KABUL/WASHINGTON, 20 October — Afghan cities shook under the force of a fresh US aerial bombardment yesterday as Washington put elite US Special Operations troops on the ground, marking a new phase in its military assault against the Taleban.
Special operations forces — the so-called "snake eaters" of the US military — are trained and equipped for clandestine combat ranging from nighttime snatch-and-grabs to sniping with .50 caliber rifles and sabotage.
US defense officials said yesterday special forces had joined the military campaign to flush out Osama Bin Laden and punish his Taleban protectors.
On the 13th day of nonstop airstrikes of Taleban troops and Al-Qaeda guerrilla camps, the officials told Reuters that the commandos were contacting factions opposed to Afghanistan’s Taleban leaders as part of a CIA-controlled political thrust.
The officials, who asked not to be identified, suggested along with pointed radio messages being broadcast to Afghanistan by the military that the small presence of highly trained troops could grow in coming weeks to fulfill a US vow to track down Bin Laden.
The US also began broadcasting propaganda messages urging war-weary Afghans to resist their Taleban rulers and give up Bin Laden. Slow-moving EC-130E "Commando Solo" psychological operations aircraft were deployed broadcasting in local Afghan dialects, as the centerpiece of a new stage in the war.
Their message was that Afghans could expect to see US troops on the ground.
"We do not wish to harm you," one broadcast said. "Try to find ways to ignore the Taleban and Bin Laden’s requests for help and do not give them food or shelter."
The broadcasts vow to give no shelter to Taleban soldiers and Al-Qaeda supporters who refuse to surrender to US forces, now already on Afghan soil.
The Washington Post quoted defense officials as saying: "The number of US personnel on the ground is just a handful now and is unlikely to ever resemble the large conventional forces assembled in the Gulf War a decade ago."
Another defense official told the newspaper that additional special forces were likely to be deployed soon and take on other missions such as reconnaissance, identifying targets for bombings and "on rare occasions direct attacks on Taleban or terrorist leaders."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday the United States will finish its military mission in Afghanistan when the Taleban government and the Al-Qaeda network "are gone."
At a news conference in Shanghai, where he was attending an economic summit of Asian and Pacific leaders, US President George W. Bush declined to comment on the development involving ground forces. An opposition commander said yesterday, an eight-man US military team is on the ground in northern Afghanistan with anti-Taleban general Abdul Rashid Dostam.
Commander Muhammad Atta told AFP the team was in the Dara-e-Souf valley of Samangan province, working with the ethnic Uzbek commander in an unknown capacity. "The eight-member American team has landed in Dara-e-Souf area of Samangan and has been with Gen. Dostam for the past four nights," said Atta, who has been battling the Taleban near the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. "It could be an exploratory team but I’m not sure what they’re doing."
A UN refugee agency spokeswoman said intense strikes on targets in and around Kandahar had triggered the surge of a fresh wave of panicked refugees across the Pakistan border. "Our border monitors reported that about 3,500 people, mostly women and children, entered Pakistan at the Chaman border crossing yesterday," UNHCR spokeswoman Fatoumata Kaba said. In Geneva, UNHCR officials described scenes at the border as chaotic, adding that it was the largest influx of refugees in a single day since the US-led airstrikes began.
With Taleban officials saying the death toll from the strikes had risen sharply, the Taleban’s last foreign envoy returned to his post in Pakistan after a week in Afghanistan saying the ruling militia’s stand on Bin Laden, sheltering him from American wrath, remained unchanged.
Six powerful explosions rocked Kabul in the early hours of today as US warplanes resumed night bombing of the city, witnesses said. "The planes dropped six bombs one after the other," a resident in northern part of the city said. "The bombs appeared very powerful as the explosions were very loud."
US warplanes struck the Afghan capital throughout the day, screaming over the city and dropping bombs on the compound of the Taleban militia’s Eighth Division and near the city’s Intercontinental hotel.
Kabul residents emerged from their flimsy homes to count the human cost, and Taleban spokesman Abdul Hai Mutmaen said between 600 and 900 people had been killed or reported missing in the strikes.
The Taleban ambassador to Islamabad said he had brought a "cease-fire plan" from Taleban leaders after a trip to Kandahar. Abdul Salam Zaeef said he had met Taleban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar to "discuss ... a cease-fire plan."
"I will meet Pakistani leaders and after that I will declare in a press conference the purpose of my visit to Kandahar," he said.
He later told AFP in Islamabad that the proposal was "secret" and refused to reveal which Pakistani officials he planned to meet. "I have come with special proposals from Kandahar but it is a secret," he said.
A Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman said yesterday Islamabad was prepared to listen to any new proposal that Afghanistan’s ruling Taleban might put forward to resolve the Afghan crisis. But the spokesman said Islamabad had not yet received the proposal.
Zaeef dismissed reports of rifts in the Taleban. Speculation about divisions in the movement’s ranks surfaced with rumors this week that Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil had defected and left Afghanistan. "There is no rift within the Taleban. Muttawakil is in Kandahar. He can die but he cannot defect," Zaeef said.
Zaeef said he met Mullah Omar in Afghanistan and the Taleban were in complete control of the country.
He said he had no information about US troops on the ground in Afghanistan
"But we are ready for them," Zaeef said, echoing the sentiments of many Taleban who say they are waiting impatiently to engage in the conventional ground warfare they have become used to over decades. Another Taleban official yesterday said the militia was ready for the deployment of US ground forces in Afghanistan and would relish the chance to avenge weeks of bombing. Zaeef said there were no links between Afghanistan and the US anthrax scare.
Asked whether there was any connection between Bin Laden, his Al-Qaeda network and Afghanistan’s ruling Taleban, he said: "No, we don’t even know what anthrax is."
The ambassador said a US rocket missed him by 20 meters while he was visiting the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. "In the vicinity of Chowk Madad, one of the rockets hit about 20 meters away from him. And almost he was a casualty," Zaeef’s interpreter said.
"That shows that the strikes that the Americans are doing are inside the civilian areas and civilians are being hit." In another development, Pakistan is reported to have given permission to US forces to use a third air field, at Dalbandin, a small town in southwestern Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan.
A fire broke out yesterday in Pakistan at the Jacobabad air base reportedly being used by US forces engaged in attacks on Afghanistan. A senior Civil Aviation Authority official confirmed the blaze and said it was caused when bushes caught fire during a spell of dry weather. Residents said the fire had engulfed nearby villages as well as an open area around the airport and strip.
Residents said they saw fire balls coming down from the sky before the fire broke out. Another report suggested that aircraft landing at night used flare shells because the airport is ill-equipped for night operations. Although conflicting reports were received from Jacobabad about the nature of the fire, all reports confirmed a blaze at the airport and its surrounding areas. No loss of life, aircraft or property was reported, and the fire had been brought under control.
In Islamabad, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer said after his meeting with President Pervez Musharraf yesterday that Afghanistan needed a rapid political solution.
The only way of averting a humanitarian catastrophe in Afghanistan was by replacing the Taleban regime. Fischer emphasized that Germany remained firmly on the side of the United States in the fight against international terror.
Earlier Fischer envisaged a significant role for the United Nations after the end of the Taleban regime. He added that it made little sense in interrupting the US military action to allow humanitarian transport into the region.
Secure access to Afghan crisis regions needed to be established on the basis of a regional framework, he said. President Bush has ruled out any pause in airstrikes to allow aid agencies to distribute food among the needy Afghans.
