To the bitter end

The ongoing hunt for an ever-elusive Osama Bin Laden and the latest round of US bombings prove one thing -- the war in Afghanistan is far from over, as Absar Alam writes from Islamabad
George Bush's administration is already treading on thin ice in Afghanistan following the killing of dozens of tribal leaders near Jalalabad in December. The convoy, carrying several tribal leaders to Kabul to attend Hamid Karzai's inauguration as interim prime minister, was hit by US war planes following an intelligence tip-off alleging that it was carrying Al-Qa'eda fighters.
Following strong representations from domestic politicians and a sharp warning to the Karzai government, the US administration ordered an inquiry into the incident. The results are still to be made public.
The US-led coalition, despite ostensibly being in control of Afghanistan, is still facing pockets of resistance, adding credibility to the view that the war in Afghanistan is not yet over. A group of wounded Arab Al-Qa'eda fighters, holed up in a Kandahar hospital, is still showing signs of resistance and the occasional bombing sortie by US war planes in other areas of Afghanistan proves that pockets of armed opposition exist elsewhere as well.
With Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar still beyond the reach of the US-led coalition forces, and Al-Qa'eda and Taliban fighters yet to be totally vanquished, the US is considering an extension of its presence in Afghanistan. The arrival of regular US army units in Afghanistan to relieve existing Marine troops is the first major policy shift by the US in the Afghanistan theatre since the beginning of the war against terrorism.
Conflicting statements by Afghan leaders about the whereabouts of Bin Laden have been adding to the confusion. Afghanistan's Defence Minister General Qasim Faheem this week claimed that Osama Bin Laden was in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, close to the Afghan border. Faheem's claim generated a storm of criticism in Pakistan, with Foreign Minister Abdul-Sattar and chief spokesman Major General Rashid Qureshi demanding evidence to support such a claim.
Only a day before General Faheem's statement, his spokesman, Mohamed Habeel, claimed that Osama was in the custody of Maulana Fazalur Rehman, a Pakistani religious leader although Rehman has been under arrest for the last two months in his native village near Dera Ismail Khan, a considerable distance from Peshawar.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Abdallah Abdallah claimed this week that Bin Laden might be hiding in the Paktia province of Afghanistan, the same province where US war planes have been conducting bombings recently. But Abdallah has also suspected that Bin Laden was hiding somewhere in southern Afghanistan while claiming earlier that the Saudi-born renegade was in Kandahar, then Tora Bora.
Karzai, the interim prime minister, has admitted that he does not know Bin Laden's whereabouts. With senior US officials also unsure of Bin Laden's location or next destination the hunt continues.
But a greater challenge confronting the international community, apart from restoring peace and security to the people of Afghanistan and apprehending the two most wanted persons on George W Bush's list, is the prospect of raising the huge funds required for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
So far there have been several estimates of the figures needed for war- and drought-ravaged Afghanistan to begin the long road to rehabilitation. These have ranged from $10 billion to $25 billion, though it has already been suggested that only the construction of roads and bridges in Afghanistan would devour up to $10 billion in the next 15 years.
Who will foot the bill for such a monumental development programme? This is a question with few answers forthcoming. The US has claimed that it has already contributed its share towards Afghanistan's future by spending billions of dollars on the war that rid it of the Taliban, and suggested that other wealthy countries finance the shattered country's development. But, without US help, Japan, the European Union and other rich countries will find it almost impossible to sponsor Afghanistan's developmental programme.
With the US economy hit by recession, the administration of Hamid Karzai is unlikely to be swimming in dollars, at least in the short term. Analysts are already pointing to Hamid Karzai, a weak representative of the majority Pashtun tribal group in a Tajik-dominated cabinet, and suggesting that the international community's failure to pump billions of dollars of financial assistance into Afghanistan will weaken his position yet further. It remains to be seen what the new year will bring for Afghanistan after over two decades of war and devastation.
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