CJ,
If I were running the operation, I would take my time.
1.) Food appears to be in short supply. Armies don't work well without food, but politicians can't live without it. Not even the Taliban. Bomb the food depots and wait a while.
2.) Ben Laden and his followers have gone to ground. Given some time they might become bold and show themselves, or someone will trade bin Laden's location for food.
3.) Support the Taliban rebels. They appear to be located on the opposite side of the country from bin Ladin's camps. Nothing like having two fronts.
4.) Hunt down all the Taliban funds in the world and take their money.
5.) Put the man on the ground. Small fast units. Hit and run. Holding ground makes no sense. We want heads, not the country.
NW
SHIPS, PLANES PUT IN POSITION
U.S. defense officials said about a dozen more aircraft,
including refueling planes, would soon move to the Gulf and
Indian Ocean -- within range of Afghanistan -- to join nearly
350 warplanes at land bases and on two aircraft carriers.
The U.S. assault ship Essex left Sasebo naval base in Japan
on Saturday and was expected to head for the Indian Ocean. The
aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, which carries about 70
aircraft, left its home port near Tokyo on Friday.
In Liege, Belgium, European finance ministers agreed to
speed up ratification of an existing U.N. resolution calling
for the freezing of the Taliban's assets.
Germany's central bank president, Ernst Welteke, said
officials wanted to investigate reports that those who planned
the attacks profited by manipulating airline and insurance
shares. He said there were also signs of suspicious dealings in
gold and oil around the time of the attacks.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have fled cities and towns,
and aid agencies in Kabul said impoverished Afghanistan faced a
humanitarian crisis, with essential supplies likely to run out
within a month after Pakistan and Iran sealed their borders.
The hard-line Islamic Taliban vowed to resist any assault
from the world's mightiest armed forces, defying a warning that
failure to surrender bin Laden would be met with retribution.
"It would be a showdown of might," Mullah Abdul Salaam
Zaeef, the Taliban envoy to Pakistan, said in Islamabad. "We
will never surrender to evil and might."
Wall Street ended its worst week since the Great Depression
of the 1930s, with the benchmark Dow Jones industrial average
down 14.2 percent after a five-day stampede out of equities.
Afghanistan, a country of rugged, inhospitable terrain, has
proved a graveyard for foreign invaders. Its tribesmen defeated
or held off Britain three times between 1839 and 1919, while
the Muslim mujahideen, or holy warriors, humiliated invaders
from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when Moscow was still a
superpower.
((Washington newsroom 202 898-8300, fax 202 898 8383, email
Washington.bureau.newsroom@reuters.com)) |
