WASHINGTON?U.S. commanders in the biggest ground operation of the war in Afghanistan have rejected an Afghan ally’s proposal to halt bombing and allow al Qaeda and Taliban members to surrender or escape, officials said Tuesday.
“We are not going to stop the fighting to make any deals,” said Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
Victoria Clarke, a spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, was less precise about U.S. intentions. “It depends on the individual,” she said when reporters asked whether the United States would oppose allowing the holdouts to surrender and go free. She added that it was “very, very unlikely we would want” al Qaeda fighters to go free.
“Our mission is to capture or kill all al Qaeda and Taliban leadership,” she said. “It is not in anyone’s interest for al Qaeda or Taliban leadership to be permitted to go free.” She added that the Afghan interim government was aware of the U.S. position and has been fully cooperative.
Asked about reports from Afghan commanders that the battle in the Shah-e-Kot Valley was virtually over, Air Force Brig. Gen. John Rosa told reporters at the Pentagon. “I wouldn’t characterize it as over,” he said.
Rosa said U.S. and allied Afghan forces were continuing to engage small pockets of enemy forces in that area Tuesday. He said U.S. strike aircraft had dropped more than 100 bombs there since Monday, bringing the total to more than 2,500 bombs since the fighting began March 2.
Rosa also said U.S. forces had begun searching abandoned al Qaeda caves in the area. He said there were “upwards of 40” caves there and that U.S. forces had suffered no additional casualties.
Earlier, Lapan said commanders in the field have stressed to allied Afghan fighters that they will pursue their plan to destroy remnants of the al Qaeda terrorist network and former Taliban government remaining in a 60 square-mile area.
Lapan was responding to questions about the U.S. position on a proposal to allow remaining enemy fighters to leave the province where the fighting is occurring.
The offer was made by Gul Haider, commander of an Afghan force sent to the battle near the eastern town of Gardez last week by interim leader Hamid Karzai, according to the deputy police chief of Surmand, Ghulam Mohammed Farooq.
Farooq said Haider told local leaders that if they wanted to extend a peace offer, he could guarantee a 10-day halt in the fighting if the al Qaeda and Taliban commander “is ready to join us or leave the area.”
In Washington on Tuesday, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a national gathering of American Legion veterans that the battle near Gardez is one fight in the longer, larger war against terrorism.
“This war is far from over,” Myers said. “If we capture Osama bin Laden tomorrow, this war would still go on, in my estimation, for years.”
He also said bin Laden’s followers are seeking more resources, in the form of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
“If they could obtain them, they would use them,'”Myers said.
Rumsfeld said Monday that the fighting near Gardez could be completed by the end of the week.
Several members of the terrorist network have been captured, he said, adding that he had no indication that those killed or captured were senior leaders of al Qaeda.
Some officials have estimated that more than 700 al Qaeda fighters were killed and at least 200 were still holding out Monday.