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Marines Seize Airstrip Near Kandahar for Ground Operations
WASHINGTON, Nov 26 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. helicopter gunships helped hunt down an armored column near Kandahar Monday as hundreds of marines secured an airstrip in southern Afghanistan as part of Operation Swift Freedom, the biggest U.S. ground operation in more than seven weeks of fighting there, U.S. military officials said.
The BBC reports that the operation is also the biggest deployment of US marines to a war zone since the Gulf War in 1991.
President George W. Bush warned U.S. forces were more likely to suffer casualties as they take the battle to the Taliban, whose leaders appeared to be digging in for a fight to the end.
"This is a dangerous period of time," Bush said. "This is a period of time in which we're now hunting down the people who are responsible for bombing America."
The deployment of about 500 marines - the largest U.S. ground force inserted into Afghanistan since the October 7 start of the campaign - set the stage for a final push to drive the Taliban from its last bastion, Kandahar.
More than 1,000 marines were to be deployed in the next several days, Pentagon officials said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the marines were a vanguard force that would be used to pressure Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, but that there would be "hundreds, not thousands" of troops, reported CNN.
"They are not an occupying force," Rumsfeld said. "Their purpose is to establish a forward base of operations to help pressure the Taliban forces in Afghanistan, to prevent Taliban and al-Qaeda terrorists from moving freely about the country."
He said the base could be used for humanitarian operations or special operations troops, but not necessarily to put more U.S. ground troops into Afghanistan, reported CNN.
The marines' AH-1W Cobra helicopter gunships were in action almost immediately, helping to spot an armored column near Kandahar that was then attacked by a U.S. Navy F-14 Tomcat fighter, said Rear Admiral Craig Quigley at the headquarters of the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Florida.
CNN reports that the Pentagon did not disclose the identity of the column that was attacked.
The first marine units landed Sunday by helicopters from the amphibious assault ships USS Peleliu and USS Bataan. Both ships are stationed in the Arabian Sea, off the coast of Pakistan. More marines were flown in aboard C-130 transport planes after the airstrip was secured, Pentagon officials said.
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke steered reporters away from speculation the marines would mount a manhunt for Osama bin Laden, the chief U.S. suspect in the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
But at a White House welcome for two recently freed U.S. relief workers, Bush suggested the presence of marines on the ground would mean a more active - and more dangerous - effort to search out al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
"We're smoking them out, they're running, and now we're going to bring them to justice," he said.
A bloody uprising at a prison fortress near Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan provided a dramatic reminder that the Taliban and al-Qaeda's foreign fighters were unlikely to go down easily.
The uprising continued Monday, in spite of U.S. airstrikes and attacks by opposition Northern Alliance forces, said Rumsfeld. He said some prisoners had escaped, others were fighting and others were penned up inside the compound.
"If you have people who are willing to have hand grenades wrapped around themselves, and blow themselves up so they can kill half a dozen other people in close proximity to them, the thought that they will surrender readily is not likely," he said.
Five U.S. troops were seriously injured when a satellite-guided U.S. bomb dropped too close to their positions, Pentagon officials said. They were rushed for medical treatment to an air base used by U.S. forces in Uzbekistan.
Rumsfeld said the fate of an American who was reported killed in the fighting could not be established until the compound was secured.
While bin Laden appeared to be concentrating on hiding, Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was organizing resistance by his remaining forces, said Air Force General Richard Myers, U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman.
"We think they'll dig in and fight and fight perhaps to the end," he said.
Rumsfeld said Omar "just doesn't feel to me like the surrendering type.
"From everything I've read about him he's a rather determined, dead-ender type."
Rumsfeld said a forward operating base near Kandahar would help U.S. special forces choke off escape routes by road to Pakistan, Iran and Kabul.
Army General Tommy Franks, the commander of the Afghan campaign, decided it would be "helpful to have a base there from which a variety of things could be done, rather than simply using people in and out of a special operations nature," Rumsfeld said.
Tribal forces reportedly captured a town on the main road connecting Kandahar to the Pakistani border, further isolating the city.
CNN reports that the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance has said it is moving south from Herat toward Kandahar, while elements of Afghanistan's Pashtun tribes have threatened to move on the city if Omar does not relinquish control there.
U.S. warplanes Sunday pounded Kandahar, which has become the focus of the U.S. air effort as Taliban resistance has receded elsewhere.
Clarke said U.S. planes were also targeting suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda hideouts in caves and tunnels near Jalalabad and Kandahar.
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