‘Surrender or die' al-Qaida fighters told

Al-Qaida fighters holding out in the terror gang’s final Afghan stronghold are facing an ultimatum to surrender or be annihilated.

As the deadline of 8am (3.30am Irish time) set by tribal chiefs passed, it was thought that a hard-core group of militants trapped in a canyon in the remote White Mountains would fight on to the death.

Leaders of the anti-Taliban Eastern Shura militia said it should become clear by the end of the day whether prime suspect Osama bin Laden was among them or had slipped away to a hideout in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, one of bin Laden’s lieutenants was awaiting trial in the US after becoming the first suspect to be charged in relation to the September 11 terror attacks.

Habib Zacarias Moussaoui, 33, was facing the death penalty after being charged on six counts of conspiracy, including conspiring to kill Americans, use weapons of mass destruction and commit aircraft piracy.

He was charged with having the same training, funding and intentions as the 19 hijackers who died in the suicide attacks which killed more than 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan extraction who spent much of the past nine years living in London, was picked up on a passport violation while attending an Oklahoma flying school in August.

He has spent the past four months in prison held on immigration charges.

Moussaoui is pictured in today’s newspapers outside Brixton tube station in South London, where he lived until a year ago.

An announcement was expected today or tomorrow on whether Britain would provide troops for a UN peacekeeping force due to be deployed in Afghanistan as its new interim government takes office on December 22.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday said the UK was ‘‘in principle’’ prepared to lead the UN-mandated force, and US Secretary of State Colin Powell indicated that he regarded the agreement as all but sealed.

US authorities were today expected to release a videotape of bin Laden, which they said left no doubt of his guilt for the atrocities.

In the tape, found in an abandoned house in Afghanistan, bin Laden is understood to boast about the success of the attacks, saying that he had not expected the World Trade Centre to collapse.

And he is reported to state that not all of the 19 hijackers had known they were on a suicide mission.

Bin Laden is named as co-conspirator in Moussaoui’s 30-page indictment, along with Ayman al-Zawahiri, head of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and his top deputy, and a series of other al Qaida leaders.

Moussaoui is alleged to have received funds from an al-Qaida leader who also funded the 19 hijackers, received the same training as them, and, like Mohammed Atta, looked into using crop-dusting planes to commit terrorism.

The French-Moroccan was arrested on August 16 in Minnesota after prompting suspicion at the flight school where he was learning how to be a pilot because he was not interested in taking off or landing.

He was held on immigration charges while FBI detectives looked into his background, and after the September 11 attacks became the focus of an intensive inquiry with which he has not co-operated.

He is alleged to have trained at al Qaida camps in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan before entering the US in February of this year and opening a bank account with 32,000 US dollars (£20,800) he received from the al Qaida cell in Hamburg which also funded Atta.

Afghan tribal forces, backed by intense US airstrikes, yesterday overran al Qaida cave hideouts 15,000ft up in the mountains at Tora Bora.

Several hundred foreign fighters, who fled the relentless advance of Eastern Shura troops over the rocky mountain-tops, were last night trapped by shelling in a rocky canyon below.

In radio contact, some pleaded for mercy and said they were ready to give up.

Eastern Shura commander Mohammed Zaman demanded the al Qaida force disarm and walk out of the Tora Bora and Milawa valleys by this morning or face renewed attacks.

He said they would be handed over to the UN to face international justice.

Asked last night whether bin Laden might be among them, Zaman replied: ‘‘I don’t know if he is dead or alive. Tomorrow we may know.’’