AFGHANISTAN: US president George Bush has vowed to capture Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar. The president was on his first visit yesterday to Afghanistan since the US-led invasion, writes Declan Walsh in Kabul
"It's not a matter of if they are captured and brought to justice, it's when they are brought to justice," Mr Bush 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, Mr 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," Mr Bush said after meeting Mr Karzai, whom he praised as "a friend and an ally".
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 were injured.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and first lady Laura Bush accompanied Mr 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.
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.
Mr 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?'," Mr Bush said when an Afghan delegation visited Washington.
"My answer is absolutely."
Taliban infiltration will be the focus of Mr Bush's planned visit to Pakistan on Saturday, where President Pervez Musharraf is under pressure to rid his country's northern areas of militants. Western intelligence officials believe bin Laden is hiding in the Pashtun belt of Afghanistan along the Pakistani border.