US and allied forces yesterday searched rugged Afghan terrain for fugitives Osama bin Laden and deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar as tribal chiefs squabbled over the former Taliban stronghold, Kandahar.
Bin Laden was said to be personally leading about 1,000 men in the defense of his bomb-blasted mountain hideouts in eastern Afghanistan, anti-Taliban forces said yesterday.
Pakistan said it had moved helicopter gunships and troop reinforcements to its long border with Afghanistan to prevent fleeing Taliban or members of bin Laden's al-Qaeda network from sneaking into the country.
A team of UN peacekeeping experts was in Kabul yesterday to plan the deployment of a multinational security force in the capital to prevent the kind of bloodbaths that Afghanistan has witnessed in previous changeovers of power.
On Saturday, the UN World Food Programme started its biggest ever food distribution in the capital, handing out sacks of wheat to more than three-quarters of the war-ravaged city's population.
Anti-Taliban forces had pushed al-Qaeda fighters out of their bases in the cave-riddled Tora Bora heights and were attacking them in nearby forests, a spokesman said.
"Osama himself has taken command of the fighting," Mohammad Amin said from eastern Jalalabad city. "He, along with around 1,000 of his people, including some Taliban officials, have now dug themselves into the forests of Spin Ghar after we overran all their bases in Tora Bora."
There was no independent confirmation of Amin's account.
US warplanes have pounded al-Qaeda forces in the snow-streaked Tora Bora peaks for days in support of local Afghan forces pursuing bin Laden, prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on the US that killed nearly 4,000.
The US launched strikes on Afghanistan on Oct. 7 to try to catch bin Laden, destroy his al-Qaeda network and punish the Taliban for giving them sanctuary in Afghanistan.
About 2,000 fighters loyal to the new Afghan leaders are combing Tora Bora's caves and tunnels near Jalalabad where bin Laden might be hiding.
"You could bomb day and night and it won't make a big difference," said local commander Hazrat Ali. "Soldiers have to go in there."
In Kandahar, squabbling Pashtun tribal chiefs yesterday were vying to control the former Taliban bastion and meeting in council to try to patch up old sore points and end a third decade of warfare that began with the Soviet invasion of 1979.
Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's designated interim prime minister has called for the meeting to try to resolve disputes over who should rule Kandahar and the border town of Spin Boldak.
A Chinese freighter that allegedly snapped an undersea cable linking Taiwan proper to Penghu County is suspected of being owned by a Chinese state-run company and had docked at the ports of Kaohsiung and Keelung for three months using different names. On Tuesday last week, the Togo-flagged freighter Hong Tai 58 (宏泰58號) and its Chinese crew were detained after the Taipei-Penghu No. 3 submarine cable was severed. When the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) first attempted to detain the ship on grounds of possible sabotage, its crew said the ship’s name was Hong Tai 168, although the Automatic Identification System (AIS)
An Akizuki-class destroyer last month made the first-ever solo transit of a Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force ship through the Taiwan Strait, Japanese government officials with knowledge of the matter said yesterday. The JS Akizuki carried out a north-to-south transit through the Taiwan Strait on Feb. 5 as it sailed to the South China Sea to participate in a joint exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces that day. The Japanese destroyer JS Sazanami in September last year made the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s first-ever transit through the Taiwan Strait, but it was joined by vessels from New Zealand and Australia,
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
SECURITY: The purpose for giving Hong Kong and Macau residents more lenient paths to permanent residency no longer applies due to China’s policies, a source said The government is considering removing an optional path to citizenship for residents from Hong Kong and Macau, and lengthening the terms for permanent residence eligibility, a source said yesterday. In a bid to prevent the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from infiltrating Taiwan through immigration from Hong Kong and Macau, the government could amend immigration laws for residents of the territories who currently receive preferential treatment, an official familiar with the matter speaking on condition of anonymity said. The move was part of “national security-related legislative reform,” they added. Under the amendments, arrivals from the Chinese territories would have to reside in Taiwan for
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