Herald news services
WASHINGTON — As attacks in Afghanistan continue today, the Pentagon is preparing to launch raids into Afghanistan using low-flying Army helicopter gunships to find and attack forces allied with Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government, senior Pentagon officials said Tuesday.
Launching helicopter gunships into the battle will be a risky operation. Afghan guerrilla fighters armed with Stinger missiles repeatedly shot down Soviet helicopters when they flew below 10,000 feet in the war there during the 1980s.
The helicopters, operated by special operations forces from bases near Afghanistan, would be able to strike pockets of forces after the American air and missile strikes have made more progress at wearing down the Taliban’s air defenses and other major military targets.
Pentagon sources said light infantry forces also will be ordered to secure Afghan airfields from which U.S. aircraft could operate. Those troops may also guard borders, such as Uzbekistan’s, that could come under Taliban attack in reprisal for support for the U.S.-led campaign. In addition, the troops would be on standby, ready to swoop in and help commando teams that get into trouble.
Allied warplanes dropped bombs today near the airport in Kandahar, Taliban sources said. It was the second straight morning of daylight raids on the Taliban stronghold.
The bombs hit about 7:15 a.m., the sources said.
The area around Kandahar’s airport has been the target of multiple assaults since the strikes began Sunday. Housing units that lodge at least 300 followers of suspected terrorist bin Laden are located in that region, as are key Taliban air defense systems.
The Taliban’s air force had consisted of about 15 Soviet-era jet fighters that had seen action exclusively as bombers in recent years. Afghanistan’s Taliban ruling militia has been using antiaircraft guns and some unguided surface-to-air missiles, but was not believed to have an especially capable air defense system.
As bombing attacks continue, the administration is deploying a growing number of special forces to the region who would be in a position to hunt down terrorists, including troops in Uzbekistan, to the north of Afghanistan.
It is not clear how soon close-in helicopter operations will begin. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, said Tuesday that American fighters and bombers were rapidly establishing air superiority over Afghanistan after three days of strikes, carried out from relatively high altitudes. "I think essentially we have air supremacy over Afghanistan," he said.
Officials said the first two days of bombing put all but one of five Afghan airfields out of commission, wrecked large air-defense installations and badly damaged the Taliban’s communications network. After two days of bombing, "not a lot is left" of the communications system, Myers said.
Aircraft are returning to partially damaged targets to inflict further strikes, he said.
No U.S. casualties have been reported.
Although the Navy jets and Air Force bombers that have been attacking Afghanistan have flown higher than remaining Afghan weapons can reach and the strikes have hit hard at the few air-defense installations that can fire high-altitude missiles, the helicopters would have no such safety if they swooped in low.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States was "moving along well toward our goal of creating conditions necessary to conduct a sustained campaign to root out terrorists," a reference, a senior official said, to the next phase of the operation.
Myers said bombers were shifting from major targets picked in advance to "emerging targets" — any Taliban tank, convoy or other adversary that might pop into view.
However, anti-Taliban resistance leaders in Afghanistan complained that the airstrikes were ineffective, largely sparing Taliban troops.
"We don’t understand what the Americans want. If they really want to destroy the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, they have to bomb according to the coordinates that we give them," said Gen. Bobojan, a senior commander of the Northern Alliance, at the strategic Bagram air base north of Kabul, the Afghan capital.
In the planned helicopter assaults, Army special forces units would be equipped with night vision and other equipment to protect them from ground fire. They have been used in the past in some of the military’s most challenging operations, especially since the Gulf War.
Officials said there were no longer many significant military targets left to bomb. Strikes Tuesday included the first use of 5,000-pound bombs designed to penetrate hardened bunkers, as well as cluster bombs intended to destroy concentrations of troops or weapons.
Officials’ remarks indicated that the helicopter gunships were part of the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, which has two battalions at Fort Campbell, Ky., and a third at Hunter Army Airfield, Ga.
The 160th, the sole large Army unit specially trained for such a mission at night and in bad weather, has been involved in many recent military operations, including the invasion of Panama in 1989, the Gulf War in 1991 and the firefight in Somalia in 1993 that left 18 American soldiers dead.
The 160th is trained to deploy anywhere in the world in days or even hours. Its helicopters can be ferried inside Air Force cargo planes.
Among other developments Tuesday:
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