Bush: Al-Qaida on run

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON – President Bush said Thursday night the military strikes in Afghanistan have put the al-Qaida terrorist network “on the run” and promised that U.S. forces will keep up the hunt until the “evildoers” are brought to justice

In the first prime-time news conference of his presidency, Bush repeatedly sought to reassure Americans that the federal government is doing “everything we can” to guard against new terrorist attacks and urged Americans not to let threats disrupt daily life. “Our government is on full alert,” he said.

However, in a stark warning earlier Thursday, the FBI said it has received information there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States or abroad in the next several days.

As U.S. warplanes pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul on Thursday during the fifth straight day of bombing, Pentagon officials reported that airstrikes had devastated mountain cave complexes and may have struck Taliban leader Mohamad Omar’s Chevrolet Suburban, with several as yet unidentified individuals inside it.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Thursday that cave complexes, which he declined to further identify, had been hit by an array of precision munitions, including a GBU-28 “bunker buster,” a 5,000-pound laser guided bomb designed to penetrate buried concrete structures.

While Rumsfeld offered no indication of whether the caves may have been occupied at the time of the strikes, destroying the complexes was an important objective since Osama bin Laden – the terrorist leader U.S. officials hold responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. – has used fortified caves as residences and headquarters.

Another senior official said U.S. military imagery analysts believe Omar’s Suburban may have been hit in Wednesday night’s attacks. The vehicle was occupied at the time, but analysts aren’t sure who was in it, the official said, adding that they believe it may have been Omar or members of his family. U.S. officials have previously cited reports that two members of Omar’s family were killed Sunday in Kandahar when the U.S. bombing campaign began.

With two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea launching strike aircraft round-the-clock, a huge fireball lit the sky over Kabul. Heavy bombing was also reported around Kabul’s airport.

Pentagon officials said the air campaign had shifted from fixed targets associated with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network to troop concentrations and other “emerging targets.”

Unlike Iraqi and Yugoslav troops, which tried to scatter when targeted by other American air campaigns over the past decade, the Taliban have appeared to hunker down and remain concentrated in their encampments, the officials said.

“This particular adversary is not reacting in ways we’ve seen in other conflicts,” a senior official said.

In his speech Thursday, Bush said he doesn’t know whether terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is dead or alive after five days of military action in Afghanistan, and he issued a new call to the Taliban regime there to turn over bin Laden.

“I will say it again, if you cough him up and his people today, that we’ll reconsider what we’re doing to your country,” Bush said. “You still have a second chance. Just bring him in, and bring his leaders and lieutenants and other thugs and criminals with him.” But he made clear he already believes the Taliban regime has made its choice.

Marking the one-month anniversary of the attacks that left more than 5,000 people dead in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, Bush said he was pleased by the cooperation of countries worldwide in the war against terrorism.

Bush spoke specifically about Syria, a nation on the State Department’s list of countries that sponsor terrorism, saying he was pleased by promises of support. “We take that seriously, and we’ll give them an opportunity to do so,” he said.

He called the hijackers “instruments of evil who died in vain” and who represent a “cult of evil” that thrives on death and human suffering. “Theirs is the worst kind of violence,” he said, “pure malice, while daring to claim the authority of God.”