U.S. Planes Bring 'Inferno' Down on Kabul

KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces using cluster bombs unleashed the fiercest round yet of their onslaught on Afghanistan (news - web sites) on Thursday in what Kabul residents called a terrible inferno of destruction.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers said more than 140 civilians had been killed in the last 24 hours of the raids, launched on Sunday in retaliation for the suicide attacks on the United States a month ago in which about 5,600 people were killed.

They said 50 bodies had been pulled from the rubble of one village in the east after bombing runs which Washington is aiming at the Taliban and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda group, accused of hijacking airliners on Sept. 11 and ramming them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites).

But the campaign against the Islamic purist Taliban stoked growing anti-Western anger among Muslims from Jakarta to Cape Town and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) said Western countries were in danger of losing the propaganda battle for Arab and Muslim support.

Britain said the war, in which it is helping the United States, would stretch well into next year. ``We must expect at least to go through the winter into next summer at the very least,'' Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the British defense staff, told a news conference. He said the campaign had hit 40 targets so far.

U.S. defense officials said heavy B-52 and B-1 bombers targeted Taliban troops overnight Wednesday and into Thursday, using among other weapons cluster bombs that open as they fall to release dozens of high-explosive bomblets.

``We dropped a lot of bombs,'' one of the officials said. ``We have said that this will be relentless, and it will.''

The United States said on Tuesday it had achieved control of the skies over Afghanistan, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday there was still a risk for U.S. aircraft.

``There still is an air-defense threat and it is triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery),'' Rumsfeld said, adding that the Taliban also had portable surface-to-air missiles and ``one or more'' much larger surface-to-air missiles.

The Afghan Islamic Press, citing Taliban and other sources, said Kouram village, around 20 miles from the eastern city of Jalalabad, had been flattened in Wednesday night's attack.

``So far more than 50 bodies have been recovered and the fear is that the number of martyrs will be more than 100,'' it quoted a Taliban spokesman in the area as saying.

According to Taliban figures, the total number of deaths in Afghanistan since Sunday now stands at around 220.

Taliban officials said the latest casualties included 15 people killed in a mosque in Jalalabad, which is ringed by al Qaeda training camps.

Rumsfeld said he regretted any civilian loss of life but added: ``There is no question but that when one is engaged militarily that there is going to be unintended loss of life.''

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said the reports of civilian deaths were being investigated. ``We are not engaged in a fight against the Afghan people. We regret the deaths of any civilians... Every effort is made to minimize the risk to civilians.''

President Bush (news - web sites), who scheduled a news conference for 8 p.m. EDT to discuss the campaign, told a memorial service at the Pentagon, where 189 people were killed by one of the hijacked planes, that the armed forces ``will have everything you need ... to assure full victory for the United States and the cause of freedom.''

``Over time, with patience and precision, the terrorists will be pursued. They will be isolated, surrounded, cornered until there is no place to run or hide or rest,'' Bush said.

A U.S. Air Force sergeant on active duty in the northern Arabian peninsula became the first American fatality of the war when he was killed in an accident.

Up to five U.S. jets bombed areas south of Kabul on Thursday night, drawing anti-aircraft fire, witnesses said. They dropped three to four bombs and apparently hit a Taliban munitions dump.

``There are explosions and flashes every 10 seconds or so. I think it must have hit an ammunition site,'' one witness said.

The raids followed a night of almost constant bombardment on Wednesday. ``It was like an inferno,'' said one young man. ''The explosions were so huge and so massive, that it felt like an earthquake, as if an atomic bomb had been dropped on Kabul.''

Blast after blast ripped through the city. The impact could be felt across the capital, rattling windows and shaking the foundations of homes and offices.

``This is the worst night that we have had so far,'' said one resident. ``There has been no chance to sleep. I cannot tell you how frightened people are. It is terrible.''

Muslims outraged at the raids on Afghanistan staged protests in countries including Bangladesh, Jordan, South Africa, India, Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia.

Alarm rippled among Western expatriates in the Gulf after a Canadian was shot dead in Kuwait in what appeared to be a response to the U.S. air raids. A German couple in Saudi Arabia were attacked with a molotov cocktail but escaped injury.

``A lot of people are stocking up on food and supplies so that if something does happen they can they can be more secure -- I see water being stockpiled and canned goods,'' said Saudi-based U.S. executive David Castillo, 57.

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton canceled a trip to the United Arab Emirates ``due to the current international situation,'' organizers said.

A radical Indonesian group -- the small but vocal Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) -- said it would try to drive Americans and Britons out of the country after the government ignored a deadline to cut ties with the United States.

Iran said it approved of punishing those behind the suicide attacks on the United States but described the retaliatory assault on Afghanistan as ``useless.''

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told his British counterpart Jack Straw that the Western allies should take public opinion in the Muslim world into account and try not to ''harm innocent people.''

Blair, touring the Middle East to bolster support for the war on al Qaeda and the Taliban, told reporters: ``One thing becoming increasingly clear to me is the need to upgrade our media and public opinion operations in the Arab and Muslim world. There is a need for us to communicate effectively.''

Underlining his point, a Saudi-owned newspaper reported that Saudi Arabia asked the British leader, on a tour of the Middle East, to cancel a planned visit to the kingdom.

Pakistan Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said Islamabad was allowing U.S. forces to use two airports but only for rescue and recovery missions.

``I think, by and large, the U.S. government has met our concerns and concerns of the people of Pakistan,'' he said in an interview with BBC television. ``They are only using our airspace. There is no American soldier on our soil so far.''

The country's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-i-Islami, said it would launch a campaign to force the military government either to revise its support for the strikes or give up power.

``If the government does not change its support to America we have the right to pull down the unconstitutional government of (General) Pervez Musharraf,'' party leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed told a gathering of several thousand tribal members near the Afghan border.

Pakistani troops began patrolling streets in the troubled southwestern city of Quetta on Thursday on the eve of a general strike called by religious parties. The government warned demonstrators it would not tolerate violent protests.

At a news conference in Islamabad, Taliban Ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said the entry of ground troops into the conflict would mark the start of the real war.

``America is thirsty for more bloodshed in Afghanistan. The number of casualties is increasing with the passage of time. This is a gift of America to the innocent people of Afghanistan,'' he said.

Fleeing residents of the Afghan city of Kandahar said in Pakistan that two relatives of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar killed in a U.S. raid on his house this week were his 10-year-old son and his stepfather.

They said the Taliban leader had just left the house in the Sangisar district of the city when a bomb struck it but many members of his family were still inside.

The U.N. World Food Program said it was racing against time to send badly needed food shipments into Afghanistan before winter set in.

``It is one of the most difficult tasks WFP has faced in its history. The harsh winter is approaching and many human lives are at stake,'' WFP spokesman Francesco Luna told a news conference in Islamabad.

In Washington, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said the investigation into three cases of anthrax exposure in Florida was now a criminal matter but there was still no evidence linking them to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Officials said on Wednesday a third person, a 35-year-old woman, had tested positive for exposure to anthrax, often cited as a germ warfare agent. A 63-year-old colleague of the woman died last Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks climbed to session highs in mid-afternoon on Thursday, almost entirely erasing the loss in the month since Sept. 11, as another batch of corporate results sparked hopes for better days ahead.

The Pentagon, responding to rumors in financial markets, said it had no indication that bin Laden had been captured.

What puzzles me is what the Islamic extremists think they have to gain by alienating middle east support for the coalition. Don't they understand that the only reason we are being so cautious on the civilian casualty issue is because we want to keep coalition together? If the extremists become successful in breaking up the middle eastern branch of the coalition, do they really believe we will just pack up and go home? If they are banking on that and turning the tide here in the U.S. by screaming over civilian casualties, I think their plan will backfire. The support for military action here is somewhere in the 70-80% range depending on the poll you read. I doubt seriously that civilian casualties in Afghanistan, or other countries that harbor terrorists will cause the support to drop significantly. Even 60% support in this country is enough to stick to the plan. If Americans start to go soft on the issue of civilian casualties, all that has to be done is to release the unseen tapes of the carnage at the WTC. Images of hundreds of body parts, and body bags with American civilians in them will go a long way to bolstering a majority in support of finishing the job we started.

The major question in my mind is: Do we have what it takes to gut it out if all our "allies" abandon us? Already Blair's talking about pulling out if we go after Iraq.

Can we also gut it out if it becomes the entire Muslim world against essentially us and Israel?

The peaceniks are gonna be revvin' it up as soon as Afghanistan is vanquished, and I predict they'll take a lot of blubber-heads with 'em.

great article.......This is the part where our so called Arab moderate allies,,,,,take about 5 more days of this and say..........."enough is enough, time for American to stop" due to the inability of the govts to control their people and the muslim radical media that cites the people to riot and eventually overturn the govts.

The test for Bush and Blair will be to recognize that this will radiate to places like gay Paris and Ottawa and Berlin.....The Big Two must ignore this appeasement and finish the job.

OUT

``This is the worst night that we have had so far,'' said one resident. ``There has been no chance to sleep. I cannot tell you how frightened people are. It is terrible.''

Get used to it, pal. This is how real men wage war and you were told what the price is.

Give 'em Hell, George!

If we quit buying oil from nations like Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia and sucked it up as a nation

..or better yet, found or invented an alternative source.

Nah, I'm not talking from some hippy environmentalist point of view, more like a attempt by the West (through science, research) to cut ourselves off from dependency from these people.

Refineries could be converted for this purpose, so as not to shock some hardworking folks ;)

Hey, nations of OPEC, how do you feel about such a program?....................The Taliban really is a pimple on the @$$ of the world, aren't they?

First of all, the Bush administration has faked out these Bert loving fools as Klinton never did.

He starts the attack on Sunday, cathing all of Afghanistan off guard. He then tells the foolish media who reports it verbatim, "We will bomb at night only" and promptly bombs in broad daylight the very next day. On Monday they said they would bomb for 3 days and take a break to assess damage, of which I predicted that the bombing would be non-stop, which is of course what happened. Days ago they said they were running out of targets so attacks would be less, yet they have increased. Life is so different with a real Commander in Chief.

Bert loving fools

LOL! What the hell is going on with Bert? He used to be so pleasant and good-natured. Now he's some insane bloodthirsty muslim icon.

It’s like Cat Stevens all over again.

unleashed the fiercest round yet of their onslaught on Afghanistan

These Rueters folks are so transparent. Who would trust them to interpret afganspeak? How would they possibly know what a Nuke would be like, as it would be so much greater than described.

This is how real men wage war

I'll give these guys about one more week and they'll be so shell-shocked they won't know whether its Ramadan or Christmas. Yes, they were warned and this is WAAAAAYYYYYYYY overdue.

"Muslims outraged at the raids on Afghanistan staged protests"

"Either, you are with us or you support the terrorists."

What part of the above statement do they not understand?

Just ignore them. What can they do? Any more atrocities in the US, an Nukes start looking real good. They have to remember that we are the only nation that has ever used Nukes, so it wouldn't be something new for us. I think Bush should do some serious saber rattling at these authoritarian a_______. The so call friendly Arab countries need a wake-up call, and reminder of how deadly serious we are this time. It's them or us, choose now!

Am I too far to the right or does this Reuters stuff read like liberal tripe, intentionally beating a dead horse on the civilian deaths and the fact that Afghans can't sleep through the bombing?

Heck, it's not just Reuters. I listened to a few minutes of the Rumsfeld press conference earlier today and finally turned it off when I got totally sick of the "are civilians being killed?" questions over and over and over and over.

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