United States President George Bush vowed to capture Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar on Wednesday during his first visit to Afghanistan since the US-led invasion. ”It’s not a matter of if they are captured and brought to justice, it’s when they are brought to justice,” the president declared after flying to Kabul for a surprise visit on the first day of his tour of southern Asia.
A tight security cordon was drawn around Kabul for the visit, a reminder of the potent threat still posed by the Taliban insurgency that has grown dramatically since last summer.
Travelling in an air convoy flanked by attack helicopters, Bush spent just four hours in the city, lunching with President Hamid Karzai and opening a new US embassy before returning to Bagram air base. ”People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan,” Bush said after meeting Karzai, who he praised as ”a friend and an ally”.
But just a few miles away a drama was unfolding that underscored the many problems the Afghan leader has to deal with. Government officials were in negotiations with 1 500 prisoners, led by Taliban militants who had seized control of the country’s main high-security prison and threatened to behead an American prisoner. The four-day crisis eased by evening when soldiers appeared to have regained control of the facility after six people were killed and 40 injured.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and First Lady Laura Bush accompanied Bush for the visit, which comes at a low ebb for Afghanistan. A rise in Taliban attacks across the east and south has inflicted the greatest number of US casualties since 2001.
About 19 000 US troops are deployed in Afghanistan. Most are involved in hunting Taliban insurgents who have broadened their tactics to include Iraq-style suicide bombings and roadside bombs. The US deployment is due to reduce by about 3 000 as a British-led Nato force takes control of the southern provinces.
In Washington, the director of the Defence Intelligence Agency gave Congress a gloomy assessment of Afghanistan on Tuesday, warning that insurgents posed ”a capable and resilient threat” and would step up attacks this spring.
Bush promised he was not going to ”cut and run” from Afghanistan. ”They ask me with their words, they ask with their stares as they look in my eyes, ‘Is the United States firmly committed to the future of Afghanistan?’,” Bush said when an Afghan delegation visited Washington. ”My answer is, ‘absolutely’.”
The president’s stopover in Kabul came on his way to a well-publicised visit to India. Journalists travelling with Bush were told of the Afghan trip only after Air Force One left the US on Tuesday.
In Kabul many Afghans said they were also unaware of the visit. ”Really? I had no idea he was coming,” said fruit seller Gul Ahmed in the city’s crowded market area, adding that he was unbothered by the tight security cordon. ”We are used to that by now,” he said.
The Taliban deputy leader Mullah Abdullah Akhund said his forces would have greeted Bush with ”rockets and attacks” had they known of the visit in advance. ”Bush proved his cowardice by coming on a secret visit like a thief,” he told Reuters. ”The Taliban mujahedin want to tell the American president … that they will continue attacking your Afghan puppets and American forces, will continue sending bodies of American soldiers to America, and this jihad will go on.”
Taliban infiltration will be the focus of Bush’s planned visit to Pakistan on Saturday, where President Pervez Musharraf is coming under pressure to rid his country’s northern areas of militants. ”These infiltrations are causing harm to friends and allies and cause harm to US troops,” Bush said. Western intelligence officials believe Osama bin Laden is hiding in the Pashtun belt of Afghanistan along the Pakistani border. — Guardian Unlimited Â