- About 30 of them left Camp Rhino in the south Afghanistan
desert hoping to block escape routes for the al-Qa'eda. A spokesman
for the US Marines said they were planning to "block possible avenues
and exits".
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- Fighters loyal to bin Laden are said to be resisiting
tribal forces attacking them in the mountains. Tribal leaders speculated
that he was still most likely to be with his men in the Tora Bora region.
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- Downing Street was today playing down reports that thousands
of British troops were about to be deployed to Afghanistan to lead an international
"stabilisation" force.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said no request had yet been received
for any forces to be sent to Afghanistan to keep order while the new interim
government established itself.
Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon indicated at the weekend that Britain would
be prepared to provide the senior officers and headquarters staff to run
a multinational military peacekeeping force
The Prime Minister's spokesman said: "No specific requests have been
made of anybody, so it is too early to talk about whether, how many, and
so on."
Downing Street indicated that any British deployment was likely to be of
relatively short duration, securing the ground for longer-term peace-keeping
troops, probably drawn from predominantly Muslim nations such as Turkey.
The spokesman also stressed that as long as the conflict continued in Afghanistan,
any force would be under direct American command.
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- http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;
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