'Food mixed with blood'

The ruling Taliban regime remains defiant as it prepares for the second stage of US attacks. Khaled Dawoud, in Islamabad, and Thomas Gorguissian, in Washington, report
Even before Sunday's massive first strike against Afghanistan US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld could have claimed what he claimed on Tuesday. "We can now carry (air) strikes, more or less around the clock, as we wish," he told reporters, announcing that three days of heavy pounding of Afghanistan had destroyed more than 85 per cent of Taliban's air defences.
What Rumsfeld did not admit, though, was that the 50,000 fighters loyal to the Taliban never had any viable air-defences, warplanes, tanks or armoured vehicles in the first place. Pentagon officials, however, conceded that some Navy strike aircraft returned to their carrier in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday without having found any targets worth hitting.
US warplanes were now flying freely in Afghanistan's sky, they said, looking for "targets of opportunity," i.e. groups of Taliban fighters or members of Al-Qa'ida .
But in the search for "opportunities," military experts fear, US planes may hit civilian targets, as was the case with the UN office in Kabul on Monday. Four Afghans working for a non-governmental organisation taking part in an effort to remove thousands of landmines were killed in the UN building by a stray US missile. Rumsfeld offered no apology, and Pentagon officials said such incidents cannot be avoided in military operations. Yet such civilian casualties could easily threaten any support the US campaign might have, especially in Arab and Muslim countries.
In Pakistan the situation remains volatile, despite intense security measures intended to avoid any escalation in anti- US protests by political Islamic groups. And the death of Afghan civilians will only fuel anti-American feelings in Pakistan and elsewhere in the region.
US warplanes carried out a second round of daylight attacks yesterday. The planes dropped three bombs near Kandahar airport, the target of multiple assaults since the raids began late Sunday. Pentagon officials claim the area is home to key Taliban air defences, housing units for at least 300 Bin Laden followers, and a compound including the home and offices of Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohamed Omar. Omar reportedly had a narrow escape, leaving his home only minutes before it was hit by a US missile in a Monday raid.
The next phase of the US strikes, aimed at "wiping out the terrorists" according to Rumsfeld, will be far more difficult than these initial forays. It will include raids by small groups of Army Special Forces ferried in by low- flying helicopters to rout terrorist or Taliban leaders, military analysts say. The forces are likely to use Black Hawk helicopters, which can carry up to 14 commandos and their equipment and can fly low and fast at night or in bad weather. But the helicopters can easily be hit by the Stinger missiles provided by the US to the Afghan Mujahidin during their fight against the Soviet occupation.
At the same time, the US administration is deploying a growing number of Special Forces in the former Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, bordering Afghanistan. They do not, however, constitute a potential invasion force of Afghanistan, a prospect Pentagon officials have for now ruled out. President Bush remained tightlipped on when such troops would be deployed. "I am not going to tell you," he told reporters on Tuesday.
The US also expects help from the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance in the second stage of its attacks. One expected scenario is that Northern Alliance fighters, who barely control five per cent of Afghanistan, will make a ground advance, under American air cover, against areas controlled by Taliban.
In his modestly furnished reception room the Taliban's only ambassador to the outside world, Mullah Abdel-Salam Zaeef, sat on the floor, surrounded by his associates, listening to an antiquated radio. All reports of massive destruction of Taliban defences, he said, were untrue. "This is mere propaganda. They did not destroy our defences. What they have been hitting over the past three days were mountains and empty places," Zaeef told Al-Ahram Weekly. "We defeated the Russians before, and we know how to deal with the Americans," he said.
Military experts agree that the Taliban fighters are waiting for the US to start deploying ground troops, when they will launch their own "guerrilla war" against "the new invaders," as Zaeef describes the US. Taliban fighters, equipped with light weapons, have long experience of such tactics.
But who is going to provide them with weapons in their fight against the US? "We have enough weapons from the days of the Russians. And, more important, we have faith in Allah and confidence that he will bring victory to believers," Zaeef responds.
Zaeef refused to respond to reports that the Taliban, and fighters loyal to Bin Laden, have chemical and/or biological weapons which they could use in confronting the expected US ground attack. "I will not tell you. These are military secrets, and I am not going to talk about that."
Jassem Taqqi, a Pakistani analyst, did not exclude the possibility that the Taliban and Bin Laden were well-prepared for the American onslaught. "If we agree with the Americans that it was Bin Laden's followers who carried out the New York and Washington attacks, then he must have expected the US to retaliate," Taqqi said. "And so he must be ready with his own response."
Zaeef, in a news conference on Tuesday, ridiculed the fact that the US was dropping food aid, as well as bombs, over Afghanistan. "This is mockery. We do not want food mixed with blood," he told reporters. He added that "two million Afghans are ready to lose their lives in the jihad against America, if needed."
He also denied that Bin Laden and his organisation were terrorists. "We asked the Americans to provide us with evidence. Until they do so, we do not consider Osama a terrorist." A senior Taliban official told the BBC yesterday that any restrictions on Bin Laden's movements, imposed after his alleged involvement in the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, had now been removed following the US attacks.
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