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U.S. Bombers Pound Taliban Front Lines
ISLAMABAD, Oct 31 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. forces unleashed wave after wave of warplanes, including at least one huge B-52 bomber on Wednesday, in the first day-long carpet-bombing of Taliban frontlines, news agencies reported.
U.S. planes dropped salvoes of heavy bombs on the militia's biggest concentration of troops on the frontline north of Kabul, according to reports by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
During Wednesday's fierce raids on Kandahar, the U.S. broadcast music into the war-ravaged country as it dropped bombs.
As Washington admitted it had deployed a limited number of ground troops inside the country, some residents of southern Kandahar heard Afghan music and U.S. propaganda broadcasts on radio settings previously occupied by the Taliban.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported that the United States had taken over the Taliban's airwaves in the city. The U.S. broadcasts warned people to keep away from the Taliban and told the Islamic militia's soldiers to give up or "they would risk death."
Thirteen civilians, including five women and children were killed in a dawn raid on Kandahar when a U.S. bomb struck a medical dispensary and a neighboring house.
"This is an American atrocity. They are not hitting the Taliban or Osama bin Laden, they are hitting residential areas," resident Mohammad Ali said at the scene of the attack.
As the United States pressed ahead with its campaign in Afghanistan, the nation remained on high alert after senior officials said they had "credible" fresh evidence that terrorists linked to bin Laden's al-Qa'eda network could strike again this week or the next.
Washington has banned planes from flying near U.S. nuclear power stations, while rejecting newspaper reports that a manhunt had been launched for six men seen with maps of a power plant and box-cutters like those used on September 11 to hijack four jets.
AFP reported earlier that Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller were "furious" to learn that six men carrying box cutters and maps of a nuclear power plant in Florida and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline, had been detained and released by immigration officials, a senior law enforcement official said.
Reportedly, federal agents were scrambling to track down the six men - described as "Middle Eastern in appearance" and carrying Israeli passports - who were stopped over the weekend but released when their passports were found to be in order.
But in news agency reports later, Ashcroft himself denied the report while talking to reporters Wednesday.
"To the best of my knowledge that's a story and nothing more,'' Ashcroft told reporters. "I don't have any reason to believe it to be true.''
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, opposition commanders watching attack jets pound the Taliban frontline on the Shomali plain 30 miles north of Kabul were delighted, and hailed the attacks as a breakthrough.
"Today is a better day. If this keeps going the Taliban will be weakened and the frontlines will collapse," said Alu Zaqi, said as he watched the attacks from his frontline command post in Rabat.
"We have had information that the Taliban have been forced to change their positions frequently in the past four days. With this kind of raid, their heavy weapons will be destroyed," the commander added, showing a rare smile.
At least one B-52 high altitude bomber was involved in the assault, witnesses said.
In a Pentagon briefing Wednesday, Rear Admiral John D. Stufflebeem, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that B-52s have been flying since the beginning of the campaign and are being used in all areas of the country, including in the northern assault on Taliban frontlines.
The opposition Northern Alliance has derided previous U.S. attacks as ineffectual and unlikely to budge the 6,000 hardened Taliban fighters ranged against them north of the capital.
But this week, the raids have been stepped up as U.S. special forces increased their cooperation with the opposition on the ground and the rebels prepared an offensive against the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed late Tuesday that U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan were directing air strikes and coordinating supply operations for the Afghan opposition.
The strikes have brought misery to Afghan civilians, however, undermining support for the U.S. campaign among its allies and triggering a massive exodus of angry, hungry refugees towards neighboring Pakistan, already staggering under the presence of 2 million Afghan refugees.
The 25th day of Operation Enduring Freedom also saw 40 to 50 houses flattened in two villages near the eastern city of Jalalabad, according to the Taliban.
The Taliban said that U.S. planes were continuing to hit targets away from the frontline in the militia's Kandahar fiefdom, and took a group of foreign journalists to inspect the wreckage of the city.
"We are just poor people," said 32-year-old taxi driver Haji Mohammad, whose uncle was killed in a U.S. attack on a Kandahar suburb five days ago.
"Why are they killing the common people? They are forcing us to stand up with the Taliban against the Americans."
Suhail Shaheen, deputy Taliban ambassador to Islamabad, told reporters in Islamabad that "1,500 innocent men, women and children" had been killed by the U.S. strikes, 500 more than previously claimed.
"If America thinks it will subjugate the Afghan people by resorting to genocide of innocent people they are wrong," he said.
Although the Taliban casualty figures have been hotly dismissed by Washington, credible accounts from refugees and witnesses in Kabul suggest scores, possibly hundreds, of civilians have died across the country.
The Taliban's Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Mutawakel meanwhile dismissed speculation of a schism in the ruling militia - an eventuality that U.S. policy appears at least partly designed to create.
"There is no split in the Taliban. This is the claim of our opponents. The decisions of our government are in the hands of our people," he said.
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