WASHINGTON/KABUL, 22 November — One of the most striking images at the beginning of the “war against terror” was the poster evoking the Wild West that proclaimed above the image of Osama Bin Laden: “Wanted Dead or Alive”. In an apparent reversal of that policy, United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday stated that the United States would prefer to kill Bin Laden than take him prisoner and put him on trial. However, in an acknowledgment of just how complex the situation has become in Afghanistan, he added: “I don’t think we have much choice in (the matter) anyway.”
Echoing this, US armed forces chief Richard Myers said in Brussels: “We have to face up to the fact that he may leave Afghanistan at some point, and if he does, we’re going to have to follow him wherever he goes.”
Bin Laden’s protectors the Taleban were still defiant yesterday as their rule over Afghanistan crumbled under nearly seven weeks of relentless US attacks. Vowing to fight until the death and telling the world to leave them alone, they insisted that they no longer had any contact with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 hijack attacks.
Even as more US Marines raced toward central Asia to join the hunt for Bin Laden, Taleban spokesman Tayab Agha told reporters in Spin Boldak, a town near the Pakistan border, that the militia had lost contact with Bin Laden during its dramatic withdrawal from the north over the past two weeks, and claimed there was no sign of him in the “three or four” provinces under its control. “At present, our forces in Kandahar and surrounding provinces, they are enough to defend our present controlled areas,” Agha said. He said that for the Taleban, it was “not important if a province falls ... the people will be with us and we will defeat our enemies.”
US naval warships have joined in the hunt for Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, by stopping and searching merchant vessels leaving Pakistan to prevent their escape, the Pentagon said. “It’s not as if we’re stopping every ship, but if we have reason to suspect that they’re helping the senior Al-Qaeda leadership, then we have put out notice that we will board those ships and inspect them,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. David Lapan said of the operation, which began Tuesday.
Kunduz, a Taleban holdout in the north, escaped heavy US bombing for the second day in a row as surrender negotiations aimed at preventing a bloodbath dragged on. US warplanes dropped only two bombs on the front lines near the town.
Agha said Taleban commanders were trying to negotiate a surrender or safe passage for the estimated 10,000 fighters trapped in Kunduz, but ruled out withdrawal from Kandahar and other southern areas.
Taleban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salaam Zaeef said that thousands of Arab fighters had been either killed or arrested during the US-led operation.
Saudi Ambassador to Islamabad, Awad Al-Aseery, told Asharq Al-Awsat by telephone that Saudis held in Pakistan while crossing over from Afghanistan for security reasons would be deported to the Kingdom and investigated. “They will be punished if anything is found against them,” the ambassador told the Arabic daily.
On the Saudis being held by the Northern Alliance among other Arab and foreign prisoners of war, Aseery said there were contacts between Pakistan and the Northern Alliance through the United Nations on handing over Arab and foreign POWs.
One day after turning down a Taleban offer to abandon Kunduz in a UN-supervised withdrawal, the United Nations reiterated its appeal to all Afghan forces “to refrain from acts of reprisal.” “We are appealing to everyone in the country to respect humanitarian law and the laws of war and keep the killings to zero if possible,” a UN spokesman said.
But the spokesman in Islamabad of the US-led anti-terror coalition downplayed fears of a massacre, saying it was pressuring anti-Taleban forces to treat prisoners with dignity. In any case, said the spokesman, Kenton Keith, the holdouts are “not a group of boy scouts — this is a group of the most hardened fighters the Taleban have.”
The site for UN-sponsored talks due to begin on Monday on the future of Afghanistan has been switched to Bonn from Berlin, the United Nations said. Among those attending the meeting in Germany would be representatives of the Northern Alliance, which includes largely ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, and of the “Rome process” led by supporters of 87-year-old exiled King Zahir Shah, who now lives in Rome. Also attending would be representatives of the “Cyprus process,” a group of exiles and refugees, many of them in Iran, who have met several times on the Mediterranean island, and of the “Peshawar process” of several hundred Afghans who met in the Pakistani city on Oct. 28. Diplomats from United States, Britain, Pakistan and Russia are also expected to attend.
But a senior leader of the Northern Alliance played down expectations from the talks. One day after rival anti-Taleban factions agreed to the meeting, Burhanuddin Rabbani said he saw the talks as “insignificant.” The conference “is important, but does not touch the most prominent problems,” Rabbani, the country’s UN-recognized president, said in an interview published in the Russian daily Vremya Novosti.
In the United States, fears of biowarfare resurfaced as a new fatal case of anthrax inhalation was reported in the farming village of Oxford, Connecticut. In a case that baffled investigators, a 94-year-old woman died of suspected inhalation of anthrax. Fresh traces of the deadly bacteria were detected in the offices of two more senators.
The United States asked Pakistan to close the Taleban embassy in Islamabad and expel the militia’s diplomats because their presence was no longer “useful.” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the request had been made after eight Western aid workers, including two Americans, detained by the Taleban in Kabul were freed and then rescued by US troops last week.
President George W. Bush told troops: “The most difficult steps in this mission still lie ahead, where enemies hide in sophisticated cave complexes located in some of the most mountainous and rugged territory.”
