Afghan leader calls on people to join hunt for bin Laden
Afghanistan's new interim leader is calling on Afghans to join the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Hamid Karzai says he is asking village elders to tell their people to help find bin Laden and Omar.
Karzai is the leader of the UN-backed interim council that will run the country for six months from December 22.
"We don't know where Osama is. We are looking for him," Karzai said. "I am asking villagers around Kandahar to look around the clock and stop him or any Arab they may see.
"We will make sure we will get rid of terrorism. We want to finish terrorism in Afghanistan and in the world."
US Marines are looking as well, patrolling key roads around Kandahar carrying photographs of "key terrorists", spokesman Captain Stewart Upton said at their base southwest of the city.
Upton says they are generally leaving alone Taliban fighters who have blended back into the civilian population.
Kandahar is reported to be tense, with the rival armed groups that replaced the Taliban jockeying for control of key parts of the city and occasionally exchanging gunfire.
Talks are reportedly under way to set up a civil administration and avoid an explosion of factional fighting.
Tribal officials, speaking by telephone from Pakistan, say more than 200 Arabs loyal to Osama bin Laden are still holding out at the Kandahar airport and are refusing to surrender.
