Blowing snow fills the air at the command post for rescue efforts to reach people trapped in an avalanche near the Salang tunnel today. The tunnel is about 80 miles north of Afghanistan's capital, Kabul. Cargo trucks and demining vehicles are being used in the rescue operations to save scores of people trapped in the snow avalanche. (AP Photo)

IN AFGHANISTAN
Workers rescue nearly 500 from avalanche in Afghan mountains; four killed

By Lourdes Navarro, Associated Press, 02/07/02

SALANG, Afghanistan — Rescue workers labored in bitter cold and fierce winds Thursday, digging out nearly 500 people trapped in their cars and a tunnel by a snow avalanche in the soaring Hindu Kush mountains. Four people were killed, officials said.

Three of the dead suffocated inside the Salang Tunnel, and the fourth died in a car buried by snow outside as temperatures overnight plunged to minus 40 degrees, said U.N. spokesman Yusuf Hassan.

Rescuers battling winds up to 55 mph freed about 300 people from vehicles buried in the snow outside the tunnel, said Gerhard Zank of The HALO Trust, a British-based mine-clearing organization that sent armored bulldozers to dig out cars and trucks. Hassan said rescue teams reached all 57 trapped vehicles.

About 190 people stranded inside the tunnel were also freed, said Mohammedullah Gulaga, the Afghan coordinator of the rescue effort. The rescue teams included U.S. soldiers and workers from HALO Trust.

Zink said 89 people suffering from frostbite and dehydration were evacuated to a field clinic at Jabal Saraj, between the tunnel and Kabul. Seven of them were in serious condition and were flown by helicopter to Kabul, he added.

Salang Tunnel, 80 miles north of the capital, lies on the main road crossing the Hindu Kush and connecting Kabul to northern Afghanistan. It is the main route for aid shipments from north to south. The two-mile-long tunnel, a widely admired engineering, feat was damaged in Afghanistan's wars but reopened in January after Russian-led repairs.

Substantial snowfalls in recent days in Kabul and some other parts of the country have raised hopes that Afghanistan is seeing the end of a three-year drought that has aggravated the devastation of war.

But the snow also has blocked aid from reaching some remote regions, underlining how the country's severe terrain and primitive infrastructure complicate the interim government's efforts to lead the country toward stability and security.

Meanwhile, a leader in eastern Afghanistan said Thursday that seven suspected al-Qaida members were killed by a missile fired by an unmanned U.S. aircraft. Osama bin Laden was not among the dead, the official said. A U.S. official said the attack may have killed a leader of the terrorist network.

Bad weather in the mountainous region in Paktia province has hampered efforts to get to the attack site and investigate the damage, said Wazir Khan, a brother of regional warlord Bacha Khan.

He said seven people were killed in the Monday attack, but the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said only that at least one person was killed -- believed to be a top al-Qaida figure.

Two months after the Taliban were routed from power by northern alliance forces bolstered by U.S. airstrikes, U.S. forces are still dealing with pockets of resistance in eastern and southern Afghanistan, said Maj. Gen. Henry W. Stratman, part of the command at the U.S. base in Kandahar.

"We're not in the peacekeeping phase yet," Stratman said Thursday.

Still, officials took the next step toward creating a more long-term government for Afghanistan on Thursday. A 21-member commission charged with organizing a loya jirga, or grand council, formally convened in Kabul, with interim leader Hamid Karzai offering best wishes.

"Do good work," Karzai told the council and an audience of diplomats attending the ceremony. "God bless you, and be successful."

The loya jirga, in which the nation's ethnic, regional and religious groups will participate, will choose a transitional government to rule for 18 months in the run-up to Afghan elections. It must convene before the interim government's six-month term expires.

Some fear the loya jirga could become a lightning rod for Afghanistan's many tribal and regional rivalries.

At least one powerful figure is said to be openly dismissing the loya jirga -- former guerrilla commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The Afghan Islamic Press quoted him as saying the loya jirga won't be a solution to any of Afghanistan's problems, and complaining that the representatives were imposed by outsiders.

Hekmatyar now lives in exile in Iran but is still seen as commanding some loyalty. His fighters were at the center of the 1990s civil war that left much of Kabul in ruins.

In an indication that Iran is seeking to ease escalating tensions with the United States, the country is considering expelling Hekmatyar, the state news agency reported.

Iran's Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari said the government is discussing the matter with Karzai's government, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"Iran is not a place for any individual or group to make mischievous acts or any other action," IRNA quoted Lari as saying.

In other developments: