Chicago Tribune March 4, 2002
U.S. pounds Taliban's hideouts; Several copters hit, Pentagon says
By Bob Kemper
U.S. warplanes pounded the military refuge of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters Sunday in the third day of intense combat in the mountains of east Afghanistan, where the remnants of opposing forces hold on, U.S. military officials said.
Several U.S. Apache helicopter gunships were struck Sunday by anti-aircraft fire from the fortified mountain refuge about 90 miles south of Kabul, but there were no additional American casualties. One American soldier and three Afghan fighters were killed Saturday, the Pentagon said. Six Americans were injured and airlifted out, according to a doctor at Gardez hospital in remote Paktia province.
The helicopters, B-52 bombers, AC-130 gunships and other strike aircraft assaulted mortar positions, anti-aircraft guns, caves and troops south of the provincial capital, Gardez, as part of Operation Anaconda, officials said. U.S.-led forces had dropped 270 bombs on enemy positions by late Sunday.
U.S. military officials said the offensive had cut off escape routes of the suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. "We are going to apply pressure from multiple directions until they surrender or we get the last of them," one senior military official said.
Marine Corps Maj. Ralph Mills, spokesman for U.S. Central Command in Tampa, which is running the war in Afghanistan, dismissed reports that U.S. helicopters had been shot down by Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters who have regrouped at the mountain refuge after their routing by U.S.-led forces. The helicopters sustained damage, Mills said, but "they are safe."
Mills also discounted initial reports that there were as many as 5,000 enemy troops in the mountains battling forces from the United States, Afghanistan and six other coalition nations of Denmark, France, Germany, Norway, Australia and Canada. He put the enemy troop count at "several hundred."
The Afghan allies made up the bulk of the 1,500-member force and approached the front from three directions, some of them using pickup trucks rented for $200 from the Gardez bazaar, Afghans said. U.S. Special Forces troops and the Army's 101st Airborne Division are supporting the Afghans on the ground.
"Firefights continue to be intensive," Mills said. "They have been continuous."
Fighting in the region began with a ground and air assault on Friday. By Saturday, coalition troops were stalled in the snow-covered mountains, facing fierce resistance from the Al Qaeda and Taliban forces.
New type of bomb dropped
The caves used by Al Qaeda fighters throughout the war were often heavily fortified and multilevel refuges; penetrating them has posed a problem for U.S. military tacticians. To combat that problem, a U.S. warplane on Saturday dropped a new type of bomb, the "thermobaric" or BLU-118B bomb tested in Nevada last December. The bomb is designed to explode at the mouth of a cave and send shockwaves that can kill people and destroy equipment inside.
The Defense Department has not released the name of the U.S. soldier killed Saturday during some of the most intense ground fighting of the campaign. But an Afghan fighter, Raza Khan, said the American was killed when a pickup truck he was riding in was hit by a mortar shell.
Some ground troops, including more than a dozen Americans, were being treated on the battlefield or at nearby medical facilities for combat injuries, but no Americans had sustained life-threatening wounds, Mills said.
U.S. Chinook helicopters ferried in supplies to American and other troops still in the hills, a local commander said.
There was no indication Sunday whether Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda leader believed responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, or Mullah Mohammed Omar, head of the Taliban regime, were in the mountain refuge.
This weekend's fighting has been the heaviest of the 5-month war. It is a reminder that despite America's earlier success in routing bin Laden's forces and dethroning the Taliban regime that hosted bin Laden in Afghanistan, well-armed remnants of the enemy forces remain a threat as an interim government begins rebuilding the war-torn country.
The fighting also comes at a time when Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill are sniping at each other, and with the Bush administration, over the direction and scope of the war on terrorism.
Taliban gathered in town
Much about the battle remained unclear. Western reporters were unable to move closer to the center of the fighting than Zormat, a town 15 miles from the bombing zone that appears to have acted as a rallying point for Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives from the period in November when Taliban rule collapsed.
Residents of Zormat said on Sunday that as many as 1,000 Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters took refuge in the town for about a month in late November and early December. Then, under pleas of the local population, who feared American bombing, the fugitives packed up and moved with their families into the mountains about 15 miles southwest of the town, the residents said.
"We don't have a good answer as to whether this was some prearranged congregation point before the war even started or if they've been somehow able to communicate and gather there," said Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, chief spokesman for the U.S. Central Command.
"This is a sizable pocket of Al Qaeda that needs to be dealt with," Quigley said. "We have studied this place for some time. We watched it carefully."
Zormat residents said the Al Qaeda men included Saudi Arabians, Sudanese, Yemenis and Egyptians, among other Arab nationalities, and that they were welcomed in the town because they came with money to shop in the bazaar, but otherwise kept mostly to themselves, bunking, among other places, in local mosques.
The apparent convergence of so many Taliban and Al Qaeda men, at a time when the United States had begun an all-out effort to smash the two groups, posed what could be almost the greatest conundrum of the war: How it was possible for such a large number of fugitives, including Arab men distinguished by their language and customs, to gather openly in Zormat, a town that lies less than 20 miles from the busy provincial capital, and then move into the nearby mountains without attracting an earlier pursuit by American and Afghan forces?
U.S. forces isolated
Part of the puzzle lies in the fact that U.S. Special Forces have used an old fort on the outskirts of Gardez as their base for at least two months, with supplies being ferried in regularly by U.S. helicopters flying from Kandahar.
Abdul Matin Hassankhel, an Afghan militia commander, said the Taliban and Al Qaeda were able to gather because American forces in the area had sealed themselves off from Afghan commanders who could have directed their attention to Zormat by early December.
"We tried to talk to them, but the Americans paid no attention," he said. "They never speak to us. There is no coordination. There are the Americans, and us."
GRAPHIC: PHOTO GRAPHICPHOTO (color): Two U.S. helicopters fly over the mountains near Gardez on Sunday as the U.S. and its allies attacked Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Getty Images photo by Paula Bronstein.; GRAPHIC (color): U.S. uses thermobaric bomb in latest attacks; Known as the BLU-118, the new warhead is fitted onto the BLU-109, a 2,000-pound air-launched bomb.; Sources: GlobalSecurity.org, Human Rights Watch, KRT.; Chicago Tribune.; - See microfilm for complete graphic.
Copyright 2002 Chicago Tribune Company
