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Powell: Kabul Should Become Neutral Territory
Saturday, November 10, 2001
(11:07 AM ET)
The Associated Press

"If we had a chance to capture bin Laden or some of his senior operatives, it wouldn't matter to me whether it was Christmas or Hanukkah or Ramadan. We have to do it," Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, said Friday in an interview with radio reporters.

WASHINGTON -- AP
Afghanistan's capital should become neutral territory if the anti-Taliban northern alliance is able to oust the ruling militia from Kabul, Secretary of State Colin Powell said. The Taliban's front line, north of Kabul, fell under attack Saturday from American B-52 bombers and other warplanes.

Also, the Pentagon said it had halted the search for Bryant L. Davis and declared the machinist's mate fireman apprentice dead. On Wednesday, Davis, 20, of Chicago, fell overboard from the USS Kitty Hawk, one of three aircraft carriers deployed in the Arabian Sea for the war.

It was not known how Davis went overboard.

The Taliban acknowledged Saturday that it lost the strategic city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Aided by U.S. bombing, opposition troops said they were pursuing Taliban fighters as they retreated.

Powell said Kabul residents fear and mistrust the northern alliance, one reason to make the capital neutral territory as was Berlin after World War II before the city was divided into US, Russian, British and French sectors.

"That is what we are thinking about," Powell said at the State Department. "It's happened many times in history."
(More: USATODAY.com News Source)
2001 © The Associated Press.

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