Herald news services
Afghan rebel commanders said Tuesday they had driven Taliban forces out of villages south of Mazar-e-Sharif and captured dozens of Taliban troops, claiming their first victories in weeks around the largest city in northern Afghanistan.
The White House gave one of its first summaries of bomb damage in Afghanistan after weeks of strikes. Also, President Bush said Tuesday that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network are trying to obtain nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Crediting airstrikes by American B-52 bombers with pounding entrenched Taliban positions, the leaders of the rebel Northern Alliance said they had captured the village of Zare and a key mountain location nearby and then swept through several villages south of Mazar-e-Sharif.
At the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said an assessment of the claimed move against the strategic northern city would have to wait until the “dust settled” and there was a pause in the fighting.
The Pentagon views the capture of Mazar-e-Sharif, a strategic transportation hub, as a major objective in its unfolding effort to force the Taliban into a retreat in northern Afghanistan.
Ata Mohammad, a rebel commander, said his men took the village of Zare, which had been the object of battles last week, as well as Faraj, Shiram, Al Boughan and Aq Kopruk.
At the front line north of Kabul, U.S. jets targeted Taliban-held territory Tuesday near the Bagram air base and later the villages of Khan Agha and Barikab, and black smoke blanketed the area.
“Tuesday, when the Americans bombed, the Taliban lost a lot of people,” Mohammad said.
The Taliban have made a stand at Shulgar, Mohammad said, adding, “If we capture Shulgar, there will be no village left in Taliban hands south of Mazar-e-Sharif.”
The Bush administration, meanwhile, offered one of its first summaries of bomb-damage assessment after more than a month of airstrikes. A senior official said the Pentagon has concluded that 80 percent to 90 percent of the major targets bombed in Afghanistan have been substantially destroyed.
Rumsfeld said 31 U.S. soldiers were injured in commando raids in southern Afghanistan on Oct. 19 – far more than the Pentagon reported immediately after the raids.
Rumsfeld also said he wants to nearly double the pace of airstrikes from what it has been in recent days, and a senior military official disclosed that the United States is supplying the anti-Taliban forces with weaponry, in addition to ammunition, food, cold-weather gear, water and even horse feed.
Although administration officials have feared that the terrorist network is seeking weapons of mass destruction, Bush had not raised such a specific concern in public, until Tuesday.
Asserting that al-Qaida cells operate in more than 60 nations, Bush said that “they are seeking chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.”
“Given the means, our enemies would be a threat to every nation, and eventually to civilization itself,” the president told the European leaders via satellite. “We will not wait for the authors of mass murder to gain the weapons of mass destruction. We act now, because we must lift this dark threat from our age and save generations to come.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
