Official Rules Out 'Mass' Invasion
LONDON (AP) - The U.S.-led coalition is not planning a massive invasion of Afghanistan though some action on the ground is likely, Britain's top aid official said Saturday.
"There isn't going to be a mass land invasion," said Clare Short, Britain's secretary for international development.
"There will be some activity. So I don't think the concept of swarms and swarms of troops all over Afghanistan, that is not going to happen ... this is just not a classical war," Short said in an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"The bombing should be restricted to targets which are protecting the Taliban's protection of the al-Qaida network. We should always avoid any loss of civilian life, and that is the agreed strategy and that must be very carefully taken forward," she said.
She said British legal authorities reviewed every proposed target in Afghanistan
"This is not blanket bombing, it won't be, and there would be no point in that. There have to be targets that you need bombing, in order to attack those targets for it to be legal," she said.
Short said large quantities of aid were getting through to Afghanistan.
"It was a thousand metric tons yesterday and it is going to be something like that tomorrow, and that is the kind of level we have got to keep up for the next five weeks, both to get people fed now but to stock up the warehouses so Afghanistan can get through the winter, when the roads will be much more difficult to move food across," she said.
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