DESERT AIRSTRIP, Southern Afghanistan, 28 November — Reports of looting, robberies and general lawlessness across Afghanistan increased dramatically yesterday as if to illustrate the urgent need for progress at the UN-sponsored meeting in Bonn that brought together Afghan tribal leaders. At the same time, more US Marines flooded into their bridgehead near Kandahar as the Taleban’s authority crumbled still further.
The United Nations urged leaders meeting in Germany not to let Afghanistan slip into chaos and bloodshed once again. "To many skeptics, it appears that is precisely that which you are about to do," UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a message to the gathering. "You must prove them wrong."
The Pentagon said 600 Marines were now in place at the desert airstrip which they seized Sunday within striking distance of the Taleban’s stronghold. More were still sweeping in by air from ships in the northern Indian Ocean.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said their prime goal was to throttle free movement for Osama Bin Laden, his Al-Qaeda operatives and the Taleban who have protected the man blamed for the Sept. 11 airliner attacks on New York and Washington.
The Marines, who have hoisted a US stars and stripes flag over their compound, fought a first engagement overnight, firing from helicopters on a convoy of vehicles heading their way. US bombers also pounded Kandahar overnight and Afghan tribesmen squeezed the Taleban.
A local news agency said 5,000 anti-Taleban Pashtun tribesmen had taken Spin Boldak on the border with Pakistan. "The situation has gone out of Taleban control," the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted a witness in Spin Boldak as saying. "Now there is no Taleban rule over Spin Boldak. The Achakzai and Nurzai tribes have taken over everything."
The unidentified witness said he had seen crowds of people looting blankets and other goods from relief vehicles. It was not immediately clear whether Taleban fighters had withdrawn from the desert town, but AIP said about 5,000 anti-Taleban tribesmen had found their way in.
The Taleban have kidnapped and threatened to kill a Canadian journalist in the town, a colleague said. Freelance journalist Ken Hetchman is being kept in a small cell bound hand and foot, Jonathan Steele of Britain’s Guardian newspaper said. A local Pashtun man handed Steele one of Hetchman’s business cards at the border town of Chaman, with an appeal for help.
The Pashtun man told Steele that the Taleban had warned "that when we surrender, if we do not get money, maybe we will kill you because these are the people we do not like." Hetchman, who has worked for the Montreal Mirror and is aged around 30, had met Steele while the pair were staying together at the same hotel in Chaman three days ago
A Swedish cameraman became the eighth journalist killed in Afghanistan after he was shot by armed bandits in a night-time robbery in a house in the northern city of Taloqan where he and other reporters were staying, witnesses and colleagues said.
In Mazar-e-Sharif in the north, the alliance and US bombers crushed a revolt by Al-Qaeda prisoners in which hundreds died. Five US troops were wounded by an errant American bomb.
But Rumsfeld said there was "still some fighting going on" at the Qala-e-Jangi prison. "It’s hard to estimate numbers but this morning I was told it was down to a few handful of people ... who are resisting," Rumsfeld told reporters on a plane heading to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Fla. But, he said, opposition forces expect to have the revolt "subdued soon."
In Washington, Attorney General John Ashcroft said the United States has members of the Al-Qaeda network in custody. He said, however, he was not going to release most of the names of those held for security reasons.
In Bonn, hardened Afghan fighters, tribal leaders and exiled royalists settled for talks to try to end two decades of war. The Northern Alliance, which now holds most of Afghanistan, overshadowed the three other delegations of exiles.
A US envoy said all groups agreed on one thing — that the long-exiled former King Zahir Shah, now 87 and living in Rome, should play a figurehead role in a transitional government. "The one element which was common to every group I met with, all four of them, was a common vision of how the king would fit in," James Dobbins said.
German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer promised foreign aid to rebuild a land of poverty and drought, rubble and minefields — where after Soviet occupation and ensuing civil war, more than a quarter of children die before the age of five.
World powers and Afghan neighbors hope the talks could set up an interim leadership council of about 15 people — akin to a Cabinet — as a first step on a long path to stable government. Speedy success is essential because of the Taleban’s dramatic fall after seven weeks of US bombing, which turned the tables in favor of the Northern Alliance.
The alliance draws support mainly from Uzbeks, Tajiks and other ethnic minorities. Pashtuns, the largest Afghan group to which the ex-king and most Taleban belong, fear being sidelined.
Vowing to fight the Americans to the death, the Taleban showed no sign of giving up Kandahar. Local residents who crossed the Afghan-Pakistan border told AFP that they had seen no trace of the American troops when they left the city in the morning. "Some people say the Americans are coming but I did not see any," said shopkeeper Mirajan.
"The situation is quite calm. There is no sign of fighting, although there were big bombardments overnight.
"There were huge amounts of Taleban on the streets but I do not think they will fight anyone. It is possible that they will leave immediately," he said.
Muhammad Ismail, who works in Kandahar for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, said many of the ordinary citizens still remaining in the city were now hoping that the Americans would arrive quickly and end the conflict.
