Fri, Dec 21, 2001 page1

• Detective work replaces US airstrikes

  AFGHANISTAN US agents started trying to find out what information is hidden inside the heads of captured al-Qaeda fighters but there's still no sign of militant Osama bin Laden

  • REUTERS
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  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.
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