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(11/11/05 5:02am)
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Bombers killed 42 people Thursday at a Baghdad restaurant favored by police and an army recruiting center to the north, while Iraqi troops along the Iranian border found 27 decomposing bodies, unidentified victims of the grisly violence plaguing the country.\nIn the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since Sept. 19, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant about 9:45 a.m., when officers usually stop in for breakfast. Police Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi said 35 officers and civilians died and 25 were wounded.\nAl-Qaida in Iraq claimed in an Internet posting that it staged the attack in retaliation for U.S. and Iraqi operations near the Syrian border. Earlier, it claimed responsibility for Wednesday night's deadly hotel bombings in neighboring Jordan, linking those blasts to the conflict in Iraq.\nSamiya Mohammed, who lives near the restaurant, said she rushed out when she heard the explosion.\n"There was bodies, deadliest civilians, and blood everywhere inside the place. This is a criminal act that only targeted and hurt innocent people having their breakfast," she said.\nThere were no Americans in the area, she said. \n"I do not understand why most of the time it is the Iraqis who are killed," she added.\nThe blast was the most deadly since a car bomb ripped through a market in a poor Shiite Muslim neighborhood on the eastern outskirts of Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and wounding 38 on Sept. 19.\nPolice first reported two bombers struck the restaurant because some witnesses heard two blasts. Later, al-Mohammedawi said the suicide attacker carried a bomb in a satchel and also wore an explosives belt and the two detonated independently.\nThursday's other big attack came in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 80 miles north of the capital, where a car bomb blew up in the middle of a group of men outside an Iraqi army recruiting center. Seven were killed and 13 wounded, police Capt. Hakim al-Azawi said.\nThe men were former officers during Saddam's regime, Azawi said.\nLast week, Iraq's defense minister invited officers of Saddam's army up to the rank of major to enlist in the new Iraqi army. It was an overture to disaffected Sunni Arab ex-soldiers, many of whom joined the insurgency after the Americans abolished the Iraqi armed forces in 2003.\nThe bombings came just before British Foreign Secretary Straw arrived in Baghdad for a meeting with Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to discuss the Dec. 15 parliamentary elections.\n"This is a very exciting time to visit Iraq: Once more, the country's people will have the chance to decide who will govern them, and I am pleased to see that all of the different communities in the country are taking part," Straw said.\nIn another sign of the country's sectarian and criminal violence, Iraqi soldiers found the decomposing bodies of 27 people near Jassan, a town close to the border with Iran, Col. Ali Mahmoud said.\nThey were not immediately identified, but the area is a known dumping ground for such groups of bodies, which turn up with regularity in Iraq. Officials suspect death squads from the Shiite majority, the Sunni minority and criminal gangs are responsible for the killings.\nAt least 653 bodies have been found since Iraq's interim government was formed April 28, according to an Associated Press count.\nThe identities of many are never determined, but at least 116 are known to be Sunni Arabs, 43 Shiites and one Kurd. Some are likely victims of crimes, including kidnappings, which are rampant in some cities and as dangerous to Iraqis as political violence.
(01/10/05 4:39am)
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Sudanese leaders signed a peace deal that, if implemented, will end Africa's longest-running conflict and transform politics in a nation that has spent 40 of the last 50 years at war with itself.\nTurning the incredibly detailed agreement into reality, though, may prove more difficult than the eight years of talks required to draft it.\nVice President Ali Osman Mohammed Taha and John Garang, chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, signed the peace agreement in a lavish ceremony in neighboring Kenya, where talks were based since 1997.\nThe north-south war has pitted Sudan's Islamic government against rebels seeking greater autonomy and a greater share of the country's wealth for the largely animist south. The conflict is blamed for more than 2 million deaths, primarily from war-induced famine and disease.\n"Our people have experienced the bitterness of war ... peace is indeed going to bring our country abundance," Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir said after witnessing the signing. He said the agreement is not only between the rebels and the government but "a new contract for all Sudanese."\nGarang said the deal will transform the nation, guaranteeing equality for all races, ethnic groups and religions for the first time in the country's history.\n"This peace agreement will change the Sudan forever," Garang told a cheering crowd.\nThe deal calls for an autonomous south with its own army, national power and wealth sharing, religious freedom and a new constitution during a six-year interim period. At the end of that period, the 10 southern states will hold a referendum on independence.\nThis deal is similar to one reached to end the north-south civil war that lasted from 1955 to 1972. That agreement was declared void by the northern government in 1983, setting off this war.\n"This agreement came as a result of our struggle," said Abraham Jok, a 29-year-old Sudanese man, who was recruited into the rebel army at the age of 12.\nSpeaker after speaker at the ceremony told the thousands of spectators that the massive problems facing the country -- and the dramatic compromises made by both sides -- will make implementing the agreement extremely difficult. There are dozens of militias in Sudan loosely allied to both the government and rebels who have not signed on to the deal.\nAnd while the north-south conflict may be close to solved, there are major rebel groups in the north, east and western Darfur region that are not part of the peace deal.\n"A peace settlement that does not seriously address the causes of conflict in Darfur and other areas cannot be comprehensive, nor can it be sustained without community involvement," said Cynthia Gaigals, a spokeswoman for six international aid agencies working in Sudan. "The next six months are the most fragile for this fledgling peace deal."\nSecretary of State Colin Powell said the United States will not normalize relations with Sudan until there is peace throughout the country.\nThe deal "will close a dark chapter in the history of Sudan. ... This is a promising day for the people of Sudan, but only if today's promises are kept," Powell said.
(09/23/03 5:46am)
NAIROBI, Kenya -- Poor nations that have suspended patents on AIDS drugs to allow the use of generic equivalents have shown greater success in treating those infected with the disease, a medical aid agency said Monday.\nBut, a report by UNAIDS said most countries are still not meeting their goals in battling the pandemic.\nMedecins Sans Frontieres released a report contracted by the World Health Organization on how the group has used generic drugs to treat AIDS patients in 10 countries.\nThe group, also known as Doctors Without Borders, found that in countries where generic drugs were on the market, competition among pharmaceutical companies drove down prices and made anti-retroviral drugs more widely available.\nThe report was released at the 13th International Conference on AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Infections in Africa, which opened in Nairobi Sunday. The conference is focusing on how to make HIV/AIDS treatments more affordable and widespread on the continent, where more than 30 million people are infected with the virus that causes AIDS.\nUNAIDS, the agency responsible for coordinating global AIDS-fighting efforts, also released a report Monday on the progress countries have made in fighting HIV/AIDS. The authors found most countries will not meet the goal of stopping and reversing the spread of the disease by 2015.\nThe 189 U.N. member states set that goal at the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS in June 2001. Governments were asked to provide status reports in 2003, and UNAIDS found many nations are not keeping pace to meet the goal.\nWhile most nations have increased spending to fight HIV/AIDS, "only a fraction of people have access to basic prevention services," the report said. Discrimination against people infected with HIV remains a major problem, and the number of children orphaned by AIDS continues to grow, the authors said.\nThe UNAIDS study also found the number of people in poor countries who have access to anti-retroviral drugs remains extremely low, with only 30,000 people receiving medication in 2002, out of an estimated five million people in need.\nMedecins Sans Frontieres has established anti-retroviral drug programs in 10 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central America to study the best, and most affordable, way to provide treatment for people carrying HIV.\n"A lot of things have improved," said Sophie-Marie Scouflaire, the lead author of the report. She said the most significant factor in lowering prices was the introduction of generic sources in a country by suspending patents, a procedure allowed under international trade rules.\nThe nonprofit group said the biggest factor in obtaining and distributing the drugs was a clear commitment by governments to formally suspend patent rights that would otherwise keep generic equivalents from being sold.\nSince even the cheapest drugs are still too expensive for people in the poorest countries, governments also need to buy the drugs so they can be distributed at a reduced cost, the authors said.\n"We know that it is the emerging government program that will ultimately reach large numbers of people with AIDS, and we are now helping by creating a simplified, decentralized model of treatment at the primary care level," said Didakus Odhiambo, a co-author of the report.
(06/16/03 1:18am)
FALLUJAH, Iraq -- With a deadline passed for Iraqis to hand in heavy weapons, U.S. forces fanned out across Iraq Sunday to seize arms and put down potential foes -- and tried to soothe the sting with deliveries of food, fuel, medical supplies and even teddy bears.\nHundreds of troops supported by helicopters and tanks swooped on Fallujah and several other Iraqi towns in the dead of night. They handcuffed and forced men to lie face down on floors and rousted women from their beds while searching for illegal arms in a swift and coordinated action that residents of the raided homes complained was heavy handed.\nAfter a three-hour operation in Fallujah, eight suspected leaders of the anti-American resistance were taken into custody.\nThe nationwide campaign, dubbed Operation Desert Scorpion, "is a combat operation to defeat the remaining pockets of resistance," said Capt. John Morgan, a spokesman for the Army's V Corps.\nBy the midnight Saturday close of a two-week nationwide amnesty for surrendering banned arms, only a fraction of the thousands of heavy weapons, anti-tank rockets and anti-aircraft missiles had been turned in to U.S. troops.\nThree hours after the deadline, 1,300 troops of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade conducted the first raids, cordoning off Fallujah, a town of 200,000 about 35 miles west of Baghdad.\nActing on intelligence tips, they swept through 16 buildings at four locations, said Col. David Perkins, the brigade commanding officer. Troops found bombs, bomb-making materials and illegal communications equipment.\nNo American or Iraqi casualties were reported.\nPerkins said the operation was designed to limit inconvenience to residents. After daybreak, convoys of trucks bearing food, medicine, school supplies and toys, items requested by local leaders in meetings with brigade commanders, rolled into town\nNevertheless, Iraqis complained of insensitive behavior by U.S. troops during the raids, asserting that some arrested people had no involvement in attacks on American troops.\n"We got rid of one problem and now we have a bigger one," said Jassim Mohammed, turning his face away to wipe away tears. U.S. troops raiding his home arrested two of his sons, Salah, 25, and Mohammed, 26. "Even Saddam never did this to us."\nInsurgents have fired on U.S. soldiers in the Fallujah area almost daily since they entered Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland April 24. U.S. troops there have killed at least 24 Iraqis and wounded 78, while the insurgents have killed four U.S. soldiers and wounded 21.\nResidents and local leaders claim the attackers are troublemakers who don't come from the area. Pentagon officials have said foreign volunteers also are still active in Iraq, including Syrians, Saudis and Yemenis.\nLast week, a coordinated air and ground strike killed about 70 insurgents, most of them foreigners, at a tent camp near the Syrian border. Thursday, 74 suspected al Qaeda sympathizers were arrested near the northern city of Kirkuk, the military said. Morgan, the V Corps spokesman, said the men were "being detained and questioned" but would not give further details.\nThe raids Sunday morning had been widely anticipated. Saturday, warnings of the impending attack were broadcast from Fallujah's mosques. When the raids began, some residents flashed porch lights or sounded sirens to warn that U.S. troops were approaching.\nStaging small, random attacks and provoking a brutal response by the authorities has been a typical way of starting an insurgency. U.S. commanders have struggled to develop a strategy that allows them to deal with anti-American forces while building goodwill with civilians at the same time.\nThe mood was festive at one clinic, as pharmacists stocked shelves and doctors distributed free medications. "We are all very happy about the delivery, it will help us a great deal," Dr. Jassim Ibrahim Naja said.\nOther residents had a lukewarm response.\n"No one asked them for food," said Mohammed Mattar Saleh, a teacher and father of 10 who said he hasn't been paid his salary in months. "What we need is our back pay."
(01/24/03 5:02am)
KUWAIT CITY -- A Kuwaiti civil servant confessed to opening fire on two Americans in Kuwait, killing one and wounding the other, and authorities have found the weapon he used, the Interior Ministry said Thursday.\nA Kuwaiti security officer said the suspect, Sami al-Mutairi, 25, was not working alone. And the Interior Ministry, in its statement, said he acknowledged following the ideals of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network.\nAl-Mutairi was arrested at the border with Saudi Arabia as he tried to flee and was extradited to Kuwait, the ministry said. His weapon and some ammunition was found at his workplace, according to the statement. It did not say where he worked.\nThe ministry statement said al-Mutairi became a suspect "in the first hours after the crime was committed."\nThe security officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said al-Mutairi was arrested by Saudi border guards Wednesday. The official said he was a Kuwaiti civil servant and the prime suspect, but that he "had partners, maybe two."\nThe official Saudi Press Agency had said border guards arrested the suspect early Wednesday and "the initial investigation revealed that he was the assailant who fired on the American citizens."\nEarlier Thursday, United States Embassy spokesman John Moran said the U.S. hoped investigators would quickly determine whether the assailants "have ties to any larger organization. We call on the government to do everything in its power to protect our citizens from terrorist attack and to prevent any further tragedies."\nThe shooting was the first assault on U.S. civilians in Kuwait and the third on Americans since October in the oil-rich emirate, where pro-American sentiment is usually strong and where thousands of U.S. troops are assembling ahead of a possible war on Iraq.\nIn Tuesday's attack, a gunman hiding behind a hedge ambushed the sport utility vehicle carrying two civilian contractors working for the U.S. military. The attack took place at a stoplight about 3 miles from the U.S. military's Camp Doha, which is 10 miles west of Kuwait City.\nThe survivor, David Caraway, was in stable condition Thursday at al-Razi Hospital in Kuwait City. His co-worker Michael Rene Pouliot, 46, was killed.\nCaraway, interviewed from his hospital bed Thursday on the ABC television show "Good Morning America," extended condolences to Pouliot's family. He said he remembered little beyond a barrage of machine-gun fire coming from behind bushes along the road.\n"Couldn't see anything, anyone. They hit us with the first volley," he said.\nCaraway said the road was not one he and Pouliot usually used.\n"These are the risks, you know, you take when you come over here," he said. "The war on terrorism just got a little personal today, that's all."\nNobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.\nThe U.S. Embassy said it was urging Americans to be alert to their surroundings. About 8,000 American civilians live in Kuwait, in addition to 17,000 personnel stationed at the main U.S. military base there and thousands of other troops who come for regular exercises.\n"We're always told to watch what you're doing, change routes often, be vigilant," said Shirley Gustas, an American living in Kuwait who attended a wreath laying Thursday at the shooting site. "But this was on their way to work. What are you supposed to do?"\nMembers of an organization representing the families of Kuwaitis killed during the Iraqi invasion in 1990 left a wreath at the spot where the Americans were shot.\n"We didn't expect this to happen, this is not an act of the Kuwaiti people," said Sharouk Qabazadre, whose father was killed by Iraqi troops. She said the majority of Kuwaitis support and are thankful to the United States for defending Kuwait against Iraq.\nThe government erected a billboard Thursday at a major Kuwait City intersection that read: "Much Obliged to America and Our Allies: God Bless You All."\nA second memorial service held on Camp Doha for base workers was closed to the public. The base is on a heightened state of alert and U.S. troops are only allowed off-base for critical business, a U.S. official said.
(01/22/03 4:43am)
KUWAIT CITY -- A gunman opened fire on an SUV carrying two American civilians near a U.S. military camp Tuesday, killing one and wounding the other in what the U.S. Embassy called a terrorist attack.\nThe men, contractors working for the U.S. military, were the first civilians to come under fire in recent attacks on Americans in Kuwait.\nTheir four-wheel drive Toyota was ambushed and riddled with bullets at a stoplight near Camp Doha, a military installation serving as a base for 17,000 troops in this oil-rich Gulf nation, where 8,000 American civilians also live.\nKuwait, critical to any U.S. war against neighboring Iraq, generally welcomes Americans out of lingering gratitude for the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraqi invaders in the 1991 Gulf War. The pro-American sentiment here is not universal, though, and other attacks in recent months killed one U.S. soldier and wounded three.\nThe U.S. Embassy identified the man killed as Michael Rene Pouliot, 46, of San Diego. Pouliot was an employee of the San Diego-based software development company Tapestry Solutions, which specializes in military modeling and simulation training tools.\nThe wounded man's identity was being withheld until his relatives are notified.\nIn Washington, the White House said U.S. authorities were working with Kuwaiti investigators to determine who carried out the attack.\n"The president's heart goes out to the families affected by this attack," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "It's a reminder of the dangers and risks servicemen and women face every day in service to our country."\nNo group claimed responsibility for the attack, which U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said they believed was carried out by a single gunman firing a Kalashnikov assault rifle from behind roadside bushes. The attacker then fled. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cautioned that an investigation had not yet determined the full circumstances.\n"We condemn this terrorist incident, which has tragically cost the life of an innocent American citizen," U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait Richard Jones said in a statement.\nA Kuwaiti security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed with the U.S. assessment of the shooting as a terrorist act.\nThe wounded man was in stable condition after surgery at Kuwait City's Al-Razi hospital, a hospital official said on condition of anonymity. Doctors including a heart surgeon removed bullets from the man's body -- two from his chest. The man also had fractures in his right arm and thigh.\nA U.S. Embassy official said the embassy was reviewing its security in Kuwait with the State Department and would share its recommendations with the American community. "We're urging Americans to be alert to their surroundings and to continually assess their security," he said on condition of anonymity.\nKuwait's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, sent a condolence message to Secretary of State Colin Powell.\nHe expressed "sincere regret" and Kuwait's "strong condemnation of such criminal acts that target the historic relations and strong ties between the two friendly nations," the official Kuwait News Agency reported.\nThe attack took place Tuesday morning at a stoplight at the intersection of Highway 85 and Abu Dhabi Road north of Kuwait City, along the edge of a built-up neighborhood with a McDonald's and other businesses. The road leads to Camp Doha, about three miles away, and is lined with trees and bushes with open desert behind.\nThe area was cordoned off with yellow crime tape, and the bullet-riddled SUV was loaded onto a flat bed truck and taken away.\nKuwaiti and U.S. military police and black-clad Interior Ministry investigators wearing rubber gloves were at the scene. The pavement was littered with broken glass.\nThe pro-American attitude among many Kuwaitis is unusual now in the Muslim world, where anti-U.S. sentiment and opposition to war in Iraq run high. Still, attacks on Americans here have increased recently, targeting U.S. troops,\nAlthough Tuesday's attack was the first on civilians, the men worked for the military, and in one previous attack, soldiers had been driving a civilian vehicle.\nA U.S. Marine was killed and a second was wounded Oct. 8 when two Kuwaiti Muslim extremists opened fire on a group of Marines taking a break from training. The attackers, one of whom had pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, were killed by other Marines. On Nov. 21, a Kuwaiti policeman shot and seriously injured two U.S. soldiers after stopping their car on a highway.\nKuwaiti Parliament Speaker Jassem al-Kharafi told reporters that Tuesday's shooting was "an act of an individual that doesn't represent the opinion of the Kuwaiti people."\nHe added: "There have been similar incidents in the past and there might be more in the future by saboteurs, intruders and ignorant people." Al-Kharafi said such shootings could take place anywhere and "we are not a country of angels."\nKuwait is the only country in the Gulf where large numbers of American ground troops are assembling and engaged in training for desert warfare.\nTens of thousands more U.S. and British troops are expected in Kuwait in the run-up to a possible war against Iraq -- which President Bush says will be necessary unless Saddam rids his country of all weapons of mass destruction.\nThe United States announced Monday that it is sending a specially tailored force of about 37,000 soldiers, spearheaded by the Texas-based 4th Infantry Division -- the largest ground force identified so far among the nearly 100,000 U.S. troops included in deployment.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Four international journalists were missing and feared dead Monday after gunmen ambushed a convoy of reporters in a narrow mountain pass on the road to the capital, Kabul.\nThe six gunmen stopped the cars and led the journalists away, then opened fire, witnesses said.\nThose missing included a television cameraman and a photographer working for the Reuters news agency; a journalist with the Spanish daily El Mundo; and a journalist with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera.\nItalian Foreign Minister Renato Ruggiero said in Brussels, Belgium, that based on reports from the scene it appeared the four journalists were killed. Four bodies near the road were believed to be the journalists, he said.\nCorriere della Sera's top editor, Ferruccio De Bortoli, said "we're still hanging onto the last hope, even though with the passing of the hours, it becomes ever more feeble." A Reuters spokesman said the journalists were "missing and feared dead."\nAccording to their employers, the missing journalists were: Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan photographer, both of Reuters; Maria Grazia Cutuli of Corriere della Sera; and Julio Fuentes of El Mundo.\nThe four were among more than a dozen international journalists traveling in a convoy of around eight cars from the eastern city of Jalalabad to the capital, Kabul. Because the road was very dusty, the cars spread out and often lost sight of each other.\nThe province recently came under the control of anti-Taliban forces. But some Taliban stragglers and Arab fighters loyal to terror suspect Osama bin Laden are still believed to be in the area, and there had been earlier reports of armed robberies on the road.\nNear the town of Serobi, 35 miles east of Kabul, six gunmen on the roadside waved the first three cars in the convoy to stop. One car sped ahead, while two stopped, said Ashiquallah, the driver of the car carrying the Reuters reporters. He uses only one name.\nHe said the gunmen, wearing long robes, beards and turbans, warned them not to go any farther because there was fighting ahead with the Taliban. At that moment, a bus from Kabul came by and said the road was safe. The cars' drivers thought the gunmen were thieves and tried to speed away, but the gunmen stopped them.\nThe gunmen then ordered all the journalists out of the cars and tried to force them to climb the mountain. When they refused, the gunmen beat them and threw stones at them, said Ashiquallah.\n"They said, 'What, you think the Taliban are finished? We are still in power and we will have our revenge,"' Ashiquallah said.\nThe gunmen then shot the Italian woman and one of the men, prompting the drivers to flee, he said. The Afghan translator, a man named Homuin, was left behind with the journalists.\nThe cars sped back toward Jalalabad and to warn the rest of the convoy. Other journalists saw the cars turn, and decided to turn around also. Ashiquallah's account was corroborated by another translator and driver who escaped in the other car.\nHaji Sher Shah, an anti-Taliban commander in Jalalabad, said he spoke to residents and travelers on the road who reported seeing four bodies at the location of the attack.\n"They were on the road, one woman and three men," Shah said, quoting witnesses. He said villagers reported numerous other attacks involving gunfire on vehicles on the same road during the day.\nShershah took his men to within 10 miles of the ambush site. He decided against trying to go farther because night had fallen, the attack took place outside his district, and he feared an ambush on the narrow road, which has a river to the north and a steep mountain to the south.\nShah said the attackers were bandits, not Taliban or his own fighters. A French journalist was robbed in the area the day before, and hours after Monday's assault on the journalists, an Afghan car arrived in Jalalabad with two bullet holes after being attacked.\nJust moments before the attack, an Associated Press correspondent coming from Kabul passed the spot and saw six gunmen in dark robes and turbans leaning against a destroyed house with assault rifles. One of the men shouted at the Afghan driver, "Why did you shave your beard? Stop, come here!"\nBut the driver did not stop and the men did not threaten the correspondent. Minutes later the car carrying the missing journalists passed the Associated Press car, heading in the opposite direction.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- Anti-Taliban troops hunting for Osama bin Laden said they clashed Tuesday with al Qaeda fighters near their mountain hide-outs in Afghanistan. Elsewhere, Taliban forces pushed tribal fighters back from the airport near the former ruling militia's last bastion, Kandahar. \nIn Germany, Afghan factions negotiating a post-Taliban government agreed to form a 29-member council to run the country and set to work on the difficult task of determining who will hold the major posts. \nHundreds of anti-Taliban fighters piled into trucks and set off Tuesday for the White Mountains south of Jalalabad, where local officials believe bin Laden and hundreds of his al Qaida fighters are hiding. Provincial security chief Hazrat Ali said he was assembling a force of about 3,000 fighters to join the hunt for bin Laden. \n"This fight has just begun," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, said in Washington. \nAli said a patrol of about a dozen men clashed briefly with a group of al Qaida fighters, who abandoned a tank and scurried off to higher ground. There were no casualties. \nMohammed Zaman, defense chief here in Nangarhar province, estimates up to 1,200 al-Qaida fighters are hiding in the White Mountains of eastern Afghanistan, which include the Tora Bora cave complex. \nAli said days of intensive bombing have driven al-Qaida fighters from the main Tora Bora complex and into the higher mountains, where they have split up into groups with as few as 10 men. \nZaman claimed an airstrike late Monday killed bin Laden's finance chief, known variously as Ali Mahmoud or Sheik Saiid, and injured bin Laden's chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri. U.S. officials were skeptical of the claim. \nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would not discuss whether American ground troops were actively involved in the hunt for al-Qaida in the Jalalabad area. But he said the Americans "have been actively encouraging Afghan elements to seek out" al Qaida leaders. \nGen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. forces in the Afghan conflict, has confirmed that the search for bin Laden, sought in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, has focused on the mountains south of Jalalabad and around the Taliban's southern base at Kandahar. \nMarine reconnaissance units out of a U.S. base outside Kandahar have begun probing deep in the desert, moving in off-road vehicles and Humvees. \nCapt. David Romley, a spokesman for the Marines' Task Force 58 at the base, did not specify the teams' mission, saying only that they were "looking for threats. ... Any threat is going to be a target." \nThe more than 1,000 Marines at the base, set up at an airfield just over a week ago, have not gotten involved in fighting as anti-Taliban tribesman advance from three directions on Kandahar, the last city under Taliban control. \nA coalition official, speaking in Pakistan on condition of anonymity, said the Marines were "obviously not a big enough force to take Kandahar," but would join efforts to prevent Taliban escaping. \nThe Taliban have vowed to defend the city, where their movement was organized nearly a decade ago. \nTribesmen loyal to former Kandahar governor Gul Agha fought their way onto the airport compound a few miles south of the city Tuesday but were pushed back two miles by about 500 al Qaida fighters, according to Abdul Jabbar, a tribal spokesman in Pakistan. \nJabbar said U.S. special forces were calling in airstrikes in support of Agha's fighters. The Taliban admitted the U.S. bombing was taking its toll. \nIf not for the airstrikes, "people like Gul Agha wouldn't be a problem for us," said Mullah Qasim, a Taliban commander south of Kandahar. "We could push him back not in days, but hours." \nAnother tribal force under Hamid Karzai, the leading candidate to head Afghanistan's interim government, is pushing toward Kandahar from the north and met its first resistance Tuesday, according to a senior U.S. official. \nThe official, speaking in Pakistan on condition of anonymity, said Karzai's men battled Taliban defenders at a bridge 10 miles north of Kandahar. It was unclear if the Taliban were still holding the bridge. \nIn other developments: \n• The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said some 200,000 people have fled Afghanistan since the airstrikes began on Oct. 7. Ruud Lubbers said he had feared much worse and credited specifically targeted bombing. \n• At a women's summit in Belgium, leaders from Afghanistan and around the world pledged to cooperate to make sure women have a say in any new Afghan administration. \n• In Koenigswinter, Germany, outside Bonn, four Afghan factions presented U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi with a list of 150 candidates for 29 ministerial posts in a new interim authority. A consensus on the Cabinet could trigger a speedy transfer of power in Kabul, with Dec. 22 envisioned as a target date, and secure billions in promised aid.
(12/10/01 5:49am)
TORA BORA, Afghanistan -- American bombers pounded the hills and caves of Tora Bora on Sunday, trying to soften al-Qaida defenses for a ground assault by Afghan tribesmen. Pakistani forces moved to seal off escape routes on their side of the border. \nIn the south, rival tribal leaders worked out differences over the administration of Kandahar, the Taliban's former stronghold, with the former governor returning to his old office. The agreement reduces fears of factional fighting now that the Taliban are gone. \nThe bombing around this village beneath the spectacular, snow-covered White Mountains in eastern Afghanistan is aimed at rooting out Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida fighters believed holed up around cave hide-outs near the Pakistan border. \nA commander of the anti-Taliban forces in Tora Bora said he was certain bin Laden himself was among them, and Vice President Cheney said Sunday that intelligence reports indicate bin Laden is in the area. Others speculate the elusive terror suspect might be hiding north of Kandahar. \n"They were eager to send young men on suicide missions, but they appear to be holding up in caves,'' Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press.'' \nB-52 bombers made repeated passes over the Tora Bora area throughout the day, and huge plumes of smoke rose from the barren hills and ridges. Hundreds of anti-Taliban fighters watched from several miles away as dust filled mountain valleys. \nTheir commander, Mohammed Zaman, said bombs alone will not dislodge the al-Qaida fighters. He said the ground assault will be difficult, as the Arabs have had years to build up their defenses and restock their caves with weapons and food. He said bin Laden "has not escaped, and we will do everything possible to make sure he doesn't.'' \nFrom the other side of the front line, a 27-year-old Tunisian, Abu Abdullah, claimed weeks of U.S. bombing have had little effect, killing only two people and slightly injuring eight. \nContacted by radio from Pakistan, Abdullah said 84 Arab fighters -- mostly from Iraq, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt -- were hiding in the mountains. A few had wives and children there, he said. He claimed the fighters had no links to bin Laden and scoffed at the idea that the world's most wanted man was among them. \n"I swear by Allah that Osama is not present here,'' he told The Associated Press. "But now we have no alternative except to embrace death instead of dishonor.'' \nJust across the border, the Pakistani army won permission from tribal elders -- for the first time ever -- to move several thousand troops to the semi-autonomous border region to cut off possible escape routes, said Malik Inyat Khan, chief of the Kuki Khel tribe. He said they planned to take their positions on Monday. \nCheney said a videotape of bin Laden obtained by U.S. officials in Afghanistan makes clear the al-Qaeda leader was behind the terrorist attacks. The Washington Post, quoting unidentified senior government officials, said the tape shows bin Laden praising Allah for the attacks, which he said were more successful than anticipated. \n"He does in fact display significant knowledge of what happened and there's no doubt about his responsibility for the attack on Sept. 11,'' Cheney said. \nThe Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press also reported strong U.S. air attacks Saturday and Sunday against convoys in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province, killing 24 people. The report could not be independently verified. The area includes al-Qaeda hide-outs and could be among the destinations of Taliban leaders fleeing Kandahar. \nU.S Marines set up roadblocks around Kandahar, searching for wanted leaders, but U.S. officials reported no encounters with hostile groups. \nHamid Karzai, who takes power as Afghanistan's interim leader on Dec. 22, told Fox News on Sunday that he had "no idea'' where bin Laden was located but said his men were searching. \n"He is a criminal,'' Karzai said of bin Laden. "He has killed thousands of our people. He has ruined our lives. He has done horrible things. If we catch him he will be given to international justice.'' \nThe whereabouts of the Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, are also unknown since the Taliban abandoned Kandahar on Friday. \nThe Taliban on Sunday lost the last province of Afghanistan where they held control, when two Taliban officials handed over Zabul province, neighboring Kandahar, to tribal leaders, the Afghan Islamic Press reported. \nKarzai -- whose interim government is to replace Taliban rule throughout the country -- entered Kandahar and met with the feuding factions at the bombed-out former residence of Mullah Omar to work out a power-sharing deal. \nFormer Kandahar governor Gul Agha, who felt shut out of the Taliban surrender deal, said he would return to the post he held until the Taliban kicked him out in 1994. A Karzai-appointed leader, Mullah Naqibullah, would be his assistant, he said. A Karzai spokesman confirmed the agreement. \nWith the situation resolved in Kandahar, Karzai planned to go to Kabul, the Afghan capital, a spokesman said. \nMeanwhile, Afghanistan's former king hopes to return to his homeland from his exile in Italy on March 21, his grandson said Sunday. The former monarch, Mohammad Zaher Shah, 87, is to play the symbolic role of convening a traditional grand council of Afghan tribes six months from now. That council will set up a two-year transitional government and draw up a constitution. Zaher Shah has lived in Italy since his 1973 ousting. \nIn other developments: \n--John Walker, an American who fought with the Taliban, was recovering from dehydration and a gunshot wound in the leg at a Marine base in southern Afghanistan but is in good condition, officials said. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Walker has been providing useful information and no final decision has been made on what to do with him. \n-- At least seven fighters were killed in Lashkargah, west of Kandahar, where two tribes fought for control after the Taliban's flight, the Afghan Islamic Press reported. Its report could not be independently verified. \n--A U.N. official said the world body was sending experts to Afghanistan to help the new interim administration set up a government, write a constitution and prepare for elections. \nIn the northern province of Takhar, a northern alliance helicopter crashed, killing all 18 people aboard, including two ethnic Pashtun commanders, AIP reported. There was no word on the cause of the crash. \nElsewhere, a train loaded with 1,000 tons of grain and flour crossed the "Friendship Bridge,'' the only road connecting Uzbekistan with Afghanistan, after workers reopened the span. \nThe reopening of the bridge was expected to speed aid to Afghan refugees battling cold, hunger and disease.