To: Ilaine who wrote (7803 ) 10/30/2001 8:00:38 PM From: Hawkmoon Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 23908 Hi Kids... Can you say Fuel Air Explosive? I thought you could.... :0) Now try, "Vacuum Bomb"???U.S. Drops Giant Bomb on Taliban Lines By Steven Gutkin Associated Press Writer Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2001; 3:48 p.m. ESTwashingtonpost.com CHARIKAR, Afghanistan –– An American bomb blasted huge plumes of smoke 1,000 feet into the skies over Afghanistan's front lines Tuesday in an unusually mighty airstrike. The Pentagon said U.S. forces were with the northern opposition and directing fire against the Taliban. The opposition alliance deployed hundreds of crack troops near Taliban lines north of Kabul, the first tangible sign of preparations for an assault on the capital. The United States acknowledged it had uniformed military personnel in Afghanistan, coordinating airstrikes with the opposition. A senior opposition official said such coordination will increase in coming days and that alliance forces were planning a major offensive to wrest the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif from the Taliban. "There is coordination in all aspects," Abdullah, the foreign minister of the Afghan government-in-exile, said in an interview with Associated Press Television News. U.S. jets pounded Taliban positions in the Balkh region around Mazar-e-Sharif on Tuesday, in strikes that an opposition spokesman called relentless. "They hit very important positions of the Taliban," spokesman Ashraf Nadeem said. Witnesses also said they saw a U.S. plane drop a bomb Tuesday at the Bagram front lines, about 25 miles north of Kabul, creating a mushroom cloud that billowed at least 1,000 feet into the air. Witnesses called it the biggest bomb to hit the area in 10 days of American bombardments on the front lines. con't