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U.S. bomb hits residential area
By MATT KELLEY
Associated Press Writer
10/13/01
WASHINGTON — A U.S. bomb intended to strike a helicopter at the Kabul airport hit a residential neighborhood a mile away in the Afghan capital Saturday, the Pentagon said.
Reports from the ground said four people were killed and eight injured, the Defense Department said in a statement. U.S. officials said they had no way to confirm the number of casualties.
A Navy F/A-18 Hornet had aimed the 2,000-pound guided bomb at a military helicopter at the airport, but the bomb hit the residential area during a morning raid on the seventh straight day of airstrikes, the Pentagon said.
The bomb had a satellite guidance system designed to steer it toward its target. A "targeting process error'' could have caused the bomb to go astray, the Pentagon said.
Four destroyed houses could be seen in the neighborhood.
"We have no way to rebuild our homes,'' said Mohammed Shoaib, whose house was one of those wrecked. "What will we do?''
U.S. planes returned in the evening, firing seven missiles at targets in the northern part of Kabul. Heavy smoke was seen from the area of the airport. The private Afghan Islamic Press also reported attacks against a military base outside Kandahar, the southern city home to the Taliban's headquarters.
Military officials have said the airstrikes are becoming increasingly focused on "targets of opportunity'' that pilots spot from the air, such as aircraft parked on the ground or convoys of troops for the Taliban, the militia sheltering suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network.
In other developments:
—President Bush, in his weekly radio address Saturday, said the United States has met all its goals for the first phase of the anti-terrorism campaign. "American forces dominate the skies over Afghanistan and we will use that dominance to make sure terrorists can no longer freely use Afghanistan as a base of operations,'' the president said.
—A law enforcement official said prosecutors are investigating whether some of the people in custody in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks were planning additional attacks. In Arizona, Faisal Michael al Salmi was indicted on charges he lied to the FBI when he said he did not know Hani Hanjour, suspected of piloting the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
—The Treasury Department added 39 groups and individuals to its list of terrorist-related owners of financial assets who should have their accounts frozen.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the U.S.-led bombing has damaged or destroyed nearly all the al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan, including some of the camps' defenses. Other officials have said the camps were largely empty when struck this week.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday that the air attacks were laying the groundwork for the next phase of military action. Military analysts say that is likely to include U.S. special forces attacks on the ground in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, a senior U.S. defense official said al-Qaida is believed to possess chlorine, phosgene and other poison gases that it could, with some difficulty, use as weapons. It also may have biological toxins, said the official, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity. He did not provide any detail.
Such poison gases are relatively crude chemical weapons and it is unlikely that al-Qaida has the means to kill large numbers of people with them, the official said.
He also said it is likely that some Taliban commanders have defected to the northern alliance of opposition groups now fighting the radical Islamic militia, which controls most of Afghanistan. The official said the scale of the defections was unclear. Rumsfeld refused to discuss defections.