US and allied forces today searched rugged Afghan terrain for fugitives Osama bin Laden and deposed Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar as a top American official hinted they may have fled across the border.
As the hunt intensified in the eastern mountains for bin Laden and in the south for Omar, a team of UN peacekeeping experts arrived in Kabul last night to plan the deployment of a multinational security force in the Afghan capital.
In southern Kandahar, the abandoned birthplace of the ousted Taliban, squabbling Pashtun tribal chiefs who took it over and carved out fiefdoms formed a council to try to resolve differences. The council included Hamid Karzai, appointed to lead Afghanistan's interim government from December 22.
US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz specifically mentioned neighboring Pakistan, as well as Somalia and Yemen, as countries bin Laden and Omar may try to seek refuge. He also warned other countries against harboring them.
"We are looking for him (bin Laden) in Afghanistan, we are looking for him out of Afghanistan, including at sea," he said while in New York for the commissioning of the guided-missile destroyer USS Bulkeley.
Mullah Omar is believed to be in the area of Kandahar, Wolfowitz said, but he added, "If you told me he turned up on a ship in the Indian Ocean tomorrow I couldn't be totally surprised."
"I think we've made it clear that the leadership of the Taliban are, in our view, wanted for criminal activity, and that it doesn't matter where they are," he added.
Pakistan said yesterday it had moved helicopter gunships and more troops to its long border with Afghanistan to prevent fleeing Taliban or al Qaeda members sneaking into the country.
Despite the victories, Mr Wolfowitz warned the war was far from over. "We may still be chasing these people weeks and months from now."
US Marine "hunter-killer" teams backed up by Cobra attack helicopters sealed off escape routes from Kandahar.
Buoyed by military success in crushing the Taliban, President Bush turned to the domestic battlefront, urging Congress to pass his stimulus package for the economy, weakened by the September 11 attacks on America that killed about 3,900 people. Washington blames bin Laden for the attacks.
With new Afghan leaders installed to replace the Taliban, Captain Stewart Upton, in Afghanistan, said Marines expect more trouble from bin Laden's al Qaeda warriors than from the turbaned Taliban fighters.
"We hope he (the Taliban fighter) realizes the war is over, lays down his arms and goes his own merry way," Mr Upton said. "We realize al Qaeda want to fight to the death and we're glad to help them meet their fate."
US bombers kept up an unbroken pattern of air strikes on suspected al Qaeda caves and hide-outs in the Tora Bora region, about 35 miles south of the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Some locals reported seeing a tall figure in flowing white robes on horseback galloping across the rugged Afghan terrain. There was speculation it was bin Laden rushing, with a $25 million price on his head, from one cave hide-out to another.
Adding to the mystery, CNNtelevision said members of the Saudi-born millionaire's al Qaeda network had been discussing the "sheikh" in radio transmissions.
About 2,000 fighters loyal to the new Afghan leaders trekked up into the snow-streaked Tora Bora mountains around Jalalabad, to check caves and tunnels where bin Laden might be hiding.
"You could bomb day and night and it won't make a big difference," said local commander Hazrat Ali. "Soldiers have to go in there."
CNN said al Qaeda forces were fighting back with a barrage of mortars, cutting off a vital road into the mountains.
In a blow to al Qaeda, the family of bin Laden aide Ayman al-Zawahri said in a death notice in a Cairo newspaper that the Egyptian's wife and children had died as martyrs, presumably in Afghanistan.
Near Kandahar, US Marines were given pictures of top terror suspects while residents of the former stronghold said Pashtun tribal chiefs had already carved out fiefdoms. The atmosphere was described as "tense but relatively calm."
Their forces skirmished and traded accusations - with one group claiming another was sheltering Omar and up to 1,000 of his guards. Another Pashtun tribal chief jostling for control said Omar had disappeared to an unknown place.
The chiefs, facing a third year of drought and eager to put an end to the third decade of fighting that began with the Soviet invasion of 1979, tried to resolve their differences.
"There is a shura (council) in the city now to try and figure out how to control the situation," said Khalid Pashtoon, spokesman for Gul Agha Sherzai, a former Mujahideen governor of Kandahar who re-occupied his old headquarters.
"Mullah Naqibullah is also there, but that is the biggest obstacle," Pashtoon said by satellite telephone. "Right now, we have to convince Mullah Naqibullah to stand aside."
A Pashtun commander told Reutersclashes had broken out between Gul Agha and Naqibullah forces and there was looting. "The security situation in the city has worsened," he said.
Karzai, who accepted the Taliban surrender, has offered amnesty to Taliban soldiers, but said Omar and other leaders were criminals who must be punished.
Several hundred al Qaeda fighters were still holding out at Kandahar airport.
Wivina Belmonte, a UN spokeswoman, said a team of seven from the UN department of peacekeeping operations in New York would assess logistic and security arrangements in Kabul.
The militarily dominant Northern Alliance, which controls Kabul, and three exiled Afghan factions agreed to a foreign security force when they signed a landmark deal in Bonn, Germany, for the post-Taliban interim government.
The size and composition of the force has yet to be defined.
The force, still to be authorized by the UN Security Council, would start in Kabul and could go to other parts of the country. Signatories to the Bonn accord pledged to withdraw their fighters from areas where it is deployed.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said Britain and Germany expressed interest in leading the force and in Tashkent, he secured a pledge to open Uzbekistan's Friendship Bridge to boost aid to the Afghan population.
Mr Powell went straight to Kazakhstan from Uzbekistan after canceling a planned stopover in Kyrgyzstan due to bad weather.