Rumsfeld: Fighting pushes enemy back

12/14/2001

By SALLY BUZBEE
Associated Press Writer

SHANNON, Ireland — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Friday that forces attacking al-Qaida fighters in the Tora Bora mountains are pushing the enemy back at a quick pace and leaving few escape routes.

About 50 al-Qaida fighters surrendered Friday, Rumsfeld said, and U.S. and Afghan forces have begun searching abandoned caves and tunnels.

Some U.S. special forces will participate in the cave searches, looking for documents or other intelligence that could provide clues to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror operations worldwide, Rumsfeld said.

``The opposition is doing the heavy lifting,'' he said, however.

Opposition forces on the ground have advanced about 1.2 miles as of Friday night, ``which is a heckuva lot in that kind of terrain,'' Rumsfeld told reporters en route to Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Uzbekistan.

``They've been in very energetic battle,'' Rumsfeld said of the Afghan opposition forces, who are aided by U.S. special forces.

``We think there are not a lot of ways out,'' for al-Qaida fighters being pushed down a valley, Rumsfeld said. Pakistan has stationed troops at the southern end of the Tora Bora area, along its border with Afghanistan, in an effort to prevent al-Qaida fighters from fleeing.

Nevertheless, the al-Qaida continue to fight back, ``and in some cases the fighting has been fierce,'' the defense secretary said. He would not speculate on the possible whereabouts of bin Laden, who U.S. officials believe could be in the area, except to say that the United States and Afghan forces were searching for him.

Intensifying attacks, U.S. warplanes were dropping more than 200 bombs on caves and tunnels around Tora Bora on Friday, Rumsfeld said.

The American warplanes dropped 230 to 240 bombs on Thursday, and AC-130 helicopter gunships also were being heavily used, he said.

``It's obviously working,'' Rumsfeld said of the coordinated air and ground attacks. The amount of ``mountain real estate'' the al-Qaida fighters hold is shrinking, he added. ``There's no question that forces are being significantly damaged.''

In southern Afghanistan, Marines who moved Thursday from their base at the desert Camp Rhino have secured the Kandahar airfield and are demining it, Rumsfeld said. The Marines will soon build a detention center at the airfield where the United States forces can hold and interrogate any al-Qaida or Taliban fighters, Rumsfeld said.

He said the United States is holding more than one ``battlefield detainee,'' as officials have called American Taliban fighter John Walker, but he would not specify who that was, or what nationality.

If the United States gets bin Laden, ``we then probably would move him to a secure location'' and begin interrogating him, Rumsfeld said.

The military has moved more Marines into Camp Rhino to take the place of those who moved to the Kandahar airport to secure it, Rumsfeld said. A few Marines also remain inside Kandahar, he said.

Rumsfeld said U.S. officials have information that Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is somewhere around Kandahar, but there also is some ``modestly conflicting information'' about his whereabouts.

Rumsfeld's trip will take him to three small nations — Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia — with strategic locations at the crossroads of central Asia and Russia with whom the United States hopes to strengthen military ties.

Rumsfeld also will visit Uzbekistan, where some U.S. troops engaged in the Afghan war are based, and then go on to a NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels, Belgium. At the NATO meeting, he was to meet with officials from Russia, the Ukraine, Turkey, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

``The events of Sept. 11 have shifted the priorities of an awful lot of countries in the world and their perspectives about the United States and about the problems of the world,'' Rumsfeld said. ``And it does offer an opportunity for us to ... reconnect with those countries.''

Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia all are interested in broadening military relationships with the United States. All three nations have offered to let U.S. warplanes fly over their countries during the Afghan fighting, and all want to cooperate in the fight on terrorism, said a senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Oil is not on the agenda of these meetings, the official said. Azerbaijan has vast oil reserves and the United States has supported the building of a pipeline from there to Turkey, avoiding Iran.