Troops Target Taliban Stronghold
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan continued, with dozens of aircraft attacking Taliban targets even as more covert ground operations were under way, a senior defense official said.
As has been the Pentagon's practice, Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not describe ongoing air missions.
But he said Saturday's campaign _ involving Navy strike aircraft, several Air Force bombers and a few Air Force fighter-bombers _ was conducted on much the same scale as the day before, when about 100 aircraft attacked 15 target areas, including Taliban air defenses and ammunition and vehicle storage areas.
Meanwhile, a senior administration official said Sunday that President Bush last month signed an order directing the CIA to destroy terrorist leader Osama bin Laden and his communications, security apparatus and infrastructure in retaliation for the Sept. 11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks.
Bush also added more than $1 billion to the spy agency's war on terrorism, most of it for the new covert action.
Myers also would not discuss current U.S. ground operations under way inside Afghanistan. But a senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said operations meant to be kept secret even after they are over were being conducted. The official offered no details.
Myers did reveal some details of dark-of-night covert missions launched Friday by airborne Army Rangers on a Taliban-controlled airfield and a residence of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar near the southern city of Kandahar. The force of more than 100 Rangers "accomplished our objectives," Myers said.
The Taliban's official Bakhtar news agency said four helicopters landed in Kohi Baba, 20 miles northwest of Kandahar, but found the camp deserted. "The American air operation in Afghanistan has made no gain, and the helicopter operation has failed," Bakhtar said.
Myers would not say whether U.S. forces took anyone prisoner during the raid. Intelligence materials were collected and will be analyzed, he said. A small weapons cache discovered in a building at the airfield was destroyed and an undetermined number of Taliban forces were killed, he said.
Meanwhile, two soldiers, whose identities were withheld until relatives were notified, died in a helicopter crash in neighboring Pakistan _ the first acknowledged combat deaths of the 2-week-old U.S. military campaign. Myers said heavy dust clouds created by the Black Hawk's rotating blades during a landing probably caused the crash.
Capt. Elizabeth Ortiz, an Air Force spokeswoman in Europe, said the bodies were flown to Germany's Ramstein Air Base. "Appropriate military honors were rendered when they arrived," she said Sunday.
She declined to say when the remains would be returned to the United States.
The U.S.-led military campaign is designed to crush Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia, which controls much of the country and has been harboring bin Laden. The campaign also seeks bin Laden and the al-Qaida terrorist network he heads.
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