Front-line strikes may help rebels

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — U.S. warplanes intensified airstrikes on front-line positions of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Tuesday in an apparent bid to weaken the Kabul government's grip on power and help opposition Northern Alliance troops advance on the capital.

"Their forces are being attacked, weakening their ability to withstand the Northern Alliance," British Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon told reporters Tuesday in London.

Pentagon officials, meanwhile, acknowledged that a U.S. helicopter came under fire from inside Pakistan on Saturday, amid a growing campaign of anti-American demonstrations by Muslim militants.

It was not clear who might have fired on the aircraft, which was refueling at an air base during an attempt to salvage the wreckage of another U.S. helicopter that had crash-landed in Pakistan on Friday, killing two U.S. servicemen.

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the helicopter came under small-weapons fire from an undisclosed area and that no U.S. service personnel were injured.

The incident occurred near the southern city of Jacobabad, where the Pakistani government has opened one of at least three air bases for U.S. military use. On Tuesday, police built sandbag bunkers and erected roadblocks in Jacobabad in preparation for mass demonstrations against the U.S. presence at Shahbaz air base outside the city.

Protest leaders have vowed to storm the air base to oust the small contingent of Americans reportedly operating there. More than 100 protesters were arrested by mid-morning.

In Washington, Pentagon officials also sought to explain how Taliban troops were able to obtain the landing gear of a CH-47 "Chinook" troop-transport helicopter that was displayed to reporters Monday. The Taliban said the helicopter wheels and other pieces were parts of an aircraft they shot down during fighting over the weekend.

Ms. Clarke and Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, Pentagon deputy director of operations, said the landing gear came from a CH-47 that had flown too close to a barrier shortly after takeoff from a landing zone in Afghanistan. The landing gear was sheared from the helicopter's underside just after it had recovered several troops involved in ground operations in the undisclosed area.

The Pentagon officials said that no casualties resulted from the incident and that all personnel safely returned to their base of operations.

Ms. Clarke also said a faulty computer-guidance system had caused a U.S. warplane to drop a 1,000-pound bomb Sunday near a building in the northwestern Afghan city of Herat that she described as a home for senior citizens. The building was near a military-vehicle warehouse that was the bomb's intended target, she said.

The Taliban described the building as a hospital and said more than 100 civilians were injured or killed in the attack.

A United Nations spokeswoman in Islamabad quoted U.N. employees in Herat as saying the building was a military hospital inside a military compound. Spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said she was unable to confirm the number of casualties.

"Our information, which we received late this afternoon, is that a hospital in Herat was hit, and it was reportedly destroyed. It was a military hospital in a military compound on the eastern outskirts of the city," she said.

In London, Mr. Hoon said airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition have destroyed nine training camps and several other key targets linked to the al-Qaeda organization of Osama bin Laden, who is accused of masterminding of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"I can now tell you that we have successfully put all of these camps out of action," he told reporters. He showed a map of six destroyed targets, which he said were al-Qaeda training camps, east of Kabul.

Another three were west of the southern city of Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban that has come under particularly fierce U.S. attack since coalition forces unleashed a round-the-clock bombing campaign on Afghanistan on Oct. 7.

Mr. Hoon said nine Taliban airfields had been bombed along with 24 military garrisons. He described the bombings as not only benefiting the U.S.-led efforts to weaken Taliban defenses but also assisting the Northern Alliance, which is attacking from north of Kabul and the northwestern city of Mazar-e Sharif.

Reports from Kabul and Northern Alliance positions outside the capital indicated an atmosphere of increasing confusion. Pentagon officials acknowledged that U.S. warplanes were occasionally having to target areas inside Kabul, close to residential areas, where Taliban and al-Qaeda forces apparently relocated to escape the bombings.

An F-14 attack plane dropped two 500-pound bombs on a residential area northwest of Kabul on Saturday, Ms. Clarke said, explaining that the target was a group of military vehicles a half-mile away.

Ms. Bunker, relying on reports from U.N. staff members inside the city, said several bombs apparently had hit residential areas close to health clinics and food-distribution centers. At the same time, she added weight to the Pentagon claims about the locations of Taliban military installations.

"Residential areas and some villages around Kabul are becoming more dangerous because Taliban troops have moved into those areas," she said. "Supply of electricity remains sporadic in Kabul. The main supply line was damaged by airstrikes and was later repaired."

In the town of Charikar, 30 miles north of Kabul, Northern Alliance troops reported slow progress in their attempt to advance on Taliban defenses around the capital. They complained that U.S. airstrikes had not been intensive enough to allow opposition forces to punch through.

Taliban forces still control the highlands of the Ghorband mountains around Charikar and neighboring villages, further limiting the Northern Alliance's ability to advance.

Taliban forces fired rockets into the busy market of Charikar on Tuesday morning, killing at least two vegetable merchants.

A Northern Alliance field commander nearby, identified only as Sheikh Pasha, remained upbeat despite the slow progress of his troops.

"Before, we were alone," he said. "Now we have the whole world with us against our enemies."

Free-lance journalist Ilana Ozernoy contributed to this report from Charikar.