Author:
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: December 12, 2001
Kabul/Washington, December 11: Afghan
fighters chased Osama bin Laden's forces to ''one last base'' in the mountains
on Tuesday. Tribal forces, aided by a rain of American bombs, said they
pushed diehard fighters from Al Qaeda network into a final stronghold near
Tora Bora in the east.
CNN said Eastern Alliance forces
had given the fighters a deadline to surrender or die. It showed pictures
of bodies left on the mountainside, anammunition dump and even weight-training
equipment abandoned in an Al Qaeda complex of caves and bunkers. The surrender
deadline was 8 am on Wednesday, the station said.
Anti-Taliban Commander Mohammad
Amin told Reuters by satellite telephone from Jalalabad that fighting in
the Spin Ghar area, south of Tora Bora, had subsided after the dramatic
advances.
''Bin Laden's supporters are now
confined to one last base in Spin Ghar,'' said Amin, an aide to local military
Chief Hazrat Ali.
Pakistan said neither Osama bin
Laden nor his followers would find sanctuary if they managed to slip across
the nearby border.
With whereabouts of bin Laden and
ousted Taliban leader Mullah Omar still a mystery, Afghanistan's new interim
leader Hamid Karzai vowed to wipe out terrorism in the country. In an interview
to the Washington Post, he said ''We must finish them all, completely burn
them out.''
Karzai also vowed to capture Omar
and put him on trial. He pledged to take all weapons out of circulation
in Afghanistan. ''The gun has to stop ruling the country,'' Karzai said.
US officials said that despite the
ousting of the Taliban and progress against Al Qaeda, the fight was far
from over. ''The war in Afghanistan is not won,'' said Deputy Defence Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz. ''It is a classic military mistake to leave a partially
defeated enemy on the battlefield.''
Karzai urged the US not to walk
away from his country once its business there was over - as it did once
its mujahideen allies drove Soviet occupiers out over a decade ago, ignoring
the destructive faction fighting that followed.
In Tokyo, experts began a conference
on rebuilding a country bombed to near oblivion. Some said that after more
than 20 years of war rebuilding could take a decade and cost $25 billion.
As work began, Afghans hurried to repair Kabul airport's main runway so
commercial flights could resume this week. (Agencies)
