Taliban Dispersal Slows U.S.
Enemy Moves Forces to Civilian Centers, Complicating Airstrikes
washingtonpost.com
By Bradley Graham and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, November 6, 2001; Page A01
As U.S. warplanes bear down on front-line Taliban troops in northern Afghanistan, efforts to weaken rear-guard forces in key cities have been frustrated by the movement of Taliban units out of their barracks and into residential areas, religious buildings and cultural centers, defense officials said yesterday.
The calculated action contrasts with the first days of the air war in early October, when the Taliban appeared confused and without a coordinated dispersal plan to reduce the damage being done by the U.S. bombardment, the officials said.
By shifting soldiers and military equipment into civilian neighborhoods and taking refuge in mosques, archaeological sites and other nonmilitary facilities, Taliban forces are confronting U.S. authorities with the choice of risking civilian casualties and destruction of treasured Afghan assets or forgoing attacks.
"They've gotten smarter every day," one U.S. defense official said of the Taliban. "They know what we say we're not going to hit – and they go there."
En route home from visits to Pakistan and other nations in the region, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said a U.S. helicopter had extracted Taliban opponent Hamid Karzai from Afghanistan on Sunday and ferried him to safety in Pakistan.
"He's just come out for consultations," Rumsfeld said, noting that he is certain whether Karzai, whose family and tribe have played a central role in Afghan history, would return to Afghanistan in his effort to press for a new government and ouster of the Taliban. Karzai was involved with a firefight with Taliban forces last week but avoided capture.
In its campaign against the Taliban, the United States has acknowledged several instances in which airstrikes have gone awry, killing civilians, damaging houses and destroying Red Cross relief supplies. Frustrated at the widespread media attention given to these incidents, several officials yesterday provided a number of examples of what they described was the Taliban's disregard for civilian safety and international laws of armed conflict.
For instance, in the southern city of Kandahar, Taliban authorities who had worked in the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue were said to have relocated to mosques. In the city of Khost, south of Kabul, Taliban troops were reported to have taken over nongovernmental relief organization buildings.
Some Taliban commanders were said to have set up residence in Red Crescent facilities or located their headquarters across the street from hospitals or civilian houses. The Taliban also was described as having stolen relief trucks meant to bring food and clothing to civilians, turning them into ammunition and supply vehicles for troops.
In one case, according to a senior U.S. officer, a truck in a convoy purportedly on a humanitarian mission to deliver food tipped over, and crates of tank and mortar shells could be seen spilling to the ground underneath a thin layer of flour.
"Whole villages are being used as human shields by the Taliban to protect their large stockpiles of ammunition and weapons hidden in nearby caves," the senior officer said. "If we smack those caves, we run the real risk of killing the innocent. If we don't smack them, Taliban and al Qaeda forces have more bullets and bombs to kill our folks. It's nasty – and it's illegal."
Such reports are difficult if not impossible to verify, and in the case of airstrikes on caves, the Pentagon said yesterday such attacks were continuing. But stories of Taliban forces taking cover among the civilian Afghan population and stashing military equipment in mosques and schools have been told by many refugees fleeing the country.
In recent days, U.S. airstrikes have focused increasingly on front-line Taliban positions around Mazar-e Sharif, a key northern crossroads city, and Kabul, the capital. Briefing reporters at the Pentagon yesterday, Rear Adm. John D. Stufflebeem described the purpose of the latest attacks by B-52 bombers and ship- and land-based fighter jets as "preparing the battlefield for future offensive actions" by the rebel Northern Alliance.
The heightened bombing was facilitated by the arrival over the weekend of additional special operations teams to help in locating targets for U.S. warplanes and training the rebel forces.
Rumsfeld told reporters returning to Washington with him yesterday after a trip to the region that the number of U.S. commandos in Afghanistan increased nearly threefold during the past few days. He gave no figures, but other officials said the total still comes to fewer than 100. Those forces are operating in more than four locations, mostly in northern Afghanistan, with more troops to come soon, he said.
Before departing Sigonella Naval Air Station in Sicily, Rumsfeld said he met with the crew of a Global Hawk, an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft that can remain at 65,000 feet over a target for 30 hours. The craft is headed for duty over Afghanistan.
Stufflebeem, who is deputy director of operations on the Joint Staff, said he could offer no prediction on when the rebels might advance, either toward Mazar-e Sharif or Kabul. "I have heard reports that they may be ready to move, but until they do, I think that it's still a bit suppositional on our part," he said.
Asked to assess the success of the month-long bombing campaign against Taliban forces, Stufflebeem said they appear to have suffered "substantial" losses. But he said he could not offer any numerical estimate of the damage done, noting the difficulty of getting "reliable information" in territory held by the Taliban.
"I can't quantify in terms of numbers," he said. "I can quantify it best by saying that if the northern opposition is feeling emboldened or ready to make moves, then that means that it has had the intended effect."
One indicator of Taliban losses, Stufflebeem added, is that days have passed in some areas since the Taliban has responded to rebel fire. "My guess is that that would be because they're either hunkered down and aren't coming out or they're not able to fire," the admiral said. "So I think that that's a very positive sign."
Rumsfeld also disclosed yesterday that the Pentagon has lost two Predator reconnaissance drones over Afghanistan due to icing problems. And he provided new details about a helicopter rescue mission in southern Afghanistan on Friday that ran into winter weather trouble as well.
He said the helicopter crew, dispatched to rescue an ill U.S. soldier working with rebel forces, crash-landed after hitting "a weather situation that was just like a wall." The crew spent about six hours on the ground before being rescued. Four soldiers suffered back injuries as a result of the severity of the landing,
Rescue helicopters sent from two locations also had to turn around in the storm.
"At one point there was a report that [downed crew members] were going to start walking seven miles to a landing site, but of course they had four people that were injured," Rumsfeld said.
The crew members were ultimately lifted out by a companion helicopter that had flown in with them and had also made an emergency landing due to the weather. The downed helicopter was destroyed by airstrikes from two Navy F-14s.
Rumsfeld said he learned of the stranded crew on his way to Moscow on Friday at the start of a four-day trip that also took him to Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and India. Rumsfeld said he talked several times to Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander directing the war in Afghanistan, before learning shortly before landing in Moscow that the crew had been rescued.
The serviceman whose ill health necessitated the initial rescue attempt was also rescued, although it is not clear by whom. Without going into detail, one senior defense official said that while the initial diagnosis was meningitis, the ill serviceman is now thought to have been suffering from a severe case of altitude sickness.
Loeb reported from New Delhi.
© 2001 The Washington Post Company |
