December 29, 2001	Saturday	Shawwal 13, 1422

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WASHINGTON, Dec 28: Afghanistan’s defence ministry on Friday asked the United States to stop bombing of the country as, according to it, Osama bin Laden had moved to Pakistan with all his surviving Al Qaeda allies.

“Their remaining forces are few in number and may be annihilated in a maximum of three days,” Mohammad Habeel, a spokesman Gen Fahim said. “We demand America stop its bombing of Afghanistan after this goal is achieved.”

But the Pentagon reacted coolly to the suggestion, declining to rule out fresh air strikes.

“We have very seldom ruled out anything,” Victoria Clarke, the chief Defence Department spokeswoman, said when asked about Afghanistan’s request to wind up bombing. “And we will do what it takes to achieve what it is we’re trying to achieve.”

The U.S. goal, she said, remained “rooting out” Osama bin Laden and other leaders of the Al Qaeda network.

With operational commander Gen Tommy Franks at his side at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, President George W. Bush said he expected U.S. forces to remain in Afghanistan “for quite a long period of time”, as long as Franks said this was required.

“I think that it’s best for all of us to recognize that we will not be hurried,” Franks told reporters after Bush handed him the podium. “We will not be pressed into doing something that does not represent our national objectives, and we will take as long as it takes.”

The United States has mounted relatively few air strikes in the past 10 days in the absence of identifiable enemy targets but they have been highly controversial.

In the only reported airstrike since Sunday, US B-52 bombers and an AC-130 gunship destroyed a suspected Taliban leadership compound near Ghazni, on the road between Kabul and Kandahar, the Pentagon said on Thursday. But according to independent reports, 40 villagers were killed by bombs in the same vicinity.

A spokesman for the re-established US diplomatic mission in Kabul said no formal request for a bombing halt had been received from the interim government of Hamid Karzai.

PRISONERS: Pentagon spokeswoman Clarke said 25 more captured Osama loyalists had been taken under US control on Thursday, bringing to 62 the number held, including eight on board the amphibious assault ship Pelelieu in the northern Arabian Sea.

The latest contingent was transferred from Pakistan to US Marines based at Kandahar airport, she said. The United States is preparing to bring Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees to the its naval station at Guantanamo Bay, on Cuba’s southeastern tip, for more interrogation.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday it would take “a number of weeks” to prepare high-security facilities at the base. At his news conference Bush complained about leaked draft rules for possible military tribunals for the detainees, saying “whatever the procedures are for the military tribunals, our system will be more fair than the system of Osama and the Taliban.”

“The prisoners that we capture will be given a heck of a lot better chance in court than those citizens of ours who were in the WTC or in the Pentagon were given by Mr bin Laden,” he said.

According to a New York Times summary of the draft rules, the military tribunals that may be used would require a unanimous verdict to impose the death penalty, although a two-thirds vote of the panel of military officers involved would suffice to find someone guilty.—Reuters