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Sources: Rumsfeld close to decision on Walker

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ponders a question during a Pentagon briefing on Thursday.

(CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is very close to recommending that American Taliban fighter John Walker be handed over to U.S. law enforcement, administration sources said on Thursday.

The American is among eight detainees being held aboard the USS Bataan in the Arabian Sea. He was captured last November after a Taliban prison uprising near Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan.

The sources also said Rumsfeld had made some decisions about how military tribunals should be conducted for suspected al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists, and plans would be presented to President Bush in the next several days. (Full story)

The Pentagon said Thursday that U.S. forces have 248 al Qaeda and Taliban detainees. A detention facility is being built at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and a small number of detainees may be moved there within days, Pentagon sources said.

Rumsfeld said Thursday the war on terrorism was still in a "relatively early phase," and even if al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar were captured tomorrow, "our job would still be far from over."

"We're looking for them, we intend to find them, and we intend to capture or kill them, and that's the best we can do," Rumsfeld said, adding that he had no information about bin Laden or Omar's whereabouts.

U.S. military officials told CNN Thursday the hunt for Omar had been stepped up in Helmand province, about 120 miles northwest of Kandahar. (Full story)

About 1,500 heavily armed Taliban fighters are in the Baghran district in northern Helmand, having fled Kandahar after the city fell to allied forces late last year. Pentagon officials said the fighters were trying to negotiate their way out of a potential standoff, but they said they don't believe that means Omar intends to surrender.

VIDEO CNN's John Vause reports that U.S. Marines join the hunt for America's second most wanted man (January 1) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     QUICKVOTE How long will U.S. troops be in Afghanistan? Less than a year Between one and two years More than two years View Results     RESOURCES Photo gallery: Faces of bin Laden    CNN.COM SPECIAL REPORT  CNN NewsPass Video  Agencies reportedly got hijack tips in 1998  MORE STORIES Intelligence intercept led to Buffalo suspects Report cites warnings before 9/11  EXTRA INFORMATION Timeline: Who Knew What and When? Interactive: Terror Investigation Terror Warnings System Most wanted terrorists What looks suspicious? In-Depth: America Remembers In-Depth: Terror on Tape In-Depth: How prepared is your city?  RESOURCES On the Scene: Barbara Starr: Al Qaeda hunt expands? On the Scene: Peter Bergen: Getting al Qaeda to talk

Latest developments

• After months of dire predictions, the international community has delivered enough food and supplies to Afghanistan to avoid a disastrous winter there, a U.S. government official said Thursday. More than half of the more than 210,572 metric tons of aid delivered by the World Food Programme to Afghanistan arrived in December. (Full story)

• U.S. B-1 bombers, Navy F-18 aircraft and AC-130 gunships Thursday night pounded an al Qaeda compound in eastern Afghanistan where fugitives of Osama bin Laden's terrorist network might have fled after intense bombing of the Tora Bora region in past weeks, U.S. military officials said. (Full story)

• The FBI renewed an alert to law enforcement agencies about possible threats in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The FBI is requesting that any suspicious or unusual activity be reported to the bureau.

• A federal judge sentenced a Brooklyn man to 21 months in jail Thursday for falsely accusing an Arab man, his fiancee's boss, of being connected with the September 11 attacks. The judgment was triple the normal sentence for such a crime because it tried to "take advantage" of a national emergency and to harm the victim, prosecutors said.

• New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg met Thursday with the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Committee about the future of the site formerly occupied by the World Trade Center. The group's chairman told reporters he envisioned a new structure 40 to 60 stories high, as well as a memorial to the September 11 victims.

• New York City has designated a private company, Bovis Lend Lease, as the primary manager of the World Trade Center site, an indication of the progress being made in lower Manhattan. The city's Department of Design and Construction, with the Office of Emergency Management, will continue to oversee the recovery effort.

• A senior administration official told CNN Thursday that President Bush has invited Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's interim government chairman, to visit Washington and meet with him at the White House. The official said no date has been set, but the target is sometime in February. (Full story)

• An envelope containing a threatening note and a "powdery substance" found Thursday in the U.S. Capitol office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is likely a hoax, according to an FBI spokesman. (Full story)

• The FBI and Postal Inspection Service are planning to increase the reward to $2 million for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for the deadly anthrax mailings, sources told CNN. The reward is currently $1.25 million, but it hasn't generated any concrete leads. (Full story)

• The former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, was detained Thursday by Pakistani intelligence officials, his secretary said. The secretary said he had no idea where Zaeef had been taken or why. Until Pakistan closed the Taliban embassy in Islamabad, Zaeef was the Taliban's primary spokesman. (Full story)

• A bipartisan group of senators was awaiting final clearance to visit Afghanistan as they prepared to depart Thursday for Central Asia. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, said the delegation wants to spend a week visiting U.S. forces in the region and meeting with various government leaders about the future of Afghanistan. (Full story)

• U.S. Marines seized computer disks during a search of a walled compound that anti-Taliban forces said Omar abandoned within the past three weeks. The disks were brought back to the Marine base at the Kandahar airport, where U.S. officials plan to sift through the information in hopes of finding out more about al Qaeda and Taliban leadership.

• The estimate of the number of dead in the September 11 World Trade Center attacks has dropped to 2,936, officials said Thursday. The Office of Emergency Management said 593 people are confirmed dead, while 363 people are listed as missing with no death certificates issued, and 1,980 death certificates have been issued for victims whose remains have not yet been identified.