FBI director checks on his agents far away from home

WASHINGTON -- FBI director Robert Mueller made an unexpected visit to Afghanistan Wednesday to meet with agents conducting interrogations of al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners.

Mueller's stop at the Kandahar airport, where U.S. troops have set up a base and are holding hundreds of al-Qaida and Taliban prisoners, underlines the increasing role the agency once known for catching mobsters and bank robbers has taken in antiterrorism operations since Sept. 11.

"Information we have picked up since the war has prevented additional attacks around the world," Mueller said. "Interrogations of al-Qaida members detained here in Afghanistan as well as documents ... has prevented additional attacks against U.S. facilities around the world."

Mueller refused to elaborate. However, one prisoner -- al-Qaida training camp commander Ibn Al-Shaykh al-Libi -- spoke of plots to bomb the U.S. Navy base in Bahrain and the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, according to U.S. and Yemeni officials.

Mueller later made a stop in Yemen, where he said Yemeni cooperation had uncovered new leads in the investigation of the USS Cole bombing, which remains unsolved.

Also in Kandahar Wednesday, a close associate of the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, surrendered weapons and vehicles to the new Afghan authorities.

Khalid Pashtoon, a spokesman for the interim government, told reporters that Haji Bashar, warlord of the Noorzai tribe, turned in 1,200 firearms and 20 vehicles to Kandahar governor Gul Agha after about 12 days of negotiations.

The search turned up no trace of Omar, who refused to turn over bin Laden for his role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

The U.S.-led coalition has been trying to get weapons out of the hands of local warlords whose support for the new interim Afghan government is in doubt. The United States has allied itself with other power brokers, including Agha, in hopes they can maintain order and work with the central government in Kabul.

In other developments:

Rival Afghan factions battled each other in the northern district of Qale Zaal, the Afghan Islamic Press, a Pakistan-based news agency reported. The report said that forces loyal to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, deputy defense minister and Uzbek warlord, seized the district from forces loyal to his boss, Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim.

Renewed clashes between Afghan tribes have raised concern about the stability of the new interim government in Kabul and worries about renewed civil war as the United States presses its hunt for Taliban and al-Qaida holdouts. But Dostum, in Turkey for meetings with Turkish officials, said he would continue to support the interim government.

The commander of the U.S.-led antiterrorist campaign in Afghanistan said Wednesday that the United States is not planning a permanent military presence in Central Asia.

The comments by Gen. Tommy Franks came amid mounting Russian fears that America is planting roots in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia -- a region rich in resources and for centuries under Moscow's control.

Franks, on his latest Central Asian tour, said the region's cooperation had been critical to the success of the U.S.-led campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization.

Franks said said the United States would work with regional leaders to determine how long a U.S. military presence would remain.

Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai began two days of talks in Beijijng, where Chinese leaders pledged to aid the new regime.

"China is ready to provide assistance to the best of our ability to your effort of reconstruction," Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji told Karzai.

China, which shares a small border with Afghanistan, pledged $1-million for reconstruction in addition to $3.6-million in humanitarian aid set to arrive soon.

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