US planes demolished cave complexes in eastern Afghanistan yesterday in a relentless hunt for al-Qaeda and Taliban forces as the UN warned the new interim government could fail if $100 million in aid were not provided soon to impose law and fight banditry.
Thirty more al-Qaeda and Taliban captives arrived last night under heavy guard at a US naval base in Cuba to join a first group of prisoners who settled into a routine in cage-like cells awaiting interrogation and possible trial. The Pentagon said there were just under 400 al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees being held in Afghanistan awaiting shipment to Cuba.
On the 100th day of the bombing campaign, planes levelled buildings and closed entrances to dozens of caves in the Zawar Kili area to destroy what the US military said was a base for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters trying to flee to Pakistan.
The government says it has no money to pay its 210,000 civil servants and 25,000 police. UN and foreign diplomats worry that public support for the interim administration could fade quickly if it cannot pay wages.
"They need $100 million within the next few days," Mr Ahmad Fawzi, spokesman for UN special envoy on Afghanistan, Mr Lakhdar Brahimi, said in Kabul. "If this administration is to survive, it has to pay its employees and its police."
In the first significant expansion of Washington's war beyond Afghanistan, officials in the Philippines said US special forces would take a non-combat role in Philippine military operations against Muslim guerrillas.
The operation, billed as a joint exercise with the name of "Balikatan" (shoulder-to-shoulder), will target the Abu Sayyaf, a group which has been holding an American missionary couple hostage since May and which Washington has linked to Osama bin Laden.
Meanwhile, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation has obtained a video it said showed al-Qaeda militants rehearsing an attack on world leaders at a golf tournament and on a motorcade in what appears to be Washington.
Running for more than six hours, it shows al-Qaeda members rehearsing hostage-taking scenarios and assassinations, according to the extracts. In one scene, the scenario looked like a Washington DC road system, ABC said. In another, trainees with weapons hidden in golf bags carried out a rocket-launcher attack on dummies meant apparently to represent world leaders at a golf tournament. - (Reuters)
Rachel Donnelly, in London adds:
Labour backbenchers have demanded an end to the "illegal" transfer of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners from Afghanistan to the US naval base in Cuba. In a House of Commons session, during which the first compulsory call up of British military reservists since the Suez Canal crisis was announced, Labour left-wingers, Mr Jeremy Corbyn and Ms Glenda Jackson, said the international coalition was in danger of collapse. The Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, rejected the suggestion of "illegality".
Foreign Office officials, meanwhile, were checking reports that another six Britons could be among the prisoners being sent to Cuba. Officials were already checking details that one of the prisoners had claimed British citizenship, amid speculation that some of the men could be sent back to Britain to face charges.