No Free Pass for the Taliban

Where is Osama bin Laden? Where is Mullah Mohammed Omar? And now where are the justice minister and half a dozen other leading officials of the toppled Taliban government? This last group actually surrendered to a newly installed governor of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, but despite U.S. demands to interview them the officials were allowed to walk away. Enough is enough. The United States needs to lean on the central and provincial governments--lean hard--and get the justice minister and his colleagues back for questioning and perhaps for arrest.

Afghanistan remains chaotic, with warlords controlling some areas, international peacekeepers only in the capital, U.S. and other troops scattered around the country. It is not surprising that the interim government of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai in Kabul is unable to have all its orders carried out. But it must not be lax in dealing with the issue of the missing officials.

The United States already has custody of nearly 400 pro-Taliban soldiers, who apparently are providing information that, along with recovered computer disks and printed materials, has helped prevent planned terrorist attacks on Americans. The intelligence “take” from someone as high-ranking as the justice minister could be considerable.

Some Afghan officials have said they will not arrest every Taliban member. Fine. There’s no need for FBI interrogators in Afghanistan to talk to the janitor in the Taliban Foreign Ministry building. But Taliban Cabinet ministers ran a government that was entwined with Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda like ivy on an oak. The regime made Bin Laden’s terror possible, including the Sept. 11 attacks.

Letting high-ranking Taliban members escape would make it possible for the extremist regime that oppressed the nation for five years to regroup. By some accounts, the Taliban defense minister and another Cabinet minister were among the seven turned loose after they surrendered.

The chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, said this week that top Taliban leaders were of “great interest” to the United States, which expected to be able to question them. That’s a point that needs to be made again to Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai, Karzai and their underlings.

It is true that Afghan fighters have for centuries “turned their hats,” adopting headgear the color or shape of their enemy’s when they surrendered. With a new hat, the right ethnic ties and perhaps a bribe, they could return to their homes. This time around, however, the stakes are too high to let the top rank of the vanquished foe go free.

Also of great concern is the possibility that Iran is giving refuge to some Al Qaeda members from neighboring Afghanistan. Iran is largely still controlled by Islamic extremists, though of the Shiite rather than Sunni branch of Islam. Tehran bitterly opposed the Taliban regime, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman denied that Iran is providing refuge to Al Qaeda fighters. President Bush said Thursday Iran must bar “Al Qaeda murderers” and must surrender any who have crossed the border.

Afghan soldiers and U.S. forces need to keep searching for Bin Laden and Omar, the Taliban head. The hunt for top lieutenants of Omar also needs to be vigorously pursued. Interrogating prisoners is a first step to bringing war criminals to justice and gaining information that can help disrupt terrorist attacks. Afghans, after enduring decades of war, should recognize that as much as Americans.