U.S.

Bunker Busters

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

October 11, 2001 / 4:22 AM EDT / CBS

U.S. personnel are on the ground in Pakistan, according to the government there, which says the "personnel" are there in connection with the military attacks on Afghanistan, but are not combat troops.

The Pakistani officials say the U.S. has been granted the use of several air bases and at least 15 U.S. military planes, including C-130 transports, have landed at Jacobabad Air Base in the past two days.

Word of the U.S. military presence in Pakistan came as Afghan rebel fighters claimed new victories and U.S. air strikes intensified in several Afghan cities.

Heavy damage was inflicted Thursday in both Kandahar and Kabul, where ten civilians were reportedly killed as a missile hit a house.

That's according to Afghan Islamic Press, which quotes Afghan Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi as saying: "Civilians are being killed. What could be bigger terrorism than this?"

The Taliban says the most recent round of air strikes also killed as many as 100 people in Jalalabad, including 15 people at a mosque.

A huge blaze raged near the Kabul airport Thursday after a fresh U.S.-led raid on the Afghan capital by warplanes and missiles, witnesses said. The area was pounded by the heaviest strikes of the U.S.-led air campaign.

In the capital city, Taliban anti-aircraft batteries near the city center opened up with thunderous barrages as high-flying warplanes roared overhead after nightfall.

American warplanes dropped cluster bombs which disperse hundreds of bomblets over a broad area as well as 5,000 pound bunker-busting bombs in an attempt to dig the leaders of the Taliban out of their hiding places. Strikes have killed some members of the Taliban, but its leader, Mullah Muhammed Omar, and Osama bin Laden are believed to still be alive.

"He (bin Laden) is fine, in a secret place," Afghan Education Minister Muttaqi said Thursday, adding that Wednesday night's raids hit old vehicles near the Kabul airport, military bases east of Kabul, and some residential areas of Kandahar.

Prior to Thursday morning's air strikes, the Afghan Islamic Press agency and Taliban officials said that at least 76 people had been killed and over 100 injured since the military campaign began last Sunday.

The Pentagon has not provided figures for casualties on the ground in Afghanistan.

A U.S. soldier critically injured Wednesday, in an accident, is reported in stable condition Thursday, at a military hospital in Incirlik, Turkey. To protect military operations, details are not being released, except to say that he got caught between two military trucks. It is the first injury among the forces involved in Operation Enduring Freedom.

In northern Afghanistan, CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod reports that Wednesday's air strikes came much earlier than the previous three nights, lighting the skies of Kabul with an enormous fire visible some 20 miles away.

Thunderous explosions were heard coming from the east of the city in the direction f the military academy. The explosions came in rapid succession, shaking buildings well away from the area of the impacts.

Blasts were also reported in Shamshaad, a Taliban military base about four miles north of the border with Pakistan.

It appeared that a large number of jets were flying toward the west of the city, where Rishkore and Kargah - both areas where bin Laden is believed to have terrorist training camps - are located.

In air strikes Wednesday, jets dropped three bombs near the Kandahar airport, the target of multiple assaults since the raids began late Sunday. The area is home to key Taliban air defense systems, housing units that lodge at least 300 bin Laden followers, and Mullah Omar's compound. Jets also struck Kandahar and the northwestern city of Kerat late Tuesday.

The Pentagon reports 50 targets were struck in the first three days of bombing. But the most important number may be the 1,200 Taliban troops reported to have defected, reports CBS News Correspondent David Martin. The loss is significant considering the entire force numbers about 50,000.

The defections occurred in the north where the Taliban is fighting the northern alliance, one of many factions the United States is counting on to oust the Taliban and bin Laden's al Qaida network.

The Taliban is saying nothing about any defections and instead Thursday announced that its troops are ready on the border of Uzbekistan, which is cooperating with the U.S. in the attack.

The CIA is actively aiding the northern alliance in its war against the Taliban. It is the largest CIA covert operation since the 1980s when it aided the so-called Afghan Freedom Fighters in their battle against the Soviet invasion.

CIA agents have been working to recruit tribal leaders in southern Afghanistan to help track down bin Laden and to let American commandos set up forward operating bases from which to launch raids.

Northern alliance troops Thursday said they have gained control of a key central province - Gur - including its capital, Chaghcharan, after heavy fighting with Taliban forces.

Northern alliance spokesman Mohammed Abil also says "several" Taliban fighters were captured.

The Afghan resistance also claims to have captured a town on the main Kabul-Herat road.

There's been no comment so far from the Taliban on those claims.

Gur is considered to be of strategic importance because it borders on eight other provinces, half of them regarded as crucial to efforts to unseat the Taliban from its control of the Afghan government.

The northern alliance has a serious strategic problem in Afghanistan's mountainous terrain - it cannot move forward so long the Taliban are dug into the high ground. The solution, some analysts say, is that American planes should finish off bombing the Taliban's infrastructure and start bombing Taliban fighting positions.

Pentagon officials have said that the Taliban's meager air defenses have been decimated.
"Essentially, we have air supremacy over Afghanistan now," said Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a joint news conference Tuesday with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld.

That was disputed the next day by the Taliban envoy to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef.

The "claim that they destroyed the defense capability of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is not true," said Zaeef. "American planes are flying very high, and the defense system that we have, they are not in the range of what we have."

U.S. military special forces teams are poised for what is likely to be a prominent role in the next phase of attacks.

Special forces "will have a significant role in all the areas they are trained to perform in," said Army Col. Bill Darley, a spokesman for U.S. Special Operations Command.

That means small groups of American soldiers could be sent on missions that include training rebel forces to fight the Taliban militia, seeking to kidnap or kill bin Laden or other terrorist leaders, and encouraging Afghans to help the U.S. efforts.