Afghanistan's new government ordered armed men off the streets and soldiers back to barracks yesterday in the battered capital, Kabul, while US special forces roamed the provinces in pursuit of the world's two most wanted men.
Confusion hovered over the fate of three ministers from the vanquished Taliban militia -- possibly rich sources of clues to the whereabouts of their leaders -- who were reported to have surrendered and then allowed to go free, but under surveillance.
More al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners filled US detention camps in Afghanistan while US jets prowled the skies to bomb possible hideouts of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden -- the Saudi-born militant accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks on the US.
The six-month interim government had ordered all armed men except police and official security personnel to leave Kabul and return to their military bases, Interior Minister Yunis Qanuni said.
The government appointed at a UN-backed meeting in Bonn last month began on Tuesday to enforce a plan to disarm a city awash with firearms after 23 years of war, Qanuni said.
"The government has decided yesterday to implement the security agreement as it was agreed in Bonn," he said. "All people armed with weapons or ammunition are not allowed to walk in the streets.
"We have ordered all the armed people except security people and the police to leave the city and go to their old bases. If they are from Panjsher, they should go back to Panjsher," he said, referring to the heartland of the Northern Alliance that defeated the Taliban after blistering US air attacks.
Qanuni said Northern Alliance military commanders should vacate any civilian housing they had seized in Kabul, unless the owners were not around to occupy them.
Heavily armed US special forces were conducting ground searches for Mullah Omar and bin Laden. In the eastern Khost area they found a group of 14 fighters belonging to bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, the Pentagon's top military officer said.
They took two into custody and seized computers, cell phones and other intelligence material.
The other members of the group, captured close to the extensive Zhawar Kili caves, were in Afghan custody. The Zhawar Kili camp, a training ground for the al-Qaeda network, has been the target of intensive bombing in the last few days.
However, US officials may not be happy with plans to grant amnesty to Taliban members who surrender and who could provide vital intelligence -- such as the three Taliban ministers whose fate was shrouded in confusion.
A spokesman for the Kandahar governor said on Tuesday the former ministers of defense, justice and mines and industry had surrendered to authorities there and had then been released. But they would not be able to move freely "for their own security."
The former ministers, according to the spokesman Khalid Pashtoon, were Mullah Obaidullah (defense), Mullah Saadudin (mines) and Mullah Nooruddin Turabi (justice).
Only the one-eyed Mullah Omar would not be eligible for an amnesty, said Pashtoon.
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