Cave Complexes Smashed By Bombs, Pentagon Says

By Bradley Graham and Vernon Loeb Washington Post Staff Writers Friday, October 12, 2001; Page A01

As U.S. warplanes pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul yesterday during the fifth straight day of bombing, Pentagon officials reported that airstrikes had devastated mountain cave complexes and may have struck Taliban leader Mohammad Omar's Chevrolet Suburban with several as yet unidentified individuals inside.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters yesterday that cave complexes, which he declined to further identify, had been hit by an array of precision munitions, including GBU-28 "bunker busters," 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs designed to penetrate buried concrete structures.

While Rumsfeld offered no indication whether the caves may have been occupied at the time of the strikes, destroying the complexes was an important objective because Osama bin Laden -- the terrorist leader U.S. officials hold responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington -- has used fortified caves as residences and headquarters.

Another senior official, who asked not to be quoted by name, said U.S. military imagery analysts believe that Omar's Suburban may have been hit in Wednesday night's attacks. The vehicle was occupied at the time, but analysts aren't sure who was in it, the official said, adding that they believe it may have been Omar or members of his family. U.S. officials previously cited "credible" reports that two members of Omar's family were killed in Kandahar on Sunday when the U.S. bombing campaign began.

With two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea launching strike aircraft round-the-clock, a huge fireball lit the sky over Kabul. Heavy bombing was also reported around Kabul's airport.

Pentagon officials said the air campaign had shifted from fixed targets associated with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network to troop concentrations and other "emerging targets."

In Islamabad, meanwhile, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, said 140 civilians had been killed over the day of bombing alone, including 15 people at a mosque that he claimed was destroyed in Jalalabad, a city in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border that is close to numerous training camps associated with bin Laden's terrorist network.

Responding to questions from reporters, Rumsfeld denied that civilians were being targeted and expressed regret at any "unintended loss of life." Other senior defense officials said they had received no collateral reports indicating that either large numbers of civilians had been killed or a mosque destroyed.

Offering a partial picture of the Afghan battlefield, Pentagon officials said they were surprised that Taliban forces in Afghanistan have done little to evade attacks. As a result, officials said, U.S. strike aircraft have had relatively easy targets, but that intelligence on some hidden Taliban military assets and capabilities has been harder to come by.

Unlike Iraqi and Yugoslav troops, which tried to scatter when targeted by American air campaigns over the past decade, the Taliban forces have appeared to hunker down and remain concentrated in their encampments, the officials said.

"This particular adversary is not reacting in ways we've seen in other conflicts," a senior official said.

With the bulk of the Taliban's combat power still arrayed in tactical positions north of Kabul against the rebel Northern Alliance, defense officials said the lack of movement they have observed has involved units in garrison locations in the south and the west.

"Some forces have been moving to avoid targeting, but others either have not dispersed when they have had an opportunity, or their dispersal has been amateurish -- they haven't dispersed very far," one official said.

In the Pentagon's view, the Taliban military appears not to know how to react to the aerial bombardment. While they had developed effective guerrilla tactics against Soviet forces in the 1980s, Taliban troops had become accustomed in recent years to fighting more conventional fixed battles against opponents, the officials said.

"For all the fabled fighting qualities of the Afghans, they've never had to deal with a modern air campaign," an official said.

Although Pentagon leaders declared control of the air two days into the campaign and began focusing airstrikes on Taliban troop encampments and equipment, the officials suggested yesterday that the Afghan fighters continue to pose some military threat to American warplanes and to a potential follow-on ground operation by U.S. special operations forces.

"Reports of their demise have been exaggerated," one official said. "They're certainly in serious trouble, but they're not down yet."

Rumsfeld cited a lingering air threat to U.S. aircraft, noting the existence of some surface-to-air missiles, shoulder-fired Stinger missiles and "a great deal" of antiaircraft artillery. "That is a fact, and we have been attempting to reduce that," he told reporters at the Pentagon.

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Henry P. Osman, director of operational plans and joint force development on the Joint Staff, told reporters that most fixed targets belonging to the Taliban and al Qaeda have now been destroyed.

Osman presented a series of pre- and post-strike reconnaissance photographs showing heavily damaged targets, beginning with the Taliban's regimental headquarters in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, which was struck both on Sunday and on Monday.

Also hit was a radio station near Kabul, numerous fighter aircraft on a runway at a former Soviet air base near Herat and a surface-to-air missile site near Kandahar. A radar facility at the site was bombed on Sunday, and all of the missiles there were destroyed on Monday, the imagery showed.

The most dramatic image was of the aircraft, which showed that the U.S. bombing had literally smashed fighter aircraft to pieces. Osman also presented gun camera footage from a warplane that showed precision-guided munitions striking the missile site and setting off a series of large secondary explosions.

"In terms of hitting the things we're aiming at, we're doing very well," one senior official said. "In terms of learning what to aim at, it's better than what we expected."

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001

Answers

Military Dropping Bombs Big and Small, Guided and Dumb

By John J. Lumpkin Associated Press Writer

Published: Oct 12, 2001

WASHINGTON (AP) - Pick a target, and the military has something to blow it up. There are laser-guided tank-killers and bunker-busters, cluster bombs that can rip apart columns of soldiers and armored vehicles, old- fashioned "dumb" bombs that, used together, can blast an entire region.

Missiles launched from ships and planes complete the arsenal being used against targets in Afghanistan.

The Pentagon is "dropping the full range of weaponry," Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

Some categories of munitions in Afghanistan include:

- Guided bombs. These are some of the "smart bombs" of Persian Gulf War fame, and the military has been using them in increasing numbers over the past decade. They can be dropped from fighters and bombers, and they use lasers or other means to find their targets. These bombs can be targeted on buildings or vehicles and, because of their accuracy, don't cause as much unintended damage as World War II-style unguided bombs.

The Joint Direct Attack Munition - "Jay-Dam" in military parlance - is frequently employed and can be launched from fighters and bombers.

Among the largest of the guided bombs are the GBU-28 and GBU-37. These massive weapons weigh roughly 5,000 pounds and are designed to penetrate buried bunkers, killing leaders and destroying command-and- control networks hidden underground. The GBU-37 can be launched by the B-2 stealth bomber and is guided by GPS satellites to its target.

- Cluster bombs. Once launched, these bombs essentially drop more little bombs, called bomblets, over a wide area. Some explode on contact, and are able to wipe out troop concentrations or columns of armored vehicles. Others delay exploding until a certain amount of time has passed, becoming what amounts to an air-dropped minefield.

- Unguided "dumb" bombs. These range from 500 pounds to 2,000 pounds. The skill of the bomber pilot determines whether these free-fall weapons hit their targets. B-52s can drop these in large numbers, laying waste to a wide swath of territory. They are also much cheaper to manufacture than the newer, guided weapons.

- Air-to-ground missiles. Similar to guided bombs, these also have a propulsion system that carries them to their targets, meaning they can be launched from farther away.

One relatively new missile, called the Joint Standoff Weapon, is built to be fired from a great enough distance that the bomber's exposure to anti-aircraft fire is limited.

Certain air-to-ground missiles, called high-speed antiradiation missiles, or HARMs, can follow an incoming radar signal back to its source. These are used to attack air defense sites, which use radar to search for incoming attack aircraft.

- Cruise missiles. This term is generally applied to long-range ship- or air-launched missiles that jet toward their target, be it a building, ship or military vehicle. The most well-known is the Tomahawk, launched from U.S. cruisers, destroyers and submarines. B- 52s can also launch cruise missiles from great distances.

AP-ES-10-12-01 0209EDT

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001

Something I don't understand about the cave scenario and I haven't read about... Wouldn't these cluster or bunker bombs be capable of collapsing the caves? And wouldn't that serve us just as well except that we would never know who was buried inside?

-- Anonymous, October 12, 2001