Posted on 11/06/2001 12:38:10 AM PST by JohnHuang2
WASHINGTON — The United States has begun attacking the Taliban military forces with the biggest conventional bomb in the Air Force arsenal, a 15,000-pound behemoth used as much for its psychological impact as for its explosive power, senior defense officials said Monday.
BLU-82s were dropped on Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan for the first time over the weekend, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity. They did not give details about where or how many were dropped.
The use of the BLU-82, which generates massive pressure that can kill or maim fighters hiding in caves and tunnels, was another sign that the United States is intensifying attacks aimed at weakening the Taliban and making them vulnerable to a ground assault by opposition guerrillas.
The BLU-82, code-named Commando Vault, can be dropped only from the MC-130 Combat Talon, a military cargo plane adapted for special operations. It drops by parachute and detonates just above the ground. Because its blast is so enormous, the bomb must be dropped from an altitude of at least 6,000 feet.
Pentagon officials on Monday also released copies of a new leaflet that U.S. forces have been dropping on Afghanistan, which urges people to report the location of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Its shows a picture of Omar in crosshairs and a photograph of the license plate on his SUV, apparently taken by an unmanned surveillance plane.
Also on Monday, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said the United States had more than doubled the number of American commandos based with United Front guerrillas, but did not say how many that meant. A senior defense official previously told Knight Ridder that two special-forces teams of about a dozen men each were in Afghanistan, so the new number would be four teams, a total of about 50 men.
"So now, instead of in two locations, we're in four — maybe more," Rumsfeld told reporters who were traveling with him back to Washington from South and Central Asia. "That will accrue to our advantage over the coming period."
Rumsfeld also disclosed that U.S. helicopters had rescued Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun leader who was being pursued by the Taliban after he slipped deep into Afghanistan to meet secretly with Pashtun tribal leaders who might contribute to a post-Taliban government. The Pashtun are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, and much of the Taliban are Pashtuns.
An aide to the family who was contacted in Quetta, Pakistan, was unable to confirm the rescue.
Meanwhile, American military personnel were in Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan to the north, looking into the possibility of using air bases there for the U.S.-led bombing campaign. Jet fighters and bombers now must fly from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea or from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.
"Airfields closer to Afghanistan would give us an advantage in being able to generate sorties," Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said at a briefing Monday at the Pentagon. Closer bases would mean bombs could be delivered faster, and with less time for Taliban forces to detect the bombers and fighters.
Military survey teams also would look into options for air bases in other neighboring countries that have offered assistance, Stufflebeem said.
In northern Afghanistan near the front lines, anti-Taliban fighters strutted their armed forces Monday. While the top command of the opposition United Front looked on, the forces staged a mock attack on a dusty hillside to demonstrate that they are poised to move on Kabul, the Afghan capital, which is 25 miles south of the front line in Jabal Saraj.
"This is military preparation that shows our highest level of readiness," said Gen. Mohammed Fahim, the defense minister for the United Front, a coalition of ethnic and opposition groups also known as the Northern Alliance.
U.S. jets dropped three bombs on a distant Taliban encampment while the guerrilla forces were conducting their exercise.
Alliance commanders hinted that the military exercise, along with growing movement of newly uniformed troops and refurbished armor, could presage an attack on the front lines that stretch across the Shomali Plain, an undulating farming region surrounded by snow-capped peaks.
But alliance commanders were vague about when an offensive would begin or whether the brunt of the force would be directed at Kabul or one of the other cities held by the Taliban, the hard-line Islamic movement that controls most of Afghanistan. The Taliban front line outside Kabul is said to be the most fiercely defended in the country.
"Some places will be the main targets, and we will attack others just to keep them busy," said Gen. Sayed Hussein Anwari, a representative of the minority Hazaras and a member of the United Front central command. "In a few days, you will see."
The commanders, who are prone to exaggeration, have made previous claims of offensives that failed to materialize. They have shown little urgency about taking advantage of the Taliban's weakened position so far.
Their front lines are still lightly defended by poorly trained local militias. In the last week, however, the alliance has called up thousands of what it calls elite attack troops. Those Zarbati or "rapid" troops are more like regular soldiers compared with the militias.
The American bombing began Oct. 7 to punish the Taliban for sheltering terrorism suspect Osama bin Laden. In the last two weeks, the airstrikes have been concentrated at Taliban front-line positions. If the outnumbered opposition forces attack, it would demonstrate how much the bombing has weakened the Taliban.
Adding American advisers to the area "has made the bombing more effective," said Anwari. "We're starting to work out better arrangements with the Americans."
Five men who arrived Sunday on a twin-engine prop plane that landed on a new runway in the northeast corner of the Shomali Plain also were American advisers, alliance officials said.
On Monday about 2,000 Zarbati wearing new Iranian uniforms stood before a reviewing stand that was assembled on a flatbed truck. The soldiers, many of whom were not armed, squinted as a stiff wind blew grit into their faces and whipped the outstretched Afghan flags of green, white and black bars.
Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani — ousted by the Taliban in 1996 but still recognized by most of the world as Afghanistan's leader — told the troops that the rest of the world only now was recognizing their struggle against the Taliban and terrorism.
"They didn't listen to our voices," said Rabbani. "Now the world has recognized that we were right."
Rabbani told the troops they were on their own in a noble battle against the Taliban.
"If you cannot destroy terrorism, no power on Earth can defeat it," he said. "You, and just you, can do it."
Amid shouts of "God is great," several dented Soviet-era tanks and armored personnel carriers belched black clouds of diesel exhaust and clattered toward a nearby hill to demonstrate a mock defense of the Shomali Plain from a Taliban attack.
The troops fired cannons and rockets at two positions marked with white painted rocks stacked in a pyramid to depict the enemy location. After 15 minutes of loud cannon fire and the crackle of rifle fire, most of the rocks were dislodged.
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