US agents quizzed captured Islamic fighters yesterday for leads in the massive manhunt for Osama bin Laden, as detective work replaced air strikes and ground assaults in the war in Afghanistan.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said neighboring Pakistan had captured hundreds of fleeing non-Afghan al-Qaeda members -- some of whom staged a bloody attempt to escape on Wednesday -- who also may hold leads to bin Laden's cold trail.
Britain, meanwhile, told the UN it would lead a multinational force that would start deploying in time for tomorrow's installation of an interim Afghan government.
Rumsfeld said the intensity of fighting in al-Qaeda's final Afghan stronghold of Tora Bora had eased but it was too soon to declare that bin Laden fighters had been routed in the country.
"They're running and they're hiding and they're having difficultly communicating with each other, but a large number of them seem to behave in a fanatical way, and I suspect that we'll hear more of them," Rumsfeld told a briefing. "Clearly, we will be deeply involved in interrogation and intelligence gathering, because it should be a treasure trove."
Afghanistan's new designated leader Hamid Karzai returned to the capital Kabul, after talks in Rome with ex-King Zahir Shah, regarded by Afghans as a symbol of unity, though the 87-year-old former monarch is unlikely ever to rule again.
Casting a shadow over the new government's rebuilding task is Saudi-born bin Laden, accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,300 people in the US.
"He's either dead in some tunnel or he's alive ... It does not matter. We'll find him one day and we'll know what's happened," Rumsfeld said.
Pakistani officials said 15 people were killed when some members of a group of 156 captured al-Qaeda fighters being transported by bus near the Afghan frontier on Wednesday seized the weapons of their Pakistani guards and opened fire.
Pakistani troops fanned out across rugged mountains tomorrow in a huge manhunt, trying to recapture about 20 of the fighters still on the run, a local official said.
Eight al-Qaeda Arabs and six Pakistani soldiers and paramilitaries, including a bus driver, were killed in the clash as the prisoners were being transported from a detention center in Parachinar to a jail in nearby Kohat.
The Arabs, many of them Yemenis, had fled a blistering US aerial bombardment of the Tora Bora mountains where bin Laden had been believed to be hiding in caves and tunnels.
At a newly built detention center at the airport in southern Kandahar, former powerbase of the Taliban, eight FBI agents began interrogating 15 Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said they may have information that could help capture bin Laden or divulge plans for further al-Qaeda attacks on the US.
The prisoners, four of them injured, arrived at Kandahar International Airport late on Tuesday, and were being held under heavy guard in a compound with space for 120 prisoners and surrounded by adobe walls and rolls of barbed wire.
The detainees were flown on a C-130 transport plane from a prison near Mazar-i-Sharif, in northern Afghanistan.
US helicopters and war jets flew over deserts and mountains along the inhospitable and rugged border with Pakistan to prevent the escape of al-Qaeda fighters, a Pakistani official said.
Pakistani troops, some on horseback and others dropped onto hilltops by helicopter, have boosted border patrols to capture the fleeing fighters and prevent bin Laden from sneaking in.
In Yemen, troops led by the son of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, were deployed in the search for Muslim militants linked to bin Laden. "This is a hot pursuit that will continue until the terrorist elements are arrested," one official said.
Helicopter gunships backed by tanks stormed a hide-out used by bin Laden's supporters on Tuesday, in the first military operation of its kind in Yemen since the Sept. 11 attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and badly damaged the Pentagon.
At the UN, key Security Council members completed a resolution that would authorize a British-led multinational force. A vote could be scheduled as early as Thursday.
New Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim said troops would number around 1,000 with other personnel providing logistical support. His spokesman said the force and logistics team would total 3,000, with the first contingent arriving on Friday,
The UN resolution gives the troops a six-month mandate, subject to renewal. Britain expects up to 200 marines to be in place by Saturday when the new Afghan government takes office. France and Italy want to send troops soon after.
AIR DEFENSE: The Norwegian missile system has proved highly effective in Ukraine in its war against Russia, and the US has recommended it for Taiwan, an expert said The Norwegian Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) Taiwan ordered from the US would be installed in strategically important positions in Taipei and New Taipei City to guard the region, the Ministry of National Defense said in statement yesterday. The air defense system would be deployed in Taipei’s Songshan District (松山) and New Taipei City’s Tamsui District (淡水), the ministry said, adding that the systems could be delivered as soon as the end of this year. The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency has previously said that three NASAMS would be sold to Taiwan. The weapons are part of the 17th US arms sale to
INSURRECTION: The NSB said it found evidence the CCP was seeking snipers in Taiwan to target members of the military and foreign organizations in the event of an invasion The number of Chinese spies prosecuted in Taiwan has grown threefold over a four-year period, the National Security Bureau (NSB) said in a report released yesterday. In 2021 and 2022, 16 and 10 spies were prosecuted respectively, but that number grew to 64 last year, it said, adding that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was working with gangs in Taiwan to develop a network of armed spies. Spies in Taiwan have on behalf of the CCP used a variety of channels and methods to infiltrate all sectors of the country, and recruited Taiwanese to cooperate in developing organizations and obtaining sensitive information
BREAKTHROUGH: The US is making chips on par in yield and quality with Taiwan, despite people saying that it could not happen, the official said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has begun producing advanced 4-nanometer (nm) chips for US customers in Arizona, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said, a milestone in the semiconductor efforts of the administration of US President Joe Biden. In November last year, the commerce department finalized a US$6.6 billion grant to TSMC’s US unit for semiconductor production in Phoenix, Arizona. “For the first time ever in our country’s history, we are making leading edge 4-nanometer chips on American soil, American workers — on par in yield and quality with Taiwan,” Raimondo said, adding that production had begun in recent
Seven hundred and sixty-four foreigners were arrested last year for acting as money mules for criminals, with many entering Taiwan on a tourist visa for all-expenses-paid trips, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said on Saturday. Although from Jan. 1 to Dec. 26 last year, 26,478 people were arrested for working as money mules, the bureau said it was particularly concerned about those entering the country as tourists or migrant workers who help criminals and scammers pick up or transfer illegally obtained money. In a report, officials divided the money mules into two groups, the first of which are foreigners, mainly from Malaysia
RSS