Wednesday, November 28, 2001

U.S. ground troops patrolling southern Afghanistan
By Greg Myre
Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — More Marines poured into Afghanistan Tuesday, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said America was “tightening the noose” around Osama bin Laden and his Taliban allies. Taliban control in their southern stronghold appeared to be crumbling.

“We’ll pursue them until they have nowhere else to run,” Rumsfeld told reporters at the U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

He also said the Pentagon ordered airstrikes Tuesday against a compound southeast of Kandahar after learning that it was being used by senior leaders of the Taliban, al-Queda and Wafa, a Saudi humanitarian group that was among several groups named by the United States as aiding bin Laden and his network.

U.S. F-16 jets and B-1B bombers attacked two targets with precision-guided weapons, military officials said.

The anti-Taliban northern alliance said it crushed a bloody, three-day revolt by bin Laden’s foreign fighters who had surrendered last weekend in the northern city of Kunduz.

However, U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks, who runs the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, said 30 to 40 hard-core fighters were still holding out in the mud-walled fortress near Mazar-e-Sharif.

With the collapse of Taliban resistance in the north, attention has focused on the south, where the Islamic militia which protected bin Laden remains in control of the city of Kandahar and a handful of provinces.

President Bush launched military operations Oct. 7 in Afghanistan after the Taliban refused to surrender bin Laden, alleged architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

In Washington, U.S. officials said that of an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 members of bin Laden’s al-Queda terrorist network in Afghanistan, several hundred have been killed, including seven considered to be leaders. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

Franks said the hunt for bin Laden and his al-Queda followers was focusing on two areas: Kandahar in the south and a mountain base called Tora Bora south of Jalalabad in the east near the Pakistan border.

U.S. Marines, who established a base in southern Afghanistan late Sunday, sent out armed patrols Tuesday as part of the American effort to bring the fight to the Taliban’s southern homeland.

Less than three days after first landing in southern Afghanistan, more than 600 Marines were on the ground, with at least 400 more on their way. Pentagon officials said they would help choke off escape routes for Taliban leaders and fighters loyal to bin Laden.

Rumsfeld said U.S. efforts “will be shifting from cities at some point to hunting down and rooting out terrorists where they hide.”

Franks described the situation inside Kandahar, the dusty backwater city were the Taliban took shape in the early 1990s, as “very confused” — an observation borne out by reports from residents and travelers reaching Pakistan.

Kandahar residents reached by telephone said Taliban fighters were positioning anti-aircraft guns and mortars on hilltops surrounding the city. But the center of the city appeared largely deserted.

“Taliban morale seems low. They’re not as active or alert as they used to be,” said Mohammed Asan, who traveled Tuesday from Kandahar to the Pakistani border town of Chaman in search of work.

He said people in Kandahar were aware of the Marines’ presence from foreign radio reports.

Ghulam Mahmood, another traveler from Kandahar, said residents were afraid for themselves. “Will civilians get killed in the cross fire? They don’t know what to expect.”

The Taliban have vowed to defend Kandahar rather than abandon it as they did Kabul, the capital and other cities. However, the South Asian Dispatch Agency, a private Pakistani news service with a correspondent in Kandahar, quoted unidentified Taliban fighters in the city as saying they had been ordered to prepare to leave on short notice.

Taliban authority appeared under strain elsewhere in the south.

In the town of Spinboldak, nine miles from the Pakistani border, witnesses said Afghan refugees in a Taliban-administered camp raided two warehouses and looted blankets and food which had been delivered from Pakistan.

In Spinboldak itself, few Taliban soldiers patrolled the streets and their main checkpoint was vacant, according to a local farmer, Ghoar Noorzai. Taliban guards could not be seen on the Afghan side of the border at Chaman.

Pashtun tribesmen opposed to the Taliban claim they have cut the main road leading from Spinboldak to Kandahar. The Taliban admitted Tuesday the highway had been closed for three days but would not say why.

With Taliban power waning, representatives of four Afghan factions opened a U.N.-sponsored meeting near Bonn, Germany, to map plans for a new, multi-ethnic government after two decades of war and civil strife.