U.S. jets dropping almost as many bombs as they did at start of Afghan campaign

By ANDREW ENGLAND
Associated Press Writer

ABOARD THE USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT – Though the target area is growing smaller as the hunt for Osama bin Laden continues, U.S. fighter jets are dropping almost as many bombs on Afghanistan now as they were at the start of the campaign, a battle group commander said Thursday.

Rear Adm. Mark Fitzgerald said that although the strategy has changed as Afghanistan's Taliban militia and bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network have been forced into "narrow areas," the amount of ordnance being unleashed on Afghanistan is within 10 percent of the peak since the military operation was launched Oct. 7. He would not say how many bombs were being dropped.

The United States launched the bombing Oct. 7, accusing the Taliban of harboring bin Laden and al-Qaida, the chief suspects in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Initial targets included Taliban communications and military facilities across the country – but at one point, commanders were saying pilots had nearly exhausted such targets.

Aided by the U.S. bombing campaign, Afghan anti-Taliban forces on the ground were able to wrest control of most of the country from the Taliban, now clinging to their last stronghold in the southern city of Kandahar. Bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders are believed in hiding in mountain caves, possibly in eastern Afghanistan.

"There are millions of caves out there," Fitzgerald said. "I don't think it would be humanly possible to take every cave out. ... You have to work on intelligence."

When the American bombing campaign started, the pilots knew what their targets were before they took off. Now, Fitzgerald said, pilots take off and are later given targets by U.S. special forces on the ground in Afghanistan, known as forward air controllers.

He said the planes are also focusing more on supporting troops on the ground, including the more than 1,000 U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan and anti-Taliban Afghan forces.

Elsewhere in the Arabian Sea on Thursday, military physicians aboard the USS Bataan treated nine wounded anti-Taliban Afghan fighters injured in a bombing accident that killed three U.S. soldiers and five Afghans.

About 20 U.S. personnel and an undetermined number of Afghans were also wounded by the stray U.S. bomb that fell north of Kandahar in the deadliest "friendly fire" accident of the conflict in Afghanistan.

The wounded Afghans were flown aboard a CH-46 transport helicopter on a trip that that took several hours from the U.S. Marine base in southern Afghanistan.

No wounded U.S. soldiers were brought to the Bataan. Another group of Afghans, their number unknown, was flown to the USS Peleliu. Officials did not say whether any wounded Americans were taken to the Peleliu.

Capt. Benjamin Newman, a senior Navy medial officer aboard the Bataan, said five of the Afghans were critically wounded. He said injuries included chest wounds, collapsed lungs and fractures. One of the fighters had his leg amputated and four were on ventilators, Newman said. Only two were able to communicate, he said.

Newman said that the Afghans were "very stoic men," who never complained about pain or even asked for water.

Reporters were not given access to the injured fighters.

U.S. warplanes on Thursday bombed an al-Qaida cave hide-out in the mountainous east. Anti-Taliban Afghan tribesmen, meanwhile, have been closing on Kandahar from the north, south and the east.

AP-WS-12-06-01 1151EST