General: Bin Laden only 'one person'

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry told the U.S. House Armed Services Committee that Osama bin Laden is a small part of the problem in Afghanistan.

In response to a question Tuesday from U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., Eikenberry said the capture of the al-Qaida leader would not have an immediate impact on the violence and instability plaguing NATO troops and residents in Afghanistan.

"Bin Laden remains one person, an important person that we need to bring to justice, but he remains one person in a much larger global international terrorist network," Eikenberry said.

He said the insurgency is feeding off the lack of infrastructure as well as government in Afghanistan.

Reconstruction has been a "very difficult process because our baseline that we began with in 2001 is really just ashes, a country decimated by three decades of warfare and through the occupation of international terrorism, so we're trying to build from that."

It has also been a challenge to plug outside financing coming into the Taliban from "non-state actors," Eikenberry said.