To: John Hunt who wrote (10809 ) 11/20/2001 6:14:46 AM From: John Hunt Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 27666 Second bin Laden lieutenant killed US warplanes took to the skies yesterday for strikes at Taliban holdouts in Afghanistan's north, east and south, following the second killing in as many days of a senior lieutenant of Osama bin Laden. Opposition fighters held back from any offensive against the city of Kunduz, the Taliban's only remaining stronghold in northern Afghanistan. But they maintained their encirclement while US planes pounded Taliban front lines just outside the city. The onslaught earlier found its mark with the death of Juma Namangani, the Uzbek warrior general who was Osama bin Laden's military right-hand man. A senior Northern Alliance official told The Australian yesterday that Namangani was killed on Saturday. Bin Laden's deputy and anointed successor Mohammed Atef was killed in a smartbomb attack on Friday. Namangani's death deals another crippling blow to bin Laden's and the Taliban's attempts to hold Kunduz. American officials, meanwhile, said the Northern Alliance effort meant bin Laden was running out of places to hide. "We think . . . we're beginning to narrow his possibilities," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice told CNN in Washington. Yesterday brought substantial progress towards arranging a UN-brokered conference on forming a power-sharing government. The head of the Northern Alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, had wanted the meeting to take place in Kabul. But following talks in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, with US envoy James Dobbins, Alliance foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah said the meeting "will be held outside Afghanistan," possibly as early as this week. theaustralian.news.com.au