Sources: Marines to Join Cave Search

Dec. 20, 2001 -- As many as 500 U.S. Marines could be on the way to an area where hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban fighters made their last stand, sources told ABCNEWS.

The Marines would clean up whatever forces remain, a dangerous job given the chance of mines and booby-traps in the caves as well as possible snipers hiding in the mountains. But U.S. officials said they believe al Qaeda fighters remain in the steep canyons.

The task is being left to American troops because the many Afghan anti-Taliban fighters who helped subdue the Tora Bora mountaintop complex earlier this week have declared victory and appear to be preparing to go home.

Officials from the CIA and Defense Department are trying to convince tribal leaders to continue participating in the effort, by offering them money, winter clothing and equipment, sources said.

But American military sources said they still expect an enlarged American presence in the area.

"It is not [over] at all," said Kenton Keith, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Islamabad. "Much of the military objectives have been achieved but not all. Hard work is going on. Whether it takes a day, a week or a year or how long will it take, it will continue until he [bin Laden] is brought to justice."

Until just days before al Qaeda resistance in the mountains collapsed, the Pentagon had strong indications that bin Laden was hiding in the caves, directing his terror network's resistance over shortwave radio. The question remains: Where did bin Laden and his top lieutenants disappear to?

There has been speculation that bin Laden either was killed or slipped across the border into Pakistan.

"You are indulging in kite-flying," Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan said when asked if it was possible that bin Laden was in Pakistan. "Anyone crossing the border illegally will be apprehended and will be dealt with according to the nature of offense."

Over the last two days, a number of Eastern Alliance commanders have accused one another of making deals to let top al Qaeda figures escape the region.

Earlier this week, Washington and Islamabad struck a deal that will allow U.S. troops to hunt the fighters on the ground and fire on them from the air but it will also be on a case-by-case basis, with the United States required to ask permission each time.

Hundreds of al Qaeda fighters are believed to be trying to escape into Pakistan after the fall of their Tora Bora mountaintop complex earlier this week, and there are suspicions that bin Laden may be among them.

"He's either dead in some tunnel or he's alive. … And it does not matter. We'll find him one day and we'll know what's happened," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Pentagon briefing Wednesday.

This week, U.S. and Pakistani sources say nearly 400 suspected al Qaeda members have been picked up by Pakistani patrols.

Bush Promises Terrorists Will Be Found

President Bush gave a short address in the Rose Garden today to sum up the war on terrorism in the 100 days since the attacks of Sept. 11. Bush used the milestone to announce officials added two groups to the White House list of terrorist organizations whose assets will be frozen by the United States and its allies.

The groups are Umnah Tameer U-Nau, a Pakistani group that Bush said provided information about nuclear weapons to al Qaeda, and Laskhar-e-Tayyiba, which he said was involved in terrorist attacks on India.

Speaking of the successes of the war, he referred to the destruction of at least 11 al Qaeda training camps and 39 Taliban command-and-control sites, the arrest of key Taliban and al Qaeda figures, the liberation of humanitarian aid workers held prisoner by the Taliban and the delivery of 2.5 million daily rations to Afghans.

"I'm optimistic about the future of our struggle against terror," Bush said. "I know we've accomplished a lot so far, and we've got a lot more to do."

Bomb Injures 100 in Mazar-e-Sharif

As the first members of an international peacekeeping force set foot in Kabul, an explosion injured at least 100 people in a market in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, perhaps a warning that the installation of an interim government headed by Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai may not be easy.

Karzai, who is scheduled to be sworn in as interim prime minister on Saturday, has already said he would welcome the continued presence of U.S. forces in Afghanistan at least until the last pockets of pro-Taliban resistance are eliminated.

Karzai was concerned specifically about southern Afghanistan, where Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is believed to be still at large and U.S. forces have set up two bases, including one at the Kandahar airport with 2,000 Marines.

One of the people wounded in today's Mazar-e-Sharif explosion said he saw a fragmentation grenade roll into the moneychangers' section of the city's central market just before the explosion.

"The people who did this meant to destroy the peace and tranquility of our city," local health minister Mirwais Rabde Sherzod said.

A group of 53 British Royal Marines arrived in the capital, Kabul, today, the first detachment of a force that could eventually number between 3,000 and 5,000 and include soldiers from France, Turkey, Italy, Canada, Spain and possibly Germans.

The United Nations Security Council authorized the deployment of the peacekeepers earlier in the day.

Three New Detainees in U.S. Custody

In other developments:

There are now 23 detainees in U.S. custody, including eight aboard the USS Peleliu after three new prisoners were brought there from Mazar-e-Sharif. The other 15 are still being held at the Kandahar airport. Officials have declined to identify any of the detainees, other than American Taliban John Walker and Australian, David Hicks. Officials say only that the people being held are a mix of Taliban and al Qaeda. No prisoners from Pakistan have been transferred to U.S. custody, as American and Pakistani authorities try to sort out the identities of the people who have been captured there.

In Brussels, Belgium, representatives of the European Union, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United States met to discuss how to provide the billions of dollars' worth of aid promised to Afghanistan, but the diplomats said projects will only be funded in areas where there is strong support for Karzai's interim government. "Our message must be clear — reconstruction will only take place in those parts of Afghanistan where local players providesecurity and stability," European commissioner for development aid Poul Nielson said. Among the projects being considered are the restoration of food security, return of refugees, boosting crippled agriculture and clearing millions of landmines.

At a newly built detention center at the airport in Kandahar, FBI agents have been interrogating Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, believing they might help capture bin Laden or divulge plans for further attacks on the United States. The prisoners, some of them injured, are being held under heavy guard in a compound with space for 120 prisoners and surrounded by mud walls and rolls of barbed wire.

Five of the nearly 50 al Qaeda fighters who escaped from their Pakistani captors on Wednesday remained at large in the mountain ravines just across the border from Afghanistan. A dozen others were recaptured today following a shootout that left one of the Arab al Qaeda fighters and one Pakistani soldier dead. The escape has so far left seven Pakistani soldiers and at least nine Arabs dead.

At least 14 people — including eight members of al Qaeda — were killed Wednesday in a clash between Pakistani security officials and Afghanistan war prisoners, all of whom were non-Afghans believed to be al Qaeda fighters captured as they tried to cross the border.

The count of dead and missing at the World Trade Center has been dropped to 2,992. New York City officials say 484 people are missing. The medical examiners office has issued 550 death certificates, and 1,958 death certificates have been issued without a body at the request of victims' families.

ABCNEWS' Martha Raddatz and John McWethy in Washington and Dan Harris in Afghanistan contributed to this report.