U.S. Gives Afghan Searchers a Short List of Most Wanted

Afghan soldiers combed the caves of Afghanistan’s Tora Bora region Tuesday searching for the bodies of Arab terrorists and armed with U.S.-supplied satellite telephones and a new short list of the Al Qaeda members most wanted by the United States.

Militia commander Hazrat Ali told Afghan journalists that some of the nine men on the list--including Osama bin Laden--might have been killed during the intense U.S. bombing of the mountainous area earlier this month. Ali’s senior fighters who carried satellite phones had been told to call their headquarters immediately if they found any of the nine.

A report in the Sunday Times of London said U.S. Special Forces were cutting the little fingers off some corpses so that technicians could check DNA with the aim of establishing identities.

The report was unverified, but the U.S. military’s intense interest in Tora Bora more than a week after Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorists were defeated there indicates that it suspects the network of caves has more secrets to yield.

Washington has placed a $25-million bounty on Bin Laden’s head and is believed to be willing to pay for the capture or death of the other eight Arabs--four Saudis and four Egyptians--on the list to which Ali referred.

The bounty appears to have created competition among the three tribal militias in Jalalabad, near Tora Bora, with each trying to capture the most prisoners. Ali’s group is reportedly in the lead with 44.

In addition to Bin Laden, the list contains the names of Sayed Sharif, Bin Laden’s brother-in-law and chief financial officer; Mohammed Atef, his military commander; Ahmad Sayed Kadi, a naturalized Canadian who ran the Afghanistan branch of Human Concern International; Saif Adel, indicted on charges of conspiracy to kill Americans in plots before the Afghanistan war; and Ayman Zawahiri, who allegedly played a role in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

The search of Tora Bora is being orchestrated by several hundred U.S. Special Forces troops who are collecting documents and other intelligence.

Many of the caves collapsed in the relentless U.S. bombing, and these caves apparently are now a focus of the hunt, with some observers believing they could hold the corpses of Bin Laden and his aides.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said over the weekend, while on a visit to China, that he believed there was a good chance Bin Laden had been killed. Ambassador Kenton Keith, the spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, said at a briefing in Islamabad on Monday that “it is quite possible he might have been killed.”

But Keith was quick to add that he--like everyone else--had no information on Bin Laden’s whereabouts or whether he was dead or alive.

In Washington, defense officials said U.S. and Afghan troops planned to intensify their efforts to check every cave.

A total of 500 Marines remained on standby Tuesday to help the Special Forces, and the Pentagon said it might send 10 experimental thermobaric bombs to the region, wire services reported. The bombs blast the air out of caves, causing anyone in them to suffocate.

Hundreds of Al Qaeda terrorists fled the Tora Bora caves, which Bin Laden periodically made his home during more than 15 years.

They headed through the snowfields toward Pakistan, about three miles away. Some suffered the same fate as Herve Jamel, a Frenchman who converted to Islam and joined Al Qaeda.

His frozen body was found over the weekend cloaked in a thin shirt and commando trousers. In the pants was a plane ticket for home.

Pakistan has used helicopters to ferry reinforcements to the border from Peshawar, the gateway to Afghanistan, to block fleeing Arabs and other foreigners.

This city of traders, refugees and smugglers is near the Khyber Pass, over which the armies of Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan once passed. Pakistan now has 8,000 troops on the border and has arrested hundreds of bedraggled Arabs seeking refuge.

Although Bin Laden and his top leaders may well have escaped the U.S. air attacks unscathed, more than 7,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda members have been taken prisoner. Most are foot soldiers who are unlikely to have any useful knowledge about Bin Laden’s movements or the inner workings of Al Qaeda.

Twenty-four are in U.S. custody, on ships in the Arabian Sea or in a prison the Marines built near the airport outside the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.

The U.S. military also has taken over an airport hangar outside the Afghan capital, Kabul, to hold prisoners. The pro-Taliban Afghan Islamic Press reported over the weekend that U.S. troops had captured Abdul Haq Wasiq, Al Qaeda’s deputy chief of intelligence.

It gave no further details. Also, FBI agents were reported to be questioning the Taliban’s deputy defense minister, Mullah Fazil, who was captured a month ago.