Thursday, November 8

Rebels fight tanks on horseback

By Scott Shepard, Palm Beach Post Washington Bureau Thursday, November 8, 2001

WASHINGTON -- While America's high-tech warplanes work overhead, Afghanistan's rebel forces are attacking Taliban tanks on horseback, and such vintage aggression is earning them the respect of U.S. military advisers, the Pentagon said Wednesday.

"You have had one or more of your American service members, who are in harm's way over there, reporting back about cavalry charges . . . opposition forces, riding horseback into combat against tanks and armored personnel carriers," said Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"So these folks are aggressive -- they're taking the war to their enemy and ours," added Pace during a briefing for reporters. "We are supporting as best we can."

The mounted cavalry charges by the Northern Alliance are taking place in areas near the key northern city of Mazar-e Sharif with the help of ammunition and airstrikes from the United States. The rebels claimed they gained territory Wednesday, but Afghanistan's ruling Taliban denied losing ground while acknowledging intense fighting south of Mazar-e Sharif.

Pace said the fighting there was "very fluid," but that Northern Alliance forces appeared to be making some progress. Taking Mazar-e Sharif would deny the Taliban an important site in its supply lines to neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two former Soviet republics bordering Afghanistan.

In recent days, airdrops by the United States to the Northern Alliance have included not just food and ammunition for soldiers but also fodder for horses.

Pace confirmed that U.S. special forces were with opposition forces near Mazar-e Sharif "to help in directing airstrikes."

American warplanes also struck Taliban positions north of the capital of Kabul again Wednesday, focusing mostly on troops in the hills overlooking an airfield in Bagram. The airfield could serve as a landing strip for supply planes for the rebels if the Taliban is forced to retreat.

The month-old bombing campaign could intensify in the coming weeks with the decision by Tajikistan's president to allow the United States its pick of three airfields from which to base more warplanes.

The U.S.-led war on terrorism will turn its attention to Iraqi weapons programs once the campaign against Afghanistan has toppled the Taliban and destroyed the Al-Qaeda terrorist network run by Osama bin Laden, Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday.

"With respect to our activities in Afghanistan, that is our first priority," Powell said after talks with Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister Sabath al-Ahmad al-Sabah in Washington. "We must defeat Al-Qaeda, we must end Osama bin Laden's terrorist threat to the world and deal with the Taliban regime who has given them haven."

He added: "After that . . . we will turn our attention to terrorism throughout the world, and nations such as Iraq, which have tried to pursue weapons of mass destruction, should not think that we . . . will not turn our attention to them."

The State Department has Iraq on its list of seven "state sponsors of terrorism," and since Sept. 11, some influential Republicans have lobbied for attacks on Iraq, which has rebuffed United Nations weapons inspectors for the past three years.

scotts@coxnews.com

Coalition strikes: Day 32

The Afghan opposition claimed its fighters edged closer to the strategic northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, and U.S. special forces reported northern alliance fighters on horseback charged Taliban tanks and armored personnel carriers. Officials of the ruling Taliban denied losing territory but acknowledged fighting was intense. U.S. jets targeted several pickups packed with departing Taliban troops as well as hitting fortified positions. Leaflets that witnesses said were jettisoned from a B-52 bomber tumbled from the sky.

Kabul: U.S. warplanes struck at Taliban positions on the Kabul front and in northern Takhar province near the border with Tajikistan. A U.S. jet hit a Taliban tank and a B-52 bomber dropped 20 bombs around the front line in one hour Wednesday afternoon.

Jabal Saraj: Reporters at this village 45 miles north of Kabul could hear the roar of warplanes and the thud of distant explosions after sundown.

Kandahar: The South Asia Dispatch Agency also reported air attacks around Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 2001