U.S. Strikes Back
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Hunt for bin Laden, Omar continues
By CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA
Associated Press Writer
12/18/01
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Two U.S. transport planes took evasive action after mistaking flashes on the ground in Afghanistan for missile fire during a nighttime reconnaissance flight Tuesday. In central Afghanistan and the snowy border mountains, tribesman hunted for Osama bin Laden and his former Taliban protector, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
At Central Command Headquarters in Tampa, Fla. spokesman Maj. Ralph Mills said what the crew initially suspected were shoulder-fired stinger missiles were actually muzzle flashes that ``were part of an end of Ramadan celebration.''
U.S. intelligence officers were interrogating captives of the Taliban and of bin Laden's al-Qaida network for clues to their operations and perhaps the whereabouts of their leaders, who have escaped nine weeks of bombing and a massive manhunt by opposition Afghan forces.
Tribal fighters were continuing to flush out holdouts from the caves of the Tora Bora mountain complex in eastern Afghanistan, the last major stronghold of bin Laden's collapsed forces.
Troops loyal to Mohammed Zaman captured five more al-Qaida fighters overnight, wounding one of them as he tried to escape, said Zaman's brother, Mohammed Aman Khiari. Al-Qaida loyalists were hiding in groups of five or six, Khiari said, but he doubted bin Laden was still in the area — if he had been there at all.
``If Osama is here, they would be fighting us,'' Khiari said. ``Now maybe he has gone somewhere else, or maybe he is dead.''
Pakistan reinforced its borders with troops and patrolled the air with helicopter gunships to try and block escape routes from the Tora Bora area. But it seemed impossible to hermetically seal a frontier laced with goat paths that have served for decades as routes for smuggling goods and infiltrating fighters.
The Pentagon said U.S. bombing was suspended in one valley in Tora Bora to allow tribal fighters to scour the caves where al-Qaida had retreated. Spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said the hunt was like ``searching for fleas on a dog.''
``The search is now on cave to cave to find more and to interrogate more,'' Stufflebeem said at Pentagon press conference.
Only a few hundred of the estimated 1,000 to 2,000 al-Qaida fighters were reported to have been killed or captured, and there was no word on whether the rest had fled or whether initial estimates were wrong.
Prisoners reported seeing Bin Laden himself in the area, as recently as Saturday according to CNN. But information from al-Qaida loyalists was being treated with skepticism.
With the ouster of the Taliban and with fighting tapering off near Afghan cities, hundreds of refugees poured back into their country from Pakistan, which houses an estimated 3 million Afghans. At the Torkham border crossing, families lugged bags of food, clothes and holiday presents through the gate.
Bidi Jan, 68, was returning with two grandsons. She left Kabul two months ago to save them from the bombing, and was returning to find out who remained of their family. Like almost all the women crossing, she wore a light-blue burqa, balancing a heavy bag on her head and carrying a kerosene lamp in one hand.
``Now I'm going back to my family in Kabul, because the situation there is going to be normal,'' she said.
In southern Afghanistan, officials said Taliban leader Mohammed Omar had fled to Baghran, in the foothills of the south-central mountains, with 300 to 400 fighters, but there was no immediate plan to pursue him.
``Every hour, we're getting reports of where he is,'' from contacts in the area, said Haji Gulalai, intelligence chief for the governor of Kandahar, Gul Agha.
``America knows where he is. But we need to be in the same area to help guide any bombing,'' Gulalai told The Associated Press. ``Without our help, America will end up bombing civilian areas. We haven't yet given the green light to the Americans to start bombing.''
Baghran is a gateway to the unguarded northern frontier to Turkmenistan, a notorious smugglers' track toward the breakaway republic of Chechnya, where bin Laden's support remains strong.
Gulalai gave no indication that bin Laden himself was in central Afghanistan, but some experts believe Baghran would be a logical refuge for the prime suspect behind the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
Pakistan says it has arrested 88 al-Qaida members in recent days, and some were believed to have been questioned by U.S. officials.
Three al-Qaida captives were transferred to the warship USS Peleliu, along with an American and an Australian who had fought for the Taliban regime that offered sanctuary to bin Laden's network during its five-year rule of Afghanistan.
``There are still any number of al-Qaida loose in that country,'' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Monday. ``That is why we are there, that is why we are chasing.''
Trying to block another possible escape route, Canadian frigates were patrolling the Arabian Sea. Canadian Sea King helicopters were flying over and inspecting ships and small boats off the coast of Pakistan, said Commodore Drew Robertson, commander of Operation Apollo.
Meanwhile, efforts moved ahead to assemble an international peacekeeping force that will begin taking position in Kabul, the capital, by Saturday when the interim government under Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai is due to assume office.
Britain will lead the security force and contribute up to 1,500 troops, Prime Minister Tony Blair told Parliament, assuming the U.N. Security Council approves the deployment. The European Union was expected to contribute up to 4,000 troops. Blair said Argentina, Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Jordan, Malaysia, New Zealand and Turkey also may contribute troops.
The U.N.-brokered agreement signed by four Afghan factions Dec. 5 established an interim administration to govern for six months and called for a multinational security force in Kabul initially and possibly elsewhere later on.
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Associated Press correspondents Chris Tomlinson and Riaz Khan contributed to this report.