Title: Rumsfeld doesn't doubt al-Qaeda regrouping in Pak
Author:  
Publication: Times of India
Date: March 7, 2002
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=3080401

WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says he does not doubt that al-Qaeda are trying to regroup in Pakistan as he has seen intelligence reports in this regard.

"I don't doubt it," he said. "Needless to say, as we find pockets of al Qaeda. we're going to go after them."

Tommy R Franks, Commander-in-Chief of the Central Command, said though he has seen no evidence of formations of al-Qaeda fighters moving into the Gardez region from Pakistan or outlying villages, "it would not surprise me."

The severity of the latest fighting in eastern Afghanistan and the casualties the US suffered have come as a shock to the US, which had assumed on the basis of earlier Pentagon claims that the back of the al-Qaeda had been broken and all that remained was some minor mopping up operations.

At a press conference at the US base in Bagram, the officer in charge of the American forces in the fighting south of Gardez, Army Major General Franklin L. Hagenbeck, said the US forces and their Afghan allies engaged al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in fierce close combat as both sides poured in reinforcements for the largest ground battle of the war.

Hagenbeck said US troops, fighting in snow-covered mountains as high as 10,000 feet, have killed "several hundred" al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters over the last day.

He said the US has gained the upper hand after an early setback and initial round of casualties in which eight US troops were killed and 48 injured.