With Taliban defeated and al-Qaida on the run, U.S. military campaign seeks its final targets

By ROBERT BURNS
AP Military Writer

WASHINGTON – The defeat of the Taliban and sudden success against Osama bin Laden's forces means the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan is narrowing its focus to two final targets: bin Laden and his top deputies, and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the terrorists' Taliban sponsor.

In the coming days, U.S. Marines and other troops hope to detain large numbers of Taliban officials and members of bin Laden's al-Qaida network – mainly to pump them for information about the primary prey.

Weeks of U.S. bombing helped Afghan opposition forces rout the Taliban militia, and the same combination appears to be flushing al-Qaida fighters from their fortified cave complexes in the Tora Bora area. But it's not yet clear that the ultimate prizes – bin Laden and Omar – are within reach.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sought to lower expectations that the effort will be finished quickly.

"There's no question but that some of the terrorists are on the run, and there also are pockets of terrorists and Taliban that are being attacked as we speak," he said Tuesday. "But we all know that a wounded animal can be dangerous, and so, too, the Taliban and al-Qaida can hide in the mountains."

Rumsfeld's top deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, said on Monday that the final hunt could last months.

In an interview with Fox News, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked Tuesday if we are witnessing bin Laden's last stand.

"I hope so," he replied. "I think the results to date have been very, very good. The Taliban is clearly finished as a military organization. A lot of al-Qaida has been hard hit, especially in recent days."

Pentagon officials see new opportunity arising from the recent success against al-Qaida forces around Tora Bora and Malawa, where a network of caves and bunkers served as their final stronghold. Relentless U.S. bombing set the stage for Afghan fighters to overrun the cave hide-outs Tuesday.

As U.S. and Afghan forces move into areas once occupied by the Taliban or al-Qaida, they are collecting valuable information. Some of it may sharpen the otherwise fuzzy picture of where Omar and bin Laden may be hiding.

"There's documentation being found and discovered and analyzed and translated, so that each day we learn more and know more," Rumsfeld said. "As more address books are found and phone books are found and computer hard drives are found as people have left areas, clearly our knowledge base is going up."

With many al-Qaida fighters now flushed out of hiding, the Pentagon is counting on Pakistan to cut off overland routes to the east, and U.S. and allied ships are watching for escapees on the Arabian Sea.

Similarly, a contingent of U.S. Marines near Kandahar is on the lookout for Taliban leaders seeking to escape the southern city they surrendered last Friday, ending their five years of rule in Afghanistan.

Still, Rumsfeld sees a possibility that bin Laden could slip across the Pakistani border and vanish.

"It's a long border," he said. "It's a very complicated area to try to seal. And there's just simply no way you can put a perfect cork in the bottle."

Anthony Cordesman, a military analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Tuesday that for all the military successes in Afghanistan thus far, it's too early to declare victory.

"Like it or not, much of the world will judge us by whether we capture or kill bin Laden, Omar, and the other top leaders of the Taliban or al-Qaida," Cordesman said.

If the campaign in Afghanistan is to serve as an effective deterrent against global terrorism, those who might contemplate terrorist action against the United States must be convinced they could not escape U.S. punishment, he added.

As uncertain as the outlook for capturing or killing bin Laden may be, it remains possible that he's already dead.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said an attack on a Tora Bora cave Sunday with a 15,000-pound bomb – the biggest conventional bomb in the U.S. inventory – had "the desired effect." He said it was believed the cave contained senior al-Qaida figures, and that U.S. troops who visited the damaged area after the attack found an undetermined number of dead al-Qaida.

AP-WS-12-11-01 1537EST