Rounding up Qa'eda's residue

Although dismissed as strategically irrelevant, the search for the ever-elusive Osama is still on, Anayat Durrani writes from Washington
The hunt for Osama Bin Laden, the prime suspect in the 11 September attack, is still going on in the United States' "war on terrorism." US forces have stepped up their search for remaining pockets of Al-Qa'eda and Taliban members, many of whom are believed to have regrouped since their recent defeats. Anti-Taliban Afghan forces, b cked by US special forces, killed on Monday six Al-Qa'eda members who had taken control of one of the wings of a hospital in Kandahar. The six Al- Qa'eda men, believed to be Arabs, had barricaded themselves in the hospital for seven weeks and refused to surrender. As Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem put it during a Pentagon press briefing on Monday, "Despite numerous attempts to negotiate their peaceful surrender, six Al-Qa'eda operatives had been holed up in the hospital for almost two months." Five men belonging to the Afghan forces were wounded, one seriously, during the 10-hour gun-battle. There were no US injuries, the admiral said. The six Al-Qa'eda fighters were among a group of 19 wounded men brought to the hospital shortly before the city fell to anti-Taliban forces on 7 December.
Most of the irregular Taliban forces had escaped earlier. The focus of US troops in Afghanistan now falls on rounding up Al-Qa'eda and Taliban troops still at large and searching tunnel and cave complexes to locate information and intelligence that can assist in preventing future terrorist attacks. These objectives also include interviewing detainees for intelligence, providing international humanitarian relief, and the dropping of leaflets in several areas.
Retired US Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Rick Francona, who served as the personal interpreter and adviser on Iraq to General Norman Schwarzkopf during the Gulf War and authored "Ally to Adversary," told Al-Ahram Weekly that he believes there is still much work to be done in Afghanistan. "I imagine that American forces will remain as long as there is intelligence to be gathered, as long as there is a residual Al-Qua'eda presence, and until we are satisfied that Osama Bin Laden is no longer in the country and that there will not be a Taliban resurgence."
One major US objective of the war in Afghanistan was to topple the Taliban regime. Although the Taliban have been removed from power, Francona believes that they still pose a threat in certain parts of the country and to future stability. "The problem is that the tribal 'war lords' have reasserted their power and rivalries with other tribal groups. This is a challenge for the new government, which must create stability to prevent the reappearance of the conditions that led to the ascension of the Taliban to power." The whereabouts of Bin Laden remain as mysterious as the man himself. While Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf said, this month, that he believed Bin Laden to have died of kidney ailments, some US officials believe that he may still be alive. In an interview on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said it is likely that Bin Laden may be alive but that future terrorist attacks could be prevented with or without his capture.
He emphasised that the main goal was to destroy the Al-Qa'eda network.
"Even without the capture of Osama Bin Laden, or proof of his death, the Al-Qa'eda organisation has been dealt a severe blow," said Francona. "Hundreds of its leaders and members are in US custody, and hundreds more have been killed. Afghanistan is no longer available to it for use as a safe haven or training ground, much of its finances have been seized, and a systematic exploitation of the intelligence gained from former Al-Qa'eda strongholds and from interrogations of detainees is being used to make arrests in Europe and Asia."
Francona told Al-Ahram Weekly that even after the Al-Qa'eda network has been systematically dismantled, ultimately, the US needs to deal with Bin Laden. "Despite the US administration's claims to the contrary -- that capturing or killing Bin Laden is not critical, it remains one of the key objectives. There will never be real closure in the war on terrorism until his fate is determined. Even knowing that Bin Laden is alive and under the protection of another government is preferable to not knowing."
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's interim leader Hamid Karzai met with President Bush on Monday, becoming the first Afghan leader to visit the US in nearly 40 years. Bush pledged that the US would provide an additional $50 million in credit to help rebuild Afghanistan and train a national military and police force for the war-ravaged country. "The US is committed to building a lasting partnership with Afghanistan. We will help the new Afghan government provide the security that is the foundation for peace," said Bush.
Approximately 324 Al-Qa'eda and Taliban detainees are being held in Afghanistan under US Central Command control and 158 are at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as of Monday. Stufflebeem said that the number of Al- Qa'eda and Taliban detainees in US custody is expected to increase "as the interrogations continue of those that are being detained by the Afghan authorities." The legal status and disposition of the detainees remains under discussion, according to Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke.
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