Stabilizing Afghanistan

The U.S. military plans to step up operations in Afghanistan aimed at supporting the country's interim government, a top Pentagon official said Tuesday.

Combat operations to hunt down Taliban and al Qaeda holdouts will continue, said Douglas Feith, undersecretary for policy in the Defense Department. In other areas, American troops will intensify their work to help rebuild Afghanistan after two decades of war, Feith said.

Those projects include building roads and training Afghan military and police forces, he said. A year into the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, some hostile forces remain, Feith said.

"The security situation in Afghanistan right now is, I would say, uneven," Feith told a group of foreign journalists. Most of the problems are concentrated in the south and east of the country, he said.

Still, the United States has accomplished its goal to "make al Qaeda go on the defensive rather than remain on the offensive," Feith said.

"They don't have the easy use of that base of operations. They are on the run," Feith said.

On Monday, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld pledged anew that the United States will track down Osama bin Laden and other top leaders of his al Qaeda terrorist network.

"If they are alive and well, we'll eventually find them," Rumsfeld said during a news briefing to mark one year since the war in Afghanistan began.

Rumsfeld said he was not frustrated that bin Laden remains on the loose. Top al Qaeda and Taliban leaders have learned how to conceal themselves from U.S. surveillance, he said.

The war in Afghanistan has claimed 39 American lives, including 16 during combat or other hostile situations. About 10,000 U.S. soldiers remain in Afghanistan, hunting for terrorists and helping the interim government of President Hamid Karzai.

At a ceremony Monday at U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., Gen. Tommy Franks said the United States is committed to remaining in Afghanistan as long as it takes to ensure that al Qaeda and Taliban forces are rooted out.

"We'll be there until the last shot is fired in the global war on terrorism," Franks told about 2,000 members of the coalition forces. "Much remains to be done."

By Matt Kelley