In Hot Pursuit?

Monday, Apr. 08, 2002 By TIM MCGIRK/PESHAWAR

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The two men weren't supposed to be in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. They were, after all, fugitive Taliban from Afghanistan, enemies of Pakistan's ally, the U.S., and would have had to cross fearsome terrain and fortified checkpoints to get to Peshawar. Yet there they were, happy to explain their latest doings, disguised only by a switch of turbans from Taliban black to stripes. "Until now, we've been lying low," one told TIME's Rahimullah Yusufzai late last week. The Taliban, the two say, are regrouping in small, heavily armed bands along the border and launching attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan. "It's true we were demoralized after our defeats. But we haven't lost faith in Allah--or in our cause."

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a number of attacks, including one on March 19 in Khost, in eastern Afghanistan. There, shortly before midnight, a U.S. base came under mortar and automatic-weapons fire. The attackers had crept to within a few hundred feet of the U.S. camp and were using an old prison building as cover. After a 45-min. battle that saw AC-130 gunships in action against the Taliban, the Americans say, they found "more than 10" bodies around the building. The ex-Taliban in Peshawar, however, are not deterred. They say they will be back, that when the weather is warmer the ambushes will intensify.

The Bush Administration originally declared Operation Anaconda a victory after al-Qaeda and Taliban forces were battered in the fighting at Shah-i-Kot, near Khost. But the bad guys in Afghanistan keep slipping away. Senior officials in Washington concede that "at least" hundreds of the enemy have crossed into Pakistan, where diplomatic and strategic considerations keep them beyond the reach of U.S. forces. Among the fleeing al-Qaeda, say intelligence sources in Islamabad, may have been Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, the Egyptian doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri. He was reportedly sighted a month ago, near Anaconda's mountainous battle zone. Says a Western diplomat in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital: "The Americans are feeling a hell of a lot of frustration."

That frustration has led the Administration to contemplate engaging in "hot pursuit," that is, chasing terrorist foes straight into Pakistan. "We're going after them," U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld vowed in early March. Soon, he was trying to tone down the talk, lauding the ties between the U.S. and Pakistan as "very good" or, as General Tommy Franks called them last week, "remarkable." It became apparent to Pentagon officials that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf wasn't keen on letting U.S. troops charge across the border. He reportedly told the Administration that such a move could further inflame the Pashtun tribes in the border area--who already sympathize with their Taliban clansmen--and that it could stir up militants elsewhere in the country.