U.S. Hits Taliban Front Lines for Third Day; More Reports of Civilian Casualties

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, ”We’re starting to work on some Taliban targets that are arrayed out in the field against folks that we would like to help, and that’s what we’re about.”

American warplanes bombed Taliban military units north of the Afghan capital Kabul and around Mazar-e-Sharif Tuesday. But the Taliban opposition says it will need more military help before they launch any offensive.

“It is better than other days,” Haron Amin, the Northern Alliance’s Washington representative, said, “but a lot more is needed for us to make ground moves.”

Up to 15,000 Taliban troops appear to be entrenched in a maze of caves, trenches and bunkers north of Kabul, Pentagon officials said. Those dug-in positions have served as a major obstacle for Northern Alliance troops trying to take Kabul over the years.

U.S. and British forces have struck a number of Taliban and terrorist targets, officials said. British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon told reporters that since the military campaign began Oct. 7, allied forces have destroyed all nine of the al-Qaida training camps, severely damaged nine airfields, and pummeled 24 military barracks.

Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed other attacks had destroyed the Taliban’s country-wide command and control center and its air defense capabilities.

British and Australian troops are reportedly preparing to join the U.S. Special Operations forces in region. British defense officials estimate they will soon deploy 1,000 British troops, and Reuters has reported 1,500 Australian troops will participate.

More than 100 U.S. Special Operations forces launched two raids in southern Afghanistan over the weekend. So far, British military support has been limited to mid-air refueling, submarine activity and air reconnaissance.

The Pentagon announced today that unknown soldiers fired on two helicopters in Pakistan Monday during a mission to retrieve the wreckage of the Black Hawk helicopter that crashed Friday night, killing two Army rangers.

The shooting, which Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. George Rhynedance called “harassing fire,” was light and sporadic, and caused no injuries. It was the most hostile act against Americans in Pakistan since the military campaign started over two weeks ago.

Pieces of landing gear that the Taliban displayed as evidence they had shot down two U.S. helicopters has been identified by the Pentagon as part of a helicopter that lost its front wheels and a piece of undercarriage during Friday’s commando raid in Afghanistan. That helicopter was able to complete its mission and return to its base safely, officials said. The Pentagon has denied any U.S. aircraft was shot down.

Reports of civilian casualties

The Pentagon today said U.S. warplanes may have inadvertently bombed a home for the elderly near Herat during the Monday strikes.

According to Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, the bomb landed in a field between the senior citizen center and a military vehicle storage facility. There have not yet been reports of damage or casualties, Clarke said.

A military hospital was destroyed in the eastern outskirts of Herat Monday, but the number of casualties was still unknown, Islamabad-based United Nations spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said.

Meanwhile, injured refugees who poured into Pakistan Tuesday said U.S. warplanes had bombed homes in the southern Afghanistan town of Tarin Kot in the pre-dawn hours, killing at least 29 people. More than 20 seriously wounded people traveled to Pakistan to get medical help, they said.

Al-Jazeera television, based in Qatar, reported Tuesday’s strikes killed 93 civilians in a village called Chukar, 37 miles northeast of Kandahar.

Neither the Al-Jazeera report or the refugees’ allegations have been independently verified.

The reports came a day after the Taliban accused the United States of conducting a raid on a hospital in Herat that killed more than 100 people. The Taliban has said civilian casualties now exceed 1,000. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has flatly denied those allegations.