US beefs up troops, but skips locals

US special forces in eastern Afghanistan have shunned overtures for assistance from local Pashtun warlords as they step up their efforts to flush out remaining Al Qaeda and Taliban members.

Two dozen Green Berets moved their base Tuesday from a schoolhouse to a military airport littered with the rusting hulks of Soviet cargo planes out of security fears - and possibly, in anticipation of a fresh push to capture senior Al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives on the run in the area.

The US military decision not to use "proxy" Afghan warriors thus far in their fighting in Khost and Paktia Provinces is a departure from an earlier military strategy at Tora Bora in neighboring Ningahar Province. There, thousands of Afghans were sent into the mountains to root out and kill the Al Qaeda fighters and capture Osama bin Laden.

But Mr. bin Laden and 1,000 to 2,000 other Al Qaeda members escaped the area. ABC News reported Monday night that CIA analysts have concluded that bin Laden escaped from his hideout in Tora Bora during the first week of December, briefly stopped over in Pakistan, then may have escaped by ship. But a CIA spokeswoman in Washington later denied that report.

Several hundred US Marines have been shuttling back and forth from their base near the southern city of Kandahar to the outskirts of the Al Qaeda base at Zawar Kili in Khost Province. The US has relentlessly bombed that area since early January. The strikes have reportedly destroyed some 60 buildings and sealed about 50 caves. Special forces have searched the caves and buildings for intelligence information and are now looking at other targets.

"We're coming to a conclusion in this particular complex, and we'll probably look for another complex," said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem in Washington.

But regional and provincial governors are now warning that the fight to capture hundreds of suspected terrorists is doomed to fail without the help of tribal leaders.

They say the US "go it alone" strategy is fraught with peril and hardship. And several of these tribal leaders described - and criticized - the unexpected deployment of US forces two weeks ago.

They say that the special forces arrived in helicopters on the first of the year. Pashtun tribesmen surrounded the airport and nearly opened fire, but later backed off when a top Kabul intelligence official, Engineer Ali, stepped out of one of the helicopters and began to explain the US mission to destroy terror bases and catch fleeing Al Qaeda and Taliban members.

After seizing control of a local schoolhouse, the American Green Berets, led by a tall, burly, somewhat enigmatic commander, known only to the Afghans as "General John," dropped by for lunch a few days later to tell local tribesmen that US forces would be launching secret ground operations in the nearby mountains.

In the meeting, recorded on videotape by the tribesmen, "General John" promised the Afghans that the US government is interested in rebuilding schools and renovating the airport. But while "General John" and his top advisers were meeting with local leaders on Jan. 4, Al Qaeda sympathizers attacked a small party of Americans, including one CIA officer, killing Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Chapman, a Green Beret. The US contingent had been visiting a destroyed mosque just outside the city, where several dozen Al Qaeda members and local Afghans had been killed by a US airstrike about three weeks earlier.

A week into the new year, some 200 US Marines from their southern base in Kandahar arrived to launch ground attacks on the Al Qaeda Zawar Kili base, but, so far, they have refused help from local Pashtun warlords. They have, however, had several limited successes, capturing several Al Qaeda and Taliban members as well as what the Pentagon officials have described as crucial intelligence contained on mobile phones.

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