance in areas of the north like Kunduz, as well as caves and other mountain redoubts in the south where al-Qaida leaders are believed to be hiding.

The Taliban is "in retreat virtually all over the country," the vice president said, and took the opportunity to mock the pundits in the nation's capital.

"I guess there are a couple of lessons in that for folks, the handwringers who a week or two ago were saying, `it's not going to work, you're not doing enough, you've been at it for three or four weeks, my gosh, the war is not over yet."'

Despite the advances on the ground, Cheney said the United States will pursue its objectives. These include a desire to "wrap up the al-Qaida network," dismantle their command and control structure and track down bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"It is a very good beginning to what's likely to be a long struggle," he said.

Bin Laden's capture would be a singular accomplishment, and American intelligence believes he and Mullah Omar, the Taliban's senior official, are still in a region of Afghanistan not under northern alliance control, according to a U.S. official. This official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the two are believed to be moving around, but not together. The official said it is viewed as unlikely that bin Laden will try to leave the country because those movements could expose him to capture.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, visiting the site of the World Trade Center in New York, said efforts continue to track down key Taliban rulers.

"Some have been killed, others are hiding, and there are no particular reports of senior leadership having been located," Rumsfeld said. His visit was intended to illustrate why the United States is fighting in Afghanistan.

He said U.S. special forces are watching key roads in southern Afghanistan as Taliban militia forces flee southward.

"They have been interdicting the main roads that connect the north to the south to see what's going on and to stop people that they think ought to be stopped," Rumsfeld said during a brief news conference with New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

"We still have a ways to go" in the hunt for the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network, Rumsfeld said. "The Taliban, some pieces of it, are melting into the countryside because they have decided to toss in the towel. In other cases, they may be simply waiting to counterattack at some other time."