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`Noose tightening around Osama, Mullah Omar'
TORA BORA (AFGHANISTAN). As Afghan tribal fighters backed by tanks and U.S. jet fighters launched a ground attack on Monday against around 1,000 Al-Qaeda forces and seized a key ridge near a suspected hideout of the terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, the head of the interim Government, Mr. Hamid Karzai, said he had brokered a deal to end factional fighting in Kandahar.
In Islamabad, the U.S. coalition spokesman, Mr. Kenton Keith, told presspersons there was credible information that Osama, and the Taliban chief, Mullah Mohammed Omar, were still in Afghanistan and the noose around their necks tightened by the hour.
In southern Afghanistan, U.S. marines moved closer to Kandahar to cut off escape routes of the fleeing Taliban men. Marines secured the abandoned grounds of the U.S. embassy in the heart of Kabul.
A day of heavy conflict began just after dawn when B-52s and other U.S. warplanes pounded Tora Bora caves near the eastern city of Jalalabad. Later, fighters from the Al-Qaeda came out of their caves and fired mortars at tribesmen who tried to move their aging Soviet-built T-55 tanks forward.Marine convoys and helicopters left their Camp Rhino in the desert, southwest of Kandahar, to reinforce patrols that had fanned out across the area in recent days.
Mr. Karzai told AFP he arranged successful talks on Sunday between Mullah Naqibullah, to whom Taliban militia had surrendered the city, and Mr. Gul Agha, a former Governor, as to who would control Kandahar.
``It was agreed Gul Agha will be in charge of security and the administration of Kandahar. He will continue his mandate until the nomination of a real administration in Afghanistan,'' he said.
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`Osama wants to die on TV'
NEW DELHI, DEC. 10. Terrorist mastermind, Osama bin Laden, is reported to have planned to die on television to be projected as a `martyr' before the U.S.-led forces can catch him, hoping that his death would trigger a series of terror strikes on the Capitol Hill, the Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower, according to British media reports.
The Daily Record newspaper quoted his estranged wife, Mrs. Sabiha, as saying ``his elder sons will kill him and that will be the signal for a new wave of terror''. - PTI
- AFP, AP
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