Bombs, missiles strike targets

By Robert Burns

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Forty U.S. and British warplanes and an armada of warships and submarines pummeled strongholds of the al-Qaida network and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan on Sunday with Tomahawk cruise missiles, 500-pound gravity bombs and computer-guided bombs.

The targets included early warning radars, surface-to-air missiles, airfields, aircraft, military command and control installations and terrorist camps.

The demonstration of Western firepower was the first wave of an anti-terrorism campaign promised after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. One senior administration official said the military strikes would be sustained and would last at least a few days.

"Our objective is to defeat those who use terrorism and those who house or support them," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference.

Along with the strikes against air defenses of the Taliban and their small fleet of warplanes, U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo planes flying from Ramstein Air Base, Germany, were dropping food and medical supplies inside Afghanistan.

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said 15 land-based bombers — including B-2 Stealth bombers flying from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo. — and 25 other strike aircraft flying from U.S. aircraft carriers began the attack at 9:30 a.m. PDT, 9 p.m. in Afghanistan.

A senior defense official said later that Navy F/A-18 and F-14 fighters flew missions from two U.S. carriers — the USS Carl Vinson and the USS Enterprise — in the Arabian Sea. The support planes used in the raids included Navy EA-6B electronic warfare aircraft and E2-C Hawkeye early warning radar planes.

Myers said the U.S. aircraft in the initial wave included Air Force B-1 Lancers, B-2s and B-52 long-range bombers as well as carrier-based strike aircraft.

The B-52s dropped at least dozens of 500-pound gravity bombs on al-Qaida terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan, one official said.

Also participating in the initial attacks were American and British ships and submarines that launched a total of 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles from positions in the Arabian Sea, officials said.

The U.S. ships were the guided missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea, whose homeport is Mayport, Fla., and three destroyers, the USS O’Brien based in Yokosuka, Japan, the USS McFaul based in Norfolk, Va., and the USS John Paul Jones based in San Diego.

Two submarines — one American and one British — also fired cruise missiles. Officials would not identify them by name.