Atef on far right before he assumed room temperature.
Posted on 11/16/2001 1:23:37 PM PST by Straight Vermonter
(CBS) A top operator in the al-Qaida network, Muhammad Atef, has been killed, reports CBS News Correspondent David Martin, citing an intelligence report. If the death can be verified, it would signify a major breakthrough against the terror network. Atef is believed to have trained the Sept. 11 hijackers who killed thousands in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania.
In another major development, Donald Rumsfeld said Friday U.S. special forces were active in southern Afghanistan, shooting Taliban and al-Qaida forces who did not surrender.
"They are killing Taliban that won't surrender and al-Qaida that are trying to move from one place to another," Rumsfeld told reporters as he flew from Washington to a naval training station near Chicago. He said U.S. forces in the country numbered in the hundreds.
He also said a number of senior Taliban and al-Qaida figures were being held by the opposition in Afghanistan and would be interrogated by American forces. He declined to identify the detainees further, saying: "We do have some names and they were not privates, some of them."
He said the hunt was on for the top leadership of the two organizations, which have been routed from territory they held in the last week after a massive U.S. bombing campaign and an opposition offensive.
Hard-core Taliban loyalists, many of them facing execution if captured, have decided to fight it out in two Afghan cities. But there are reports that Osama bin Laden is trying to run away.
Chased out of much of Afghanistan, the Taliban still have control over their home base of Kandahar and the northern city of Kunduz, a spokesman for anti-Taliban forces said Friday, estimating that 70 percent of Taliban commanders have chosen to follow Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar's call to keep fighting, while 30 percent don't want to fight.
U.S. warplanes were pounding targets in the southern Afghan city after a weeklong rout that saw them melt away from Afghanistan's main urban areas, including the capital, Kabul.
Capital Worries
While most of Kabul appears to be glad the Taliban is gone, many residents - mostly Pashtun - are worried about what will happen now that the city is under the control of the northern alliance, made up mainly of Tajik and Uzbek troops.
The Afghan capital is experiencing problems in the absence of a government, with the city already split up along ethnic lines and reports of street robberies on the rise.
The voices of the mullahs rang out through the streets of the capital last night, announcing the beginning of the religious holiday of Ramadan, as the new moon of the ninth month of the lunar calendar came into view.
Several senior Taliban leaders have been captured by the northern alliance, said U.S. official.
U.S. planes bombed Kandahar overnight, continuing a pattern of relentless strikes on the city and environs. The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said the Taliban's foreign ministry was wrecked, along with a mosque located in the eastern part of the city.
A delegation of tribal leaders will go to Kandahar on Sunday to try to persuade Omar to give up, the spokesman said from Quetta, Pakistan. If they fail, or if the Taliban imprison the delegation, then ethnic Pashtun fighters in the area likely will take up arms against the Taliban, he said.
Do we want Osama dead or alive?
As the hunt for leaders continues, bin Laden has vowed not to be captured alive and Omar says he would rather die that work in a broad-based government such as called for by the U.N. and the U.S. But Iran radio, monitored in London, reported that bin Laden may have fled from Afghanistan across the border into Pakistan. That report could not be confirmed, and U.S. officials have conceded they do not know where bin Laden may be.
Northern alliance troops, who now control 85 percent of Afghanistan - almost the exact opposite of one week ago - have pledged to participate in talks within the next few days to try to form such a government.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday there was some fighting near the Kandahar city center as the Pashtun fighters advanced. Most of Kandahar province, outside of the city, is in the hands of anti-Taliban rebels, he said.
Pakistan strengthened its border defenses closest to Kandahar with tanks and extra troops, worried that unrest — and bin Laden supporters — could spill across the frontier.
At Kunduz in the north, the anti-Taliban northern alliance laid siege to the city, backed by U.S. airstrikes.
The defenders include an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 foreigners loyal to bin Laden — who are much less likely than Afghan Taliban to surrender or slip away.
Near the city of Herat, by the Iranian border, Taliban forces reportedly vacated an air base, the Afghan Islamic Press reported. It was not immediately known whether anti-Taliban forces had taken over the base, the largest in western Afghanistan.
There were reports of anti-Taliban fighters performing summary executions on their defeated foes. The Taliban from outside Afghanstan, especially hated, have borne the brunt of the revenge killings.
A 19-year-old fighter named Abdul Raqib said he personally carried out such an execution to avenge his father and brother's slaying.
"I made them stand in a line, and then I fired," he said. "I was so angry."
In other developments:
Two young American women from a group of eight international aid workers arrested more than three months ago for preaching Christianity in Afghanistan gave their first public account of their ordeal Friday.
Afghans on Thursday began their observances of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month.
British troops arrived at the Bagram airfield, north of Kabul, on what the Ministry of Defense said was a mission to prepare the facility for use in a future humanitarian mission.
The German parliament backed Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder's decision to deploy 3,900 German troops in the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
From Uzbekistan, the United Nations moved another 220 tons of food to Afghanistan as part of an effort to increase supplies in the country as winter approaches.
All of those murderers were expecting their 72 virgins. He (as did his 19 murdering students)
HAS AWAKENED TO A BIG SURPRISE.
HA HA..........RUN, FORREST RUN!
Please pray for Ted Olson (and buy Barbara's new book) and for Tom Knobel.
Thanks!
Can you imagine capturing Osama trying to escape disguised under a burqua? I think some females ought to be tasked with the job of looking under the burquas of any unusually tall and thin "women."
prolly not
Thanks for posting the article. I've been wondering what the outcome was on the German vote ... I expected the parliament to rubber stamp Schroeder's proposal, since it was the parliament that acted first to support the war and Schroeder had to turn around to catch up, but it's nice to see the vote finally happened.
Atef on far right before he assumed room temperature.
 Yasin |
 Atef |
 Fadhil |
 Ghailani |
 Mohammed |
 Mohammed |
 Zawahiri |
 Swedan |
 Msalam |
|
 Izz-Al-Din |
 Mugniyah |
 Al-Mughassil |
 Al-Nasser |
|
 Al-Yacoub |
 El Hoorie |
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Bin Laden
Abdullah
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