The fugitive

As the US-led coalition consolidates its military hold over Afghanistan, the war is shifting down to a full-scale hunt for Bin Laden, reports Absar Allam from Islamabad
Haji Mohamed Zaman, an anti-Taliban Afghan militia commander, declared victory this week in the battle against Al-Qa'eda fighters holed up in their last hideout, the extensive Tora Bora cave complex, near Jalalabad.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, however, was not so absolute, cautiously indicating that the battle in Tora Bora has not yet ended. Most significantly, the prime suspect in the 11 September terrorist attacks, Al-Qa'eda leader Osama Bin Laden, and Taliban leader Mullah Mohamed Omar, are still at large. Conflicting statements as to Bin Laden's whereabouts came soon after anti-Taliban troops and US marines launched an operation in the cave complex to search for surviving Al-Qa'eda members and hidden caches of weapons and ammunition.
As people in Afghanistan celebrated their first Eid after five years of tough Taliban rule, fighting raged in the Tora Bora hills. The US sent 125 sorties in a single day to crush the last pockets of Al-Qa'eda resistance in the fiercely guarded area. The massive bombing by B-52 bombers and other US war planes was ordered after intelligence reports indicated that Bin Laden was in the area. US intelligence agencies, who say they intercepted Bin Laden's voice, believe that he was in Tora Bora as recently as Saturday.
Relative calm settled on the Tora Bora hills on Monday as US war planes reduced their sorties. The US bombing on the caves and mountains had increased during the last two weeks after the fall of Kandahar as it was believed that Bin Laden was holed up in the mountains. Alongside intensive bombing from the air, the ground troops of Commander Zaman and Commander Hazrat Ali besieged the cave complex, forcing Al-Qa'eda fighters to surrender or face death.
Captured Al-Qa'eda fighters -- mostly Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens -- had shown startling strong resistance in the last four weeks, but this week they were on view for the international media. Anti-Taliban troops loyal to Commander Zaman and Commander Hazrat Ali paraded the arrested non-Afghan fighters through the streets. Some 200 Al-Qa'eda members died in the fight against the US-led coalition in Tora Bora hills. Another three dozen were injured, while several hundreds escaped from the area when negotiations for a surrender were going on between the rival groups.
Meanwhile, the US-led coalition is keeping open the strong possibility that Bin Laden might have been slipped out of the area into Pakistan or Iran. Pakistan has already beefed up security by deploying regular army troops along the Afghan border for the first time since its independence in 1947. Local Afghan commanders believe that Bin Laden and several dozen Al-Qa'eda commandos, taking advantage of the cease-fire during the negotiations, slipped out of the area.
Afghan militias and the US marines are now combing the tunnels, caves, villages and hamlets where Bin Laden or any of his followers might have taken refuge. Large stocks of unused ordnance left in the tunnels by retreating Al-Qa'eda fighters, however, strengthened the coalition's suspicion that Bin Laden was still in the area.
US plans to continue military action in Afghanistan were confirmed by Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, who landed at Bagram airbase, near the capital Kabul, on Sunday to meet US troops and members of the new interim administration. During his sudden, and brief, air dash to Afghanistan, Rumsfeld met Hamid Karzai, who was named the head of the interim council that will take control of Afghanistan over the weekend. Rumsfeld also met with Defence Minister Qasim Fahim and Interior Minister Younis Qanooni.
With the complete capture of Tora Bora, the US-led coalition will have taken control of the whole of Afghanistan. And yet, the two most wanted persons -- Bin Laden and Mullah Omar -- are still out of the net. The fact that both remain fugitives indicates that the war against terrorism has not yet ended. The US is very likely to continue bombing suspect areas in Afghanistan to completely annihilate the Al-Qa'eda terrorist network.
Once the new government takes control of Afghanistan this week, the war will enter a new phase. Unless it can be shown that Bin Laden and Mullah Omar have already slipped into a third country, the heavy responsibility of capturing them will fall into the hands of Karzai and his administration.
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