US intensifies search for Osama

Islamabad, Nov 20: Refusing to negotiate surrender of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar or besieged Al Qaeda forces in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz, US intensified its search for Osama bin Laden targeting caves, even as UN planned to host a meeting of ethnic groups in Berlin on Saturday to set up an interim administration in Kabul.

With the US military campaign in Afghanistan running into the seventh week amidst fear of a bloody show-down in Taliban’s last remaining northern stronghold of Kunduz, the Northern Alliance on Tuesday gave the militia three days to surrender or face an all-out assault. Nearly 30,000 Taliban fighters, mostly foreigners including Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens are holed up in Kunduz, the hub of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda network training.

While talks between US and UN envoys and Northern Alliance leaders on the formation of a broad-based government gathered momentum, diplomatic sources at the United Nations said that its envoy to Afgha-nistan is planning to convene a meeting of Afghan ethnic faction groups in Berlin on Saturday. The Alliance information minister, Younis Qanooni, said in Kabul that during the talks of Alliance leaders, including Mr Burhanuddin Rabbani, with US envoy James Dobbins and UN representative Fracesc Vendrell an agreement has been reached in-principle on a UN blue print for constituting a new government but technical details needed to be ironed out.

As speculation ran high that bin laden could evade American forces and slip out through Pakistan, the US fifth fleet is searching all ships leaving the Pakistani territorial waters to cut off marine escape route for him and his Al Qaeda associates.

The combing operation started yesterday after the Bush administration issued orders to this effect through its maritime liaison office in Bahrain. Warning bin Laden that the time was running out for him, US President George W Bush said, "the net is getting tighter around him." "We are hunting him down. He runs and he hides," Mr Bush told reporters in Washington.

— PTI