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The hunt for bin Laden
Compiled from Times wires TORA BORA, Afghanistan -- Hundreds of al-Qaida fighters have fled from the caves of Tora Bora into the snow-capped mountains that mark the Pakistan border, and Osama bin Laden may be among them, according to U.S. intelligence officials, who acknowledged Monday that they have lost track of him. American officials thought they had a bead on his location until about 48 hours ago, when radio traffic and other communication they had been intercepting between al-Qaida leaders dried up. "The chatter stopped," said Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, a Pentagon spokesman. Anti-Taliban Afghan fighters, accompanied by U.S. special operations forces, continued to scour the caves and tunnels in the Tora Bora complex, not only for al-Qaida stragglers but also for documents, computer disks and any other information. Stufflebeem said the hunt was like "searching for fleas on a dog. If you see one and you focus on that one, you don't know how many others are getting away." The allied forces met sporadic resistance from pockets of Taliban fighters, who appeared to be remnants of a rear guard that was largely destroyed by American bombing or had fled. Stufflebeem said U.S. forces would not pursue fleeing al-Qaida fighters into Pakistan but would ask the Pakistani army to capture them. The air attacks, though greatly moderated Monday, again struck deep in the forests of Tora Bora as the remnant al-Qaida forces abandoned their mountain redoubts. Their hopes of escape now depend on evading both their pursuers among the Afghan tribal fighters and the 4,000 commandos that Pakistan said it intended to deploy on the usually-porous border into its lawless tribal areas. "Now the only Arabs left in Tora Bora are the corpses," said Auzubillah, a mid-level commander of the eastern anti-Taliban alliance that is central to the campaign. The bombing, local commanders agree, has provided the knockout punch against al-Qaida fighters, whose numbers in these mountains have been variously estimated from 700 to 2,000. Whether those numbers have recently included bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, is unknown. At the Pentagon on Monday, military officials privately expressed exasperation and disappointment that the trail of bin Laden had suddenly gone cold. President Bush, however, played down assessments that bin Laden had pulled a vanishing act: "We get all kinds of reports -- that he's in a cave, that he's not in a cave; that he's escaped; that he hasn't escaped; and there's all kinds of speculation. But when the dust clears, we'll find out where he is and he'll be brought to justice." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld cautioned that the work remained perilous. "It's going to take time and energy and effort, and people will be killed in the process of trying to find them," Rumsfeld said on the way from Central Asia to a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels. Asked if senior al-Qaida leaders might have escaped, Rumsfeld said: "We're still trying to sort out who we have, and who we don't have, and who has been killed. It's not an easy process." Rumsfeld also warned Afghan opposition leaders who might have negotiated deals that allowed al-Qaida members to go free. "To the extent that we find that people who aspire to high office or high position in Afghanistan have been involved in preventing us from getting our hands on people who are responsible for what's going on in Afghanistan, they will find the United States not terribly friendly to their aspirations," he said. Pakistan reported it had caught dozens of fighters fleeing Afghanistan but couldn't turn them over to American troops because planned U.S. detention facilities were not ready, the Associated Press reported, quoting a defense official. Stufflebeem said Pakistan had captured "a relatively modest number" of fighters -- less than 100. U.S. officials were thought to be interviewing the prisoners. Three recent intelligence reports, two of them from Britain's Secret Intelligence Service and one from a U.S. intercept of apparent al-Qaida communications, placed bin Laden in a tribal area of northwestern Pakistan. One British agent reported that local Pashtun tribesmen were protecting bin Laden, his son, Suleiman, and a retinue of 100 fighters and lieutenants, according to Knight Ridder, quoting a Bush administration official who requested anonymity. U.S. intelligence officials said that Pakistani officials were taking steps to ensure that bin Laden can't leave the tribal area, if he is there. They don't believe he can hide in the region very long before someone betrays him. Meanwhile, U.S., British and Afghan ground forces searched captured caves in the belief that bin Laden or his top commanders might have been killed by the fierce U.S. air campaign. "Maybe he still is there, maybe he was killed or maybe he's left," said Stufflebeem. The Pentagon also confirmed that the United States was detaining four people in addition to John Walker, the American who fought for the Taliban and was captured. All four are non-Afghans, Stufflebeem said, and are aboard the USS Peleliu. Among the detainees was David Hicks, 26, an Australian captured while fighting with the Taliban, the Australian government said. Stufflebeem said that Afghan opposition forces hold hundreds of prisoners and that U.S. forces are attempting to question them to find out which might be able to provide intelligence, which might be wanted by the United States and so on. Stufflebeem reported a slackening of U.S. airstrikes as Afghan troops and U.S. special operations forces moved into the cave and tunnel complexes abandoned by the al-Qaida. He said that the bombing campaign had not ended and that U.S. planes are still flying in order to be available when needed. Also, the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis arrived in the Arabian Sea and began air operations, Pentagon officials said. The Stennis is replacing the USS Carl Vinson, which will return home. Afghan commanders estimated that as many as 500 al-Qaida fighters could be at large. "Our search campaign is going on," said Hafta Gul, an aide to Haji Zahir, one of three Afghan commanders of the Tora Bora assault. "They are hiding in half-ruined houses and forests. As the Arabs are trying to make their way to Pakistan, the (U.S.) bombs are being dropped on routes they are trying to escape over." -- Information from the New York Times, Knight Ridder, Los Angeles Times and Associated Press was used in this report.
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