ChicSunTimes

New dawn over Afghan capital

November 14, 2001

BY JANET RAUSA FULLER STAFF REPORTER

The breakthrough came before dawn Tuesday.

As Taliban soldiers fled the capital of Kabul, jubilant Northern Alliance fighters rolled in, charged by their leaders to bring order to the capital city.

By daylight, plans for a new government in Afghanistan began to take shape under a proposal drawn up by the UN envoy to Afghanistan.

The measure outlines the formation of a council that would create a two-year transitional government and ultimately, a permanent, ethnically diverse Afghan government.

Lakhdar Brahimi presented the proposal to the UN Security Council, urging that a vote be taken "as early as humanly possible."

President Bush welcomed the developments, despite making previous pleas to the Northern Alliance to wait on moving into Kabul until a stable coalition government is in place.

''We will continue to work with the Northern Alliance to make sure they recognize that in order for there to be a stable Afghanistan . . . after the Taliban leaves, that the country be a good neighbor and that they must recognize that a future government must include representatives from all of Afghanistan,'' said Bush, during a break from nuclear arms talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Washington.

American special forces slipped into the Afghan capital to offer ''advice and counsel'' to the triumphant opposition forces, and small numbers of U.S. troops are operating against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Tuesday.

In other news Tuesday:

* Bush signed into law an order that would allow accused terrorists to be tried in the United States by a military commission instead of in civilian courts.

* Retreating Taliban troops, believed to be headed south to Kandahar, took with them eight foreign aid workers who have been detained since August.

Celebrations and defections

The arrival in Kabul of about 3,000 Northern Alliance soldiers was punctuated by the sounds of cars honking, music playing, bells ringing and residents shouting thanks. Some Afghan men shaved off their long beards.

On the other side of the battle line, Taliban forces reportedly abandoned their posts and struggled with defections in their ranks.

Taliban guards left a border station near the Pakistan border and the northeastern city of Jalalabad, witnesses said.

In Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual center in the south, a resident told the Associated Press that only uniformed militia police remained. Taliban official Mullah Najibullah confirmed a report that 200 guerrillas mutinied against the Taliban.

But Taliban spiritual leader Mohammed Omar, who was in Kandahar, was not ready to give up.

Omar ordered Taliban soldiers in a radio address to stand their ground, according to the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.

"Any person who runs frantically back and forth is like a slaughtered chicken that falls and dies. You should regroup yourselves, resist and fight," Omar said.

Retreating Taliban troops left Kabul with eight foreign aid workers, including two American women, who have been jailed since August on charges of preaching Christianity and are awaiting trial.

John Mercer, the father of 24-year-old Heather Mercer, said on NBC's "Today" show that Taliban embassy officials told him his daughter and the other workers were being taken to Kandahar.

Tracking down bin Laden

Some U.S. military officials said they believe Osama bin Laden and his advisers and bodyguards are somewhere near Jalalabad, to the east of Kabul, the Daily Telegraph reported Tuesday.

Kandahar is the last main city left under Taliban control.

With the capture of Kabul and other northern cities comes the potential for gaining information on the movements of bin Laden, other leaders of the al-Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban, U.S. officials said.

U.S. forces accompanying Northern Alliance commanders are searching for Taliban items such as computer disks, maps and documents that might contain useful intelligence, one official said. They probably also are interviewing Taliban prisoners and commanders who defected to the alliance, the official said.

Rumsfeld cautioned against concluding that the Taliban's retreat from the north means the hunt for bin Laden and al-Qaida is almost over. He said U.S. officials don't know where he is hiding.

A reporter asked Rumsfeld if he feared bin Laden would launch a new terrorist attack out of desperation.

''The idea that we could appease them by stopping doing what we're doing, or some implication that . . . we're inciting them to attack us is just utter nonsense. It's kind of like feeding an alligator, hoping it eats you last,'' he said.

Rumsfeld raised the possibility that leaders of the Taliban or al-Qaida might flee to Iran or Pakistan. He cited three possibilities, any of which he said would lead to the eventual demise of both groups.

''They can flee and reorganize in the south. They can flee and melt into the countryside, or they can defect. If they reorganize in the south, we're going to go get them. If they go to ground, we will, as the president said, root them out. And if they decide to flee, I doubt that they'll find peace wherever they select.''

Rumsfeld said a ''very small number'' of U.S. forces are in Kabul, not enough to keep a careful eye on the opposition forces that entered the capital Monday after the Taliban fled. ''They are not sufficient forces to monitor or police the entire city. They are a sufficient number that they can give advice and counsel to the people who are in the city, the leadership,'' he said.

He also said U.S. special operations troops are in southern Afghanistan, but unlike the arrangement in the north that helped trigger the retreat of the Taliban, U.S. troops in the south are working independently of opposition forces, Rumsfeld said. He was vague about their mission. ''They are doing things that are helpful to our side and unhelpful to the other side,'' he said.

Kabul contains numerous government buildings where documents are stored. Other fallen Taliban cities, like Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat, are regional capitals that may also yield clues.

Forging a government

Signs of unrest in the Taliban's absence, including reports of revenge killings by heavily armed opposition soldiers, prompted world leaders to step up the establishment of a stable government in the war-ravaged country, with the United Nations taking the lead.

"We need a UN presence there as soon as possible,'' British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

UN officials said the peace process in Afghanistan will get under way in the next few days with a meeting of Afghan groups to negotiate an interim government, something Northern Alliance leaders already appeared receptive to.

The Taliban opposition laid out an open invitation to the UN "to send their teams in Kabul in order to help us in the peace process," Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said.

In a news conference with the Turkish Prime Minister, Pakistani president Gen. Pervez Musharraf suggested that representatives from Muslim countries such as Turkey and Pakistan act as peacekeepers in the UN-led peace process.

"'Kabul should remain as a demilitarized city,'' Musharraf said.

Massacres reported

In Mazar-e-Sharif, hundreds of people have been killed, reportedly at the hands of Northern Alliance soldiers who seized control of the northern city last Friday.

Foreign aid officials told CNN as many as 600 people--mostly Pakistani, Kashmiri and Chechen fighters who had sided with the Taliban, and some of their family members--have been killed.

"Other unconfirmed reports," a UN spokeswoman said, "speak of incidents including violence and summary executions."

A Northern Alliance official denied the reports.

"It is completely, completely peaceful and secure," Ibrahim Ghafoori said. ''There is no danger, no disputes, no friction, nothing.''

Contributing: Sun-Times wires

-- Anonymous, November 14, 2001