WASHINGTON?U.S. forces in Afghanistan are searching more than 40 laboratories and other facilities suspected of conducting secret work on chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, the American commander of the war said Tuesday. So far, none has yielded clear evidence of such work.
At a joint news conference with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Army Gen. Tommy Franks said that if any such weapons material were found, its removal would be “nonnegotiable.”
He said results from initial tests of samples taken from some sites were not yet available. The more than 40 sites are in parts of Afghanistan no longer under control of the Taliban militia.
“What we have found in a variety of laboratories is laboratory sorts of paraphernalia,” he said. “We have found a variety of chemical compositions and these sorts of things.” He said it was possible these items were for legitimate purposes such as making fertilizer or other commercial products.
“We have acquired a great deal of samples, and now what we need to do is be very thorough in their analysis,” Franks said.
He and Rumsfeld appeared at a Tampa, Fla., hotel not far from U.S. Central Command headquarters. Franks, as commander in chief of Central Command, wrote the Afghanistan war plan. Rumsfeld spent several hours at Franks’ headquarters, meeting privately with the general and greeting members of his staff.
Franks said he was considering setting up a headquarters closer to Afghanistan, possibly in Qatar, a Persian Gulf emirate that is allied with the United States in its effort to hunt down Saudi born fugitive Osama bin Laden.
In response to a reporter’s question whether U.S. intelligence had narrowed down bin Laden’s likely hiding places, Franks said there are now two main areas of focus in the search. One is Kandahar, southern stronghold of the Taliban government, which has harbored bin Laden, and the other is an area between the eastern city of Jalalabad and a mountain base called Tora Bora, Franks said.
“Those are the places right now that we have been led to, to pay very close attention to,” Franks said.
Bush administration officials have been careful to say they don’t know where bin Laden may be hiding.
Immediately after Franks pointed to Kandahar and Tora Bora, Rumsfeld interjected, “They are not the only places we are paying attention to.” He did not elaborate.
Tora Bora was built with U.S. aid for anti-Soviet rebels during the Soviet Union’s embattled 10-year occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. It lies 35 miles south of Jalalabad, atop a 13,000-foot mountain and three hours by foot from the nearest road. Carved 1,150 feet into the mountain are a series of rooms and tunnels that reportedly can house 1,000 people.
The reason the Pentagon has dispatched about 1,000 Marines to establish a makeshift base 70-80 miles southwest of Kandahar was to increase pressure on the Taliban, who are holding out against opposition forces.
Mullah Mohammed Khaqzar, a former Taliban intelligence chief, has said bin Laden and his Taliban allies might head for the towering mountains that rise up to the northwest of Kandahar.
Out of an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 members of bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan, several hundred have been killed, one U.S. official said Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity. Another official said seven people considered al Qaeda leaders are among the dead.