Foreign Fighters in Afghanistan Pose a Problem: Thousands of Osama bin Laden’s core Arab supporters in the northern Afghan city of Kunduz — and thousands more who’ve already melted into the countryside — pose a perplexing problem for the United States. If they aren’t killed, they must be locked up forever, the Pentagon says, because any who are given amnesty or free passage will simply try to launch more terror. “It would be most unfortunate if the foreigners in Afghanistan — the al-Qaida and the Chechens and others who have been there working with the Taliban — if those folks were set free and in any way allowed to go to another country, and cause the same kind of terrorist acts,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said this week. Later, he added: “My hope is that they will be either be killed or taken prisoner.”