Daily Post (Liverpool) September 28, 2001
KEY US AIM 'WILL BE TO TAKE PRISONERS'
By Hugh Dougherty
AMERICAN commandos are planning secret missions to capture hundreds of Osama bin Laden's henchmen, it was reported yesterday. The special forces are preparing to mount raids on caves and tunnels in Afghanistan where bin Laden's associates can be found after fleeing their training camps.
And the American forces gathering around Afghanistan are preparing to use the latest precision weapons which use a hi-tech network of satellites to find their targets. The smart weapons are the latest upgrade to technology first employed in the Gulf War. It uses the global positioning system (GPS) to find and destroy targets.
The commando forces being deployed in Operation Enduring Freedom will be used to take prisoners in Afghanistan to gain vital intelligence about where to find bin Laden, the New York Post claimed.
Bin Laden's terror camps are believed to be empty and hundreds of his followers are scattered across a network of caves and tunnels in the mountains south of Afghanistan. The leader himself disappeared on September 11, the day his suspected followers launched suicide attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
The first phase of the war being planned by the Pentagon will be a wave of air strikes using bombs and cruise missiles against the Taliban's military targets, including the handful of bases from where its tiny air force operates. American planes and helicopters can then patrol the skies above the war-torn country.
After the air strikes, small groups of special forces soldiers will move in from bases in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden and his associates, it is reported. An American official said: "This is not Baghdad or Belgrade, where we had fixed targets. "This will involve tracking down terrorists in groups of a dozen or more all over Afghanistan."
Snatch squads from the ultra-secret Delta Force, which specialises in hostage rescue and anti-terrorist raids, will undertake lightning strikes against suspected terrorist hideouts to take prisoners for interrogation.
Military analyst John Pike said: "The taking of prisoners is going to be very important in this operation. "Their strategy is going to be very similar to the way the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency tries to unravel any criminal enterprise - which is to arrest people and work up the food chain." A military official said: "It's why you hear all this talk from the leadership about this being a dirty war in the shadows."
The air war will be fought using the latest weaponry, developed to improve on the munitions used in the Gulf War. The missiles and bombs are fitted with technology which allows them to use the satellites to determine their exact location and correct their course. GPS technology can be bought over the counter, but it was originally developed for the American military, and fitting it to missiles is its latest use. Tomahawk Cruise missiles have benefited from the technology, as have traditional bombs, some of which date back to the Vietnam war, in a bid to improve their accuracy.
The move means long-distance missiles will be as accurate as short-range ones, a vital consideration when they are being fired from ships in the Indian Ocean, far from Afghanistan. Owen Cote, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said "GPS has revolutionised the whole concept of how we look at these operations."
Copyright 2001 The Liverpool Daily Post & Echo Ltd
