Afghans give nod to peacekeepers, differ on airstrikes

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The new Afghan government has reached an agreement with international peacekeepers on how they will function in the coming months, the country's interim foreign minister said Sunday.

Dr. Abdullah, who uses only one name, said that multinational troops would be allowed to operate in various Afghan cities, working with Afghan authorities to provide security. But he would not provide further specifics about the deal, which followed long and complicated negotiations both with the peacekeepers and among different factions of the Afghan leadership.

Abdullah also said Sunday that U.S. airstrikes would be needed "as long as terrorist cells are in Afghanistan."

The first deployment of peacekeepers -- British Royal Marines -- arrived days before the Dec. 22 inauguration of a six-month administration. But discussions had bogged down over how many more troops will come and what their duties will be.

Some within Afghanistan's interim Cabinet wanted as many as 5,000 peacekeepers with a visible, pro-active role. Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim, however, thought international troops should be limited to 1,000 and perform peacekeeping duties with a low profile.

Though peacekeepers will be stationed initially in Kabul, the government also welcomes them in other cities, Abdullah said. Several countries, including two Muslim nations, already have committed troops and resources.

One sticking point may be the continued presence in Kabul of armed Afghan fighters. Under the agreement reached in Germany that empowered the temporary government, those soldiers are allowed only outside the capital.

However, Abdullah said "Afghan soldiers will be based in military bases in and around Kabul."

While Abdullah said U.S. airstrikes still are necessary, other ministers in the week-old Cabinet have said the bombing campaign, which helped defeat the Taliban and sent many al-Qaida fighters running, should stop to avoid more civilian casualties.

"Certainly we are concerned about that," Abdullah said. But bombing "should continue as long as it takes."

Some Taliban leaders are in custody, he said, but "quite a few have disguised themselves and gone elsewhere."

He said Osama bin Laden may still be in the country -- another incentive for foreign help in cleaning up the mess left by the former Taliban rulers. U.S. forces continue patrolling Afghanistan's rugged mountains, looking for the suspected terrorist and his followers.

Trail gone cold

On Sunday, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said bin Laden probably is not dead.

"The latest intelligence we had indicates that the high probabilities are that bin Laden is still alive," Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., said on CNN's "Late Edition." "Where he is, is a question mark. The trail has gone cold as to whether he's still in the caves of Tora Bora or, in fact, has slipped out into Pakistan."

Speculation has run wild about bin Laden's whereabouts. Fahim said Saturday that bin Laden was believed to have gone to Pakistan. Abdullah says that may be false.

"We do not have the exactly clear information about Osama," Abdullah said, "but he might be inside Afghanistan."

Abdullah said he favors an Afghan war-crimes tribunal that would investigate abuses by the Taliban's repressive five-year regime. But he acknowledged prosecuting such cases would be difficult and time-consuming.

"It will take years and years," Abdullah said. "It's not a matter of days to draw up a list of war criminals."

He said the tribunal's mandate should not cover the period before the Taliban took power. Many members of the new government were involved in the ill-fated administration that ruled Afghanistan from 1992-96, when factional fighting flattened entire neighborhoods and killed an estimated 50,000 people.

In other developments:

U.S. Army soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division will replace Marines at a base in southern Afghanistan, a Pentagon spokesman said Sunday. The Marines will hand over responsibility for overseeing a group of suspected Taliban and al-Qaida detainees at the Kandahar base that grew to 139 on Sunday.

Four Afghan soldiers were killed at Qul-e-Urdu, the main military base in Herat, during an accidental explosion that occurred as they stacked boxes of ammunition. An unknown number of people were injured, said Naseer Ahmed, a spokesman for local warlord Ismail Khan. "The explosion was very strong. It broke windows and caused some damage," he said.

Pakistan's military-led government has frozen the accounts of Sultan Bashir-ud-Din Mehmood and Abdul Majid, two nuclear scientists suspected of links with bin Laden, a central bank spokesman said Sunday.