Nowhere to hide

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan – The United States and its allies moved to seal off potential escape routes Osama bin Laden could use to leave Afghanistan, while a spokesman for the Taliban said Wednesday the Islamic militia no longer know the terror suspect’s whereabouts.

“They keep tracking and dodging and bobbing and weaving, and we’re looking,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said when asked how close the military was to finding bin Laden and his terrorist cohorts.

Taliban spokesman Syed Tayyab Agha said the Taliban have “no idea” where bin Laden, the top suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States, is located. “There is no relation right now. There is no communication,” he told journalists in the southern Afghanistan border town of Spinboldak, in Taliban-controlled territory.

Agha vowed that the Taliban would fight to keep the one-quarter of Afghanistan they still hold, particularly the southern city of Kandahar. But Taliban commanders in Kunduz – the last city held by the militia in the north – held negotiations Wednesday with the Northern Alliance for the city’s surrender.

Haron Amin, a Northern Alliance spokesman in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday night that a final deal on Kunduz had not been reached, despite reports earlier in the day, and said the main obstacle was foreign fighters.

There was little activity on the Kunduz battle front Wednesday, either in the skies or on the ground.

Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition moved to cut off one potential escape route for bin Laden, if he manages to slip out of landlocked Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan.

The U.S. Navy gave notice Tuesday that it will stop and board merchant ships off the Pakistani coast if the ships are suspected of carrying him or other al-Qaida leaders, Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Lapan said Wednesday in Washington.

As many as 1,500 Marines specially trained for complex missions such as counterterrorism probably will be sent to Afghanistan soon, perhaps this week, a senior U.S. official said, though no final decision has been made on their use. The Marines could provide security for other U.S. forces or help Army and Air Force special operations troops expand the search for bin Laden.

Also, the Pentagon wants to base AC-130 gunships in Uzbekistan to add lethal special operations weapons to the battle in northern Afghanistan, Rumsfeld said Wednesday.

AC-130 gunships have been attacking targets in Afghanistan since early in the U.S. military campaign. Rumsfeld wants to base some closer to Kunduz in hopes of finishing off the al-Qaida fighters there.

Rumsfeld confirmed that a new Air Force spy plane – the high-altitude, unmanned Global Hawk -began flying over Afghanistan this week for the first time. He said it was being operated as a “demonstration model,” since the aircraft is still in development and has never before been used in a real operation.

Copyright ©2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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