Hunt for Al Qaeda intensifies

But the secretive US forces here say they are not ruling out the possibility of working more closely with the Afghans.

A polite and somber-looking US special forces commander, known to the locals simply as "General John," has remained friendly with Afghan commanders and told them that the US military may, eventually, call on them to help fight Al Qaeda.

In a meeting with senior Afghan commanders, recorded on videotape and observed by this reporter, General John, dressed neatly in Western civilian clothes with his head covered in a black cap, listens patiently to the concerns of the Afghans. He remains calm and unemotional during his meeting with warm, hospitable Pashtun warlords.

The Afghans say that General John and the American special forces have made "lots of promises so far" for financial assistance. They complain, however, that little help has arrived.

They point to a dank and chilly hospital ward beside the former Al Qaeda base in town.

Twelve-year-old Anwar Ullah is recovering from injuries he received during a US bombing raid that injured four members of his family. Doctors at the hospital estimate that 100 to 150 civilians in Khost Province have been killed in similar air raids, and they say that possibly hundreds more were killed in the nearby Paktia Province.

So far, neither Western aid agencies - nor the US special forces members - have dropped into the hospital to ask local administrators what they need to care for the injured and sick.

"After the war with the Soviets, we had a Saudi relief agency providing for most of our needs," says Mohamad Qasim, the hospital's director. "But when this war with Al Qaeda started, all that money dried up, and we can't even pay salaries to our nurses or doctors. The real problem is that we are the only hospital within 150 square miles, since the border with Pakistan has now been sealed for patients wishing to travel outside for care."

After a decade of war against Soviet occupation that left hundreds of thousands dead and an equal number of persons disabled for life in eastern Afghanistan, the West severed many of its humanitarian links here.

Al Qaeda, on the other hand, pumped heavy resources into its battle for the hearts and minds of the local population. Arab jihad fighters, working with a web of Islamic charities, many of them with militant aims, ensconced themselves in the community. In exchange for financial assistance funneled through the same Middle Eastern - mainly Saudi channels - that worked with the CIA in the anti-Soviet battle, Islamic militants in the Al Qaeda network enhanced their popularity and influence here.

The largest mosque in the city was built with funds raised by the Taliban's Southern military commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani. Khost's medical centers have been funded for years by money from Saudi fundamentalists.

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