The solution is quite clear: TURN the killers over !!
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U.S. Planes Bring 'Inferno' Down on Kabul
By Sayed Salahuddin and Anton Ferreira
KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces using cluster bombs unleashed the fiercest round yet of their onslaught on Afghanistan on Thursday in what Kabul residents called a terrible inferno of destruction.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers said more than 140 civilians had been killed in the last 24 hours of the raids, launched on Sunday in retaliation for the suicide attacks on the United States a month ago in which about 5,600 people were killed.
They said 50 bodies had been pulled from the rubble of one village in the east after bombing runs which Washington is aiming at the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group, accused of hijacking airliners on Sept. 11 and ramming them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
But the campaign against the Islamic purist Taliban stoked growing anti-Western anger among Muslims from Jakarta to Cape Town and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Western countries were in danger of losing the propaganda battle for Arab and Muslim support.
Britain said the war, in which it is helping the United States, would stretch well into next year. ``We must expect at least to go through the winter into next summer at the very least,'' Sir Michael Boyce, chief of the British defense staff, told a news conference. He said the campaign had hit 40 targets so far.
U.S. defense officials said heavy B-52 and B-1 bombers targeted Taliban troops overnight Wednesday and into Thursday, using among other weapons cluster bombs that open as they fall to release dozens of high-explosive bomblets.
``We dropped a lot of bombs,'' one of the officials said. ``We have said that this will be relentless, and it will.''
The United States said on Tuesday it had achieved control of the skies over Afghanistan, but Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday there was still a risk for U.S. aircraft.
``There still is an air-defense threat and it is triple-A (anti-aircraft artillery),'' Rumsfeld said, adding that the Taliban also had portable surface-to-air missiles and ``one or more'' much larger surface-to-air missiles.
VILLAGE REPORTED FLATTENED
The Afghan Islamic Press, citing Taliban and other sources, said Kouram village, around 20 miles from the eastern city of Jalalabad, had been flattened in Wednesday night's attack.
``So far more than 50 bodies have been recovered and the fear is that the number of martyrs will be more than 100,'' it quoted a Taliban spokesman in the area as saying.
According to Taliban figures, the total number of deaths in Afghanistan since Sunday now stands at around 220.
Taliban officials said the latest casualties included 15 people killed in a mosque in Jalalabad, which is ringed by al Qaeda training camps.
Rumsfeld said he regretted any civilian loss of life but added: ``There is no question but that when one is engaged militarily that there is going to be unintended loss of life.''
British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said the reports of civilian deaths were being investigated. ``We are not engaged in a fight against the Afghan people. We regret the deaths of any civilians... Every effort is made to minimize the risk to civilians.''
President Bush, who scheduled a news conference for 8 p.m. EDT to discuss the campaign, told a memorial service at the Pentagon, where 189 people were killed by one of the hijacked planes, that the armed forces ``will have everything you need ... to assure full victory for the United States and the cause of freedom.''
``Over time, with patience and precision, the terrorists will be pursued. They will be isolated, surrounded, cornered until there is no place to run or hide or rest,'' Bush said.
A U.S. Air Force sergeant on active duty in the northern Arabian peninsula became the first American fatality of the war when he was killed in an accident.
Up to five U.S. jets bombed areas south of Kabul on Thursday night, drawing anti-aircraft fire, witnesses said. They dropped three to four bombs and apparently hit a Taliban munitions dump.
``There are explosions and flashes every 10 seconds or so. I think it must have hit an ammunition site,'' one witness said.
The raids followed a night of almost constant bombardment on Wednesday. ``It was like an inferno,'' said one young man. ''The explosions were so huge and so massive, that it felt like an earthquake, as if an atomic bomb had been dropped on Kabul.''
Blast after blast ripped through the city. The impact could be felt across the capital, rattling windows and shaking the foundations of homes and offices.
``This is the worst night that we have had so far,'' said one resident. ``There has been no chance to sleep. I cannot tell you how frightened people are. It is terrible.''
AI
