Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — In twin blows to the Taliban and al-Qaida, the regime’s supreme leader was reported ready Friday to abandon his home base of Kandahar, and U.S. officials disclosed that Osama bin Laden’s military chief may have been killed.
The developments came as U.S. warplanes struck the Taliban’s two remaining strongholds, Kandahar and the northern city of Kunduz, on the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
If confirmed, the death of bin Laden’s military chief, Mohammed Atef, would deal a serious setback to the al-Qaida terrorist network.
Its Taliban protectors are already reeling from sweeping territorial losses and their flight from the capital, Kabul, this week. U.S. officials said the Taliban had lost control of more than two-thirds of Afghanistan.
Atef was a close confidant of bin Laden, and his daughter was married to bin Laden’s son. U.S. officials suspect him of involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which triggered the current military confrontation.
One U.S. official said Atef is believed to have died during an American airstrike earlier this week near Kabul, the Afghan capital. Another official said Atef’s body has not been located.
At Great Lakes, Ill., Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. special forces have engaged in ground combat in Afghanistan, "killing Taliban that won’t surrender" as well as al-Qaida terrorists.
No Americans have been killed or wounded in the encounters, he said while disclosing that hundreds of U.S. special operations troops are on the ground in northern and southern Afghanistan assisting opposition forces and hunting al-Qaida leaders. Rumsfeld previously had indicated that their numbers were in the dozens.
"They have gone into places and met resistance and dealt with it," he told reporters while flying from Washington, D.C., to the Navy’s recruit training center, where he spoke at a graduation ceremony.
The report that Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar was ready to leave Kandahar would be a dramatic development, if borne out — amounting to Taliban abandonment of the city that was its birthplace. American military officials were skeptical.
"I don’t put much stock in at this point. I don’t believe it," said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem in Washington, D.C.
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