US beefs up troops, but skips locals

Despite the alleged lack of cooperation, Pashtun leaders say they are trying to help the US forces. The local security chief, Mohamad Mustafa, who has long fighting experience with the anti-Soviet resistance, had his men arrest three cousins of the killer of the US Green Beret. They are being held in jail - as local tradition dictates - as "hostages" until the escaped murder suspect returns from Pakistan's tribal areas and owns up to his crime.

Gov. Badshah Khan, a Pashtun royalist with one eyebrow that runs the length of his forehead and an equally impressive handlebar mustache that curls across his upper lip, says he fears that local tribal chiefs, angry with the US attacks, are now plotting to oust him. He warned, in an interview, that Al Qaeda sympathizers might also try to attack the two dozen US special forces stationed here in Khost.

Governor Khan complained that US forces - who could be seen manning machinegun posts on an airport control tower Tuesday as local fighters held the perimeter - are ignoring him. "If Americans are really interested in removing Al Qaeda, instead of destroying our tribal structure and creating differences between our people, they have to help the powerful ones - like me - not just the Northern Alliance from Kabul, which is trying to undermine our rule," he said. "I didn't believe before all this that the Americans could be so foolish - bombing villages instead of military targets. They are repeating some of the mistakes of Tora Bora all over again."

The governor, a long-time friend of Afghanistan's King Zahir Shah, said he has warned the Americans not to "go it alone" in the area with the assistance of Northern Alliance intelligence officials, who remain unpopular in the Pashtun-dominated provinces that border on Pakistan.

"The errant bombing is about to create an uprising, and if it does, I'll resign and leave the US forces to their fate," added the governor, whose mandate stretches across three provinces, including Khost, Paktia, and Paktika. "It is irresponsible for the Americans to behave like this with my own people now accusing me of directing the airstrikes that are killing civilians."

The US forces operating in the area are under orders from the Pentagon not to speak with reporters.

They face a daunting task to root out extremism in a province that was at the center of the anti-Soviet "holy war" and still has strong links to fundamentalist sects in the Middle East.

The notorious Al Qaeda military chief of the Tora Bora base, the Yemeni Abdul Qadoos, is, according to locals, now operating in the area. Jalaluddin Haqqani, the Taliban's armed forces chief for Southern Afghanistan, is also believed by senior Afghan officials to be there, or just across the border in Pakistan.

A new blue-domed mosque, one of the most spectacular in Afghanistan, which dominates the skyline in the regional capital, Khost, is the work of Mr. Haqqani, the Taliban's Southern military commander.

Although British-led peacekeepers in Kabul have distributed documents saying that the wily anti-Soviet fighter is "reported killed in action," local leaders say that Haqqani, a prominent Al Qaeda member himself, escaped heavy bombing that killed two dozen of his men and family members, with only an injured hand.

Senior Kabul government officials, still loyal to the Tajik- and Uzbek-dominated Northern Alliance, warned over the weekend that the US would need to send "thousands, not hundreds," of combatants into Eastern Afghanistan if they hoped to finally flush out the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.

But Governor Khan suspects it's a conspiracy to undermine his own authority - especially if more US forces arrive and his fighters and advice continue to be ignored. He says that Haqqani remains a popular force in the region and can only be neutralized if the US starts working with local tribal chiefs and funding their efforts to rebuild the region.

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