World News 16-11-2001 Afghan Rebels "Coming Out Of The Woodwork" who: The Pentagon what: Says terrorist leaders have been killed in bombing raids as Taliban make last ditch stand in Kandahar where: Afghanistan when: Yesterday snippet: "Eastern warlords sped home to Afghanistan after five years in exile yesterday," says The Times, "leading hundreds of Mujahidin banished under the Taleban in a convoy of dilapidated pick-ups and minibuses to get down to the serious business of power-broking." "Last night the fighters gathered around pots of green tea and bowls of raisins in the elaborate halls of Jalalabad`s Qasir Shahi, the former Afghan king`s winter retreat, to divide the spoils of eastern Afghanistan," writes Rory McCarthy in The Guardian. Meanwhile, in Kandahar, the Taliban`s spiritual centre in the far south of Afghanistan, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is reportedly trying to regroup his troops but faces a rebellion by the locals. US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said yesterday that anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen "are frankly coming out of the woodwork rather quickly now," reports The Independent. Several Taliban and al-Qa`ida leaders were reported killed in bombing raids by US warplanes yesterday. The other main related story of the day is the announcement that British Special Boat Service (SBS) troops are to fly into the Bagram air base north of Kabul this weekend. "The troops, a complete squadron normally based at Poole, Dorset, will pave the way for the deployment next week of a much larger, British-led multinational force," says The Telegraph. "We need troops on the ground," said International Development Secretary Claire Short in London yesterday, "bringing order and reassurance to the Afghan people. We need to move in days." [... more]

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