|
|
|
|
|
|
SOUND OFF!
|
| Join our discussion
here. |
|
|
|
U.S. Marines Join Afghan
Ground War
Associated Press
November 26, 2001
BANGI, Afghanistan (AP) - In a decisive move to
strike at the last Taliban stronghold, hundreds of U.S. Marines landed by
helicopter early Monday near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, a
senior U.S. official said. As many as 1,000 troops could be on the ground
there within days.
The deployment of the first large U.S. ground
expeditionary force comes a day after the Taliban's last northern
garrison, Kunduz, fell to troops of the northern alliance, and a bloody,
chaotic jailhouse uprising by some of the foreign fighters captured in
that siege.
Sending in the Marines marks a perilous new phase of a
conflict that until now has been focused on U.S. airstrikes backing up the
opposition northern alliance, plus limited ground missions by several
hundred American special forces fanned out in small units across
Afghanistan.
Kandahar, the Taliban's home base and spiritual home,
has come under fierce bombardment since the conflict began Oct. 7, and the
Taliban have vowed to fight to the death rather than abandon the city. In
the last three weeks, they have lost their grip on three-quarters of
Afghanistan, plus the capital, Kabul.
Heavy explosions again
rocked the area around Kandahar overnight and early Monday, with bright
flares illuminating the night sky, a witness in the city said.
Most of the top Taliban leadership is believed to be holed up in
and around the city. Efforts by tribal leaders over the past 10 days to
negotiate a handover of the city failed to yield results.
Abdul
Jabbar, an anti-Taliban Afghan tribal official in Pakistan, said his
colleagues in Kandahar confirmed that U.S. troops were on the ground
there.
The Marines, numbering in the "low hundreds," were to be
followed by several hundred more from Navy ships in the Arabian Sea, the
U.S. official said in Washington, on condition of anonymity. The Marines
landed by helicopter southwest of Kandahar, the official said.
The
fall of Kunduz, which came two days before talks were to begin in Germany
on forming a broad-based government, leaves the Islamic militia with only
a small share of Afghanistan still under its control, mostly around
Kandahar.
Thousands of Taliban troops as well as Arab, Chechen,
Pakistani and other foreign fighters linked to Osama bin Laden had been
holed up in Kunduz, which the alliance said fell almost without a fight.
Pro-Taliban fighters including foreigners fled Sunday toward the
town of Chardara, to the west, with alliance troops in pursuit, alliance
acting foreign minister, Abdullah, said by satellite telephone from the
north of Afghanistan. Thousands of others have surrendered over the past
two days.
The alliance acknowledges that pockets of resistance
remain in Kunduz. "Our forces ... are meeting some obstacles and some
resistance, mostly from the foreign Taliban," Abdul Vadud, military
attache at the Afghan embassy in neighboring Tajikistan, said Monday after
speaking with several field commanders.
"Our forces are cleaning
out neighborhoods of Taliban," he said, adding that defenders were
surrendering their weapons, but "only gradually."
Under a pact
negotiated earlier between the alliance and the Taliban, Afghan Taliban
fighters were guaranteed safe passage out of the city but the foreigners
were to be arrested pending investigation into possible ties to bin Laden.
Outside the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, 100 miles to the west,
hundreds of foreigners who had been captured earlier in the Kunduz area
staged a violent uprising at their prison fortress, triggering a fierce
daylong battle with northern alliance guards. U.S. aircraft helped quash
the insurrection.
Hundreds of foreign Taliban prisoners were
killed, U.S. and alliance officials said.
A U.S. special forces
soldier inside the Qalai Janghi fortress was taped by a German television
crew saying an American may have died.
But Pentagon officials in
Washington later said all U.S. troops were accounted for and none had
died. A U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
later in Washington that a CIA operative was wounded in the uprising.
Dave Culler, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, which
oversees the war in Afghanistan, suggested that the uprising was in effect
a suicide mission. At least one foreign fighter had killed himself
Saturday while surrendering, witnesses said - giving himself up, then
setting off a hand grenade when an alliance officer approached.
The fighters had smuggled weapons under their tunics into the
Qalai Janghi fortress and tried to fight their way out, Pentagon spokesman
Lt. Col. Dan Stoneking said. The Pentagon estimated that fighters numbered
300; the northern alliance had said previously there were 700 prisoners in
the facility.
Yahsaw, a spokesman for northern alliance commander
Mohammed Mohaqik, said the prisoners broke down doors, seized weapons and
ammunition, and fought a pitched battle with guards that lasted some seven
hours.
An Associated Press reporter entering the city Sunday
evening heard explosions coming from the direction of the fortress.
Stoneking, the Pentagon spokesman, confirmed that U.S. airstrikes had
helped Gen. Rashid Dostum's forces regain control of the prison. Dostum
brought in about 500 troops to quash the unrest, he said.
International organizations had voiced worry over the prospect of
atrocities involving captured fighters. Earlier this month, the United
Nations reported the apparent reprisal killings of at least 100 captured
Taliban fighters in Mazar-e-Sharif.
Pakistan had appealed without
success for some guarantee of protection for any of its nationals captured
when Kunduz fell.
The United States had strongly opposed any deal
that would have allowed the foreigners to leave Afghanistan. As a
surrender accord for Kunduz was being brokered last week, Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said he hoped the foreign fighters would be
killed or captured, not allowed to go free.
The head of the
northern alliance, former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, said earlier
Sunday there would be no slaughter of foreign troops.
"We will
discuss their fate as far as international law is concerned ... They
should have no concern for their safety," he told journalists in Kabul.
The capture of Kunduz was reported hours after alliance troops
gained a small foothold inside the besieged city, then overran a town on
its eastern flank.
Near the town of Khanabad, about 10 miles east
of Kunduz, alliance troops spread across ridgetops held by the Taliban a
day earlier and fanned out across fields to check mud buildings for enemy
fighters. Later, the alliance announced the fall of the city itself.
In other developments:
- In Herat, northern alliance
commander Mohammed Zaer Azimi said Taliban leaders were discussing the
possibility of Kandahar's surrender, but offered no details. He also said
alliance forces were preparing for a major attack on Helmand, another
Taliban stronghold in the south. But it is unclear whether the alliance
has enough men and heavy weapons to press an offensive in the south.
- Representatives of three key Afghan groups left for Germany on
Sunday to attend a U.N.-sponsored meeting aimed at forming a broad-based
government in war-torn Afghanistan. One delegate, Syed Hamid Gailani,
expressed doubts the conference would succeed because the factions are not
sending their top leaders.
- An Islamic militant leader from
Uzbekistan who was a key ally of Osama bin Laden was killed in northern
Afghanistan, an anti-Taliban general said Sunday. Juma Namangani, 32, was
fatally injured during fighting for the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif,
where the Taliban were routed on Nov. 9, according to Gen. Daoud Khan.
Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights
reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or
redistributed.
|
|
|
|
|
