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UAVs and Satellites Critical To Terminating al-Qaeda
Washington (AFP) Nov 17, 2001 An end game appeared to be emerging after the most decisive week in the 42-day-old US campaign in Afghanistan: an intensive drive to kill or capture al-Qaeda leaders before they can regroup from the Taliban's crashing fall in the north. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and US military leaders were reluctant to count out the Taliban, but they made clear that the campaign has narrowed to the essential US objective -- the destruction of al-Qaeda and its leaders. "In the history of warfare when things are not going well for an organization, that is often an opportune time to make progress," Rumsfeld said last week. "And I think that it is an important time, because they are not attacking, they are retreating." In a week of stunning reversals, the Taliban was routed from the north, abandoned the Afghan capital and by week's end was clinging to its spiritual stronghold in Kandahar. With their Afghan haven gone with the Taliban, Al-Qaeda's leaders became moving targets in a suddenly hostile land. Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's leader and the chief US suspect in September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States, was still at large. But an intensive US manhunt had scored devastating blows to the terrorist network. Muhammad Atef, Bin Laden's number two and al-Qaeda's military commander, was believed killed in a US air strike near Kabul, US officials said. "Once we can confirm that this is true, Osama bin Laden no longer has a principal assistant that he has been counting on for developing military or terrorist operations," said Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem, the deputy director of operations of the Joint Staff. Atef's death, he said, would mean that the noose around bin Laden would be "one notch closer." Other Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders were captured, and some were killed, mostly in air strikes that zeroed in on buildings where gatherings were spotted, Rumsfeld said. "We have been obviously seeking out command and control activities, and have been targeting them and have successfully hit a number of them, particularly in the last five or six days," he said.
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