WASHINGTON/NEAR KANDAHAR (REUTERS) — Anti-Taliban fighters tightened their noose around the besieged Afghan city of Kandahar Monday as U.S. officials warned that America could be targeted for more attacks following the Sept. 11 assaults on New York and Washington.
As U.S. warplanes and ethnic Pashtun fighters increased pressure on the last Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan, rival Afghan factions meeting in Germany agreed on a blueprint for a new power-sharing government — but remained stalled on the crucial question of who would fill which posts.
In a sign of conflict among Afghan groups supposedly allied against the Taliban, factional fighting broke out in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the latest indication that long-held tensions within the grouping of Afghan warlords were beginning to show.
Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes bombarded a suspected mountain hideout of Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan, killing 58 people, the Afghan Islamic Press news agency reported.
The U.S. government launched its war on the Taliban Oct. 7 to punish them for sheltering bin Laden, the Saudi-born militant it blames for the September suicide attacks on New York and Washington that killed about 3,900 people.
On Monday, the U.S. government issued a new warning of possible threats against American targets during the holiday season over the next few weeks.
U.S. Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge said the new warning — the third since the Sept. 11 attacks — was “very generic” and did not mean the government had any concrete information on specific threats.
With world attention diverted by a fresh crisis in the Middle East, Secretary of State Colin Powell left on a 10-nation tour of Europe and Central Asia to build support for the U.S.-led anti-terror coalition and discuss future reconstruction work in Afghanistan.
U.S. warned of new threat
Ridge, speaking in Washington, said U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies picked up an increased number of threats in recent days, leading to a new warning to 18,000 law enforcement agencies around the nation.
“The information we have does not point to any specific target either in America or abroad, and it does not outline any specific type of attacks,” he said.
“We do know that the next several weeks, which bring the final weeks of Ramadan and other important religious observations in other faiths, have been times when terrorists have planned attacks in the past.”
A U.S. official said the threat was “al Qaeda related,” referring to bin Laden’s network of Islamic militants.
In Afghanistan, where U.S. Marines are massing at an airstrip near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, anti-Taliban forces were consolidating strength north and south of the city and were beginning to probe Taliban defenses, according to U.S. officials.
Taliban defectors predicted fierce resistance by hundreds of Arab and Chechen fighters loyal to bin Laden hunkered down within the ancient walled city.
The Taliban’s spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, was also certain to fight to the death, one senior defector said.
