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Wednesday January 9 8:57 AM ET U.S. Jets Prowl Afghan Skies; Detention Camps Fill By David Fox KABUL, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan's new government ordered armed men off streets and soldiers back to barracks on Wednesday in the battered capital, Kabul, while U.S. special forces roamed the provinces in pursuit of the world's two most wanted men. Confusion hovered over the fate of three ministers from the vanquished Taliban militia -- possibly rich sources of clues to the whereabouts of their leaders -- who were reported to have surrendered and then allowed to go free, but under surveillance. More al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners filled U.S. detention camps in Afghanistan while U.S. jets prowled the skies to bomb possible hideouts of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden -- the Saudi-born militant accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The six-month interim government had ordered all armed men except police and official security personnel to leave Kabul and return to their military bases, Interior Minister Yunis Qanuni said. The government appointed at a U.N.-backed meeting in Bonn last month began Tuesday to enforce a plan to disarm a city awash with firearms after 23 years of war, Qanuni told Reuters. ``The government has decided yesterday to implement the security agreement as it was agreed in Bonn,�� he said. ``All people armed with weapons or ammunition are not allowed to walk in the streets. ``We have ordered all the armed people except security people and the police to leave the city and go to their old bases. If they are from Panjsher, they should go back to Panjsher,�� he said, referring to the heartland of the Northern Alliance that defeated the Taliban after blistering U.S. air attacks. Thousands of loosely organized but heavily armed Northern Alliance troops have occupied Kabul since the fundamentalist Taliban militia fled the city on November 13. Afghan men have for centuries regarded carrying a gun as virtually a birthright. Qanuni said Northern Alliance military commanders should vacate any civilian housing they had seized in Kabul, unless the owners were not around to occupy them. SEARCHING FOR FUGITIVES Heavily armed U.S. special forces were conducting ground searches for Mullah Omar and bin Laden. In the eastern Khost area they found a group of 14 fighters belonging to bin Laden's al Qaeda network, the Pentagon's top military officer said. They took two into custody and seized computers, cell phones and other intelligence material. The other members of the group, captured close to the extensive Zhawar Kili caves, were in Afghan custody. The Zhawar Kili camp, a training ground for the al Qaeda network, has been the target of intensive bombing in the last few days. However, U.S. officials may not be happy with plans to grant amnesty to Taliban members who surrender and who could provide vital intelligence -- such as the three Taliban ministers whose fate was shrouded in confusion. ''None of the ministers has surrendered to us and there are no Taliban officials with us,'' said Haji Gullalai, intelligence chief of the southern city of Kandahar, former power base of reclusive cleric Mullah Omar. A spokesman for the Kandahar governor said Tuesday the former ministers of defense, justice and mines and industry had surrendered to authorities there and had then been released. But they would not be able to move freely ``for their own security.�� The former ministers, according to the spokesman Khalid Pashtoon, were Mullah Obaidullah (defense), Mullah Saadudin (mines) and Mullah Nooruddin Turabi (justice). Only the one-eyed Mullah Omar would not be eligible for an amnesty, said Pashtoon. AMNESTY WELCOME? Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said the reclusive cleric who founded the Taliban and bin Laden were likely to be still in Afghanistan, but the trail had gone cold. So far the most senior Taliban to be apprehended is the former ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, along with a couple of middle-ranked members of al Qaeda. Eager to capture more high-profile Taliban and al Qaeda, U.S. jets have dropped leaflets over eastern Afghanistan warning people not to shelter members of the Taliban or al Qaeda otherwise they will face the risk of being bombed, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said. Pashtoon said the Taliban who surrendered would be protected and granted amnesties unless charges were filed against them. The one-legged, one-eyed former 'holy warrior', Turabi, for example, is deeply unpopular for his harsh fundamentalist approach and could be wanted by the United States. He was a moving force behind the Taliban's Ministry for the Protection of Virtue and Prevention of Vice which forced men into mosques, measured the length of their beards and beat women who did not wear the burqa veils to the ground. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send FREE video emails in Yahoo! Mail! http://promo.yahoo.com/videomail/ ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
