Retaliation is trickier than Afghan terrain

Invading or occupying the country would prove difficult - Afghanistan is a rugged land whose fighters have defeated the imperial ambitions of several invading armies, including the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Any large military operation against Afghanistan would require the help of neighboring Pakistan, whose military intelligence service helped to create and train the Taliban. This critical connection is one reason why US diplomats have been working overtime, huddling with Pakistani officials yesterday and the day before to gain firm commitments of support.

"The Taliban are not exactly in one place. They are spread [out] in Kabul and Kandahar," Mr. Cooley says. "It would be a very messy operation, tracking them all down - let alone bin Laden's gang."

"It's like a bunch of grapes. Pick one grape, and the bunch remains," says the Western intelligence officer. "Each is a segment unto itself, but they're talking with each other. They're training together. They're working together for the same causes. Yet there's a protection in being separate."

Bin Laden is known to live with as many as 300 others in a sprawling housing complex in the southern Kandahar province. According to the Associated Press, several reports began to appear Wednesday that Arabs were moving out of the complex. Meanwhile, several Arab families in Kabul have been seen loading their belongings into vehicles and leaving.

There is little sympathy from bin Laden himself. An aide, who spoke by satellite telephone to Abu Dhabi television in Pakistan, quoted him as saying he had nothing to do with the attacks, which he said were "punishment from Allah."

For the moment, it seems that Afghanistan is No. One on the target list, simply by default. "It's very difficult to put your finger on a precise place where they can strike," says Esther Webmen, an Israeli historian who has recently studied bin Laden's organization, referring to those interested in retaliating for the attacks on the US. She adds: "Except Afghanistan."

Some American and Israeli analysts have speculated that Iraq may have assisted bin Laden, but the connection is unproven. "If they decide to go after Saddam Hussein as well, then we could have a big regional war on our hands," says Cooley.

The Russians have been supporting anti-Taliban Afghan guerrillas in the north for years, and new US support of this Northern Alliance with cash or other assistance could be part of the equation.

Any such support might recall Washington's covert backing of the Islamic mujahideen in Afghanistan. Backing of the Afghan fighters - bin Laden prominent among them - has resulted in years of instability there and in other countries.

Despite the proven risks of intervention, a military strike -and even US forces on the ground in Afghanistan -might receive only slight condemnation across the Islamic world, says Bashraheel Bashraheel, foreign editor of the Al-Ayyam newspaper in the port city of Aden, Yemen, where suicide bombers killed 17 American service personnel last October on an attack on the USS Cole. "Everybody here thinks that the Taliban has been harboring and protecting these guys for a long time, and that sooner or later the Taliban would be held responsible," says Mr. Bashraheel.

Jordan, Algeria and Yemen itself are all believed by Western intelligence sources to have bin Laden cells. But if no other nation is targeted, the view across the Arab world will be that any "punishment" will be deserved, he adds, "because the Taliban are so extreme."

"The idea of a worldwide coalition against terrorism is much better and more effective than one huge military strike, because these people are spread all around the world," adds Bashraheel. "Cutting off its head is not effective - it has to be a large, group effort by all countries to stop it."

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