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Ground Force Boosted U.S. sends in more troops set for long fight

By KENNETH R. BAZINET Daily News Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON he U.S. deployed more ground troops inside Afghanistan as it stepped up a campaign expected to last through the harsh Afghan winter, the top U.S. general revealed yesterday.

The disclosure came as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said that the ruling Taliban had been weakened by a month of U.S. attacks and was no longer "functioning as a government."

Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said several more teams of American special forces personnel had been put on the ground in the past few days.

"We're setting in for the long haul," Myers told NBC's "Meet the Press." "We put in a couple more teams. And the more teams we get on the ground, the more effectively we will bring air power to bear on the Taliban's lines."

As the U.S.-led campaign entered a fifth week, American war planes continued to carpet-bomb the Taliban's front-line positions, hoping to soften up the ground for Northern Alliance forces, which have vowed to strike at Mazar-I-Sharif in the north.

Fighter jets and B-52 bombers struck at positions near the border of Tajikistan, within sight of some rebel allies, who, until now, had been critical about the lack of U.S. attacks on the Taliban's forward positions.

U.S. jets also struck about 30 miles north of Kabul, a Northern Alliance spokesman told reporters.

Chaos Among Leaders

In Pakistan, Rumsfeld claimed the military strikes had disrupted Taliban communications and created chaos among its leadership. "The Taliban is not really functioning as a government as such," Rumsfeld said after meeting Pakistan's Foreign Minister, Abdul Sattar, in Islamabad.

"As a military force, they have concentrations of power that exist. They have military capabilities that exist. They are using their power in enclaves ... to impose their will," Rumsfeld added.

With the first snow already fallen, the Pentagon also was moving ahead with plans to outfit rebel soldiers of the Northern Alliance with winter gear. "The winter is not going to stop us from what we have to do," Myers said.

Rumsfeld and Myers reaffirmed the U.S. would continue the war campaign through Ramadan, the month-long Muslim holiday that begins this month.

But operation commander Gen. Tommy Franks wasn't as clear-cut. "We're listening to all the views, then we'll take a decision on whether to move ahead or not," he said. Amid the intensified air and ground campaign, Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network suffered a major blow on the diplomatic front when the head of the 22-nation Arab League rejected an appeal by Bin Laden for Muslims to join a jihad against the West.

At meetings in Syria, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said Bin Laden "does not speak for Arabs and Muslims."

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher added, "I think there is a war between [Bin Laden] and the world."

Casualties Claim Disputed

Franks and Myers, meanwhile, disputed a report in The New Yorker, which claimed 12 members of the Army's elite, top-secret Delta Force special operations unit were injured — three of them seriously — during an Oct. 20 raid that failed to get Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

"We had a bunch of these young people who had scratches and bumps and knocks from rocks ... so it's probably accurate to say that maybe five or maybe 25 people were 'wounded,'" Franks said. "We had no one wounded by enemy fire, and I think that is probably worthwhile noting."

Writer Seymour Hersh stood by his New Yorker story, which claimed the troops faced fierce resistance from Taliban fighters and had to fight their way out of trouble.

"Three were very seriously injured," Hersh told CBS' "Face the Nation." "Most of them had shrapnel injuries ... The Taliban fired a lot of grenades ... in the counterattack."

Pressed over the generals' claims that The New Yorker report was wrong, Hersh responded, "Well, we've had that before."

-- Anonymous, November 05, 2001