U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday that Saudi billionaire Osama Bin Laden is still hiding in Afghanistan even though U.S. and British forces launched military actions against the central Asian country on Sunday.
"It's clear he's in Afghanistan somewhere," Rumsfeld said in an interview with NBC's "Today" show when asked about bin Laden's current whereabouts.
As to the military actions in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld reiterated that the purpose of the strike "was to attack, very discreetly, military targets, Taliban and al Qaeda military targets, to create conditions so that we can engage in a sustained effort to root out those terrorists."
He denied that U.S. and British forces had suffered losses in the strike. "No aircraft was hit. No aircraft was damaged. The allegation by Taliban that they shot down coalition aircraft is flatly untrue," he said.
Rumsfeld said all allied planes landed safely except for the two C-17 aircraft that were engaged in the humanitarian effort of dropping food and medicines for refugees in Afghanistan.
"They (the two C-17 aircraft) are still en route back to their home base," he said.
Asked whether the bombing will continue for several days, Rumsfeld said that "it's safe to assume that the entire effort, the diplomatic and the financial and the military, both overt and covert efforts, will continue until we have been successful in rooting the terrorists out, not just the Taliban and the al Qaeda network, but in other networks as well."
（ Xinhua News Agency 10/08/2001）
