Bin Laden remains elusive

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- Although Osama bin Laden, the prize of the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan, remained elusive as fighting in and around Tora Bora's White Mountains wound down, President Bush Monday steadfastly maintained that the terror suspect would be tracked down eventually.

"Osama bin Laden is going to be brought to justice. It may happen tomorrow, it may happen in a month, it may happen in a year, but he is going to be brought to justice. He's on the run. He's -- he thinks he can hide, but he can't," said Bush after an event commemorating the Islamic holiday, Eid al Fitr, which follows the Muslim month of Ramadan.

Bush said the United States has been involved in its operation in Afghanistan for a little more than two months and has made "incredible progress."

The White House reiterated its position that U.S. troop will not leave Afghanistan until the objectives are achieved -- the destruction of the al Qaida network, including bin Laden, his top lieutenants, and the leadership of the Taliban regime.

A Pentagon spokesman earlier said the Eastern Alliance and American forces were conducting painstaking and dangerous searches of a vast network of caves that line the two valleys where the fighting has been concentrated.

Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem called the search a "slow and methodical process."

Stufflebeem said that a "few days ago," the military command believed that bin Laden was in the Tora Bora area, but "now we're not as sure because we don't have same intensity of the level of traffic for us to monitor that would tell us that."

The U.S. has extraordinary ability to listen in on field communications in battle and was tracking bin Laden and Taliban leadership in part by their al Qaida radio communications.

From Sunday on, as leaders of the Afghan alliance forces claimed victory over the last main al Qaida stronghold in Tora Bora, the question of whether bin Laden had been killed, captured or if he escaped, perhaps to Pakistan, has been raised around the world.

White House and Defense Department officials maintain that they will, at some point, capture the man they blame for the deaths of some 3,000 people in New York and Washington on Sept. 11.

Bush said widespread speculation that bin Laden and members of al Qaida have fled into Pakistan or possibly are hold up in the Afghan mountains did not discount the administration's resolve in its mission.

"We get all kinds of reports that he's in a cave, that he's not in a cave; that he's escaped or that he hasn't escaped. There's all kinds of speculation. But when the dust clears, we'll find out where he is and he'll be brought to justice," Bush said.

Both Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Sunday said that U.S. forces are unsure of bin Laden's location as American jets continued to pound caves in the mountainous region.

Although some al Qaida fighters may have fled into neighboring Pakistan, many military experts say that bin Laden and what remains of the tattered Taliban regime and al Qaida's membership possibly remain in the highly sophisticated cave structures that wind beneath the countryside.

Now the military campaign faces a cave-by-cave search for stragglers left behind or trapped inside as a result of U.S. bombing campaign.

Pakistan's reaction to claims that some al Qaida members and the hierarchy of the Taliban leadership have fled into its borders has been muted. Since the Islamic country is celebrating Eid al Fitr, officials at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington were unavailable to comment.

As the worldwide search for bin Laden and al Qaida continued, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said his agency was providing Arabic news organizations with a transcript of the videotape of bin Laden released last week by the Bush administration.

The videotape shows bin Laden dining with a Saudi national, believed to be Sheykh Ali Bin Said Al-Ghandi, while both men laughed and reveled in the planning and execution of the Sept. 11 attacks.

"That too will go out through our embassy satellite system to embassies around the world to make available to broadcasters and others who might want to see it," Boucher said of the videotape.

Boucher pointed out the tape has received quick response from around the world, with officials in Turkey saying it was one of the greatest crimes against the religion of Islam for one Muslim to call another an infidel as bin Laden does in the tape. And in messages received through "official channels" from the United Arab Emirates, they said the recording left no room for doubt of bin Laden's role in the attacks, Boucher said.