- TORA BORA, Afghanistan
- U.S. military advisers stepped in Wednesday to block a surrender deal
offered by Osama bin Laden's remaining fighters, pressuring Afghan leaders
to renew their attack instead on the cornered holdouts of the Qaida organization
and agreeing that U.S. special forces will now take a leading role in the
ground battle.
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- Even as Americans huddled with anti-Qaida commanders
to hammer out a deal, U.S. warplanes stepped up their air attack on the
remaining Qaida positions high up in the White Mountains here, dropping
as many as seven massive "daisy cutter" bombs that caused the
ground to rumble on impact as if an earthquake had hit.
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- As many as 40 U.S. and 60 British special forces troops
were already on the ground, hunting for Mr. bin Laden and any of his lieutenants
who remain.
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- U.S. fighter jets streaked over the mountains Wednesday
after AC-130 gunships raked them with gunfire overnight Tuesday.
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- The air strikes by the Americans came in the midst of
an ostensible cease-fire negotiated between a top Afghan commander, Hajji
Mohammed Zaman, and Mr. bin Laden's forces, after two days of intense fighting
pushed the Qaida fighters high into the mountains and forced them to abandon
many of their heavily fortified caves and bunkers lower down in the Tora
Bora and neighboring Milawa valleys.
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- The cease-fire had been set to culminate in a Qaida surrender
at 8 a.m. Wednesday.
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- Instead, the deadline passed with no surrender, and several
Afghan leaders said the Americans had adamantly resisted the terms of the
deal, which would have allowed Mr. bin Laden's mainly Arab and other foreign
fighters to hand themselves over to the United Nations and diplomatic representatives
of their own countries.
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- "The Americans won't accept their surrender,"
Hazrat Ali, regional security chief for eastern Afghanistan, said just
after emerging from hours of negotiations with U.S. officials. "They
want to kill them."
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- Mr. Ali said that Mr. bin Laden's fighters wanted to
surrender "to us or the United Nations," a condition unacceptable
to the Americans, and he added that "no country in the world wants
to accept" any bin Laden troops seeking safe passage home.
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- By late afternoon Wednesday, the Afghan leaders said
they had set a new deadline of Thursday morning for the Qaida fighters
to give up. They said they would not accept the surrender unless any top
leaders of the alleged terrorist group, including Mr. bin Laden himself
if present, also turned themselves in.
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- Several sources said the Afghan leaders continued negotiations
over the radio Wednesday with Qaida, even as they were closeted in hours
of talks with U.S. military advisers.
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- "We have a condition that we want Osama alive,"
Mr. Ali said, describing ongoing negotiations with various Chechen, Uzbek,
Pakistani and Afghan Qaida fighters. But he claimed that several hundred
Arab fighters were refusing to participate.
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- The separate talks with the U.S. officials took place
in the valley 10 miles (16 kilometers) below the front line in a compound
owned by Commander Zaman.
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- Altogether, there were several different bargaining sessions,
each lasting a half hour or so, according to one of those present, and
the lead U.S. negotiator was a middle-aged man in civilian clothes.
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- "The Americans were strongly pressuring us,"
said an Afghan participant in the talks, who asked not to be identified.
"In the end, the commanders agreed, but reluctantly," to press
the attack against Qaida, he said. "But we told them, "The Americans
have to go to the front now themselves. They must fight as well.'"
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- In the end, the two sides agreed that the U.S. and British
special forces "will fight together with the mujahidin now on the
ground."
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- Mr. Ali also strongly hinted at the pressure the U.S.
negotiators brought to bear Wednesday on the often-feuding Afghan commanders,
who lead an ill-equipped, decidedly low-tech force of 2,500 or so battling
Qaida fighters with little more than old Kalashnikov rifles while wearing
plastic sandals on their feet.
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- "No country in the world has the power now to obstruct
America," Mr. Ali said.
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- It remains unclear how serious the Qaida promise to surrender
was, with assessments depending largely on which Afghan faction they were
coming from. Those allied with Commander Zaman, who negotiated the cease-fire,
insisted angrily Wednesday that the surrender had been a done deal until
the renewed American bombing, while those close to Mr. Ali said the Qaida
fighters had never really planned to abandon their mountain stronghold.
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- "It's not good manners to stop a cease-fire,"
said Amin Jan, a field commander reporting to Commander Zaman. "The
bombardment cost us the surrender."
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- Commander Zaman himself was so angered by the bombing
that he pleaded unsuccessfully with the Americans during the night to stop
the air strikes, according to several of his commanders.
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- "They were happy to surrender," he said of
the Qaida forces. "They made fires at night and had assurances they
could go freely, but when the bombs started they became confused,"
Mr. Amin Jan said of the bin Laden fighters. Now, "it is impossible
that they will surrender to us."
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- Commander Zahir, son of the new regional governor of
eastern Afghanistan, countered: "They lied about surrender. It's just
a fraud, cheating. They want to find time to escape."
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- Copyright © 2001 the International Herald Tribune.
All Rights Reserved.
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