Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas A Watson who wrote (199992)	11/5/2001 10:23:21 AM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

U.S. Boosts Commando Presence in Afghanistan By Anton Ferreira and Mike Collett-White WASHINGTON/JABAL-US-SARAJ, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The United States said on Sunday it had deployed more special forces in Afghanistan to help U.S. warplanes kill more Taliban front-line fighters, declaring the war had already crippled the country's rulers to the point where they could no longer be considered a government. U.S. warplanes began the fifth week of daily raids as Washington pressed its campaign to destroy both the Taliban and the allied al Qaeda network, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on America in which about 4,800 people were killed. Foreign aid workers estimated up to 300 fighters of the ruling Afghan militia have been wounded in the last week of bombing runs focusing on helping Afghanistan's Northern Alliance opposition by targeting Taliban front line fighters. U.S. health officials, alarmed at the deliberate distribution of anthrax spores from unknown attackers, said key front-line medical workers were being vaccinated against smallpox. While stressing there were no signs of an outbreak of the disease, officials for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said a crash training program was under way to teach doctors and other health workers about a disease eradicated throughout the world in 1981. U.S. Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the bombing raids should be improved by the presence of more U.S. specialists in Afghanistan. SPECIAL FORCES TEAMS INSERTED BY NIGHT "The more teams we get on the ground, the more effectively we will bring air power to bear on the Taliban's lines," he said in a television interview. "Just last night, the night before, we put in a couple more teams." Officials previously reported up to 100 U.S. special forces personnel in Afghanistan spotting targets for airstrikes and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said he would like to see a significant increase in their numbers. Rumsfeld said on Sunday the Taliban were no longer functioning as a proper government but that al Qaeda still posed a threat to global security. "The Taliban is not really functioning as a government as such," Rumsfeld told reporters in Islamabad after meeting Pakistan's Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar. He later arrived in New Delhi on the last leg of a lightning tour of five key allied states backing the U.S. offensive against Afghanistan. "As a military force they have concentrations of power that exist. They have military capabilities that exist. They are using their power in enclaves ... to impose their will." Rumsfeld arrived in the subcontinent as the decades-old Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, both nuclear weapons powers, flared in renewed fighting. India said it exchanged heavy fire with Pakistan across the cease-fire line in Kashmir and that at least 35 people were killed in clashes throughout the disputed Himalayan region. Border firing has continued despite strong U.S. pressure on two of the key players in Washington's anti-terror coalition to tone down hostile talk during the campaign against Afghanistan. SAUDI ANGER AT MEDIA CRITICISM In other signs of diplomatic tension over the war, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah lashed out at critical media reports, accusing the U.S. newspapers of trying to drive a wedge between the Gulf Arab state and the United States. Since the Sept. 11 plane attacks, U.S. media have criticized Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally in the region, for apparently not clamping down on extremist Muslim groups. "The newspapers that are writing about us (Muslims) and the kingdom are all conspirators," Abdullah told a gathering of education officials in a speech broadcast on state television. The crown prince quoted President Bush as telling him in a telephone conversation that such reports sought to "break the ties between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United States and to distort the kingdom's reputation." The lack of detail from the traditionally secretive kingdom about its moves against groups and individuals named by the United States as supporters of terrorism has fueled the criticism in the U.S. media. A host of European leaders swept into London on Sunday for dinner with British Prime Minister Tony Blair ahead of European Union talks on the war on terrorism. Among those attending are French President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Spain's Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. In Central Asia, aid workers in contact with Kabul said between 200 and 300 Taliban fighters were being treated in military hospitals for wounds inflicted by the bombing of Taliban front-line positions north of the capital. Military experts said that with the number of wounded at that level, the death toll would be between 30 and 50. But the Northern Alliance said that despite the bombing, the Taliban had recaptured some areas lost to the opposition only a day earlier. TALIBAN REPORTS GAINS Taliban officials reported gains on the ground near Aq Kupruk, some 45 miles south of the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, near the border with Uzbekistan. The Taliban have answered all questions on the numbers of casualties among their lightly armed, turbaned fighters by saying the number of injured is extremely small. In the United States, authorities said trace amounts of anthrax were found at a mail room in the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington but it was unlikely the center's 200 patients were at risk of exposure. The anthrax outbreak has infected 17 people in the last month, killing four of them, and stoked fears about U.S. vulnerability to attack by germ warfare. Referring to the smallpox precautions, CDC director Jeffrey Koplan said the health service had for several years been trying to enhance its ability to cope with bioterrorism. "However, since September 11, we've certainly accelerated that," Koplan told CNN's Late Edition. "We have increased the number of people we have who are capable, trained and ready to go out to investigate smallpox outbreaks should they occur." CDC officials said dozens of medical workers were receiving smallpox vaccinations news.excite.com tom watson tosiwmee