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Biden: Taliban remain threat in Afghanistan

U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, said that about 20 Taliban and al Qaeda leaders who remain at large pose a threat.

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Taliban still control parts of Afghanistan and could attack international security forces if the world community doesn't help pay for a permanent police force, said U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

"What everybody tells me here is, 'Don't think the fight against the Taliban is over,' " Biden told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "They're not controlling the cities anymore, but they're still in the countryside."

The Delaware Democrat said some Afghans have told him the Taliban continue to control parts of the capital, Kabul. Biden is on a four-day visit to Afghanistan and leaves Sunday for India and Pakistan.

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Detailing the impressions from his trip, Biden said most people -- Afghans and U.S. and British military personnel -- think Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar remains in southern Afghanistan.

"Ninety-nine percent of them think he's still in Afghanistan, down near and probably west of Kandahar," Biden said. "They think he's shaved his beard and tried to alter his appearance, whereas [Osama] bin Laden at 6-5 has difficulty doing that."

Biden said about 20 Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are not in the custody of the United States or its allies, posing a dangerous threat.

He said a British military official told him that "he is absolutely certain in his mind there will be an attack and casualties taken by the military, and it will come from these cells of al Qaeda and Taliban which have not been rounded up."

Biden stressed the importance of financing Afghanistan's interim government immediately to establish legitimacy.

"To begin within, I'm only talking about $30 [million], $40 million sum total for a year ... so the government can have desks, telephones, lights and pay the salaries," Biden said. "We are trying to assess what is needed over the next five or 10 years. I think that number is between $10 [billion] and $15 billion countrywide."

He said that the United States probably would be asked to contribute $1 billion to $3 billion of that amount.

Speaking Saturday at a news conference in Kabul, Biden said the international community, including the United States, has pledged $20 million to help the interim government get "up and running," but the money is tied up because of "bureaucratic difficulties."

One consideration is freeing up the frozen assets of the Taliban to help fund Afghanistan's interim government, he said.

If the United States and the new Afghan regime agree to the measure, "there will be the ability to literally give some of the Afghans back their money to govern themselves in the near term," Biden said.