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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24874-2001Dec25.html Manhunt Uncovers No Trace of Bin Laden Finding Saudi Fugitive Top Priority for U.S. By Edward Cody Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, December 26, 2001; Page A01 PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Dec. 25 -- Thousands of Pakistani troops wearing all-white mountain fatigues have been clambering up and down the ragged border peaks southwest of here for more than a week to seal off isolated escape routes out of Afghanistan. Just across the frontier, in the frigid ravines and ridges of eastern Afghanistan's Tora Bora region, U.S. commandos and allied Afghan guerrillas still poke painstakingly through the caves and bunkers where fighters from the al Qaeda organization made their last stand. Since resistance was smothered there a week ago under U.S. bombs, the allied forces have been rummaging through the treacherous hills searching for stragglers and, most importantly, for clues to the whereabouts of the vanished Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenants. Bin Laden, the Islamic radical whom the United States blames for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, has become the main unfinished business of the Bush administration's war in Afghanistan. After 2 1/2 months of bombing and a manhunt aided by the world's most advanced intelligence-gathering devices, the accused terrorist is still not in anybody's gunsights. A small number of U.S. Special Forces troops are leading the search around Tora Bora, in the White Mountains 30 miles south of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. They are aided by untrained squads of Afghan guerrillas fielded by Mohammed Zaman Ghun Shareef and Hazrat Ali, the two military commanders of the Eastern Shura, the coalition of militia groups that took control of Jalalabad and surrounding Nangahar province when Taliban rule collapsed last month. Zaman and Ali have been working hand-in-glove with U.S. forces since they swept into power behind a U.S. aerial barrage. Their search for bin Laden and his al Qaeda hierarchy also is spurred along by Washington's promise of a $25 million reward for the al Qaeda leader and lesser but still juicy premiums for the other senior members of his terrorist organization. Most of them, too, are still on the run, as far as anyone knows. A list circulated in recent days by Ali's militia group in Jalalabad names nine Arabs -- five Saudis and four Egyptians -- as the al Qaeda members most wanted by the United States. According to an Afghan journalist in Jalalabad, Ali's guerrilla leaders say the list is far shorter than an earlier list provided by U.S. intelligence officers. This seems to indicate that interrogations of captured al Qaeda members in Pakistan and Afghanistan have provided information to help U.S. intelligence officers refine their understanding of who leads al Qaeda and who might still be on the run in Afghanistan or elsewhere. Zaman told reporters Monday that almost all the caves around Tora Bora have been searched -- with little result -- and that there is no need for more U.S. troops to continue the search, possibly suggesting that, for him, the hunt for bin Laden around Tora Bora is nearing an end. But Zaman's younger brother, Mohammed Aman Kheiri, said here today that Zaman's troops will pursue every last Arab in Afghanistan "until we rid our country of terrorists." Ali told Afghan reporters that several al Qaeda fighters have been captured without a fight in the past few days around Tora Bora and that the cave searches will have to be continued for several more days. The U.S. commander for Afghanistan, Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, has said he might send in Marines to blanket the mountains and finish the job. "[We will] go through each of these areas until we satisfy ourselves that [bin Laden] is there and dead. We'll find out about it," Franks said today aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt during a Christmas visit to U.S. sailors in the Arabian Sea. The search operation has been complicated in recent days by rivalry between Zaman and Ali, according to reports from Jalalabad. Both want to replace the Nangahar governor, Abdul Qadir, who has taken a position in the capital, Kabul, as minister of urban rehabilitation in the new Afghan provisional government. There have been complications on this side of the border, as well. Last week, dozens of al Qaeda fighters captured by Pakistani troops rebelled, triggering a gunfight that left a dozen people dead and allowed several prisoners to escape. At the top of the new most-wanted list being cited in Jalalabad is bin Laden. Franks has said the al Qaeda founder may have been killed during the furious bombing attacks around Tora Bora in the first half of December. But his body has not been found, leaving the mystery of his whereabouts percolating. Franks also said bin Laden may have managed to slip past the Pakistani border guards and lose himself in the loosely policed tribal area of Pakistan around Parachinar, just south of Tora Bora. Pakistani soldiers and border guards have arrested about 300 al Qaeda members in that area over the past week and turned them over to Pakistani intelligence officers, who are interrogating them intensely in cooperation with CIA and FBI officers on the scene. So far, they have turned up no trace of bin Laden. Or, Franks speculated, the Saudi-born militant may simply be burrowed deep in a cave around Tora Bora, hoping no one will find him. Bin Laden is followed on the list by Ayman Zawahiri, an Egyptian physician whom U.S. investigators consider to be bin Laden's second in command. Born to a wealthy family in Cairo 50 years ago, Zawahiri helped found Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the 1970s and allegedly played a supporting role in the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. Zawahiri was arrested in the roundup that followed Sadat's killing and served three years on a lesser charge. After his release, he joined bin Laden in Pakistan to help wage the U.S.-backed war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan. In 1998, Zawahiri merged his group with al Qaeda, creating a new organization called the World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. The list next names Muhammad Atef, or Abu Hafez, a former Egyptian police officer who was a top aide to Zawahiri in Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Atef, U.S. officials say, is bin Laden's military commander, who coordinated training of recruits at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan as well as most of the group's terrorist strikes. Atef's daughter married bin Laden's son at a videotaped ceremony in Afghanistan last January. U.S. officials reported last month that Atef was believed killed in a U.S. air attack against a house used by al Qaeda members in Kabul. It is unclear whether his presence on the list making the rounds in Jalalabad means U.S. intelligence now believes he was not killed in that attack. Next on the list is Sa'd al-Sharif, 33 -- also known as Mustafa Muhammad Ahmed, Shaykh Saiid, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hisawi and Abu Mohammed -- a Saudi who is bin Laden's brother-in-law and financial chief. According to court documents, Sharif allegedly wired money to Mohamed Atta, accused of being the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackers. Sharif served as an explosives expert at the Jihad Wal camp in Afghanistan, according to testimony by Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a government witness in this year's trial of bin Laden and others over the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. On Oct. 12, Sharif's name was added to a Treasury Department list of persons or groups whose assets are to be frozen. Two other names on the most-wanted list about whom little is known other than their Saudi nationality are Abdul Hadi and Saqr Jaravi. Bilal bin Marwan, another Saudi named on the list, is said by U.S. investigators to be a senior bin Laden lieutenant, but little else is known about him. Saif al-Adel, another Egyptian on the list carried by guerrilla commanders in Jalalabad, is described as the head of bin Laden's personal security detail. He is on the FBI's list of 22 most-wanted terrorists and has been indicted in the United States for conspiracy to kill U.S. nationals, murder and destruction of buildings and property of the United States in connection with the 1998 embassy bombings. He was among the 27 people or organizations whose assets President Bush ordered frozen Sept. 24. The final name on the list is Ahmad Sa'id al-Kadr, or Abu Abdurrahman, 53, an Egyptian-born Canadian citizen who operated the Afghanistan branch of Human Concern International, a Canadian-headquartered charity. Kadr was detained by Pakistani police in connection with the November 1995 bombing of the Egyptian Embassy in Islamabad. While he was in prison, Prime Minister Jean Chretien of Canada was on a state visit to Pakistan and raised Kadr's case with then-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Kadr was released a short time later and joined bin Laden in Afghanistan. Researcher Robert Thomason in Washington contributed to this report. 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