Hunt for bin Laden, Omar now focused on hide-outs, caves

WASHINGTON -- The United States is pursuing Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, believed to be on the move in the shrinking but still difficult parts of Afghanistan that their forces control.

Sharpening the focus on the war's primary targets, American special operations troops are questioning Taliban defectors and prisoners, dangling millions in reward money and hoping for a communications slip-up. Warplanes focus more bombing on mountain hide-outs and caves where Omar or bin Laden might try to disappear.

The two men, both expert in guerrilla warfare, have plenty of those remote caves and mountain tunnels -- and enough friends and supplies along the Pakistani border -- to make the chase difficult.

"We still have a ways to go" in tracking them, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cautioned Wednesday.

Believed in region

U.S. intelligence officials believe bin Laden and Omar are still in the region of Afghanistan not under northern alliance control, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Each is moving around, but they aren't believed to be together.

It isn't thought likely that bin Laden will try to leave the country, because such movements could expose him to capture.

A Taliban official said Wednesday that Omar and his "guest" bin Laden were "safe and well." Omar claimed in a radio address Tuesday that he was in the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar, the site Wednesday of sporadic fighting between Taliban and rebel Pashtun leaders.

The United States is bombing areas in the south and in the east, especially around Jalalabad, where bin Laden is known to have hide-outs. "Bunker-buster" bombs can dig under the surface and explode in a tunnel. Fuel-air explosives can produce tremendous heat and suck out a cave or tunnel's oxygen.

Seeking information

Defectors and prisoners are probably the best hope for information on where bin Laden is now, said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with experience in South Asia. Even rumors or hints -- about something such as a recent supply run to a cave, for example -- could prove a breakthrough.

In addition, "It may very well be that money will talk at some point," Rumsfeld said, referring to the millions in reward money the United States has offered.

Or, Taliban troops and commanders on the run might take fewer precautions with radios and phones, allowing U.S. eavesdropping aircraft to pick up communications and thus get hints to bin Laden's location.

U.S. special forces also have been watching roads in southern Afghanistan to see who passes by, Rumsfeld said, and "to stop people that they think ought to be stopped."

Bin Laden is believed to move from cave to cave -- some a three days' walk into the mountains -- with only a group of highly trusted aides.

The amount of support he can still muster among thousands of past supporters is key.

The Taliban may fracture, with some commanders deciding to become guerrilla fighters in mountainous southern Afghanistan, and others making peace with the Pashtun leaders now taking power, said another U.S. official.

Afghan fighters have a history of retreating from cities but then waging effective guerrilla warfare in mountains for years afterward, essentially thwarting an enemy's larger goals, said Charles Fairbanks, a central Asia expert at Johns Hopkins University.

"Particularly if they fled to the east, that's a very difficult situation," Fairbanks said. "They have so many sympathizers in Pakistan, and Pakistan really has no control of the situation there."

Such supporters could keep bin Laden and Omar supplied with food, guns and hiding places, said Andrew Hess, an expert on Pakistan and Afghanistan at Tufts University.

In addition, the former guerrilla leader who took control of Jalalabad from the Taliban, Mullah Yunus Khalis, has long-standing ties with bin Laden's Arab followers. Bin Laden is believed to have camps in the mountains near there.

Most U.S. officials and outside experts do not think Omar would ever give bin Laden up, despite what Rumsfeld called signs of strain between the two.

In his most recent interview, bin Laden said he was "ready to die." Chillingly, he predicted the war against America would continue even if he were gone.