December 27, 2001	Thursday	Shawwal 11, 1422

KABUL, Dec 26: Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said on Wednesday that Al Qaeda fighters were still active in the south of the country.

He also said US troops would stay until the network was destroyed. But details of a foreign security force were still under negotiation, he said.

“In some of the southern parts of Afghanistan, in Paktia province, we believe there are still pockets of Al Qaeda,” Abdullah said at a news conference, adding that some Al Qaeda forces were active around Kandahar.

American troops would leave “when the mission of eradicating terrorists and all the Taliban bases is accomplished”, he said, speaking after the second cabinet meeting of the five-day-old interim government that will govern for six months in the run-up to a Loya Jirga.

For the British-led foreign security force, the government has sought a carefully agreed-upon mission since the troops could be called upon to intervene in disputes that have nothing to do with the Taliban.

“The final details of the tactical agreement (are) under discussion between our country and the leading troop contributing country, which is Britain,” Abdullah said.

A few dozen British Royal Marines arrived last week. The bulk of the force, which will include Germans and Turks as well, has yet to be deployed, waiting for Britain to agree details with Afghan security officials.

Asked when the main contingent would arrive, Abdullah said: “very soon... I’m talking about days.”

Afghanistan’s new government has been loath to agree to a lengthy deployment of foreign troops on its soil and has also been in discussions on the size, trying to keep the numbers as small as possible.

“The cabinet meeting discussed security,” said one Defence Ministry official tersely.

Security is a prerequisite for a government that must grow food in a land ravaged by three years of drought, where women have no jobs, children barely receive an education, 16 out of every 100 babies die at birth and life expectancy is just 43.

PUSHING INTO TORA BORA: US forces were preparing for a new push in the hunt for bin Laden after a brief respite for Christmas.

Defence officials in Washington said US and allied forces would soon make a fresh thrust into caves and tunnels in the Tora Bora area of eastern Afghanistan.

Officials said last week about 500 Marines had been put on standby in Afghanistan for possible orders to help search the caves, Al Qaeda’s last major Afghan redoubt, for clues to Osama’s fate.

“Some of those unaccounted for may actually be dead or they might be hiding in Tora Bora or elsewhere,” coalition spokesman Kenton Keith said in Islamabad. “Interrogation of captives and investigation of former hiding places will bring some clarification over the coming days.”

But he stressed that even with the fall of the Taliban, the US war was far from over.

“One thing is clear, that the job isn’t finished, therefore military action will continue,” Keith said.

US officials acknowledge they no longer know whether Osama is dead or alive or has fled Afghanistan.

BUILDING CONSENSUS: New leader Hamid Karzai has moved quickly to establish support for his cabinet, whose challenge lies in building consensus in a country where years of war have fractured a devastated land into a patchwork of areas run by ethnic warlords and tribal barons.

This week, he included Abdul Rashid Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek warlord, in the government to help build broad-based support among ethnic minorities and to fend off a powerful potential foe.

AIR STRIKES RESUME: US defence officials said air strikes over Afghanistan had resumed on Sunday north of Kandahar.

The strikes ended a lull following a deadly raid on a convoy in eastern Afghanistan last week that survivors said was a mistaken target.

Villagers in eastern Paktia province and survivors say up to 60 people were killed when US aircraft attacked a motorcade carrying Pakhtoon tribal elders to Karzai’s inauguration.

Abdullah said the incident had been discussed by Afghan security officials and the US military, but he was not aware of the details of the talks.

He said the cabinet agreed to create commissions for reconstruction and to combat drugs in the country that until a Taliban crackdown two years ago grew 75 percent of the world’s heroin-producing opium.

Many drugs international officials fear that the end of Taliban rule and the return of warlords will prompt farmers to return to growing poppies, the source of opium and the most lucrative cash crop in one of the world’s poorest countries.

In a signal of confidence in the administration of new leader Hamid Karzai, Afghan refugees from Pakistan started to return from Quetta and other border areas through Chama.—Reuters