Gannett News Service file photo
A Marine dons his helmet and flak jacket before going on watch at dusk in January at the Marine base at Kandahar International Airport in Afghanistan.

Next steps uncertain

OLYMPIAN WIRE AND STAFF

Originally published Sunday, April 7, 2002

From the moment the first Navy jet catapulted into the night off the deck of the USS Enterprise, laden with bombs for Afghanistan, it was certain the world would change.

Now, as the debris and dust of war settle, it is uncertainty that hangs in the air.

Six months later, al-Qaida is down, if not out, and its Taliban protectors are routed. But master terrorist Osama bin Laden and Taliban ally Mullah Mohammed Omar have vanished into the thin air of the Afghan highlands.

A new government rules in Kabul. But it is a weak, unstable coalition.

A fall and winter of war in Afghanistan have given way to a spring of uncertainty. "The next few months will be an especially fragile period," CIA Director George J. Tenet advised the U.S. Senate.

Some in the U.S. Congress are asking the Bush administration about an "exit strategy" for Afghanistan.

The war that was launched six months ago today came 26 days after hijackers crashed three jetliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C.

Today, The Olympian presents a series of reports examining the state of the war on terrorism and what might be ahead.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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