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Pentagon: Bombing Has 'Eviscerated' Taliban's Combat Power
WASHINGTON (AP) - Intensified U.S. airstrikes
have "eviscerated" the Taliban's combat power and
placed it in imminent danger of losing a key northern stronghold,
a senior Pentagon official said Tuesday.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Gregory Newbold, director of operations for
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that Monday's strikes - by
far the heaviest since the aerial bombardment began Oct. 7 -
included the first use of the Air Force's AC-130 Spectre gunship,
a low-flying special operations aircraft.
Newbold said two AC-130s were used but he offered no details,
including their targets. Another defense official, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said they were used against a Taliban
military barracks and headquarters building in Kandahar, the
Taliban's seat of power in southern Afghanistan.
Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Newbold said U.S.
warplanes bombed a variety of military targets Monday, including
armored vehicles at a training facility near Kandahar, surface-to-air
missile emplacements defending the Kandahar airport and a tank
near an airfield at Mazar-e-Sharif, a Taliban-controlled city in
northern Afghanistan that opposition forces are trying to overrun.
Newbold would not discuss Tuesday's bombing, and he said Pentagon
officials had yet to determine whether a U.S. missile or bomb was
responsible for setting Red Cross warehouses afire near Kabul.
Newbold said the nine days of U.S. and British bombing, including
attacks that have aided the northern alliance forces, have put
the Taliban in jeopardy of losing Mazar-e-Sharif.
He said the Taliban is "in danger of being cut off right now"
at Mazar-e-Sharif and could lose control there within days,
depending on when the northern alliance decides to move into the
city. Losing that city, which has been a staging ground for the
Taliban since 1998, would hurt them in two ways, he said.
"One is that it's a crossroads mostly for resupply of their
forces," he said. "The other one is a psychologic one:
As most of you know, Mazar-i-Sharif has been fought over for
three years now, and it's changed hands. Its loss to the Taliban
would be a significant setback."
Newbold said that while U.S. forces are not working directly with
northern alliance troops on the ground, the airstrikes are
dramatically reducing the Taliban's ability to carry out military
action.
"The combat power of the Taliban has been eviscerated,"
Newbold said.
Victoria Clarke, chief spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld, cautioned reporters not to assume that a drop-off in
the number of airstrikes in the days ahead meant the anti-terror
campaign was easing.
"While at times you may see a certain leveling off of
activities, other, less visible activities may be under way,"
she said, alluding to financial, political, diplomatic and other
behind-the-scenes efforts to crack down on terrorists. She may
also have been referring to the expected start soon of U.S.
special operations on the ground in Afghanistan to root out
Taliban and al-Qaida leaders.
Newbold made a similar point.
"Some days you'll see that the number of aircraft go up, and
sometimes there will be few, and some days there won't be any,"
he said. "Regardless, we're going to keep up the pressure on
the terrorists and on the Taliban leadership."
Monday's attacks were against 12 target areas, Newbold said,
using about 100 strike aircraft. About 90 of the warplanes flew
from U.S. Navy carriers in the Arabian Sea, and between six and
eight of the 100 were land-based Air Force bombers, he said. Five
Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from U.S. ships.