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Bin Laden said to be cornered, fighting fiercely
( 2001-12-10 09:04 ) (7 )

Osama bin Laden was said to be staging what could be his last stand in rugged eastern Afghanistan on Sunday and the United States insisted he be handed over if he was taken alive.

Vice President Dick Cheney and other US officials said a videotape of Saudi-born bin Laden, made after the Sept. 11 attacks on America and found somewhere in Afghanistan, proved beyond doubt his involvement in the hijackings that killed nearly 3,900 people.

The final nail was hammered into the coffin of Taliban rule when the hard-line Islamists surrendered their last redoubt in Zulam province, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported. ``The rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan has totally ended,'' AIP said.

The Taliban had controlled 90 percent of Afghanistan and provided sanctuary for bin Laden and his al Qaeda network until the United States launched an offensive two months ago in retaliation for the September attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center twin towers.

A spokesman for the Northern Alliance, which has taken advantage of US air strikes to seize control of much of the country, said bin Laden was leading the defense of his mountain hideouts in Tora Bora in person.

``Osama himself has taken the command of the fighting,'' Mohammad Amin told reporters by satellite phone from Jalalabad.

``He, along with around 1,000 of his people ... have now dug themselves into the forests of Spin Ghar after we overran all their bases in Tora Bora. He is here for sure,'' Amin said.

``American planes have been carrying out regular and severe bombings to kill him.''

CNN reported from Tora Bora that waves of US B-52 heavy bombers and smaller planes pounded the area from daybreak on Sunday. Both Amin and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the fighting as intense.

FIGHTING FOR SURVIVAL

``Our latest information is ... that he (bin Laden) is in this area, the so-called Tora Bora area,'' Myers said on television.

``And they're in the hills with some other al Qaeda fighters, and they are fighting fiercely against opposition forces, some of our forces and some of our air attacks, trying to survive.

``The al Qaeda forces that we think are ensconced up there, in some respects trapped up there, are fighting for their lives,'' the general said.

Myers and Cheney said that even if bin Laden was captured or killed soon, the war against al Qaeda -- suspected by Washington of operating in up to 60 countries -- would go on.

``Certainly the military operation would be pretty well wrapped up at that point, but we've had some other missions that we've wanted to accomplish,'' Cheney said on a television talk show.

He said the Arabic-language videotape found in Afghanistan was a kind of smoking gun in which bin Laden showed ''significant knowledge of what happened (on Sept. 11) and there's no doubt about his responsibility.''

A US official familiar with the tape, speaking on condition he was not named, said it showed bin Laden looking ''amused'' that some of the hijackers did not realize they were on a suicide mission.

The videotape was shot last month and showed bin Laden describing to dinner companions how he listened to news coverage of the attacks, the official said. ``It is very clear that he knew all about it before it happened.''

The whereabouts of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, his forces now routed, were still unknown. Various reports have had the one-eyed Omar about to be seized, fleeing to Pakistan or wounded in a Kandahar firefight.

Cheney said Washington wanted bin Laden and Mullah Omar turned over to US authorities if they are captured alive.

``We made it very clear that we want Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and their senior leadership, and if they're taken alive we expect to take custody of them,'' Cheney said.

MILITARY COURTS

Omar and bin Laden would be leading candidates for trial by military tribunals authorized by President Bush, Cheney said. ''They're exactly the kind of people the military tribunals were established for,'' he said.

Cheney ruled out a trial in international court for either bin Laden or Omar, but Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested Omar at least could be tried in Afghanistan.

``We would want to be sure that the kind of justice they would get in Afghanistan would be very similar to what they would get here,'' Wolfowitz said.

Asked if that included the death penalty, he said, ``It might mean something quite similar. ... The Afghans are not known for kindness to people who have abused them.''

In Moscow, a senior US official traveling with Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters that anti-Taliban warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum had told US officials he would cooperate with Kabul's new interim government.

Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek and part of the Northern Alliance, dominates most of northern Afghanistan. He had said several days ago he would boycott the new administration because it was not balanced.

Kandahar, the southern city regarded as the Taliban's stronghold, has been the scene of days of feuding by tribal factions who helped sweep the movement from power.

But they apparently reached accord on Sunday, with Afghan Prime Minister-designate Hamid Karzai saying they had agreed to select Gul Agha as interim governor.

Gul Agha, a former governor, had complained about the surrender deal Karzai had struck with the Taliban, under which the Islamic militia handed the city to Naqibullah, a former Mujahideen leader whom Gul Agha considers close to the Taliban.

Several Taliban officials, including their U.N. representative, surfaced in the Pakistani capital Islamabad on Sunday to announce the formation of a new political party to help in bringing peace to Afghanistan.

In Rome, the grandson of the ex-king of Afghanistan said the monarch would probably return home in March to play his part in the reconstruction of his country, ending almost 30 years of exile in Italy.

``This is not official, but I think March 21 is a good target date. It is the first day of spring. It's a national holiday in Afghanistan that was banned by the previous regime,'' Mostapha Zahir told reporters.

Gen. Myers said the 20-year-old American John Walker, who was captured while fighting for the Taliban, was providing information to US Marines at a desert base south of Kandahar.

With the Bush administration still determining how to handle the case, Myers said ``the evidence is pretty strong that he was right in the middle of it.''