Officials: Kabul Captured, But War Goes On
Nov. 14, 2001 -- A day after the fall of Kabul, U.S. intelligence sources say Osama bin Laden is on the move as Kandahar, the southern spiritual heart of the Taliban hovers on the brink of falling to the Northern Alliance.
After a series of rapid-fire victories by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, the Taliban appeared to be unraveling as U.S. warplanes continue to stalk the southern Afghan skies, hunting down Taliban soldiers retreating from Kabul towards Kandahar.
Amid reports of popular uprisings against the Taliban in eastern and central Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence sources told ABCNEWS that bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks, and his inner circle had left the mountain caves where they were believed to be hiding as U.S. special operations troops into southern Afghanistan were concentrating on the hunt for bin Laden.
Liberated from the Taliban on Tuesday in a surprisingly bloodless seizure, Kabul showed signs of returning to pre-Taliban normalcy today with residents blasting Afghan music, flying kites, shaving their beards and revealing their faces — simple freedoms such that were denied them during five years of the Taliban rule.
But caught off guard by the speed of the Taliban retreat, the international community has been frantically attempting to fill the potentially dangerous power vacuum in Afghanistan despite assurances from the Northern Alliance of their eagerness to cooperate with a potential transitional coalition of multi-ethnic groups.
And despite the scenes of jubilation on the streets of Kabul, the United States has warned that there's still unfinished business to be dealt with in the war-ravaged country.
"This effort against terrorism and terrorists is far from over," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at a press briefing in Washington on Tuesday.
Reports of Advances in the South
Northern Alliance leaders today said the Taliban had lost control of Kandahar, home to the Taliban's reclusive spiritual leader Mulla Mohammad Omar.
Speaking on Iranian television from Kabul, Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said there was chaos in Kandahar and there were "no Taliban officials to be found." But there was no independent confirmation of the reports.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press today also reported that Northern Alliance troops had entered the strategic southern Afghan city of Jalabad, located near the famed Khyber Pass. The report was not yet independently confirmed.
The Northern Alliance says gains this morning have given it control of more than 80 percent of the nation — a startling turnaround for what last week was a band of rebels clinging on to just five percent of the nation.
Frantic Efforts to Secure a Transitional Government
But the speed of the Taliban collapse has caught the international community off-guard and frantic diplomatic efforts are under way to create a multi-ethnic power-sharing government for the country.
U.N. officials are meeting with representatives of Afghan groups and the "six-plus-two" nations, a loose alliance of Afghanistan's six neighbors plus Russia and the United States, to patch together a transitional government in Kabul.
Hours after the fall of Kabul on Tuesday, Abdullah invited U.N. representatives into Kabul along with other Afghan groups — "Taliban excluded" — for discussions on the country's future administration.
But Afghanistan's former king, Zahir Shah, widely considered a unifying force among Afghanistan's diverse ethnics groups, accused the Northern Alliance of violating an agreement not to enter the capital.
And former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani told the Arabic Al Jazeera network that Shah could only return to Afghanistan as an ordinary citizen. A spokesman for Rabbani said the former president would return to Kabul later today.
Amid frantic diplomatic activity to secure the future of Afghanistan in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the British Ministry of Defense said thousands of British troops are on 48-hour standby to be sent to Afghanistan for peacekeeping operations.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Rumsfeld confirmed there was a limited alliance force in Kabul to maintain order, accompanied by "a very small number of U.S. forces? to give advice and counsel."
Kabul Rejoices
Despite the presence of Northern Alliance troops in Kabul today, reporters in the Afghan capital said there was a palpable sense that life had changed for the better on the streets.
Music blared at street corners, the bazaars were crowded, women revealed their faces in public for the first time in five years and the barber shops were still crowded as Kabulis indulged in activities denied to them under the Taliban regime.
The Northern Alliance has said it has deployed a security force of about 3,000 troops in Kabul to maintain order following incidents of looting and revenge killings of mostly Pakistani and Arab mercenaries for the Taliban during the early hours of the city's fall.
Private vehicles crossing major checkpoints inside the city were being carefully checked for stray Taliban soldiers on the run and reporters were taken to a suspected al Qaeda office in the heart of the city where Canadian flight manuals and detonators were found.
But the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is believed to be still in Kandahar, where the Taliban has enjoyed the ethnic support of the majority Pashtun tribesmen.
The Afghan Islamic Press reported that Omar was urging his scattered fighters to regroup and fight and said the fall of Kabul came due to a tactical withdrawal by the Taliban.
But as Taliban troops across the country appeared to be on the run, there were concerns about the fates awaiting many Pakistani and Arab mercenaries who supported the Taliban.
There were reports of revenge killings of Taliban soldiers across the country and in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, which is now under Northern Alliance control, International Red Cross Hundreds of people died and tons of aid supplies were looted.