Intl HeraldTrib

Afghans Set to Attack bin Laden Caves Tim Weiner New York Times Service Tuesday, December 4, 2001

Local Leaders Ask for End to Raids and Tell Foreign Fighters to Leave JALALABAD, Afghanistan An Afghan commander said Monday that 1,500 Pashtun fighters, accompanied by American special forces, were prepared to attack Tora Bora, the mountain cave complex where Osama bin Laden and about 2,000 Qaida fighters are believed to be hiding.

Aleem Shah, a frontline commander for Hazarat Ali, a minister of the self-proclaimed, pro-American government here, the Eastern Shura, said the first of the fighters would leave Jalalabad at 3:30 a.m. Tuesday. He said that some American special operations soldiers would be with them. Hundreds of Afghan fighters also will head for Meleva, a valley southwest of Tora Bora, where Qaida forces have also been seen in recent days, he said.

Mr. Ali said Monday night that he had met with two Afghan elders claiming that they had received a message from Mr. bin Laden saying he did not want to fight fellow Muslims. Nonetheless, Mr. Ali said, Tora Bora would be attacked, and soon.

"That is the last and strongest camp of terrorism in this country," he said. "We are ready."

Neither man would say how many American soldiers were in the region. But helicopters heard overhead near the Jalalabad airport at 3 a.m. on Monday were believed to have been carrying U.S. soldiers and munitions for battle.

With more than 200 Afghan villagers counted among the dead after weekend bombing raids on villages near Tora Bora, village and tribal leaders from the region met in Jalalabad on Monday and ordered the Qaida fighters to leave Afghanistan immediately. They also asked the United States to stop the bombing.

The order against Qaida was a go-ahead to Mr. Ali's forces and, under Afghan tradition, tantamount to a declaration of war.

In a signed declaration addressed to the world, the elders of this region said: "To those foreigners living in the mountains of Afghanistan, we say to you: Leave our country. Because of you, our innocent countrymen are suffering. Our demand to the United States government and its coalition: Stop the bombing in the name of humanity.

"Please stop bombing our innocent people. We say to all civilized nations that this bombardment is cruelty."

One of the elders, Mohammed Hazrat Faqirbad, said: "War is disaster. War is evil. Because war is unholy. There is no holy war. It makes our women widows and beggars. No more."

The villagers of Kama Ado, about 55 kilometers (35 miles) south of here, said they had identified and buried 155 of their dead. Eastern Shura officials said that at least 58 people had died in three other nearby villages. The officials and villagers said that the death toll would climb and that the dead were Afghan civilians, not Qaida fighters.

The Pentagon has not acknowledged that any villages were struck, saying it bombed only Qaida military targets between Friday night and early Monday morning. The villages lie within 15 kilometers of the cave complexes of Tora Bora in southern Nangarhar Province.

As American military activity in and around Jalalabad increased, with bombing runs coming hourly Monday night and helicopter flights in the morning signifying troop movements, a militarily significant deployment of U.S. ground forces in the region appeared imminent.

The village elders support the American campaign, so long as their people are not killed. They are fed up both with the bombing and Qaida. A ground attack on Tora Bora seems to be the only alternative to them.

Nearly 200 elders met Monday in a Loya Jirga, a traditional conclave called in times of crisis and Afghanistan's version of representative democracy. They represented all of Nangarhar Province's 22 districts and about 2.5 million people, roughly 12 percent of all Afghans.

Haji Din Mohammed, who led the elders' gathering, said, "I want to say to the foreign guests, all of us gathered here want to say, that we have a saying: Fish and guests stink after three days."

He said: "These people were involved in terrorism in New York and Washington. They are not good Muslims. They are not friends of Islam.

"There are crazy people in Pakistan and Afghanistan who are saying America will be crushed in Afghanistan. But we don't want to consider America as an invader of Afghanistan. We want America in this country as a friend, not as an invader. I want to say to America, stop the bombing everywhere in Afghanistan. Because now it's our duty to pressure these people to leave our soil."

The order of expulsion of Qaida means that if the foreign fighters do not leave the cave complexes of Tora Bora, the Afghan people are duty-bound to help force them out.

At the meeting, held in one of Jalalabad's oldest mosques, Sher Afzal Musli, an elder from Mohmandara, said: "Just because we have beards doesn't mean we are against you. Please make sure that you identify the real terrorists."

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001