New Afghan Government Takes Control

Dec. 22, 2001 -- Afghanistan took the next step in its long and often troubled history today when an interim government replaced the vanquished Taliban.

But even as the new government assumes power, there are clear signs the U.S.-led war against terrorism in Afghanistan continues. American forces Friday bombed a convoy officials said was filled with Taliban or al Qaeda leaders, though some Afghans disputed exactly who was in the convoy. In addition, the Pentagon sent a new type of bomb to be used against caves.

New Government

The interim government — 30 members representing several Afghan tribes and including two women — has six months to stabilize the devastated nation. Then, a council of tribal leaders will begin to chart out how Afghanistan will achieve a permanent constitution.

Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, a 44-year-old southern Pashtun tribal leader who has the support of Afghanistan's exiled King Mohammad Zaher Shah, will lead the interim government. After signing his oath of office, witnessed by Chief Justice Mohammed Qasim, Karzai embraced Burhanuddin Rabbani, the pre-Taliban president of Afghanistan, as foreign diplomats and Afghan tribal leaders applauded. It was the first peaceful transfer of power in Afghanistan in decades.

"The number one priority is to maintain and further promote peace and stability in Afghanistan, and to give the Afghan people an opportunity to live at absolute ease," Karzai said afterwards. "If we deliver to the Afghan people what we promise, this will be a great day. If we don't deliver, this will go into oblivion. I hope we will deliver properly to the Afghan people and then this day will be remembered nicely."

To help, the first of 200 British Royal Marines launched an international mission to bolster the government. The peacekeeping force could eventually number as many 5,000 troops although a debate continues over what kind of role the force should play.

Karzai supports allowing the peacekeepers play a vital role in maintaining order.

"I think all members of the cabinet are behind the need for us to have the multi-national force, the U.N.-led force," Karzai said today. "It's all been agreed upon, and the U.N. peacekeeping forces will arrive."

Others in Afghanistan do not want the peacekeepers to be authorized to use force.

Is Bin Laden Dead?

As the new Afghan government assumed power, the hunt for leaders of the Taliban — the repressive regime that ruled much of Afghanistan since 1996 — and the al Qaeda terror network continued.

The whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader who the United States says masterminded the deadly Sept. 11 attacks on U.S. targets, remained unknown, as U.S. forces search recently bombed caves and tunnels near Tora Bora in eastern Afghanistan. Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. military effort, said bin Laden last was seen a week ago.

"He could be in Tora Bora," Franks said. "He could be somewhere else in Afghanistan. Or, perhaps, he may have gotten over into Pakistan."

However, in an interview on Chinese state television, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf virtually dismissed the possibility that bin Laden could have crossed the border into his country, and that he may not even have survived the U.S. air attacks.

"Maybe he is dead because of all of the operations that have been conducted, the bombardment of all his caves that have been conducted," Musharraf said, according to the Associated Press. "There is a great possibility that he may have lost his life there."

"He is not in Pakistan — that we are reasonably sure," Musharraf added. "We can't be 100 percent sure. We have sealed the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Tora [Bora] region in which he was supposed to be operating has parts of it leading into Pakistan. There's about eight passes leading into Pakistan over mountains at a height of about 13- to 14-thousand feet. They are snow covered now. We are guarding each one of these passes."

Who Died in Convoy Assault?

The pursuit of enemy leaders also led U.S. warplanes and AC-130 gunships to attack and destroy a convoy of a dozen vehicles Thursday night into Friday — an act that has created some controversy.

The Pentagon said the convoy was carrying al Qaeda or Taliban leadership figures and twice fired missiles at U.S. warplanes after the U.S. assault began. However, provincial leaders said the Americans were misinformed by local villagers about who was in the vehicles, and that the airstrike actually targeted tribal elders and former mujahideen heading for Kabul to attend the new government's swearing-in ceremony.

U.S. personnel are on the ground investigating the matter locally.

"We believe it was a real target, and so we just have to wait and see how it turns out," Franks said today. "But the indications that I have right now tell me that this was a target that we intended to strike.

"We have a saying in the Army that the first two or three reports from the scouts are always wrong," he added. "And so before we commit to exactly what happened or exactly what we would do about it, we're just going to look at it very carefully and be sure that we understand what did happen."

According an Afghan Islamic Press report on Friday, 65 people were killed. Among them was Mohammad Ibrahim, a brother of former mujahideen commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, who fought against the Soviets in the 1980s but became the tribal affairs minister in the Taliban government.

New Bomb Added to Arsenal in Afghanistan

In other developments:

The United States is sending a new bomb to Afghanistan that uses a delayed, high-pressure explosion to suck the air out of caves and tunnels. The laser-guided "thermobaric" bomb, recently tested in Nevada, "is something we clearly have a need for in Afghanistan and they're on their way over there," Undersecretary of Defense Edward Aldridge said. "The main advantage of these bombs would be to kill or incapacitate people in a tunnel without collapsing the entrance," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org. During the Gulf War, the United States used similar weapons, called fuel-air bombs, which were used against minefields and soldiers in trenches.

In a controversial new twist to the hunt for bin Laden, ABCNEWS has learned that Pakistani troops are searching women in all-covering burqas who cross into Pakistan from Afghanistan. By tradition, burqa-clad women are to be seen only by male relatives or their husbands.

The number of al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners being held in Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces numbers around 7,000, according to U.S. officials.

ABCNEWS' Jim Sciutto, Martha Raddatz, John McWethy and Jason Ryan in Washington and Dan Harris in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.