Sources: Bin Laden Lieutenant Killed

Nov. 16, 2001 -- U.S. intelligence sources have told ABCNEWS they have credible evidence the military chief of the al Qaeda network — a close confidant of Osama bin Laden — was killed in a U.S. airstrike.

The news came as the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported the Taliban's supreme spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had agreed to leave the southern city of Kandahar and head for the mountains along with members of his inner circle.

U.S. officials said they are skeptical. "I don't believe it," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, a senior officer on themilitary's Joint Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon briefing.

Days after Omar promised a fierce battle for the Afghan city that spawned the Taliban and served as its spiritual stronghold through its five years in power, the AIP reported today that Omar had negotiated a handover of Kandahar to two local mujahideen leaders.

Earlier today, U.S. intelligence sources said they had credible evidence that Mohammed Atef, an Egyptian whose daughter is married to Osama bin Laden's son and was believed to be a senior leader in the al Qaeda chain of command, was killed by a U.S. airstrike in Kabul in the last two days.

Atef was indicted with bin Laden in the bombings of two U.S. Embassies in Africa in 1998 and was believed to have been involved in the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.

While stopping short of an official confirmation of the reports, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters today he had "seen the reports and they seem authoritative."

U.S. Troops in Active Combat in Afghanistan

Earlier today, Rumsfeld said U.S. special forces were in southern Afghanistan and directly engaging al Qaeda members and Taliban troops in their search for bin Laden and Omar.

"They are killing Taliban that won't surrender and al Qaeda that are trying to move from one place to another," Rumsfeld told reporters.

The United States now has at least 300 special operation troops on the ground in Afghanistan and U.S. forces are shifting to a strategy of staging fewer bombing runs while making a stronger effort on the ground to find bin Laden.

Iranian radio reported that bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks, had probably fled from southern Afghanistan into neighboring Pakistan. A spokesman for the Pakistani Foreign Ministry today dismissed the report as "totally baseless and devoid of any truth."

During his press briefing today, Rumsfeld also said there was every reason to believe bin Laden and Omar were still inside Afghanistan.

From Egypt to Afghanistan

Atef's reported killing came as massive U.S. airstrikes on al Qaeda targets in the capital of Kabul and the southern Afghan city of Kandahar continued. Among other targets, U.S. jets hit the Taliban Foreign Ministry in Kandahar today.

Intelligence sources tell ABCNEWS officials first surmised Atef's death after putting a target under aerial surveillance after it was hit, and observing a frantic search through the through the wreckage and then intercepting panicked phone calls about what had happened. American forces have not yet been able to search the site for physical evidence.

A loyal follower of bin Laden, Atef carried a bounty of $25 million on his head after a rapid rise to the top of the al Qaeda military committee. His primary responsibility, according to intelligence sources, was the training of new members in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

A 21-page dossier released by the British government last month implicated Atef in the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A big man with a flowing white beard, the former Egyptian police officer was a member of the Egyptian-based Al-Jihad group and is believed to have introduced bin Laden to another key al Qaeda leader and a fellow Egyptian national, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Spectacular Military Successes

Atef's killing, if confirmed, would be the latest in a week of military successes that have stripped the fleeing Taliban of control of the country and most of its major cities.

In the northern city of Kunduz, an estimated 10,000 Taliban fighters, a number of them foreign mercenaries from Pakistan and Chechnya, are currently locked in by Northern Alliance forces.

According to ABCNEWS' Don Dahler in the northern city of Taloqan near Kunduz, a Northern Alliance commander today gave the Taliban fighters 48 hours to surrender. But due to reports of the Northern Alliance's grisly treatment of foreign mercenaries, most reporters believe the mercenaries would fight to the last man.

If that is the case, Kunduz could become the site of one of the fiercest and bloodiest battles for Afghanistan.

Kandahar saw fierce bombings overnight and into the dawn today, when U.S. planes pounded the city's eastern districts, targeting, among others, the Taliban's foreign ministry offices. The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported 11 civilian casualties in the bombing, but there were no independent verification of the report.

Concerned over increasing reports of civilian casualties, Muslim countries have, in the past, appealed for a U.S. military halt during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began today, but Washington has rejected the appeals citing concerns that a halt would stall the momentum of the military campaign.

‘Tightening the Noose’

Exactly a week after the Northern Alliance began its swift series of victories heralded by the takeover of Mazar-e-Sharif, the commander of the U.S. campaign, Army Gen. Tommy Franks, said the "noose was tightening" around bin Laden.

About 100 British troops arrived at Bagram air base near Kabul today to prepare for humanitarian operations. Around 60 French troops were also on their way to Mazar-e-Sharif to help the aid effort there.

The fall of most of Afghanistan to the Northern Alliance this week has been largely welcomed by the Afghan population, sickened by five years of hard-line Taliban rule that has seen famine and devastation. But there is growing anxiety inside Afghanistan that the country will wind up in a state of anarchy similar to what it experienced in 1992 — when violent squabbles among warlords allowed the Taliban to gain power.

Kabul is being held by just one faction of the Northern Alliance, the Tajik-dominated Jamiat-i Islami, but a thousand ethnic Hazara soldiers are on the way. More than a quarter of Kabul's population are Hazaras and the leadership is concerned for the safety of its people there.

The western city of Herat is being held by forces loyal to Ismail Khan, a respected Northern Alliance leader, while on the other city of the country, the eastern city of Jalalabad has reportedly been seized by another commander. And in the situation in Kandahar remains unclear.

The international community has been working around the clock to put together a multi-ethnic transitional government under U.N. auspices to administer Afghanistan. An adviser to former Afghan King Zahir Shah, widely regarded as a unifying force in the fractured country, today said the ex-monarch would return to Afghanistan when a proper political mechanism was in place.

But he also warned that Shah would not return as an ordinary citizen. The statement came days after former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, the titular leader of the Northern Alliance since he was ousted from Kabul by the Taliban in 1996, said Shah could only return to Afghanistan as a private citizen.

U.N. officials and aid agencies have expressed concern over reports that civilians and captured soldiers were massacred as Northern Alliance troops advanced into Taliban-controlled areas.

Amid reports that 100 young Taliban recruits were executed after surrendering in Mazar-e-Sharif late last week, a spokeswoman for the U.N. Human Rights Commission today called for an investigation into the reports and for assurances that the perpetrators of any human rights violations be brought to justice.

ABCNEWS' John McWethy contributed to this report.