What's Become Of Al-Qaeda?

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U.S. forces scouring caves and bunkers abandoned by al-Qaeda have unearthed computer files and videotapes that the military hopes will help authorities bust al-Qaeda cells around the world. Working from a videotape and notes written in Arabic recovered in an al-Qaeda leader's house, Singapore police arrested 13 suspected members of the Jamaah Islamiyah, or Islamic Group--eight of whom allegedly trained in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. On the tape, a suspect identified as Hashim bin Abas marks locations where the terrorists could detonate bombs to kill U.S. Navy personnel traveling from Singapore's docks on a shuttle bus. Abas proposed hiding explosives in bicycles. According to the local authorities, the attack was to be directed by an Arab al-Qaeda member and a bombmaker from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a Filipino group. Before their arrest last week, the group had allegedly tried to purchase 17 tons of ammonium nitrate to build several truck bombs.

The international dragnet has snared some 1,500 suspected terrorists in more than 50 countries since Sept. 11. But that's nothing. Intelligence estimates of the number of potential terrorists worldwide trained by al-Qaeda run as high as 10,000. U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement officials investigating the Sept. 11 hijackers have found links from the 19 men to individuals or organizations in at least 63 countries. "It tells you that al-Qaeda is still out there in a lot of places," says an Administration official. U.S. investigators told TIME that an intensive manhunt is under way for Abu Zubaydah, the al-Qaeda aide charged with managing the global web of cells and planning the logistics of attacks. "He knows some things bin Laden wouldn't know," says an official. "When he's captured or killed, this will be a devastating blow to al-Qaeda." Zubaydah is thought to be a one-stop source for names of al-Qaeda suicide attackers, paymasters, bombmakers and phony business interests. Says the official: "There is a very significant effort under way to locate him."

In Afghanistan pockets of al-Qaeda soldiers are thought to be holding out in the areas north of Mazar-i-Sharif, along the Pakistan border in the east and in the mountains of Helmand province. Local officials near Khost say as many as 2,000 al-Qaeda fighters--Chechens, Turks and various Arabs--shuttle across the Pakistan border for rest and resupply from their outposts in the remote mountain provinces of Khost, Paktia and Paktika. The local Afghan authorities say they are powerless to stop the guerrillas' movement. "We can control the main roads but not the mountain tracks," says Pacha Khan Zadran, the regional governor.

The inability of the U.S.'s Afghan proxies to go after residual al-Qaeda forces has become all too familiar to American commanders and highlights the glaring weakness of the American strategy. The proxy army that helped minimize American casualties is also minimizing al-Qaeda arrests. Afghan warlords who once were U.S. allies are striking deals with Taliban officials, allowing some to go free, over Washington's objections. The U.S. can only surmise how many al-Qaeda commanders slipped out under the noses of local officials. Southern Afghanistan abounds with prepackaged escape routes, well worn by opium dealers and human traffickers. Akram told TIME that just before the surrender of Kandahar in December, "almost all the al-Qaeda leaders managed to get to other countries," employing smugglers to whisk them through the dozens of routes that lead into Pakistan. As recently as early January, a man described by Akram as "very senior al-Qaeda" managed to get out of Kandahar and cross into Pakistan. Why wasn't he stopped? "Nothing could be done," Akram said with a shrug.

Now that the manhunt for bin Laden and his henchmen has widened beyond the borders of Afghanistan, the U.S. and its allies will rely heavily on the intelligence they can extract from prisoners like those taking up residence in chain-link cages at Guantanamo Bay. So far the majority of the detainees aren't singing. "We've got 5,000 guys in custody," a Pentagon official says, referring to enemy troops held by the U.S. and the Afghan government, "and most of them don't know anything." Interviews of prized prisoners are conducted by FBI agents accompanied by military analysts. The most exhaustive interrogations take place at Bagram, which has the largest number of interpreters; Abdul Salaam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, was moved to Bagram last week. A U.S. military official in Kandahar says the interrogations, while still "mostly rudimentary," have started to bear fruit. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Myers said, "We think we have thwarted some attacks" as a result of the prisoner interviews.

As long as the military command continues to produce evidence that the campaign in Afghanistan has "disrupted" al-Qaeda's plans for future carnage--as it did last week in Singapore--the public will probably support the coalition's halting progress toward rounding up al-Qaeda. But disruption of bin Laden's terror enterprise has never been the definition of success; liquidation of it is. Bin Laden may be running, but the longer he stays on the loose, the greater the risk that his network will sufficiently reconstitute itself to strike back. "The more pieces we get, the more it begins to reveal a story of the al-Qaeda terrorist network, its capabilities, its reach and the other networks with which it collaborates," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday. "But needless to say, there are still many missing pieces to the puzzle." America can't claim victory until they are found.