KABUL/WASHINGTON (REUTERS) — Afghan troops advanced against Osama bin Laden’s guerrillas, who were holed up in the Tora Bora mountains Monday as U.S. President George W. Bush branded the militant Islamic leader an “incredible murderer” with no conscience and no soul.
Just days after the U.S.-led war on terrorism swept the hard-line Taliban from power, calm returned to much of Afghanistan as aid began to flow, bickering warlords patched up their differences and Britain agreed to lead an international security force to keep order in the war-ravaged country.
But fighting raged on in the cave-riddled Tora Bora mountains in eastern Afghanistan, where mainly Arab fighters aligned with bin Laden’s al Qaeda network of Islamic militants put up fierce resistance against Afghan forces closing in for a final assault.
Both bin Laden, blamed by the United States for masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,900 people, and his erstwhile Afghan protector, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, remained at large Monday. But U.S. officials said they were “closing the noose” on both men.
Bush, meanwhile, moved toward releasing a captured videotape of bin Laden which U.S. officials say proves his responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks.
“For those who see this tape, they’ll realize not only is he guilty of incredible murder, he has no conscience and no soul,” Bush said Monday, adding that the Saudi-born fugitive “represents the worst of civilization.”
The U.S. military said Monday it had unleashed a giant “daisy cutter” bomb against one of the Tora Bora caves where al Qaeda leaders, and possibly bin Laden himself, were believed to be hiding.
The mammoth 15,000-pound bomb has been used only two or three times since the U.S.-led air campaign began on Oct. 7.
U.S. officials warned that despite the ousting of the Taliban and progress against al Qaeda, the war was far from over.
“The war in Afghanistan is not won,” said Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. “It is a classic military mistake to leave a partially defeated enemy on the battlefield.”
Bin Laden’s whereabouts unclear
Afghan forces have launched a three-pronged strike against the Tora Bora cave complexes, where they believe bin Laden is personally leading about 1,000 al Qaeda guerrillas in what could be their last stand.
Hazrat Ali, commanding local forces pursuing al Qaeda in the rugged terrain, said bin Laden’s men, under intense U.S. bombing, had been forced back to new defensive positions on “mountaintops between Tora Bora and Waziri Gorge.”
“Osama may be there too. He was seen five days ago, and an Afghan prisoner whom we have confirmed it too,” Ali told Reuters by satellite telephone from Tora Bora.
“Osama has set up new caves and an underground protection system on top of these mountains. His people are putting [up] extremely tough resistance,” he added.
U.S. officials were less sure of bin Laden’s whereabouts, and said it remained to be seen how quickly his fighters would be beaten, two months and 12,000 bombs and missiles after the campaign began to punish the Taliban for protecting him.
“We certainly don’t have any information that would allow us to assess the situation as close to the end,” said Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke. “It’s tough … pretty intense fighting.”
In Kabul, U.S. Marines moved into the U.S. Embassy for the first time since 1989. To the south, U.S. “hunter-killer teams” and equipment moved north from their desert base near Kandahar to cut possible escape routes for al Qaeda fighters and fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
Wolfowitz said the United States believed Mullah Omar, who disappeared after the Taliban surrendered Kandahar Friday, was still in the southern Afghan city.
Britain to lead security force
Britain accepted the task of leading and organizing a multinational force for Afghanistan, which the U.N. Security Council is expected to approve by Friday, U.S. diplomats said Monday.
But U.N. officials worry the NATO nations, who are to form the core of a force seen as crucial to maintaining Afghan stability, may not deploy troops by Dec. 22 when the new Afghan interim government is to take office in Kabul.
Calm was returning to much of Afghanistan Monday, with no reports of fighting between the factions that have agreed to share power in the interim government led by Hamid Karzai.
In a boost for the new regime, powerful northern warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum dropped his hostility and said he would cooperate with Karzai’s government.
Karzai, seeking to restore order to a country riven by ethnic and factional rivalries, plans to quickly disarm rival militias in Kandahar once he assumes power Dec. 22, a source close to his family said.
In another step that could promote peace, aides said former King Zahir Shah, seen as a unifying figurehead, would probably return home in March to join in reconstruction, ending almost 30 years of exile in Italy.
Uzbekistan reopened a border crossing closed for four years, letting an aid convoy drive over the Soviet-built Friendship Bridge into northern Afghanistan Sunday, and U.S. officials reported that food deliveries for hungry Afghans were up sharply.
In the first nine days of December, Afghanistan received 29,585 tons of food, well above the target of 1,800 tons a day, the Agency for International Development said.
Charts prepared by the World Food Program showed that the rate of internal distribution to the 7.5 million needy Afghans has also increased sharply since the start of the month, sometimes to twice the daily target figure.
“I think we’ve caught [the famine] in time, and I think we’re getting the mortality rates down to a lower level,” AID Administrator Andrew Natsios reported in a briefing.
“I didn’t think we could do it. So I’m more optimistic now than any time during even November,” he added.
In Kabul, the distribution of food aid to some 1.3 million Afghans, three-quarters of the city’s population, was to resume after a suspension called Sunday due to huge crowds.
Evidence on tape
U.S. officials, while pressing the hunt for both bin Laden and Mullah Omar, have vowed that the war on terrorism will not end with the conclusion of military action in Afghanistan.
But with rising hope that bin Laden may soon find himself cornered, President Bush moved Monday toward releasing the captured videotape which U.S. officials hope might counter doubts, particularly in the Arab world, about bin Laden’s responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush and his National Security Council met and discussed releasing the tape, which officials said showed bin Laden saying the damage to the World Trade Center twin towers in New York had been much greater than he had anticipated.
Bin Laden also expressed amusement that some of those taking part in the hijackings of the four passenger jets did not know they were on suicide missions, officials said. Bin Laden, in an earlier interview, welcomed the attacks but denied involvement.
“He’s so evil that he’s willing to send young men to commit suicide while he hides in caves,” Bush said. “[The tape] just reminded me of what a murderer he is.”
Officials said Bush hoped to release the tape later this week, possibly Wednesday, after a security review to make sure it does not undermine intelligence operations.
