CIA misses in effort to kill ex-Afghan prime minister

WASHINGTON -- A former Afghan prime minister is believed to have escaped a CIA missile strike in the first known attempt to kill a factional leader suspected of plotting against the U.S.-backed government.

Though not known to be part of the Taliban or al-Qaida, Islamic leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was considered a fair target because he was threatening American troops and had offered rewards for their deaths, officials said Thursday.

"I can assure you when we go after individuals in the theater of war, it is because they intend to do some harm to America," President Bush said.

Later, at a fund-raiser for Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, Bush said: "The best way to secure the homeland; the best way to make sure our children grow up in a safe America; the best way to protect civilization itself is to chase the killers down, one by one, and bring them to justice. And that's precisely what we're going to do."

It is a stock line in Bush's fund-raising speeches that seemed to have more significance on Thursday. "We're going to hunt them down one by one," Bush said. "There is no cave deep enough to hide from the justice of the United States of America."

The CIA fired a missile from an unmanned Predator spy plane Monday near the capital, Kabul, in hopes of killing Hekmatyar, U.S. defense officials said.

The Hellfire missile didn't get him but is believed to have killed some of his followers, officials said. Hekmatyar's whereabouts could not be learned Thursday.

"Hekmatyar is somewhere in Afghanistan but we don't know in which area he is living," said Qutbuddin Hilal, a senior member of his hardline Hezb-e-Islami party living in Peshawar, Pakistan.