U.S. Navy Ordnance men on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt attach
a guided bomb to an F/A18 Hornet Friday, Oct. 26, 2001.The Roosevelt is
currently operating in the Arabian Sea.
(AP Photo / David Longstreath)
Posted on 10/27/2001 8:48:03 AM PDT by dighton
JOM QADAM, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. jets pounded Taliban front-line positions north of the capital city of Kabul on Saturday in what opposition fighters and local people described as the heaviest such bombardment of the air campaign.
Pakistan's president, meanwhile, warned that the war in Afghanistan could become a ``quagmire'' for the United States and its allies. Nearly three weeks of daily air attacks have failed to break the Taliban's hold on Afghanistan or enable opposition forces to make significant advances against the Taliban.
In the north of Afghanistan, U.S. jets roaring over the opposition-held Shomali plain swooped down and dropped massive bombs in an offensive that lasted most of the day. Gul Agha, an opposition fighter, said he counted more than 20 bombs, and an elderly local farmer, Saeed Khan, called it the heaviest such bombardment to date.
Tracer fire arced through the skies, and loud explosions rang out. Some of the areas were bombed for the first time, residents said.
The private, Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press, citing Taliban officials, said nine people had died and 15 were hurt in those raids, but gave no details.
Taliban fighters fired surface-to-air guns at the American warplanes and rockets and mortars at fighters of the opposition movement known as the northern alliance. Explosions from all sides rang out at the front line at Jom Qadam, 25 miles north of Kabul.
At the other main front line - the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif - the Taliban claimed Saturday to have beaten back a new opposition push. The Afghan press also reported five opposition commanders had been captured in that battle and immediately hanged.
Later, though, the agency quoted a Taliban spokesman, Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, as saying no such hangings had taken place.
The reports came on the heels of Friday's summary execution by Taliban forces of opposition leader Abdul Haq, who had crossed into Afghanistan to try to persuade Afghan tribal leaders to abandon the Taliban and throw their support to exiled former Afghan king Mohammad Zaher Shah.
``If one Abdul Haq is dead, I think a thousand more Abdul Haqs will come up,'' his brother Abdul Qadir, a senior rebel commander, told The Associated Press at his home in the opposition-controlled town of Jabal Saraj.
The president of neighboring Pakistan, which has allied itself with the United States in the campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), suggested in an interview with ABC News that the Pentagon (news - web sites) appeared to be having trouble making headway in Afghanistan.
``If the military objectives are such that their attainment is causing difficulty, their identification is causing difficulty, their locations are causing difficulty, then yes, it may be a quagmire,'' said the Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
In Kabul, overnight raids claimed at least two civilian lives, said Dr. Mohammed Ullah, a physician at the hospital where the bodies were taken. Shrapnel killed one man and a stray bullet struck the other victim on his rooftop as he watched the fiery sky, the doctor said.
Roving Taliban artillery guns, mounted on pickup trucks for quick getaways, answered U.S. blasts with bright bursts of anti-aircraft fire.
U.S. bombs honed in on the Taliban's sprawling military compound in Kabul, just across from the long-abandoned U.S. Embassy. Other strikes hit an ammunition depot on the city's eastern edge overnight, sparking off bright-red explosions.
At sunrise Saturday, U.S. jets hammered near northern hills on the city's edge, toward Kabul's airport - a frequent target of attacks. They also struck areas around Nishrab and Tagab, about 30 miles northeast of Kabul.
The Taliban's Bakhtar News Agency said six people were killed, 12 injured and 15 houses destroyed.
Bombs also struck near the eastern city of Jalalabad and around another front line in the northern Dar-e-Suf district, Bakhtar said. The report could not be independently confirmed.
In other attacks-related developments:
-The International Committee of the Red Cross deplored a strike Friday on its warehouse in Kabul - the second this month. The Pentagon said it was an accident. The ICRC said the warehouse had contained the bulk of the food and blankets it intended to distribute to tens of thousands of needy Afghans.
-French journalist Michel Peyrard will stand trial for espionage and other charges within a few days, the Afghan Islamic Press said. Peyrard, a journalist for Paris Match who was arrested Oct. 9, is in good heath, the agency quoted an unidentified Taliban official as saying. The official did not say what the other charges are.
-A top U.N. official dismissed calls for a pause in airstrikes to allow more aid into Afghanistan, saying the U.S.-led military assault had not significantly disrupted aid flow. Kenzo Oshima, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, told the British Broadcasting Corp. on Saturday that more aid was urgently needed, but that a bombing pause was not necessary.
- Pro-Taliban militants blocked portions of the fabled Silk Route in northern Pakistan with boulders and land mines. Traffic along the Karakoram Highway, a major trade link between Pakistan and China, has all but stopped since the Sept. 11 attacks.
- U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees began a three-day visit to refugee camps near the Pakistan border.
Copyright © 2001 The Associated Press.
U.S. Navy Ordnance men on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt attach
a guided bomb to an F/A18 Hornet Friday, Oct. 26, 2001.The Roosevelt is
currently operating in the Arabian Sea.
(AP Photo / David Longstreath)
They are taking their time. This is one on the best live fire practice ranges in the world. Who needs Vieques when you've got Afghanistan?!?
"Stray bullet" that probably came from a Taliban weapon.
"Cross-dressing" is the biggest one.
That's because the Taliban is hiding among the civilians and they know that our government and media is scared to death of hurting civilian collaborators.
That's supposed to be a long time? Are we in a hurry here? I only hope that the American people have not bought into the nonsense that wars have to be won in a month otherwise we just give up and go home.
There's also another factor to consider. The Northern Alliance held 5% of the country prior to the start of U.S. military action, therefore, they are a marginal and ineffective power. That means that we will have to destroy the Taliban entirely ourselves, at which point the Northern Alliance will waltze in and take over, probably to continue the corrupt and rapacious practices which caused their demise and the ascendance of the Taliban. In other words, this campaign will not be either short or sweet.
A quick lesson from history: The U.S. Airforce and Navy bombed the island of Iwo Jima for 78 days before the amphibious invasion began on Feb. 19, 1945. Never-the-less, over 6,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in the ensuing campaign, which lasted 36 days. The bombing campaign had almost no effect on the Japanese defenders on Iwo Jima. I don't care how accurate our weapons are, the Taliban has had years to dig in.
We're fooling ourselves if we think this is going to be easy. The Bush Administration, to it's credit, has stated that this will be a long, hard campaign, possibly taking years. I hope the people take that to heart. I hope we have the stomach for this.
This is true. We never said for the Taliban to surrender, just to hand over Bin Laden and his associates and to destroy the training camps. We have pretty much done the latter, and now just need to get Bin Laden and his officers (which may include part of the Taliban leadership). We will be wasting too time trying to eliminate the Taliban, when other "targets" are of a pressing need, Iraq being one of them.
Amen! Pass the ammunition, please.
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