January 28, 2003
ONE CAVE AT A TIME:
U.S. destroys stronghold in Afghanistan (Anwar Iqbal, 1/28/2003, UPI)U.S. forces, in a 12-hour assault with overwhelming air power, destroyed an enemy stronghold in Afghanistan near the former Taliban headquarters, bringing an end to fighting in the area, military officials said Tuesday.Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2003 9:42 PM"About 250 plus U.S. and Afghan forces are now searching the caves (where the enemy troops were hiding)," A U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. Ray Shepherd told United Press International by telephone from Tampa, Fla.
Shepherd said troops loyal to the governor of Kandahar region, in Afghanistan's southwest, were participating in the search along with U.S. Special Forces.
Gov. Gul Agha now controls the region, which was formerly the headquarters and main support base of the Taliban militia.
U.S. Central Command said earlier at least 18 enemy personnel were killed, and there were no U.S. casualties. But Shepherd said the enemy casualty figure was "no longer accurate... We are searching the caves now and will give more information after the search is complete." He confirmed that there were no U.S. casualties.
The caves fell to U.S. ground forces after a 12-hour pounding with U.S. B-1B bombers, AC-130 gunships, and coalition F-16 fighter-bombers as well as Apache helicopters, another CENTCOM spokesman in Florida, Cmdr. Dan Gage told UPI.
More than 9,000 U.S. troops are still based in Afghanistan, helping the new government and training a national Afghan army.
I heard about this on Imus this morning. They said two things worth noting. First, that the Norwegians were providing close air support in this operation. Second, that 45 nations have signed up for peace-keeping and nation-building service in occupied Iraq. I have not heard that second point anywhere else and, if true, it is very, very interesting.
Posted by: David Cohen at January 28, 2003 11:13 PMIt makes Jim Miklaschevski nearly as good a military reporter as Harry.
Posted by: oj at January 29, 2003 1:01 AMThanks. I didn't even want to try to guess the spelling of his name and was too tired to start Googling.
Posted by: David Cohen at January 29, 2003 8:54 AMThe battle was with the private army of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a longtime troublemaker. He's picked up some al Qaeda and Taliban stragglers in addition to his longtime army. He was originally the creation of Pakistan general Zia and the ISI, but he dabbled also in cooperation with the KGB and the Soviets as early as 1980's, and took funding from the Saudis. When the Soviet regime fell, he refused the offer of Prime Minister in a unity government and tried to make himself dictator, levelling Kabul in the process. This civil conflict helped the Taliban defeat the government. In Taliban days, Hekmatyar allied himself with Iran. He is rapidly running out of friends these days -- he was probably forced recently to move his army out of Pakistan, resulting in the recent massacre. He's one warlord we can hope is, or soon will be, dead.
Posted by: pj at January 29, 2003 10:47 AMDavid:
I'm certain I spelled it wrong, but figured there are few others he could be confused with. :)