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(07/31/06 3:36am)
QANA, Lebanon -- Israeli missiles hit several buildings in a southern Lebanon village as people slept Sunday, killing at least 56, most of them children, in the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting.\nIsraeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed "great sorrow" for the airstrikes but blamed Hezbollah guerrillas for using the area to launch rockets at Israel, and said he would not halt the army's operation.\nThe Lebanese Red Cross said the airstrike in Qana, in which at least 34 children were killed, pushed the overall Lebanese death toll to more than 500. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice postponed a visit to Lebanon in a setback for diplomatic efforts to end hostilities. She was to return to the U.S. Monday morning, abruptly breaking off her diplomatic mission in the Mideast.\nBefore the airstrike, Olmert told Rice he needed 10-14 days to finish the offensive in Lebanon, according to a senior Israeli government official. The two said they would meet again Sunday evening.\n"We will not stop this battle, despite the difficult incidents this morning," Olmert said during Israel's weekly Cabinet meeting, according to a participant in the meeting. "We will continue the activity and if necessary it will be broadened without hesitation."\nU.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called an emergency Security Council meeting Sunday at the request of Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora.\nThe council was expected to discuss a French-sponsored draft resolution spelling out a series of steps meant to resolve the crisis, including an immediate halt to fighting.\nRice said she had called Saniora to postpone her visit to Lebanon; angry Lebanese officials said it was their government that called off the meeting.\nIsrael said it targeted Qana because it was a base for hundreds of rockets launched at Israelis, including 40 that injured five Israelis on Sunday. Israel said it had warned civilians several days before to leave the village.\n"One must understand the Hezbollah is using their own civilian population as human shields," said Israeli Foreign Ministry official Gideon Meir. "The Israeli defense forces dropped leaflets and warned the civilian population to leave the place because the Hezbollah turned it into a war zone."\nRescuers aided by villagers dug through the rubble by hand. At least 20 bodies wrapped in white sheets were taken away, including 10 children. A row of houses lay in ruins, and an old woman was carried away on a plastic chair.\nVillagers said many of the dead were from four families who had taken refuge on the ground floor of a three-story building, believing they would be safe from bombings.\n"We want this to stop!" shouted Mohammed Ismail, a middle-aged man pulling away at the rubble in search for bodies, his brown pants covered in dust. "May God have mercy on the children. They came here to escape the fighting."\n"They are hitting children to bring the fighters to their knees," he said.\nRice said she was "deeply saddened by the terrible loss of innocent life" in Israel's attack. But she did not call for an immediate cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militias.\n"We all recognize this kind of warfare is extremely difficult," Rice said, noting it comes in areas where civilians live. "It unfortunately has awful consequences sometimes."\n"We want a cease-fire as soon as possible," she added.\nThe United States and Israel are pressing for a settlement that addresses enduring issues between Lebanon and Israel and disables Hezbollah -- not the quick truce favored by most world leaders.\nSaniora said Lebanon would be open only to an immediate cease-fire.\n"There is no place at this sad moment for any discussions other than an immediate and unconditional cease-fire as well as international investigation of the Israeli massacres in Lebanon now," he told reporters Sunday.\nMore than 5,000 people protested in central Beirut, denouncing Israel and the U.S., some chanting, "Destroy Tel Aviv, destroy Tel Aviv."
(09/03/03 4:41am)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The Taliban are no longer on the run and have teamed up with al Qaeda once again, according to officials and former Taliban who say the religious militia has reorganized and strengthened since their defeat at the hands of the U.S.-led coalition nearly two years ago.\nThe militia, which ruled Afghanistan espousing a strict brand of Islam, are now getting help from some Pakistani authorities as well as a disgruntled Afghan population fed up with lawlessness under the U.S.-backed interim administration, according to a former Taliban corps commander.\n"Now the situation is very good for us. It is improving every day. We can move everywhere," said Gul Rahman Faruqi, a corps commander of the Gardez No. 3 garrison during the Taliban's rule.\n"Now if the Taliban go to any village, people give them shelter and food. Now the people are tired of the looters and killers," Faruqi told The Associated Press, referring to regional warlords aligned with Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government.\nIn most parts of Afghanistan, regional powers operate with relative impunity, terrorizing residents, extorting money, dealing in drugs and running lucrative smuggling routes.\n"Before people didn't believe the Taliban were around. They thought we were finished so they were afraid. But now they see that we are active and they see there is no other alternative to the looters and killers," said Faruqi, who was interviewed Monday in neighboring Pakistan.\n"We know they don't like the Taliban, but they hate the looters and killers even more."\nIn the Afghan capital, a Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the religious militia, working with al Qaeda, has regrouped, changed tactics and now operates in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.\nFaruqi scoffed at suggestions that coalition forces have them on the run.\n"We have new bases all over Afghanistan. We have just reached to Faryab province. There are 10,000 American soldiers. They can't be everywhere. We are not afraid -- we know we can move freely," Faruqi said.\nThe Taliban have appointed military councils in each Afghan province, re-established military bases in the country, developed a command structure and injected discipline into the ranks, he said.\nOn the newest battlefield in southeastern Zabul province -- where U.S. special forces, the 10th Mountain division and Afghan government soldiers are waging "Operation Mountain Viper" -- Faruqi said the Taliban's military command structure is fixed: Abdul Jabbar, a former aide to the Taliban's Balkh governor, is in charge. His field commanders are Amir Khan Haqqani and Ghulam Nabi. All three are from Zabul province.\nThe Zabul provincial chief of intelligence for Karzai's government, Khalil Hotak, agreed that the Taliban have strengthened.\n"The Taliban are regrouping, having meetings in districts. In Zabul province 80 percent of the people in every district are loyal to the Taliban," Hotak told AP on Tuesday.\n"They are uneducated people," he said. "They are close to the religious people. The Taliban are preaching in the districts and have convinced people that the U.S. people are infidels and that the Afghan government is supporting infidels against Islam."\nAn incident one month ago in a village in southern Afghanistan was evidence of the Taliban's propaganda campaign.\nWhen the U.S. military entered the village to search for suspected Taliban, residents wrapped copies of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, in white cloth and hid them in a dry riverbed. They were frightened the American soldiers would arrest or kill them because they were Muslims, said a U.S. military statement.\nAmerican soldiers reassured village elders that they had nothing to fear due of their religion.\nIn recent months the Taliban have targeted Afghan police, blowing up their vehicles, ambushing their patrols and attacking their stations.\nBefore attacking a police station, the Taliban sent a letter reading, "We tell them that the Americans are their enemy and that they should let us cross. If they say yes we don't attack, if they say no we attack," Faruqi said.\nHe said they draw support from some conservative tribal people and from some in the Pakistani military and intelligence community.\n"There are some in the army who are under the influence of the CIA and they will hand us over, but there are many who are Muslims and will not," he said.\nAbout two months ago, the Pakistani military captured several Taliban, including a former deputy governor.\nHowever, Faruqi said, "One of the big intelligence men in Pakistan sent a letter to a local ISI (Pakistan's spy agency) person and said 'If you are Muslim you will release the Taliban you have arrested and if you don't release them then know that you are still a human being and they will kill you.' They remain in jail, but Faruqi said, "I can tell you that they will be released."\nSmall training camps exist in Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said.\n"We don't need to learn about jihad, we know how to fire our guns. It is to teach about explosives, and bombs and ambushes," he said.\nThe theory of bomb making is taught in camps in Pakistan, he said, gesturing to indicate the explosions are carried out in Afghanistan.\nA second former Taliban, who speaks Arabic and identified himself only as Abdullah, was interviewed in northwest Pakistan, where he had come from Afghanistan to buy old, broken radios and televisions and circuitry to use in making remote-control devices.\n"There will be more explosions," the man said. "You should know we will not stop. We are stronger"
(03/13/03 3:50am)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The United States and its allies have intensified searches along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan for terrorists they fear may respond to war against Iraq with attacks, intelligence sources say.\nThe sweeps followed the March 1 arrest of al Qaeda's third most powerful man, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed -- suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.\nIn the hours after his arrest, a belligerent Mohammed praised Osama bin Laden and warned that "America will burn if it goes into Baghdad. Americans everywhere will not be safe," Pakistani intelligence officials told The Associated Press.\nIn a rare briefing for journalists this week, the Pakistani spy agency said Mohammed admitted meeting bin Laden last December but did not say where. A video was shown depicting the arrest of Mohammed, whose face was never shown and whose head was covered by a black hood.\nPakistani officials denied an Iran Radio report that bin Laden had been captured in Pakistan on Wednesday. The Iranian report on the state radio's external service, monitored by the BBC in London, quoted the deputy leader of the Islamic Awami Tahrik party in Pakistan, Murtaza Poya, as saying bin Laden had been arrested and officials would not announce his capture until a war with Iraq started.\n"It is not correct," Interior Ministry Secretary Iftikar Ahmed told AP. \n"This is just not true," said Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, Pakistan's intelligence coordinator in the war on terror.\nPakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed also denied the report and told a news conference earlier, "Osama is not in Pakistan. We have no information about Osama bin Laden and if someone has this information he should tell us."\nIn Washington, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said, "We are unaware of bin Laden being captured by anyone at this time."\nMeanwhile, an intelligence source told AP that Mohammed was questioned at a "safe house" belonging to the Pakistani spy agency. The source said his head was covered in a black hood and he spoke in English and Arabic. American interrogators were present, but Mohammed did not see them.\nSince launching the assault along the border, Pakistani sources said, "We are making arrests everywhere." They did not elaborate.\nA European intelligence source said Pakistani military and paramilitary forces have staked out the tribal corridor that runs between Pakistan and Afghanistan, sweeping through rugged pockets that could provide a haven for Taliban and al Qaeda fugitives.\nWhile the entire border is suspect, Pakistani forces are concentrated in southwestern Baluchistan province between Quetta and the Iranian border. They are also focusing on the northwest frontier province near Balikot, 120 miles (190 kilometers) northwest of the federal capital of Islamabad and farther northwest in the Chitral area, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.\nBin Laden is not the only focus of the hunt. They also are searching for other al Qaeda operatives, Taliban and loyalists of renegade Afghan rebel leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.\nA poster depicting 16 wanted men, including Hekmatyar, bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, has been circulated in the region, as well as leaflets reminding people of the $25 million reward for their capture.\nThe posters are written in Persian and Pashtu, the predominant languages of the region.
(11/13/02 3:58am)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Helmeted police formed a cordon around Kabul University on Tuesday after deadly protests, guarding angry students as they returned to their darkened dorms.\nStudent protests over a food shortage erupted in violence Monday when police fired on the unruly crowd. As many as four students were killed and dozens injured in the melee, which ended Tuesday when student representatives met with government officials.\nIt was the first time since U.S. and British bombing ousted the Taliban one year ago that a university protest turned violent. The uprising reflected a general frustration in Kabul over poverty that residents and the government had hoped the international community would ease.\n"It's quiet now. The demonstration is over," said police commander Aziz Ahmed, standing with other police outside the locked gate to the dormitories.\nNearby was the charred hulk of a car students had set on fire. The multistoried dormitory was dark from no electricity.\nIn a message on state-run television, Afghan President Hamid Karzai offered his sympathies to the families of the slain students, but he urged the others "to remember that a university is a place of education and not violence."\nHis Higher Education Minister, Mohammed Sharif Faiz, threatened to close the dormitories if violence erupted again.\nThe trouble began Monday, when food ran out while 400 students waited in line after fasting in observance of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, said Sher Mohammed, an army officer who witnessed the first demonstration.\nIn fury, more than 1,000 students marched toward the presidential palace to complain to the United Nations-backed administration.\nMohammed said the students were armed only with stones, bricks and sticks, but Aziz said there were some among the protesters who had guns.\nMohammad also said he saw four slain students, while the government put the death toll at one, with about 30 students reported injured.\nAziz also said some of the students were Taliban, the hardline militia defeated one year ago by U.S. and British bombing. Students and officials dismissed that suggestion.\n"Everyone who protests is said to be Taliban or al Qaeda. It doesn't matter if you are starving and you protest. 'You are Taliban,' they say," said a social science student who gave only the name Umaid.\nThe protest came just ahead of the anniversary Thursday of the fall of the Taliban in Kabul _ and amid complaints that the cash-strapped government has not done enough to improve people's lives.\nWhen students resumed their protest at the university Tuesday, firefighters pushed them back with water cannon and police fired automatic weapons.\nPolice said they fired over students heads. Kabul's police department has received international training, mostly from German police.\nStudents threw rocks, bricks and sticks at the security forces.\n"Death to the killers of our colleagues. We want justice," protesters shouted outside the dilapidated dormitories where more than 3,000 students from villages throughout Afghanistan live in squalor.\n"We have no water. We have no bread. We have no electricity. Everything is expensive," said Nangalai, a medical student. He said some of the students were firing guns in the air during the Monday protest.\nHundreds of onlookers gathered to watch the demonstration Tuesday. Some stood atop the ruins of destroyed homes near the university, which lies in an area of Kabul heavily damaged during factional fighting in the early 1990s.\nThe university, once the country's flagship of higher education, was not repaired during the rule of the Taliban, who frowned on most education other than religious training.
(09/09/02 6:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>ASADABAD, Afghanistan -- A shattering explosion rattled the windows Sunday at an Islamic relief organization. "It's the Americans," grumbled Bahader, a stocky, gray-haired employee.
"Every day they are firing, searching homes, bothering people. Everyone wants them to leave," he said.
With little fanfare, U.S. special forces have been scouring the mountains here in Kunar province, about 120 miles northeast of Kabul, for three months in search of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters and for anti-government militiamen loyal to former Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
The U.S. military has said little about operations in Kunar, focusing instead on missions in southeastern Afghanistan around the provinces of Khost and Paktia.
However, for the people of this remote, mountainous province along the Pakistani border, the war is ever-present in the rumble of distant explosions and the faint roar of B-52 bombers passing overhead.
And the U.S. operation is fueling hostility against the Americans, even among officials loyal to President Hamid Karzai who admit they asked the U.S. military to come here because of threats from Taliban fighters hiding in the mountains.
(07/29/02 2:31am)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Secretary of State Colin Powell refused Sunday to back the claim by Pakistan's president that his government had stopped militant Muslims from crossing the disputed Kashmiri border into India, but said tensions between the rivals have eased.\nThe crossings are a major source of friction between the nuclear-armed neighbors, who came close to war earlier this year. India says it will not consider dialogue with Pakistan until they are stopped.\n"Everybody agrees that it has gone down," Powell said of infiltrations at a news conference in the Pakistani capital at the end of a two-day visit to the Asian subcontinent. "Some say significantly, some say it's only temporary and not yet significant."\n"With respect to the U.S. position, we are monitoring this carefully," Powell said. "We still are not able to say that they have been stopped, though they have gone down."\nPakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, however, said Sunday that he had done all there was to do to stop Islamic militants from crossing the disputed border into Indian-ruled Kashmir, where a bloody secessionist uprising has killed 60,000 people since it began in 1989.\n"It is not taking place now. Whatever the Indian side is saying is absolutely baseless," said Musharraf, who was not at the news conference. "I don't have to do anything because we've already done it."\nPowell, who visited Islamabad after meeting with Indian leaders in New Delhi, characterized Musharraf's denial as "assurances," a phrasing underlining the delicacy of the situation.\nIn his talks with Musharraf, Powell had to juggle Washington's need for Pakistan's support to capture fleeing al-Qaida and Taliban warriors with demands that cross-border attacks into Indian Kashmir come to an end. He said Washington's commitment to working with Pakistan was "not just for today or tomorrow but for the long haul."\nPowell's message to both India and Pakistan was to urge the two sides to open negotiations.\nOn his third trip to the region since last October, Powell said he saw signs that the two neighbors may be inching toward fresh talks that could lead to a lasting peace.\n"I am hopeful that if we keep moving in the direction we've been moving in the past couple of months, where the tension has been going down and where there have been some preliminary de-escalatory steps ... I think the possibility of dialogue in the near future is something that can be achieved," Powell said.\nAfter giving the news conference, Powell flew to Thailand, arriving in Bangkok early Monday for a 20-hour visit during which he is scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.\nIn New Delhi, Powell had called for India to release political prisoners and find ways to convince Kashmiris that elections this fall in Indian-ruled Kashmir will be free and fair. He also said both Pakistan and India had to ensure the safety of those who wanted to contest elections or vote.\nA spokeswoman for India's foreign ministry on Sunday rejected Powell's call to free political prisoners, saying those in prison are either criminals or terrorists. India has arrested several Kashmiri political leaders.\n"They are the people who violate the law, work against national interests and have links with groups that foment terrorism," Nirupama Rao said.\nRao reiterated that India would not permit international monitors in Kashmir, but said individual diplomats and journalists can travel to the state during the elections.\nIndia accuses Pakistan of arming, training and helping militants to cross the Kashmir frontier to launch attacks. Pakistan, which controls a third of Kashmir, has said it supports the guerrillas' cause, but denies it provides material aid.\nBoth nations claim Kashmir in its entirety and have fought two wars over it.\nTensions between India and Pakistan flared last year after an attack on the Indian parliament that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan, resulting in a massive deployment of troops by both sides. Escalating tensions also generated world fears that a war in South Asia could result in the use of nuclear weapons.\nBoth India and Pakistan conducted underground nuclear tests in 1998 and both say they have inducted nuclear weapons into their arsenals, but neither has specified the type or numbers of nuclear weapons.\nIn Pakistan, Musharraf is under pressure from Islamic militants, who accuse him of betraying Kashmiri insurgents who have been fighting since 1989 to press their demand that a united Kashmir be either independent or joined with Islamic Pakistan.\nThey have threatened to topple Musharraf.\nOn Saturday, a fourth person was arrested in Pakistan in connection with a plot to assassinate Musharraf in southern Karachi last April using an explosive-laden truck. That same vehicle was later used in an attack against the U.S. Consulate in Karachi that killed 14 people, all of them Pakistanis.\nPakistani authorities say al-Qaida was involved in the attacks.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The first World Food Program convoy of food arrived Monday for the hungry in the Afghan capital Kabul, where people fear a U.S. military strike in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. \nEight trucks carrying 218 tons of wheat made it to Kabul, said Khalid Mansour, the World Food Program information officer in neighboring Pakistan. The U.N. agency feeds nearly two-thirds of Kabul's 1 million people. \nThe United Nations has been warning of a humanitarian catastrophe within Afghanistan, a country already ravaged by relentless war and the worst drought in living memory. \nKenzo Oshima, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, arrived in the Pakistani capital Islamabad Monday and met with President Pervez Musharraf. \n"There is a large number of people who need food, water, shelter and other life saving material inside Afghanistan," Oshima said, calling for more international aid. "Much more needs to be done." \nThe food convoy was the first to reach Kabul since the terror attacks and the subsequent pullout from Afghanistan of all international United Nations staff. \nMansour said the arrival of the wheat means there is enough food in their stocks to last until end of October. \nSaying security "is always a concern" the WFP has moved smaller quantities of food into Afghanistan from three different directions: Pakistan, and the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, which also border Afghanistan. \nFor the WFP, concerns are twofold: pilfering of its supplies and the safe arrival of its convoys. Mansour said the convoy's arrival in Kabul was half the battle. \nThe bone-jarring trip across 120 miles of war-ruined roads that resemble a dried riverbed took two days. \nThe WFP operates 150 bakeries for Kabul's poor, but Mansour said it was distributing the wheat to individual families rather than to the bakeries, a change aimed to save time and make disturbances less likely. \nThe shipment was "distributed immediately among the people who needed it," said WFP spokesman Michael Huggins. He said the agency sent another 500 tons later Monday and would ship out the same amount Tuesday. \nHuggins said the WFP has received word that food prices have increased by 20-24 percent in Kabul since the attacks, "so these supplies are even more important." \nThe United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, has put out an emergency appeal for $500 million in anticipation of a mass exodus from Afghanistan for fear the United States will attack the ruling Taliban, which has refused to hand over suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden. However, the borders of all the neighboring countries are sealed. \n"The Afghans are basically a trapped people," said Rupert Colville, UNHCR's information officer in the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- U.S. strikes set Red Cross warehouses afire near Afghanistan's capital Tuesday, sending workers scrambling to salvage desperately needed relief goods during a bombardment that could be heard 30 miles away. \nTo the south, two U.S. special forces gunships entered the air war for the first time, raking the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar with cannon and heavy machine gun fire in a pre-dawn raid. \nHeavy, round-the-clock attacks and the first use of the lumbering, low-flying AC-130 gunships signaled U.S. confidence that 10 days of attacks by cruise missiles and high-flying jets have crippled the air defenses of the Taliban, the Muslim militia that rules most of Afghanistan. \nU.S.-led forces have used more than 2,000 bombs and missiles since opening the attacks Oct. 7, Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference. The past two days' attacks have been especially intense, putting more than 100 warplanes and five cruise missiles into the air, he said. \nTuesday's strikes were mostly against military installations and airports around Kabul, Kandahar and the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, on which the Afghan opposition claims its forces are closing in. \nAfternoon raids in the Kabul area were so strong that the detonations could be heard 30 miles north of the city, where Taliban forces are battling Afghan fighters for the opposition northern alliance. \nDuring the afternoon raids, at least one bomb exploded in the compound of the International Committee of the Red Cross at Khair Khana near Kabul, injuring one security guard and setting two of the seven buildings on fire. \nAfghan staffers ran through thick smoke and flames to try to salvage blankets, tents and plastic tarps meant to help Afghans through the winter. The other warehouse, which was also damaged by fire, contained wheat, Red Cross workers said. \n"There are huge needs for the civilian population, and definitely it will hamper our operations," Robert Monin, head of the International Red Cross' Afghanistan delegation, said in Islamabad, Pakistan. \nIn Washington, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said U.S. officials were looking into reports an errant U.S. strike had hit the Red Cross compound. \n"I have no confirmation at this time. As we get some more information, we'll let you know," Clarke told reporters. \nEarlier, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer raised the possibility that anti-aircraft fire from the ground could have been responsible. \nBut the Taliban are not known to have fired surface-to-air missiles in Kabul since the first nights of the air campaign, which began Oct. 7. \nThe damaged Red Cross complex had been clearly marked with two red crosses, Monin said. Likely targets for airstrikes surrounded it, however: four Taliban military bases and transport and fuel depots are in the area. \nIn other developments: \n• Secretary of State Colin Powell visited India and key ally Pakistan. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said his country will cooperate with U.S.-led military efforts for as long as the operation lasts. Musharraf and Powell agreed a new Afghan government could include some moderate members of the Taliban. \n• Russia's first aid shipment arrived in Afghanistan's opposition-controlled north and the U.N. World Food Program said it expects the Uzbek government to open a vital supply route for aid into Afghanistan. \n• Four American C-17 cargo planes dropped 70,000 packets of food over Afghanistan overnight, bringing the total number of packets containing barley stew, rice, shortbread cookies and peanut butter delivered to 350,000. \nThe damage to the Red Cross buildings was the second incident in which U.S. jets apparently struck offices of an international agency. Last week, four Afghans were killed when a missile went astray and hit the offices of a U.N.-funded mine clearing company. \nTaliban officials said 13 people were killed in attacks Tuesday in Kandahar and two others in Mazar-e-Sharif. In Kabul, residents of the area around the ICRC compound said Taliban soldiers were no longer sleeping in their barracks but had moved into mosques to avoid attacks. \nA U.S. Defense Department official confirmed the overnight attack on Kandahar was led by two AC-130s, a propeller-driven transport plane outfitted with cannon and heavy machine guns. It marked the first acknowledged use of special forces aircraft during the air campaign. \nOne official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the gunships targeted Taliban military barracks and headquarters compounds, and indicated more AC-130 attacks were likely. \nPresident Bush ordered airstrikes on Afghanistan after Taliban leaders repeatedly refused to surrender Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. \nIn Islamabad, Powell and Musharraf renewed calls for a broad-based, multiethnic government to succeed the Taliban regime, which is dominated by ethnic Pashtuns. \nThe Taliban are battling a coalition of opposition forces in northern Afghanistan made up mostly of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks. Pakistan, which had been the Taliban's closest ally, opposes allowing the northern alliance to take power in Kabul because it would not be accepted by Pashtuns. \nDuring a press conference with Powell, Musharraf warned of a "political vacuum" if Kabul falls before a multiethnic administration is ready to take over. \nAid officials in Islamabad reported some looting at relief operations in Afghanistan, including cars and computers stolen from offices in Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif. \n"The law and order situation in Kandahar appears to be breaking down," U.N. spokesman Stephanie Bunker said.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The television tower lies toppled on its hill, felled by aerial bombing. Not that it matters much to people in Kabul. Their Taliban rulers long ago banned television as part of their rigid Islamic program. \nTanker trucks are spread throughout the city, apparently to disperse the Taliban's oil supplies away from the fuel depots that are on the list of bombing targets. \nThe Foreign Ministry, in the center of Kabul, is untouched by the U.S.-led bombing. Some of its staff have left for Pakistan, while others are taking exams to become diplomats. The successful ones will represent a regime recognized by only one government -- Pakistan. \nMost of the Taliban ministers remain. The Taliban Cabinet continues to meet every week but in an undisclosed location since the bombing began. The presidential palace, once its home, was damaged by fighting years earlier. \nAfter nearly five weeks of bombing, the damage done by the planes seems slight. Only a small portion of the city has been directly hit. The government continues to function. The Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who has only rarely visited Kabul, is said to still be in Kandahar, the Taliban's stronghold, 285 miles to the southwest. But his headquarters and home in Kandahar have been bombed and it's not known from where he operates. \nAfter 20 years of Soviet occupation, civil war and now the U.S. and British air campaign, life for ordinary people in Kabul could be described simply as more of the dreadful same, night after night of explosions, shaking buildings, fear and death. \nThe Taliban regime and the Pentagon dispute each other's casualty figures. The U.S. government insists it's trying to avoid harming civilians, but this is a city where military targets are woven into residential neighborhoods. \nAmong the dead since the offensive began Oct. 7 are two families, each of eight people; three children killed when a bomb landed near their home; and four U.N. mine-clearing employees. The Red Cross compound has been hit twice. The children's hospital says it has admitted 29 children. \nOn the streets and in the few restaurants still open, Afghans readily express their sympathy for the thousands killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America, but are bewildered to find themselves caught up in America's war against Osama bin Laden, the suspected terrorist mastermind, and his al Qaeda network. The United States launched the air assault after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden. \nAlthough the buildings tremble throughout Kabul when the bombs fall, only a small portion of the city has been directly hit. \nNear the Ariana Chowk neighborhood, which has suffered no damage, is the centuries-old presidential palace where the Taliban used to hold Cabinet meetings. It is badly damaged, not by air raids, however, but by the bitter civil war between Islamic factions that preceded the Taliban's rise to power in 1996. \nLast weekend, B-52 bombers pummeled the mountains that ring Kabul. The earth shook, windows rattled and residents trembled. \nThe rocket-rutted road to Kabul International Airport is lined with rickety wooden shops and mud houses nearby. They shuddered for several nights running as 1,000-pound bombs hit the airport. \nThe Taliban have said the airports in Kabul, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Herat have all been heavily damaged. Kabul's airport is off-limits, and it isn't known whether any of Afghanistan's antiquated fighters survived. \nOutside the mud walls around the tomb of the emperor Barbar, children with dirt-streaked faces push, shove and tumble about in the sand. \nA man on a bicycle, Abdul Jan, bounces down the hill, a passenger teetering on the back. Pausing for a rest, he reminisces about the trees and gardens that made this such a perfect picnic spot. \n"We would bring tents, and small stoves and pots and the very best food," he said. \n"Life used to be sweet." \nThose days seem as far away as the memory of the 16th century Mogul emperor, his burial ground now a rock-strewn overgrown mess, its surrounding trees cut down for firewood. \nThe damage done by the planes seems slight compared with what went before. Along the Kabul River to the south of the city are entire neighborhoods ruined in the 1990s by the civil war between the various Islamic factions that now make up the northern alliance and are fighting the Taliban. \nMacroyan, a Soviet-era complex of dozens of six-story apartment buildings, was heavily damaged. Today it is occupied by the poor. Tattered blankets cover shell holes in the walls. A few windows have panes, but most are covered by sheets and blankets. \nThere are communications towers and artillery positions on the nearby hills, and when night comes, and a curfew and power shutdown plunge the city into silence and darkness, people start listening for the roar of jets. \nIn Macroyan, residents say, some gather on the ground floors when the jets come. Some run away. But most just hunker down in their homes and hope for the best. The worst off are the poorest, who live on hillsides outside the city where the land is free. But the slopes are also where the Taliban guns are positioned. \nIn some cases, the bombing means the displacement of the already displaced. \nYears ago, civil war drove Allah Saeed north to the Khair Khana neighborhood of Kabul. There the impoverished family built a new home on free slope land. But the hilly northern neighborhood is full of targets, the Baba Jan garrison, an artillery unit and an anti-aircraft unit, that have attracted the bombers. \nOne of the families of eight who were killed lived in a mud house in Qali Hotai and the other in Khair Khana, and last week Saeed loaded the family's tattered belongings onto a truck and headed to a safer part of the neighborhood. \n"The bombing was every night and so close. Everything shook. All the children were crying and I was crying," Saeed said. \nHaqer Naser and his family found themselves in the same predicament. They had to abandon their house and move in with a relative. \n"We have nothing except our lives. We had to leave," Naser said, as Kabul got ready for another night of bombing. \n"I just want it to stop," he said. "Our lives are in ruins"
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- Hundreds of Arab fighters suspected of links to Osama bin Laden were given citizenship by the former Afghan government whose leaders are now receiving U.S. help fighting the Taliban, according to documents shown to The Associated Press by the ruling Islamic militia. \nThe documents, written in Afghanistan's Dari language, show that 604 people from countries such as Algeria, Libya, Saudi Arabia and Egypt were granted Afghan citizenship in March 1993 by President Burhanuddin Rabbani. \nRabbani, who was ousted by the Taliban in 1996, now heads the northern alliance of opposition forces. The United States has been bombing Taliban positions in hopes the alliance can seize Mazar-e-Sharif and other major cities. \nThe documents did not include the names of any publicly known al Qaeda figures linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States that killed 4,500 people. \nBut, the documents do add substance to claims by critics of the opposition northern alliance that some of its leading figures have maintained close ties to Islamic extremists dating back to the 1979-1989 war against Soviet invaders. \nThe hardcore of bin Laden's al Qaeda movement are Arab militants, some of whom came to Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet invaders. Others are unable to return to their home countries because of subversive activities there. By granting them citizenship, the Rabbani government enabled the fighters, known as Afghan Arabs, to remain in the country permanently. \nBin Laden himself moved to Afghanistan in 1996, a few months before Rabbani's government was ousted from Kabul, but it is not known if he was ever granted citizenship. Bin Laden came here from Sudan after U.S. pressure moved the Sudanese to ask him to leave. \nThe United States began phasing out support for the anti-Soviet alliance, including the Arab volunteer fighters, after the Soviets pulled out their troops in 1989. \nOnce in Afghanistan, bin Laden is believed to have rallied Arab veterans of the Afghan war, both here and elsewhere in the Islamic world, to continue their struggle as part of al Qaeda. \nCritics fear the United States and its allies could end up dealing with a new set of Afghan leaders with their own ties to members of al Qaeda if the alliance seizes power. \nRetired Gen. Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, said he believed some alliance figures still maintain close ties to Arab extremists and "someday they will turn their guns" against the U.S.-led coalition. \nU.S. officials have repeatedly noted that they share with the northern alliance the goal of defeating the Taliban, but that does not mean Washington and the northern alliance have the same long-term agenda. \nMost recently, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said last week: \n"We're sticking to our game plan, our strategy. ... Where it crosses with wherever the northern alliance may have, that's a good thing," Stufflebeem said.\nOver the weekend, Abdurahman Hottak, the head of the Taliban's consular department, showed AP a file with papers indicating that the 604 Arabs had all been issued Afghan citizenship cards, and with them the right of residence, by the Rabbani government. \nThe AP was allowed to examine the papers and take notes from them. \nAccording to the documents shown by Hottak, the request for granting citizenship was made in November 1992 by Rabbani's interior minister, Ahmed Shah Ahmedzai. \nAhmedzai was a member of a faction of Rabbani's coalition government led by Abdur Rasool Sayyaf, who is currently Rabbani's deputy prime minister in the Afghan government-in-exile, also known as the northern alliance. \nSayyaf was then chief of the Ittehad-e-Islami group, which had the largest number of Arab fighters in its ranks. Presumably, many, if not all, of the Arabs were granted citizenship as a reward for service in Sayyaf's organization. \nThe file shown by the Taliban included a presidential approval bearing Rabbani's signature. In addition to the 604 Arabs, Hottak said Rabbani's government had granted citizenship to 233 other Arabs in the first five months of his rule. In all, Arab fighters are believed to number in the thousands. \nThe chief spokesman of the northern alliance, Abdullah, said he did not know of the citizenship request. \n"Yes, Ahmed Shah Ahmedazi was interior minister at the time and the interior ministry belonged to Sayyaf," said Abdullah, who uses only one name. "But of course, I am not aware of when, or how or whether it happened that this thing was done. I don't know anything about it." \nAbdullah said Sayyaf's group included a considerable number of Arabs among its fighters and "to some extent he was still close to the Arabs" after Rabbani's coalition overthrew the pro-communist government in 1992. \nSayyaf also supported Iraq's Saddam Hussein against the U.S.-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War.
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghans brought their radios out of hiding and played music in the streets, savoring the end of five years of harsh Taliban rule as the northern alliance marched triumphantly into Afghanistan's capital Tuesday. Diplomats sought U.N. help in fashioning a government for the shattered country. \nAmerican jets still prowled the skies in the south, seeking out convoys of Taliban fighters retreating toward Kandahar, the Islamic militants' last major stronghold. Strikes also targeted caves where members of terror suspect Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network were thought to be hiding \nAlliance troops celebrated the capture of the prize they had been fighting for since they were driven out by the Taliban in 1996. A small number of U.S. troops were on hand to advise them. \nThe dizzying cascade of events in Afghanistan turned the opposition into the country's chief power overnight -- and brought to the forefront the issue of ensuring that it shares power. The United States and its allies want a government that includes groups the ethnic minorities that make up the alliance and the Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group.\nThe alliance leaders said they had deployed 3,000 security troops across Kabul to bring order -- not to occupy it -- and insisted they were committed to a broad-based goverment. \nThe alliance foreign minister, Abdullah, invited all Afghan factions -- except the Taliban -- to come to Kabul to negotiate on the country's future. The top U.N. envoy for Afghanistan outlined a plan for a two-year transitional government with a multinational security force. \nAbdullah's words were reiterated by Burhanuddin Rabbani, the alliance leader and Afghanistan's deposed president, who also said he expected to return to Kabul on Wednesday. \nRapid Advance\nThe forces allied against the Taliban made swift gains from Nov. 9, when they captured Mazar-e-Sharif to Nov. 13 when they took the Afghan capital, Kabul. \n"There is no room for the Taliban" in any political settlement in Afghanistan, Rabbani told Qatari-based Al-Jazeera television. \nIn Washington, President Bush said the United States was working with the alliance to ensure they "respect the human rights of the people they are liberating" and recognize "that a future government must include a representative from all of Afghanistan."\nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said a "small number" of U.S. troops were in Kabul, advising the alliance. He told journalists at the Pentagon that the troops were not enough to police the city or prevent retaliation by the opposition. \nBush said there was "great progres"' in the campaign launched Oct. 7 to uproot al Qaeda and punish the Taliban for harboring bin Laden, the chief suspect in the September terror attacks on the United States. \nWar in Afghanistan \nIn the streets of Kabul, thousands of people celebrated, honking car horns and ringing bicycle bells. They flouted the strict version of Islamic law imposed by the Taliban that regulated almost every aspect of life, down to banning shaving and music. \n"I used to play this at home, but very quietly and then I would check to see if anyone was outside," Abdul Rehman said as he turned up the volume on his cassette tape recorder blaring out the music of his favorite Afghan folk singer.\nZul Gai, the owner of a barber shop lined up with men looking to lose their beards, smiled broadly. "This has been my best business day in many long years," he said. \nMost women, however, were too cautious to shed their all-encompassing burqas, unsure what the new rules would be. \nHundreds of northern alliance troops hunted down lingering Taliban and foreigners who came to Afghanistan to join al Qaeda. At least 11 Arabs and Pakistanis were slain and their bodies mutilated. \nAlliance fighters roamed the streets in taxis, pickup trucks and cars, brandishing Kalashnikov rifles and grenade launchers. Troops set up roadblocks in neighborhoods where Arabs and Pakistanis lived. \nFive Pakistanis, who were firing randomly from trees in a public park, were killed by alliance soldiers. A Red Cross official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the bodies were in pieces when volunteers removed them for burial. Four Arabs died when their pickup truck was blasted by a rocket. Their charred bodies were dragged from their vehicle by residents who kicked and poked at them. Two other Arabs were killed outside a military base near the U.N. guest house.
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- Materials left behind in a compound used by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, including a booklet offering advice on how to survive a nuclear explosion, suggest the terrorist group may have been trying to develop chemical arms and other unconventional weapons. \nFoul-smelling liquids and charred papers covered with chemical formulas littered a makeshift laboratory in one al Qaeda building in the heart of Kabul. Maps, mines and computer manuals were found in others. \nHomeland Security Director Tom Ridge said Thursday that the documents are consistent with bin Laden's statements saying he desired nuclear weaponry. \nBut papers found detailing how to make a nuclear device were taken off the Internet some years ago.\nU.S. officials have said they had no information to suggest bin Laden has succeeded in gaining nuclear weapons.
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- The northern alliance tightened its siege on the last Taliban bastion in the north, Kunduz, where foreign fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden reportedly were preventing a Taliban surrender. Four international journalists were feared dead after gunmen ambushed their convoy in eastern Afghanistan. \nThe northern alliance asked the United Nations to find representatives from Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group with whom the alliance can negotiate over a new government. A conference between all Afghan factions was set to begin Nov. 24 in Germany, most likely Berlin, a Pakistani diplomatic source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said. \nThere was no immediate confirmation of the date and venue of the conference. U.S. and U.N. diplomats have been putting intense pressure on the alliance, which is made up mainly of ethnic minorities, to agree to a conference and share power. \nThe Pentagon said Monday that more U.S. commandos had been deployed in southern Afghanistan to help in the hunt for bin Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. There are a few hundred Americans now on the ground throughout the country, spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said. \nAt Kunduz, foreign militants loyal to bin Laden's al Qaeda terror network, mostly Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens, were preventing their Afghan allies in the Taliban from surrendering, refugees from the city said. \nRefugees have said up to 300 Taliban fighters were shot, apparently by their own side, as they tried to surrender Friday. Reports of other killings on a smaller scale have also emerged in recent days. \nThe Taliban had offered over the weekend to leave Kunduz on condition of guarantees of safety for the foreign fighters, a northern alliance commander said. But other alliance commanders said Monday they doubted the Taliban were in a position to negotiate since Arabs effectively control the city. \nAlliance troops for the past several days had encircled the city without firing. But on Monday they used two tanks, two artillery pieces and a multiple rocket launcher to fire on Taliban positions in the hills. \nAmerican warplanes also struck the city's defenses Monday. U.S. airstrikes were also reported in the south and east of the country. \nAt the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said fighting around Kunduz was "fierce." He said he had seen reports of Taliban fighters killed to prevent their surrender but "I'm not in a position to validate them." \nRefugees who fled Kunduz to the nearby village of Bangi reported summary executions of civilians by the besieged Taliban. One refugee, Dar Zardad, said Taliban killed eight teen-agers for laughing at them and other fighters shot to death a doctor who was slow to treat wounded Taliban. \nRumsfeld said the Taliban were also under pressure to leave their bastion in the south, Kandahar, the birthplace of the Islamic militia. At Kandahar, "it is apparently at the moment still a standoff," he said "There are southern tribes that are applying pressure and engaged in discussions (with the Taliban), and there's firing and the U.S., coalition forces, are providing some air support." \nThe four journalists were missing after armed men stopped their convoy of six to eight cars on the road between the capital, Kabul, and the eastern city of Jalalabad. Gunmen opened fire after the journalists were taken from their cars into the surrounding hills, drivers said. \n"They took the journalists, and when the journalists turned to look at them, the gunmen shot," said driver Mohammed Farrad. \nThe area recently came mainly under the control of anti-Taliban forces. However, some Taliban stragglers and Arab fighters were still believed to be in the area. \nTwo Reuters journalists were missing from the ambush, Australian television cameraman Harry Burton and Azizullah Haidari, an Afghan-born photographer, the news agency said. Also missing were Julio Fuentes, of the Spanish daily El Mundo, and Maria Grazia Cutuli, of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, the two papers said. \nA Reuters spokesman said the journalists were "missing and feared dead." Corriere della Sera's top editor, Ferruccio De Bortoli, said he was still holding out hope though "it becomes ever more feeble." \nBacked by U.S. bombardment, the northern alliance swept the Taliban out of northern Afghanistan last week and seized the capital, Kabul. The Taliban hold also fell apart in the south, where local leaders took control of many areas. \nIn Kabul, television, banned for the past five years under the Taliban, resumed broadcasting, with two hours of programming Sunday and Monday night. A woman announcer, with her black hair partially covered with a scarf, read news and promotions between public health programs, cartoons and music. \nKabul residents also swarmed the newly opened Bakhtar cinema, long closed by the Taliban ban on movies. Hundreds of people who couldn't fit into the packed theater jostled outside, blocking traffic. Finally, soldiers with rifles intervened, pushing the crowd away from the front gate. \nThe northern alliance's foreign minister, Abdullah, said Monday that the alliance preferred to hold a conference of Afghan factions in Kabul but had relented on this demand. "We didn't want to make the venue and obstacle," he said. \nHe called on the United Nations to find Pashtun representatives for the conference, but underlined that the alliance would not accept former Taliban leaders. \nMost of the Taliban were Pashtuns. While some Pashtun tribes have risen up against the Taliban over the past week, so far no concrete Pashtun leadership has emerged. \nFranscesc Vendrell, the deputy to the U.N. envoy to Afghanistan, met prominent Afghan figures in Kabul. However, many other factions don't have a presence in the capital. \nThe head of the northern alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who was once the Afghan president and has never dropped his claim to be head of state, controls Kabul. The United Nations wants a conference held on neutral ground, out from under the shadow of alliance domination. \nNeighboring Pakistan, which was once the Taliban's top supporter but backed the U.S. campaign against the militia, urged Afghan factions not to miss the opportunity for peace. \n"All of our Afghan brothers should think of the future of their country and not resort to actions that promote their selfish interests," Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar said in Islamabad. \nIn western Afghanistan, alliance officials showed journalists a grave near Shindand military airport that they said contained the bodies of 27 anti-Taliban fighters massacred by the Taliban before the Islamic militia fled the city.
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KABUL, Afghanistan -- Cynical after more than two decades of war, many Afghans said Tuesday that their hopes for peace rest mostly with the United Nations and the United States rather than the Afghan factions holding talks in Germany. \n"We know these people. They would not be sitting together if the United States and the United Nations did not force them," said Sami Ullah, a father of eight who earns barely 50 cents a day selling odds and ends in Kabul's main market. \n"I am optimistic that maybe we will have peace now because the United States and the United Nations will make sure they don't start fighting," he said. \nIt's a long way from the sunbaked mud homes, grinding poverty and rutted roads of Kabul to the luxury hotel overlooking the Rhine River in Germany where Afghan delegates discussed the first steps toward a broad-based, multiethnic government to replace the Taliban. \nCalled by the United Nations to plot a better future for this war-shattered country, including eventual democratic rule, the conference brought together 23 men and two women representing a wide spectrum of Afghan society. \nBut many delegates have lived outside Afghanistan for much of the past 23 years while people back home struggled to survive Soviet occupation, civil war, harsh Taliban rule and now another conflict they hope will be their last. \nThis rubs some Afghans the wrong way. \n"Some of them have been swimming in pools in the West while in Afghanistan we have nothing, our children have no food," said Mohammed Hussain, as his 2-year-old son, nose running and bare feet in ripped plastic sandals, clung to his leg. \nHis head wrapped in a green scarf, his long beard speckled with gray, Hussain said that most days there is no lunch at his home. Breakfast is usually bread and sweet black tea. Dinner consists of potatoes and bread soaked in a greasy soup. \n"For more than 20 years we have been burning in a fire of war and death. No human being can stand this. Our houses are destroyed, we have no food, we have no life. It has to stop," said Hussain, who was a farmer outside Kabul until war drove him out. \nHidayat, who gave only one name, once was a major in the aviation ministry in Kabul. "I have no job. I had no hope until now," he said. \n"I expect the help of the United Nations to unite these people and to bring them together," Hidayet said. "Definitely they need pressure from the United States and the United Nations or they will not stay together. Of course they will start to fight." \nMany of the delegates gathered outside Bonn are from the same groups that once fought each other for power in Afghanistan. \n"We want peace, whoever can bring us peace. This is the one we want," said Mohammed Abdul, a young guard with his rifle slung casually over his arm, his beard neatly trimmed. "We are tired of fighting. Our country is ruined." \nWith so many Afghan leaders identified with failed governments and discredited ideologies, a growing number of people here are looking to the 87-year-old former monarch, Mohammad Zaher Shah, as their best hope. \nMuch of Zaher Shah's support stems from nostalgia for the peace that prevailed during his rule, which ended in a coup in 1973. Zaher Shah, who lives in exile in Rome, is not attending the conference in Germany but has sent a delegation. \nIn the eastern city of Jalalabad, dominated by Afghanistan's majority ethnic Pashtuns, there is also widespread support for the exiled monarch. \n"We need a team with Zaher Shah that can rebuild Afghanistan. We need people with knowledge of the modern world," said Dr. Abdul Baseer. "We cannot have the Taliban or the communists." \nThe Taliban movement, largely an ethnic Pashtun group, rose to power in 1996 mostly because of popular disillusionment with the factional fighting that wrecked Kabul during the presidency of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the northern alliance. \nRabbani has resumed the presidency since the alliance seized Kabul on Nov. 13, although he has promised to step aside if a new government is established. \n"We have to find a way to heal the wounds and start rebuilding our country," said Mullah Mohammed Khaqzar, a Pashtun leader who helped launch the Taliban but has abandoned the movement.
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Tribal fighters battled the Taliban at Kandahar airport Monday, and U.S. warplanes pounded the city and suspected terrorist hideouts along the Pakistan border. Afghan factions meeting in Germany adopted a framework for ruling the country. \nB-52s unloaded bombs on positions thought to be a sanctuary to Osama bin Laden in the Jalalabad region. Journalists visited flattened villages in the area, and anti-Taliban officials said the U.S. air strikes appear to have been misdirected, killing scores of civilians. A senior Pentagon official called the reports "suspect."\nU.S. warplanes also targeted the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, in Kandahar, the last militia stronghold. Fida Mohammed, a farmer who fled the city to Pakistan on Monday, said planes bombed one of Omar's homes Sunday night, but the Taliban had abandoned the building. \nAt the talks in Koenigswinter, Germany, on forming a post-Taliban administration, the four factions agreed early Tuesday on the framework, making speedy progress after the United States pressured the northern alliance to drop obstacles that had threatened to derail the talks. \nIn a night of hectic diplomacy, a White House official, Zalmay Khalilzad, telephoned northern alliance leader Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul, winning a promise to release a long-delayed list of candidates for the interim administration, said U.S. envoy James F. Dobbins said. \nWith the list finally on the table, delegations representing the northern alliance, exiles loyal to former King Mohammad Zaher Shah and two smaller exile groups quickly finalized the text of an agreement establishing a 29-member interim governing council, U.N. spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. \nIn the north of Afghanistan, U.S. special forces took custody of a wounded Taliban fighter who identified himself as John Walker of Washington, D.C. A coalition spokesman said it was too early to speculate on the man's fate. Two other people who claim to be Americans are under the control of the northern alliance, a defense official in Washington said, speaking on condition of anonymity. \nIn the battle for Kandahar, another anti-Taliban tribal force bore down on the city from the north. Hamid Karzai was at the head of 4,000 troops advancing quickly and said to have reached the town of Khakrez 18 miles away. \nAlong their route, the troops claimed to be winning over residents as Taliban fighters surrendered in their path. \n"We took (Khakrez) without firing a single shot. The Taliban joined us of their own free will," Karzai spokesman Mualam Qadir said by satellite telephone. "We plan to take Kandahar in a similar fashion."\nIn Washington, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said U.S. warplanes were hitting eastern Afghanistan with particular ferocity because intelligence indicated leaders of the al-Qaida organization — and maybe bin Laden himself — were operating there. \nHe said there was no evidence to support claims U.S. bombs were hitting civilians. \n"I don't have any reports of any villages being struck," he said. "The only reports I have are that all our weapons have been on target. I find that a little bit suspect, that villages are being flattened."\nJournalists visiting the destroyed village of Kama Ado saw nine craters among the mud and thatch houses, the ruins of which were spread over two hillsides along with children's shoes, dead cows and sheep and the tail fin of a U.S. Mk83 bomb. Local officials said scores were killed in three bombed villages. Anti-Taliban officials in the area appealed to Americans to improve their intelligence. \nAs fighting intensified around Kandahar on Monday, tribal forces under commander Gul Agha said they seized a guard tower at the corner of the airport and battled Taliban forces on the airport grounds. U.S. bombers kept up attacks on Taliban positions at the airport. \n"There was harsh fighting going on all day," Khalid Pashtun, a spokesman for the fighters at the scene, said by satellite telephone. \nPashtun estimated that between 10 and 20 Taliban fighters were killed. He said only one tribal fighter was dead. Western journalists cannot enter the area, making it impossible to verify the claims. \n"These are the last moments of the Taliban, and it's silly that they are still defending the city," Pashtun said. \nU.S. Marines stationed at a desert base southwest of Kandahar have not joined the fight since helicopter gunships attacked a Taliban convoy a week ago. \nRefugees streamed out of battered Kandahar, and the United Nations said 8,000 had left since the conflict intensified last week. Mahmood, who uses one name and had previously fled the northern alliance advance on the capital of Kabul, said planes were bombing the town and the road north to the capital without pause. \n"Every minute I was on the road I was afraid," he said. \nMohammed, who also uses one name and who fled to Pakistan, said the Taliban imposed a curfew from 8 p.m. to 5 a.m., and forbade residents from lighting cigarettes outdoors to keep from presenting targets to warplanes. \n"Only Arab men and Taliban roam the city at night," he said. "Arabs are the best fighters. They fight even if death is staring them in the face."\nKarzai, speaking by satellite phone, said many Taliban in Kandahar were ready to give up, but Arabs loyal to bin Laden were preventing them. \n"They can't get out of the city to surrender," he said. "The Arabs have blocked the exits from Kandahar."\nPresident Bush launched military operations against Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden for his alleged role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. \nIn Islamabad, Pakistan, Kenton Keith, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said Monday that he could not confirm claims of John Walker, who said he was an American citizen. Keith said, however, he had "no reason to believe that he isn't."\nThe prisoner, who was wounded and weak, was among a group of 82 Taliban fighters who emerged from their basement hideaway in a fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif Saturday after northern alliance troops flooded it with cold water. \nKeither said "it is too early to speculate" whether the man would be prosecuted by the United States for treason. \nAfter seven days of bargaining, delegates from four Afghan factions in Germany were preparing to disclose their nominees for an interim 29-member council, which would run the country for six months.
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PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Protected by sympathetic clerics, up to 1,000 Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are hiding in Pakistan and planning a Taliban comeback in Afghanistan, according to Taliban members and others familiar with the Islamic movement. \nMost of the exiles -- including some of the best-known figures in the Islamic militia -- live quietly in Pakistan's lawless frontier region, protected by tribal leaders of their own Pashtun ethnic group in an area where the central government's authority is limited. \nMany of the Taliban fugitives remain convinced that interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai's hold on power depends on U.S. support and once the Americans are gone, they will have little trouble dealing with Afghans who are now allied with Washington. \n"I am waiting for the big war," said Mullah Towha, former chief of security for the Taliban governor of Afghanistan's Nangharhar province. "America and Britain will have to leave one day, and then we will have a jihad against those Afghans who fought with them against other Muslims." \nThe mullah, who has trimmed his beard and abandoned his distinctive Taliban turban for a white skullcap, spoke to The Associated Press in a car as it weaved through the Khyber Pass in the middle of Pakistan's tribal belt. He lives in an Islamic shrine protected by a "pir," or holy man. \nPakistan has repeatedly denied knowingly harboring al Qaeda and Taliban renegades and has insisted that intelligence service links to extremists were severed after President Pervez Musharraf threw his support to the U.S.-led war on terrorism last year. \n"There is absolutely no truth in these reports," chief government spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Quereshi told the AP Tuesday. He called the idea that Pakistani intelligence was still supporting Taliban fugitives "nonsense" and "part of a malicious campaign against Pakistan." \nNonetheless, the Taliban fugitives reportedly living in Pakistan include some of the most high-profile and influential members of the hard-line Islamic movement. All once worked closely with Pakistan's powerful intelligence service and have close ties to influential figures in the Pakistani military and government establishment. \nAccording to Taliban and other sources, they include former Defense Minister Mullah Obeidullah, former Interior Minister Abdul Razzak, former Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Hasan Akhund and Amir Khan Muttaqi, spokesman for the Taliban's supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. \nIt is unclear why the Pakistani government has made no move to round them up. Local chiefs in the border area wield considerable power and tracking them down would take time and resources and doubtless meet local resistance. \nAlso, before Sept. 11, top fugitives were close to powerful figures in Pakistan, who may be protecting them. \nThe list also includes Jalaluddin Haqqani, who several Afghans say was the mastermind of al Qaeda and Taliban efforts to regroup in his stronghold of Paktia province -- target of the just-concluded U.S.-led Operation Anaconda. \nThe police chief of Paktia's provincial capital Gardez, Haji Mohammed Ishaq, said Haqqani lives in Pakistan's South Waziristan region along the Afghan border, supported by former leaders of Pakistan's spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence or ISI. \nBecause most of the Taliban were ethnic Pashtuns, they have little trouble blending in with the mostly Pashtun population of the Pakistani border areas. \nFor al Qaeda fugitives, the situation here is more complicated. Pakistanis who joined al Qaeda-affiliated movements such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, or Movement of Holy Warriors, returned freely to their own country. \nA Muslim leader in Karachi, Hasan Turabi, said many of those Pakistani al Qaeda fighters have since turned to acts of violence in Pakistan, directing their anger at Musharraf for abandoning the Taliban after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. \nHowever, Arabs, who formed the core of the al Qaeda terror network's leadership and are easily identified as outsiders, must rely on the protection of Pakistanis who fought with them in Afghanistan. The Arabs also have the support of Pakistan's hard-line clerics and tribal leaders who supported the Taliban. \nSources familiar with al Qaeda, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said several key al Qaeda figures slipped into Pakistan last year and may still be here. \nThey include Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian who contacts here say is the key figure trying to reorganize and revive al Qaeda after the collapse of Taliban rule. \nZubaydah, a key lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, has close ties to Azhar Mahmood, the imprisoned leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, or Army of Mohammed. Because of those ties, he can rely on the movement's extensive network inside Pakistan, the sources said. \nZubaydah, the sources said, is trying to revive al Qaeda's financial network to support operations both in Afghanistan and abroad. \nIn Washington, CIA chief George Tenet said Tuesday that many pockets of insurgents remain in the Afghan-Pakistan border area, and wiping them out could pose a military challenge because they are in smaller groups of 10 men or so. \n"As spring emerges, we'll see, maybe, more activity on their part," Tenet said. \nU.S. officials have acknowledged that al Qaeda has stepped up its financial activity and communications in recent weeks, suggesting some leaders are reasserting control. \nThe U.S. officials, who spoke to AP in Washington on condition of anonymity, said much of the activity is centered in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, near the Afghan border. \nMoving back and forth between Pakistan and Afghanistan has proved little problem for Taliban and al Qaeda figures, despite claims by both the Pakistani government and the U.S. military that the border is closely guarded. \nTowha said that on the night he fled Jalalabad last November, he and the Nangharhar governor, Mullah Abdul Kabir, drove to Tora Bora along with one of bin Laden's interpreters, Khair Mohammed, and Ahmed Saeed al-Kadr, a Canadian of Egyptian origin and one of the 10 most-wanted al Qaeda leaders. \nAl-Kadr is reportedly hiding in Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, sources familiar with al Qaeda said. \nFrom Tora Bora, Towha said, they hiked to Paktia province and then crossed the border at Ghulam Shah after bribing Pakistani tribal militiamen. \nKabir, once the third-most powerful man in Afghanistan, regularly moves between Pakistan and his homeland, Towha said.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A senior Taliban official said he approached U.S. representatives three years ago for help in replacing the hard-line Islamic leadership but was told Washington was leery of becoming involved in internal Afghan politics, the former official said Sunday.\nMullah Mohammed Khaksar, a former Taliban intelligence chief and later Afghan deputy interior minister, said he met with U.S. diplomats Gregory Marchese and J. Peter McIllwain in Peshawar, Pakistan, in April 1999 and told them he wanted to oust Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar because of his support for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.\nThe two Americans promised to contact Washington, Khaksar said. Later, he received a letter -- which he showed to The Associated Press -- from Marchese saying the United Sates was nervous about backing Afghan factions because of its experience supporting hardline Islamic movements during the war against the Soviets.\n"We don't want to make mistakes like we made in the holy war," Marchese said in the letter, written in Afghanistan's Pashto language and translated by The Associated Press. "We gave much help and it later went against us."\nMarchese added that "my boss is interested" -- without identifying him by name. However, Khaksar said that was his last contact with the Americans.\nMarchese, now posted in Washington, confirmed the meeting with Khaksar but refused to say what was discussed.\n"I can confirm that I met Mullah Khaksar, then the Taliban regime's deputy interior minister, at my home in Peshawar in April 1999," Marchese said in an e-mail. "I can't get into the content of the meeting, however."\nIt was unclear whether Khaksar's overture was relayed to the highest levels of the Clinton Administration. Nor is it clear whether the United States lost an opportunity to neutralize bin Laden and his Taliban protectors before the devastating attacks of Sept. 11.\nThe State Department on Sunday said it had "no immediate comment" on Khaksar's comments.\nKhaksar, a founding member of the Taliban, said he contacted the Americans because he feared the Islamic movement had been hijacked -- first by Pakistan's powerful intelligence agency and then by bin Laden and his al-Qaida group.\nKhaksar said he and others in the Taliban wanted to "keep Afghanistan for Afghans" but found themselves marginalized because of bin Laden's influence over Mullah Omar. Bin Laden donated suitcases full of money to finance the Taliban's war-effort against the northern-based alliance led by the late guerrilla leader, Ahmed Shah Massood.\nMullah Omar, meanwhile, had fallen under the influence of bin Laden and a clique of Afghan clerics who were graduates from Pakistani religious schools with links to Pakistani intelligence.\n"They told him he could be the leader of all the Muslims, bring all Muslims together," said Khaksar, who lives in Kabul. "What were they doing? It wasn't Afghanistan anymore. My thinking was that they would destroy my country."\nTo meet the Americans, Khaksar journeyed to Pakistan, telling associates he needed medical treatment for a stomach ailment. After a brief stay in Islamabad's Shifa Hospital, he stopped in Peshawar on his way home.\nSome low-ranking Taliban friends introduced him to an American teacher at a Christian school, who told him to telephone the Peshawar consulate and mention his name. Khaksar refused to identify the teacher.\nKhaksar said Marchese asked to meet at his home rather than the consulate so that Pakistani intelligence would not learn of the meeting.\n"He was there with two other men, an American and an Afghan interpreter," Khaksar said. "He asked me: 'What do you want from us and what can you give us about Osama bin Laden?'"\nKhaksar said he told the Americans that he was worried about bin Laden's Arab associations because "one day they would do something in the world, but everything would be on the head of Afghanistan."\nKhaksar said he told the Americans that Mullah Omar's clique could be undermined through political action inside Afghanistan.\n"I told them the Taliban militarily are too strong, but politically you can defeat them. I told them it is not something you can do in one or two days, but it can be done," he said.\nBefore leaving, Khaksar said he tore in half a Pakistani five rupee note and gave one part if it to Marchese.\n"If anyone comes to you and says they represent me, ask them for my half of the five rupee note," Khaksar told Marchese. "If he doesn't have it, don't believe him. He is a fake."\nAside from the letter, Khaksar said he never heard from U.S. officials again. In his letter, Marchese reminded him of the $5 million U.S. reward -- since raised to $25 million -- for bin Laden.\n"But for me, it wasn't bin Laden that I wanted a program for," Khaksar said. "But for the Americans, it was. For me, it was my country. I was waiting for a program from the Americans, a program to defeat the Taliban and a program to hand over bin Laden.\n"Back then, bin Laden's security was not so tight. It was easier to get him. But people would not be crazy enough to try to kill bin Laden unless they could be guaranteed of support behind them"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
HYDERABAD, Pakistan -- Police and soldiers searched vehicles and patrolled the streets in armored personnel carriers Sunday, a day before the expected verdict in the trial of four Islamic militants accused of the kidnap-slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.\nJudge Ali Ashrar Shah said he would announce his verdict in the three-month trial Monday and scheduled a hearing in the temporary courtroom in this city's heavily guarded jail.\nThe prosecution has demanded the death penalty for British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, alleged mastermind of the kidnapping, and three others. Seven suspects remain at large.\nThe trial has fanned the anger of Islamic militants against Pakistan's government, which many militants feel betrayed them by abandoning the Afghan Taliban and supporting the United States after Sept. 11.\nWestern diplomats and some Pakistani observers fear the kidnap-slaying of the 38-year-old journalist was the first shot in a war between Islamic extremists and this country's Western-backed government.\nPakistani newspapers Saturday received an Urdu-language e-mail purportedly from Asif Ramzi, one of those sought in the Pearl case, threatening more attacks against foreigners.\nPearl disappeared in Karachi on Jan. 23 while researching Pakistani's Islamic extremist movement, including possible links to Richard C. Reid, who was arrested in December on a flight between Paris and Miami with explosives in his shoes.\nE-mails received a few days later by Pakistani and Western news organizations from the previously unknown National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty showed Pearl in captivity and demanded better treatment for Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.\nThe first e-mail called Pearl a CIA agent; a second claimed he was working for the Israeli intelligence service, the Mossad. Pearl's family denied both allegations. A videotape received by U.S. diplomats in February confirmed Pearl was dead.\nSaeed and his co-defendants denied involvement in the kidnapping and accused the government of fabricating the case to appease American anger. Saeed admitted a role in the kidnapping during his initial court appearance Feb. 14 but later recanted. The statement was not made under oath and was inadmissible.\nSaeed was believed to have links with some of the country's most violent Islamic extremist groups. The trial began April 22 in Karachi but was moved to Hyderabad, about 60 miles away, after prosecutors said they were receiving death threats.\nOn the six-lane highway between Karachi and Hyderabad, graffiti painted in black lettering on concrete barriers proclaimed: "America, your death is coming," and "The war will continue until America is finished."\nFearing a militant backlash to a guilty verdict, off-duty policemen in Karachi and other cities here in Sindh province were called in to work and top police commanders were on 24-hour call, officials said on condition of anonymity.\nIn Karachi, Pakistan's largest city and a center of Islamic militancy, police staged mock explosions Sunday to evaluate their response times and procedures. Police and soldiers staged random vehicle searches in Karachi and elsewhere in Sindh province, which includes Hyderabad.\nThroughout Sindh province, police were on "red alert," the highest level before a state of emergency is declared. Officers were told to be "extraordinarily vigilant," if the suspects were convicted, Karachi police commander Syed Kamal Shah said.\nProsecutors alleged that Saeed, a former student at the London School of Economics, lured Pearl to a Karachi restaurant with the promise of a meeting with an Islamic cleric, who has been cleared of any involvement in the kidnapping.\nThe prosecution relied heavily on technical evidence provided by the FBI, which traced the e-mails to co-defendant Fahad Naseem, who in turn identified Saeed and the others. Naseem said Saeed told him that he intended to grab someone who was "anti-Islam and a Jew," police reported.\nSaeed and the others denied any involvement and claimed the government had coerced confessions and manufactured evidence to appease the Americans. The United States has asked for Saeed's extradition to face U.S. charges in the Pearl case and in the 1994 kidnapping in India of an American, who was freed unharmed.\nThe key prosecution witness, taxi driver Nasir Abbas, testified he saw Pearl get into a car with Saeed in front of a Karachi restaurant on the night the reporter vanished. The defense claimed Abbas was pressured into his statement.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The trial of eight foreign aid workers, including two Americans, accused of preaching Christianity in this deeply Muslim nation began Tuesday in the austere office of the supreme court chief justice. \nQuranic verses, a calendar depicting a U.S. missile attack on Afghanistan, two swords and a leather strap used for public floggings were the only adornments on the walls of the office of the Chief Justice Noor Mohammed Saqib. The tables were piled high with books on Islamic law. \nFor four hours the mostly elderly judges sifted through evidence and debated the law as it applies to the eight aid workers, the two Americans, four Germans and two Australians. \nThe trial, which Saqib said would be closed despite earlier promises that it would be open to journalists and relatives of the accused, is expected to continue Wednesday and last several days at least. \nThe eight foreign employees of Shelter Now International, a German-based Christian group, have been accused by Afghanistan's Taliban militia leadership of trying to convert Muslims, a crime that carries the penalty of jail and expulsion for foreigners. The workers were arrested four weeks ago. \n"It is a matter of concern for the whole Islamic world, not just the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," Saqib said. \nSaqib said the foreigners will eventually be allowed to speak in their own defense. He would not say when they would be called, but said they will be allowed to have a lawyer. \nDiplomats from the United States, Germany and Australia as well as the family members of the two jailed American women were not informed about the start of the trial. \n"We are certainly going to request" details about the trial procedure, said David Donahue Consul-General at the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Pakistan. \n"We would like to meet anyone in the government who can provide us with the information, so we know how we can best advise our nationals," he said. \nSaqib said he was willing to explain the procedure to the diplomats if they wanted to come to the Supreme Court building and meet with him. \nThe eight foreign aid workers were arrested along with 16 Afghan staff members. It's not known when the trial of the Afghan employees will be held. For an Afghan, the penalty for proselytizing is death. \nFor the parents of the jailed Americans, Dayna Curry, 29, and Heather Mercer, 24, the wait has been fraught with uncertainty. \nOn Monday, John Mercer of Vienna, Va., celebrated his birthday quietly while waiting at the United Nations guest house for news about his daughter. \n"The only present I want is to have my daughter home," he said. \nCurry's mother, Nancy Cassell, a teacher from Thompson's Station, Tenn., took comfort in the hope that the ordeal would soon be over. \nThe only precedent of a foreigner being tried in Afghanistan under the Taliban occurred in March 1997, when two French employees of the Paris-based Action Contre la Faim were tried on charges of immoral conduct. After spending 26 days in a Taliban jail, they were sentenced to time served and ordered to leave the country immediately. \nTheir trial lasted less than one hour. \nAnalysts, however, say the ruling Taliban are more organized than in 1997 and they would like to demonstrate that with this trial, establishing a format and following it. \nThe Taliban's strict enforcement of their laws among Afghans has many international aid organizations fearful that at least some of the Afghan employees of Shelter Now International will be sentenced to death. \nKnown as a missionary organization among expatriate workers in Afghanistan, Shelter Now International was forced to close in neighboring Pakistan the early 1990s after its employees were said to be proselytizing in Afghan refugee camps.
(03/06/02 5:08am)
GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- U.S. and coalition forces inched up the snow-covered mountains of eastern Afghanistan Tuesday, trying to reach hideouts believed to contain hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Some forces entered at least one cave complex, uncovering weapons caches. \nAllied jets flew high over Paktia province, dropping bombs as well as decoy flares to ward off heat-seeking missiles -- defensive measures after two U.S. helicopters were hit Monday in incidents that left seven U.S. soldiers dead. \nFront-line commander Abdul Matin Hasankhiel said hundreds of Afghan and coalition forces have ringed the mountain range and trapped the al Qaeda and Taliban fighters higher up. \n"They can't escape. They're surrounded. Slowly, slowly we are pushing in," he said. \nHundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters are believed to be holed up in the area, Brig. Gen. John Rosa told reporters at the Pentagon. Bombers and tactical aircraft have dropped more than 450 bombs on the area since the assault began Friday night, he said. \n"We've been able to get into at least one of the cave complexes thus far, and we've discovered mortars, rocket-propelled grenade rounds, small arms," he said. "And in a different location we found more weapons and ammunition, as well as foreign driver's license and foreign passports." He did not say whether there was resistance entering the cave complex. \nOne fighter, Nawab, who returned from a front-line position Tuesday, said about 50 U.S. special forces were fighting alongside Afghan soldiers at his position about 2 1/2 miles from Shah-e-Kot, the village that is the focus of the largest U.S.-led coalition air and ground operation in Afghanistan to date. \nMinesweepers were leading the way, clearing the paths along the snowy mountains. Attack jets circled overhead and pounded al Qaeda positions while Chinook helicopters ferried in supplies. A powerful fleet of aircraft -- including A-10s, F-15s, B-1s, B-52s, AC-130 gunships, and French Mirage 2000 and Super-Etendard aircraft -- was participating in the assault. \nThe blitz is concentrating on a 60-square-mile area south of the provincial capital, Gardez. \nNawab said fighting was less intense than in previous days. The militants were equipped with heavy artillery, anti-aircraft weapons, mortars, cannons and machine guns. \n"Inshallah (God willing) in three or four days they will be finished," he said. \nU.S. officials said Tuesday the United States had observed al Qaeda forces reoccupying several former training camps in the region that were bombed earlier in the war. \n"We don't know how long it's going to take, but we'll be there until the al Qaeda and Taliban forces are totally uprooted," said Gunnery Sgt. Charles Portman, a spokesman at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. \nEight American soldiers have been killed in the offensive, including one who died Saturday in a ground battle. The remains of the seven killed in the helicopter operations arrived Tuesday at a base in Ramstein, Germany, heading for the United States. Several allied Afghan fighters have also been killed. \n"We should make sure these very brave people who lost their lives did not do so in vain," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Tuesday, calling for the world to redouble its efforts to stamp out terrorism. \nNeither the former Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar nor al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was believed to be in the Shah-e-Kot area, but Afghans say hundreds of their supporters and their families are there. \nU.S. officials said Tuesday the enemy troops included foreigners who fought with the Taliban, al Qaeda members, and members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. \nAs of Monday, about 100 or 200 enemy fighters had been killed and a small number detained, said Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the war in Afghanistan. \n Afghan and American defense officials said the Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were likely armed with shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles such as Russian SA-7s and possibly American Stingers -- as well as mortars, grenades and cannons. \n Tuesday, about 60 Afghan fighters outfitted in U.S.-issued parkas, their heads wrapped in turbans, headed to the front lines from Jaji, northeast of Gardez. \n Bright orange strips were affixed to the top of the transport trucks to identify them to the allied bombers and helicopters roaring overhead. \n The American deaths Monday occurred during two operations involving MH-47 Chinook helicopters, Rosa said. In the first, a helicopter inserting special forces was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, forcing it down. As it tried to lift off, one American fell out, Rosa said. Another helicopter retrieved the rest of the crew.