Airstrikes reportedly kill al-Qaida lieutenants

Commanders of anti-Taliban forces say the dead include bin Laden's closest adviser. The U.S. says it can't verify the claims.

Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times,
published December 5, 2001

JALALABAD, Afghanistan -- At least 10 senior lieutenants in Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida organization were killed by U.S. airstrikes on Monday near the mountain complex of caves and tunnels where officials here think bin Laden is hiding, according to regional commanders of anti-Taliban forces.

The commanders said a force of 1,000 fighters began to lay siege Tuesday to the area near a subterranean fortress 45 miles southwest of here, the target of heavy U.S. bombing. "This fight has just begun," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, said in Washington.

The offensive made the Jalalabad region, along with Kandahar in the south, one of two remaining centers of major conflict against the Taliban and its allied, largely foreign, army loyal to bin Laden.

There were conflicting reports about the identity of those killed in the aerial attacks. One top military commander here said that bin Laden's closest adviser, Ayman Zawahiri, was among those injured or dead. Other reports said that while Zawahiri was unharmed, his wife and three daughters were killed.

Zawahiri, a 50-year-old Egyptian, is said to be the chief of al-Qaida's daily operations and the mastermind of many of its terrorist attacks. Since the U.S.-led bombing campaign began, he has surfaced just once, on a videotape at bin Laden's side, proclaiming that America's "campaign will be a failure, God willing."

The defense minister for the anti-Taliban regional government in eastern Afghanistan, Haji Mohammed Zaman, said that, overall, 18 top al-Qaida operatives died in the attack, which he said took place in Wouchnow, near the heavily fortified Milawa cave complex. Regional security chief Hazrat Ali said he had confirmed the deaths of 10 leading al-Qaida figures. The total estimate of foreign fighters killed ranged from 80 to 100.

While Zaman said the bombing either wounded or killed Zawahiri and killed al-Qaida financial adviser Ali Mahmood, Pentagon and CIA officials in Washington said they couldn't confirm the claim.

Anti-Taliban leaders said that al-Qaida troops south of Jalalabad numbered between 800 and 1,200. Outside this area, the fiercest resistance to the U.S.-led campaign remained in Kandahar, where two main militias of ethnic Pashtuns continued pressing toward the city, assisted by U.S. airstrikes and supply deliveries. Military advantage in the villages around Kandahar has swung back and forth in recent days.

In Washington, Pentagon officials also cited several other pockets of resistance around Afghanistan. The largest appears to be in Balkh, northwest of Mazar-e-Sharif, where defense officials said 2,000 to 2,500 fighters who had been in Kunduz before the city fell to Northern Alliance forces two weeks ago have regrouped. Another 1,000 or so were said to be in an unspecified area east of Kabul, and 800 to 1,000 are in Baghlan. Smaller groups of several hundred were reported in areas south of Kunduz and southeast of Herat.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the continued existence of such armed pro-Taliban groups posed a danger for U.S. forces. But he appeared much less concerned about them than about the challenges in Kandahar and in the mountains in eastern Afghanistan.

With the hunt for bin Laden intensifying, there have been conflicting reports about his whereabouts. Numerous sources have reported bin Laden sightings in Nangarhar province in the last month, with many claiming that the Saudi-born fugitive was prepared to make a last stand in the White Mountains along the Pakistani border to the south of Jalalabad.

Zaman said he was certain that bin Laden is still hidden in the mountains where anti-Taliban fighters are preparing their siege. "He is there," Zaman said, declining to specify where he received this information, except to say it came "not from one person, not from two or three, but from every side."

Ali told reporters that bin Laden had been seen there four days ago. "We had information that he was there four or five or six days ago, but now I don't have information that he is there or that he isn't." Ali also reported recent sightings of Zawahiri in the area.

Early Tuesday, mujahadeen fighters began leaving Jalalabad and heading toward the mountains. The plan, according to Zaman, is to surround bin Laden's fighters. The fight, Ali said, will take "at least two weeks or more." The first wave of 1,000 fighters will be joined in the coming days by several thousand more, according to both regional commanders.

"Our mujahadeen have already reached the outskirts of Tora Bora," Ali proclaimed Tuesday night, referring to the heavily fortified mountain area where Afghan fighters, joined by foreign volunteers like bin Laden, opposed an invasion by the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The Milawa cave complex is in the same mountain range as Tora Bora, and commanders here said that while it's less well known, Milawa is the major remaining base for al-Qaida in the region.

Ali said the military campaign was beginning because negotiations had failed. He said several delegations of village elders from the region had tried to persuade the al-Qaida fighters to leave their stronghold, but "they have been rejected, and now we are forced to take this action."

Already on Tuesday, Ali's troops engaged in one small clash with foreign troops loyal to bin Laden, but he said there were no casualties. On Sunday, according to Ali, his forces succeeded in cutting the al-Qaida supply line from Jalalabad to Tora Bora.

While U.S. airstrikes are concentrating on the caves, Ali said the bombing was indiscriminate enough to endanger his troops. He said his fighters had came under attack Tuesday from misdirected U.S. missiles, an increasing point of contention here after days of heavy bombardment reportedly caused civilian casualties in villages near Tora Bora.

"We are worried about that," he said. "Why are they missing their targets?"

Both commanders said they had no need to wait for U.S. assistance before launching a fight against an al-Qaida force led by well-trained, zealous fighters.

"We don't need them," Zaman said when asked why the attack would take place without American troops. "These are our mountains, this is our country."

As fighters left the city headed toward the mountains, there were indications of stepped-up activity at the Jalalabad airport, where workmen began repairing the runway damaged by U.S. bombing before the Taliban's withdrawal. Three large bomb craters make it unusable, but workers said repairs would be finished within a few days.

Fighting in Kandahar

In the south, tribesmen loyal to former Kandahar governor Gul Agha fought their way onto the airport compound a few miles south of the city Tuesday but were pushed back two miles by about 500 al-Qaida fighters, according to Abdul Jabbar, a tribal spokesman in Pakistan.

Jabbar said U.S. special operations forces were calling in airstrikes in support of Agha's fighters. The Taliban admitted the U.S. bombing was taking its toll.

If not for the airstrikes, "people like Gul Agha wouldn't be a problem for us," said Mullah Qasim, a Taliban commander south of Kandahar.

Another force under Hamid Karzai -- the leading candidate to head Afghanistan's interim government -- is pushing toward Kandahar from the north and met its first resistance Tuesday, according to the Associated Press, quoting a senior U.S. official whom it did not name. The official, speaking in Pakistan, said Karzai's men battled Taliban defenders at a bridge 10 miles north of Kandahar. It was unclear if the Taliban still held the bridge.

A U.S. soldier was wounded Tuesday during the fighting around Kandahar, the Associated Press reported, quoting defense officials in Washington whom it did not name.

The soldier was shot in the upper chest under the collarbone, but his injuries were not life-threatening, AP said. The soldier was working with one of the anti-Taliban groups surrounding Kandahar.

-- Information from the Associated Press and Washington Post was used in this report.

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