U.S. troops may fight Taliban

Herald news services

WASHINGTON — The United States may have to consider committing large numbers of its own ground forces to defeat the Taliban if opposition forces can’t win, a defense official said Monday on condition of anonymity, adding that opposition capabilities will take several more weeks to determine.

In the meantime, the U.S. military is seeking access to more bases in and near Afghanistan to accelerate its bombing campaign, expand humanitarian aid missions and speed the delivery of supplies to the Northern Alliance of Afghan opposition forces.

And a White House assertion that most of those arrested on unrelated criminal charges by investigators probing the Sept. 11 attacks have been released prompted fresh outcries from civil liberty activists.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, in an interview with Egyptian television, said no decision has been made on using U.S. ground forces in combat.

The troops there are are working with anti-Taliban groups to make them more capable. "We think that in the weeks ahead the opposition forces will become more effective with the benefit of U.S. support and the support of others," Powell said.

U.S. warplanes bombarded Taliban front lines Monday while the opposition pressed its attack on three fronts near Mazar-e-Sharif, but the rebel fighters conceded they were facing stiff Taliban resistance.

Elsewhere in Afghanistan, B-52 bombers and other U.S. warplanes hammered away at Taliban positions Monday near the southern city of Kandahar and outside the northern city of Taloqan, once the opposition’s capital but now held by the Taliban.

Despite the U.S. bombardment, fighters of the northern alliance have been unable to advance on the fronts outside Kabul or around Mazar-e-Sharif, where Taliban defenses are well outside the city.

In New Delhi, India, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a news conference that U.S. bombing is "improving every day," helped by additional teams of U.S. special forces soldiers who are providing targeting information for strike aircraft.

Rumsfeld was returning to Washington after visiting Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and India.

In comments Monday to reporters flying with him, Rumsfeld said that over the weekend, the number of U.S. special forces troops on the ground in Afghanistan had gone "2 1/2times above what we had." He gave no figures, but officials in Washington said the total is still less than 100.

Rumsfeld said those special forces troops, who are working with Northern Alliance forces and directing U.S. air strikes, are now at four or more locations. They previously were at two locations.

Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, the Pentagon’s designated spokesman on military operations in Afghanistan, said much of the U.S. bombing is designed to soften up the Taliban for the Northern Alliance.

Stufflebeem said the bombing was "preparing the battlefield" for future action by opposition forces, who are loosely aligned, ill-equipped and outnumbered by the Taliban.

The admiral confirmed that a U.S. military team is in Tajikistan, on Afghanistan’s northern border, to assess the feasibility of using any of three former Soviet military bases. In addition to the former Soviet bases, the United States is interested in bases inside Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, most of the people arrested on unrelated criminal charges by investigators probing the Sept. 11 attacks have been released, the White House said Monday.

"The lion’s share of the people are not still in custody," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "The overwhelming number of the people were detained, they were questioned and then they’ve been released."

The White House later said Fleischer was referring only to those detained on unrelated criminal charges. But neither the White House nor the Justice Department would say how many of the 1,147 people arrested or detained so far remain in custody, prompting new complaints from civil liberties groups.

"The secrecy surrounding them is unacceptable," said Lucas Guttentag, director of the immigrants’ rights project at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU has filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information on those detained in connection with the investigation.

In other developments:

  • The United States has used 15,000-pound "daisy cutter" bombs in the Afghanistan campaign, a defense official said on condition of anonymity. The BLU-82, billed as the world’s largest conventional bomb, uses a mix of ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder to ignite a blast that incinerates nearly everything within 300 yards to 600 yards and can be felt for miles.

  • Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have approached the International Committee of the Red Cross about repatriating the body of an American, John Bolton of California, who the Taliban claimed died in an Afghan hospital after being detained near the border, the ICRC chief said Monday. U.S. State Department officials in Washington had no comment.

  • The State Department announced the appointment of an expert on the Balkan conflict, James Dobbins, to serve as U.S. ambassador to anti-Taliban parties in Afghanistan.

  • The U.S. Navy on Monday assigned to homeland defense six heavily armed ships normally used for special warfare operations and drug interdiction. The six, two on the West Coast (both San Diego-based) and four on the East Coast, will provide protection for Navy ships and commercial vessels and work to thwart any attempts by terrorists to infiltrate by sea.

  • Traffic on San Francisco area suspension bridges edged back toward normal Monday as commuters shrugged off warnings that terrorists had targeted the spans.

  • An anthrax victim was released from the hospital Monday, while investigators expanded their search for anthrax spores in government buildings, including the Pentagon, where anthrax was found.
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