U.S. Strikes Back
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U.S. warplanes hammer Taliban positions
By KATHY GANNON
Associated Press Writer
12/6/01
KABUL, Afghanistan — With an investigation under way into how an errant satellite-guided bomb killed three Americans, U.S. warplanes on Thursday hammered Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan as well as an al-Qaida cave hide-out in the mountainous east.
North of the Taliban's last bastion of Kandahar, meanwhile, the leader of Afghanistan's new interim government said he is offering a general amnesty to Taliban fighters who surrender. Speaking to The Associated Press by satellite telephone, Hamid Karzai said the amnesty will not apply to the movement's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Karzai, who was chosen for the leadership post by Afghan factions at a meeting in Germany, held a second day of talks Thursday with top Taliban officials to discuss his amnesty offer. He is to take power Dec. 22, and he said he expects Kandahar to collapse long before then, allowing him to be in the capital of Kabul to meet his 29-member Cabinet.
``Sure, definitely it will have fallen by then, long before then,'' he said. ``Inshallah'' — God willing.
Elsewhere Thursday, opposition forces said that for the first time in weeks no bombing was reported in or immediately around Kandahar, near the site of Wednesday's friendly fire incident.
While Kandahar was spared, residents in the Pakistani border town of Chaman said bombs hit Taliban positions near Spinboldak, 60 miles to the southeast. They said a Taliban ammunition depot and an oil storage site were targeted.
At least four people, including some Taliban fighters, were killed and four were wounded, hospital officials in Chaman said. The reports could not be independently verified.
In Wednesday's friendly fire accident, five allied Afghan fighters were killed along with the three Americans when a U.S. bomber dropped ordnance too close to their positions north of Kandahar. About 20 U.S. personnel and an undetermined number of Afghans were wounded.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered an inquiry into the bombing.
``In every conflict there are unexpected, unintended deaths,'' Rumsfeld said in an interview with CNN. ``And it is a shame, but it happens.''
Anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen, backed by U.S. bombing and American special forces, have been closing on Kandahar from the north, south and the east, including a force led by Karzai. Karzai was in the area where the stray bomb landed. He said he was slightly wounded in the face and head when he was hit by shards of flying glass.
At Tora Bora, in the rugged White Mountains near the eastern city of Jalalabad, American B-52s dropped 250- and 500-pound bombs onto an elaborate tunnel and cavern complex, setting off orange flashes and plumes of smoke in the forested mountains.
Dozens of planes flew missions there overnight and Thursday morning after anti-Taliban forces used tanks and mortars to attack al-Qaida guerrillas loyal to prime terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden.
Residents in Jalalabad, 35 miles to the northeast, said shock waves from the bombardment were rattling the windows of their houses.
Doctors at Jalalabad's main hospital said that an officer, from the eastern Shura anti-Taliban group, and five of his men were wounded in an al-Qaida ambush.
Local tribesmen believe bin Laden might be holed up inside the Tora Bora caves with Arab, Pakistani and Chechen defenders. As many as 1,500 tribal fighters pushed down a valley toward the fortified complex.
At the Pentagon, spokesman Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said U.S. special forces were in the area helping direct airstrikes and were gathering intelligence. He said Afghan fighters had already entered some caves in the hunt for al-Qaida members.
Commanders in the biggest anti-Taliban faction, the northern alliance, however, suggest it is more likely that bin Laden is hiding somewhere around Kandahar, which the Taliban say they will defend to the death.
Meanwhile, U.S. Marines who have been building up a base in the desert outside Kandahar for days have now moved to offensive operations for the first time, helping to cut off roads and communications into the city and cutting off possible Taliban escape routes, U.S. officials said.
Maj. James Parrington, an operations officer at the base, said Marine reconnaissance units were already identifying key pieces of terrain to be used in sealing off the city.
``Opposition groups are now closing in on Kandahar,'' he said. ``We are supporting them by conducting offensive operations.''
President Bush launched military operations in Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the Taliban rulers refused to hand over bin Laden for his alleged role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Associated Press correspondents Chris Tomlinson, in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and Christopher Torchia in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.