http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/295/nation/US_ready_to_increase_night_raids+.shtml

US ready to increase night raids

Taliban's ranks are targeted in a hastened bid to oust regime

By Bryan Bender, Globe Correspondent, 10/22/2001

WASHINGTON - US warplanes began targeting front-line Taliban troops for the first time yesterday, as the military signaled that ground raids on Afghanistan would be stepped up. The Bush administration, meanwhile, indicated a need to hasten the defeat of the Taliban regime and to speed the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his top aides.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, underlining the revised US strategy, said yesterday that while the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins around Nov. 17, deserves to be respected, efforts to avoid upsetting the sensibilities of the Muslim world will not come at the expense of success in Afghanistan.

''We have to make sure we pursue our campaign,'' Powell said on ''Fox News Sunday,'' indicating that operations will continue if necessary through the monthlong fasting period.

For the first time in the two-week conflict, the US military effectively took on the role as air force for the Afghan opposition. The targets were in areas north of the capital that have seen some of the heaviest fighting.

Warily eyeing the approach of winter and a darkening political climate in the region, administration officials now see a short window of opportunity to topple the Taliban and ferret out bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda.

To that end, elite US ground units are expected in the coming weeks to be operating in and out of Afghanistan, before the onslaught of winter, as part of stepped up hit-and-run and search-and-destroy missions. Meanwhile, US air forces and military advisers are increasing aid to the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in their quest to defeat the Taliban by force of arms.

''I think it would be in our interest and the interest of the coalition to see this matter resolved before winter strikes and it makes our operations that much more difficult,'' Powell said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, in an interview with SKY Television, said, ''Winter brings another complication,'' and warned of an ''extended campaign if we don't achieve our objectives initially.''

Adding to the urgency are signs that US air attacks and ground incursions are whittling away not just at the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but at Washington's fractious coalition as well. Opposition to the military strikes is threatening the stability of Pakistan. And Indonosia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, warned Washington yesterday that continuing military action during Ramadan would raise the ire of the entire Muslim world.

Against this backdrop, the US military operation has entered an accelerated phase in which the Pentagon is expected to become tighter-lipped about the details of its operations, officials said.

A military official said commando raids will increase as US intelligence agencies focus their energies on finding and neutralizing Taliban leaders and bin Laden.

The prediction of more commando raids comes amid revelations that the CIA has been given a green light and an estimated $1 billion in extra funding by President Bush to do ''whatever necessary'' to hunt down and if necessary kill bin Laden and the top echelons of Al Qaeda. The presidential ''finding,'' first reported in yesterday's Washington Post, calls on the agency to attack Al Qaeda's communications and infrastructure and to provide timely intelligence that can be acted upon quickly by military units.

''We have not been able to pinpoint exactly where all these command and control facilities are,'' Air Force General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday on ABC's ''This Week With Sam and Cokie.'' ''We continue to look.''

In preparation for additional ground operations, the Taliban regime said yesterday that it was handing out rocket launchers, heavy machine guns, and antiaircraft artillery in towns and villages across the country. ''The decision was made to mobilize and equip people in all districts, villages, and provinces against the commando attack of America,'' Reuters quoted the Taliban education minister, Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi, as saying after a meeting of the Taliban Cabinet.

Meanwhile, according to reports from the region, US air attacks yesterday focused for the first time on Taliban troops near the front lines north of the capital of Kabul, after 14 days of air and missile strikes.

''The Northern Alliance is on the march in the north toward Mazar-e-Sharif, and I think they are gathering strength to at least invest Kabul or start moving on Kabul more aggressively,'' Powell said. US warplanes yesterday streaked over the Panjshir Valley, controlled by the Northern Alliance, and witnesses were quoted as saying that Taliban positions had been targeted about one mile behind the front lines.

Many Northern Alliance military leaders want the United States to step up those raids, The Washington Post reported last night, saying the commanders saw the United States missing a chance to dismantle bin Laden's network.

Until now, Washington had been reluctant to provide the Northern Alliance with air support near Kabul before a post-Taliban government could be assembled to fill the vacuum should the opposition forces move on the capital.

However, those concerns appear to have been overtaken by a sense of urgency to fulfill the military objectives before a prolonged US campaign and worsening refugee crisis undercut overall support for the war on terrorism.

According to former defense secretary William Cohen, at the outset a major challenge for the US military operation in Afghanistan was to keep it as short and quiet as possible in order to minimize the internal threats to the stability of Pakistan as well as other US allies such as Saudi Arabia that face domestic opposition to the US military campaign.

''The longer it lasts, the greater the risk,'' Cohen said in a recent interview.

One way to do that may be to provide even fewer details on US operations in the coming days and weeks than the Pentagon has so far been willing to relay, according to defense officials.

Myers said that unlike the commando raids in Afghanistan on Friday, subsequent raids may not be acknowledged. ''Some of these missions that we're going to do in the military are going to be visible; some are going to be invisible,'' he said.

A senior defense official said yesterday that a second round of commando raids in Afghanistan on Saturday night fell into the invisible category that the Pentagon was unlikely to discuss immediately after their completion.

Newsweek, quoting military officials, reported yesterday that forthcoming commando raids will primarily focus on gathering intelligence to better pinpoint airstrikes against Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.

Military officials released the names of two US servicemen killed in a helicopter accident in Pakistan on Friday. Army Specialist Jonn J. Edmunds, 20, of Cheyenne, Wyo., and Private First Class Kristofor T. Stonesifer, 28, of Missoula, Mont., died when their Blackhawk crashed during a support mission.

Myers rejected Taliban reports that the US suffered between 20 and 25 casualties on Friday when more than 100 commandos parachuted into an airfield near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, and a small number of special operations forces, probably the Army's Delta Force, raided a compound used by the Taliban's supreme leader to gather intelligence.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, did not comment on Taliban claims that US airstrikes yesterday killed at least four civilians.

As the US campaign is accelerated in the coming days, military officials said they may not have enough time to accomplish the mission this year.

''It may take till next spring, it may take till next summer, it may take longer than that in Afghanistan,'' Myers said.

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2001