Al Qaeda Reportedly Regroups at Former Base

Jan. 7 -- U.S. warplanes pounded targets in eastern Afghanistan today amid reports that al Qaeda fighters were attempting to regroup in a former "support haven" for the Taliban regime.

Over the weekend, U.S. warplanes dropped precision-guided weapons on an al Qaeda training camp in Paktia province after U.S. Marines on the ground found tanks and armored personnel carriers in the area, said Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem.

A number of al Qaeda fighters fleeing last month's intensive U.S. strikes on the Tora Bora cave complex are believed to have made their way to Khost, the headquarters of a former minister in the ousted Taliban regime in the province.

The training camp in Khost was the target of a 1998 U.S. cruise missile attack following the bombings of two U.S. eEmbassies in Africa.

Residents in the area saw four U.S. helicopters landing there today, reported the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.

U.S. jets also pounded targets around Zawar Kili and the Spin Ghar mountain range in eastern Afghanistan in the heaviest airstrikes in recent days, as U.S. forces combed through al Qaeda cave complexes in eastern Afghanistan.

It's been exactly three months since the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan began, but Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mullah Mohammed Omar, the reclusive leader of the Taliban, may be still at large.

But the Pentagon today announced a new strategy for their campaign, saying it would no longer speculate on the whereabouts of the two men, and instead attempt to patch together a more comprehensive intelligence picture of Taliban and al Qaeda operatives still in the country.

"We're going to stop chasing, if you will, the shadows of where we thought he was and focus more on … the entire picture of the country, where these pockets of resistance are, what do the anti-Taliban forces need, so that we can develop a better intelligence picture," said Stufflebeem.

A Physical Resassurance