U.S. Hits Troops Near KabulU.S. warplanes bombed Taliban forces protecting the Afghan capital of Kabul on Sunday as the United States entered its third week of a military campaign to root out terrorists and their protectors.Eyewitnesses and opposition fighters in the area said bombs hit very close to Taliban positions 25 miles north of the capital. In response to weekend incursions by U.S. commandos, the first major ground operations of the war, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers moved to distribute rocket launchers, heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft guns to their fighters. The latest bombardments appeared to be the heaviest attacks yet on Taliban troops manning the front lines north of Kabul, where they are faced off against the opposition Northern Alliance. "Our strategy has shifted from attacking operational targets such as airfields, air defenses, communication nodes, to tactical targets such as tanks and troops in the field that support the war-fighting capability," said Rear Adm. Mark Fitzgerald, commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier battle group, which was launching attacks from the Arabian Sea. "We are striking targets. We are killing people on the ground. That's what war is all about." Sunday's bombing attacks suggested that the United States is no longer making a distinction between the Taliban government and the al-Qa'eda terrorist organization but instead sees them as intertwined. Sunday's bombing attacks suggested that the United States is no longer making a distinction between the Taliban government and the al-Qa'eda terrorist organization but instead sees them as intertwined. Taliban Information Ministry spokesman Abdul Hanan Himat said 18 civilians, including women and children, had been killed in Sunday's bombing raids and 23 wounded. The claims could not be immediately verified. A Pentagon spokesman said, "We put no credibility in Taliban reports." The United States is pressing to achieve military objectives before the onset of winter and the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-November. "It would be in our interest and the interest of the coalition to see this matter resolved before winter strikes and it makes our operations that much more difficult," Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Fox News Sunday. Powell declined to say whether key cities ¡ª such as Kabul, the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, or Mazar-e Sharif, along a key supply route near the northern border with Uzbekistan ¡ª must be seized before Ramadan. |
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