Taliban leader’s home hit

Herald news services

WASHINGTON — Saturday’s assault by U.S. secret forces in Afghanistan targeted the home of the ruling Taliban’s leader, as well as a military airfield, U.S. officials said, characterizing it as the first of many raids designed to decimate terrorist networks.

More than 100 Army Rangers and other U.S. commandos participating in the operation parachuted into a Taliban leadership complex near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and an airfield some distance away, said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Officials suggested that the raids were not the only missions conducted and that covert operations against undisclosed targets also took place Saturday. Small special operations teams from the United States and Britain have been conducting surveillance and intelligence work in Afghanistan for weeks, officials said. But Saturday’s operations were the first commando raids in the campaign, they said.

U.S. bombing of the central Asian nation continued at a fierce pace after Saturday’s raid, defense officials said. The sorties involved more than 100 Navy strike aircraft, several Air Force bombers and a few Air Force fighter-bombers.

The complex targeted in Saturday’s raid is one of several personal residences used by Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Islamic fundamentalist regime. Although Omar and other Taliban officials were not there when U.S. forces arrived, the mission was considered a success, Myers said.

Saturday’s operations, however, also produced the first U.S. combat fatalities since the military operation began Oct. 7. Two soldiers died, and three were injured, when a U.S. Blackhawk helicopter preparing for search-and-rescue duty crashed near its base in neighboring Pakistan, Myers said. In addition, three U.S. commandos involved in the raids suffered minor injuries as they parachuted to the ground.

Defense officials are still investigating the cause of the helicopter crash, but Myers said the Blackhawk was not shot down and did not collide with another aircraft or vehicle.

The commandos destroyed a cache of weapons at the Taliban leadership site, including rocket-propelled grenade launchers and machine guns, defense officials said, and gathered what the officials said they believe is critical intelligence. At approximately the same time, other special forces swooped down on a Taliban airfield "a considerable distance" southwest of the city, one defense official said.

The Rangers parachuted onto the airfield from an MC-130E Combat Talon, a special operations aircraft designed to fly nighttime troop delivery missions at low altitudes below enemy radar.

American troops battled Taliban fighters at both sites, inflicting an undetermined number of casualties on the Afghan forces, U.S. officials said.

Defense officials said the special forces were hustled out of the area within a few hours, but not before leaving behind what might be characterized as combat calling cards: photographs of firefighters planting an American flag in the rubble of the World Trade Center and draping a flag over the wrecked side of the Pentagon. Printed on the photos were the words "Freedom Endures."

The identities of the two soldiers killed in the helicopter crash were being withheld Saturday until relatives could be notified. Myers said heavy dust clouds created by the chopper’s rotating blades during a landing probably caused the crash.

Myers would not disclose precisely where the helicopter had been based. The United States has about 250 Marines stationed at a Pakistani base in Jacobabad, 200 miles southeast of Kandahar, for search-and-rescue missions.

Despite the deaths of the two "American heroes," Myers said the mission was considered a success because the commandos "attacked and destroyed targets associated with terrorist activity and Taliban command and control."

Myers said an undetermined number of Taliban forces were killed or injured. He would not say whether U.S. forces took any prisoners during the raids.

Video clips taken by military camera operators and shown to reporters Saturday depicted Rangers outfitting themselves for the mission in the desert camouflage they call "chocolate chips," strapping on packs loaded with more than 100 pounds of weapons and other gear, and parachuting onto the airfield. It was not possible to tell from the video footage any details of the operation.

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