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US
May Have Dropped 5,000 Pound Bunker Busters Bomb
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| An Afghani
looks on to post-bombing destruction |
KABUL, Jan. 15 (IslamOnline
& News Agencies) - Powerful explosions reverberated Monday across the
Afghan-Pakistan border as U.S. warplanes pounded an Al-Qaeda training camp near
Khost in eastern Afghanistan, news agencies reported.
CNN reported the explosions
could be felt 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) away in Miram Shah, Pakistan, indicating
U.S. forces may have dropped "bunker busters" - 5,000-pound bombs that
can penetrate up to 100 feet into the ground to reach their targets.
Helicopters were seen in the
area after each bombing run, possibly attempting to “flush out” Al-Qaeda or
Taliban members from the Zawar Kili training camp's 30 to 40 acres of
underground facilities, CNN reported.
U.S. warplanes kept up heavy
bombing raids Monday on suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban hideouts in eastern
Afghanistan, hoping to smash Osama bin Laden's supporters, while a second group
of prisoners was flown under cover of darkness to Cuba.
Aerial attacks against a deep
complex of tunnels at Zawar in the hills of Paktia province near the Pakistan
border have been under way for nearly two weeks. U.S. ground forces are also
operating in the area, the last main battleground in Afghanistan.
The tempo of the bombing
picked up with daylight raids Sunday and continued through Monday. The bombing
rattled windows in Khost, a town 20 miles southeast of Zawar.
Civilians living near the
bombing zone were fleeing and said that many had been killed and wounded by
falling bombs.
Noorz Ali, who was fleeing
the area in a rickety truck, told news agencies that bombs had fallen Friday on
his village, about two miles from the tunnel complex, dug deep into the
mountains near the border.
Most of the 35 homes were
destroyed, including his, Ali said.
Fifteen people died and
others were injured, he stated.
"No one is left but the
dead," Ali said. "It began at 9 p.m. There were so many bombs and
rockets I couldn't count. In my village, maybe 15 bombs fell."
The U.S. military claims it
is trying to avoid civilian casualties, but is determined to crush remnants of
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban seeking shelter in underground passages at Zawar, a
camp that was the base of a senior Taliban commander, Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The Zawar strikes mark the
heaviest attacks since last month's attacks on the Tora Bora cave complex, which
failed to yield Bin Laden, who is wanted by the United States.
Khost security chief, Sur Gul,
said the underground passages continue to shelter Al-Qaeda remnants - mostly
Pakistanis, Chechens and some of Bin Laden's Arab followers.
Intelligence reports said Al-Qaeda
fighters were using the area to regroup and move out of Afghanistan, the
Pentagon stated. U.S. special forces have been seen operating in the area and
have met with local officials.
Meanwhile, the first group of
international peacekeepers arrived today in Ghazni province, to the west of
Paktia, and U.S. helicopters were seen flying over the highway linking Ghazni to
Kabul, the capital, as the country's new authorities extended their control, the
Pakistani-based Afghan Islamic Press agency reported.
In another development, U.S.
C-17 was en route Monday to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, carrying
a second group of heavily guarded Al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees.
They will join 20 detainees
who arrived Friday at the base and are being housed outside in 6-by-8-foot
chain-link cells until a detention facility is completed.
Pakistan also began formal
moves to resurrect its relationship with neighboring Afghanistan Monday when it
reopened its diplomatic mission in Kabul.
Pakistani diplomats told
Agence France-Presse (AFP) they were confident that hostility between the two
countries over Islamabad's sponsorship of Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban
regime would be replaced by mutual self-interest.
In a discreet ceremony
attended by just 25 people, Islamabad's new charge d'affaires in Kabul, Muhammad
Ziad Khan, began laying the foundations for the appointment of an ambassador
from Islamabad.
During the brief ceremony
attended by the United Nations special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi,
Pakistan pledged $100 million in aid to its neighbor.
The pledge includes
provisions for a $50 million credit facility with Islamabad, Khan told AFP.
He also committed Pakistan to
establishing a working relationship with Kabul over the next month or two
despite suspicions between Islamabad and Northern Alliance leaders, who dominate
the ranks of Afghanistan's interim government.
"I have heard this
before," Khan said. "I heard there were some suspicions, but when I
came here it's not that much…. The relationship will become a more stable one
in a month or two - everything will be fine. We have known each other for quite
some time."
A senior Pakistani foreign
ministry official, Sultan Hayat Khan, told AFP that the reconstruction of
Afghanistan was also in Pakistan's interests. Khan is the director general of
the Economic Co-operation Organization, which counts Turkey and Iran, alongside
Afghanistan and Pakistan, as members.
"After Afghanistan, the
country that has suffered most is Pakistan," Sultan Hayat Khan said in
reference to the 1979-89 Soviet invasion and Afghanistan's subsequent civil war.
If things here are not good, it affects Pakistan - we have 3.5 million refugees
on our side [of the border], but the economic situation is not so good.
"In the beginning the
international community helped a lot, but after 1995 the world forgot."
Pakistan was one of only
three countries to grant diplomatic recognition to the Taliban after the militia
captured Kabul in 1996. It remained the regime's main backer throughout its
five-year rule.
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