U.S. and UK launch strikes in Afghanistan

Original publish date: Sunday, October 7, 2001

WASHINGTON – The United States and Britain unleashed a slice of their combined military might on Taliban and terrorist targets in Afghanistan on Sunday, launching a hard-hitting new phase in the campaign to wipe out Osama bin Laden and his associates and punish their Taliban protectors.

The American and British firepower, including 50 tomahawk cruise missiles, was aimed at bin Laden’s network of terrorist training camps and Taliban military installations in what President George Bush described as a U.S.-led assault "supported by the collective will of the world."

More than three hours after the attacks began at 12:30 EDT, U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it was too soon to "measure success" of the military effort. He listed the mission’s objectives as disrupting terrorist operations, weakening the Taliban’s offensive military capability and assisting diverse factions opposing the Taliban regime while also air-dropping food and medicine to the long-suffering Afghans. Officials said the assault could last several days.

Rumsfeld said bin Laden was not the target. "This is not about a single individual," he told reporters at the Pentagon. "It’s about an entire terrorist network and multiple terrorist networks across the globe."

On another front, the Afghan opposition group known as the Northern Alliance launched its own attack on the Taliban militia from an airport base just north of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. The attack, timed to coincide with the U.S.-led assault, sparked a firefight with Taliban forces that control the surrounding mountains.

In separate capitals, Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair quickly confirmed the strikes, saying Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers were paying the price for refusing to turn over bin Laden and the terrorist network they blame for the devastating attacks almost four weeks ago on New York and Washington.

"They were given the choice of siding with justice or siding with terror," Blair said in London. "They chose to side with terror."

A resolute Bush went on television less than an hour after the first explosions were heard in Kabul. He told Americans the campaign ahead, dubbed Enduring Freedom, will test their patience and assured them law enforcement and intelligence agencies were working "around the world, and around the clock" to prevent another terror attack.

"I know many Americans feel fear today," he said, indirectly acknowledging warnings from his own intelligence officials that the probability of another terrorist strike on Americans would increase dramatically once the U.S. began its military response to the Sept. 11 suicide hijacking missions that left about 6,000 people dead or missing.

In a sign of the seriousness with which Bush and his advisers take those warnings, Vice-President Dick Cheney was spirited from his residence in northwest Washington to an undisclosed location, a repeat of what happened in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Though the initial attacks were limited to U.S. and British forces, Bush was keen to cast the action as having virtually world-wide support. He said Canada, Australia, Germany, France and other close allies who have pledged "forces" as the operation unfolds. He also said more than 40 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and across Asia have granted air transit and landing rights and others are providing intelligence.

World leaders and American politicians were quick to voice support for the long-anticipated airstrikes, as were ordinary Americans. Chants of "USA, USA" erupted at several sporting events as word of the attacks spread.

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Canadian troops are being mobilized to help fight the U.S.-led battle against terrorism.

Chretien said he issued a "warning order" to a number of units in the Canadian Armed Forces after promising Bush in a telephone conversation Sunday that Canada will contribute requested resources.

"I told him that Canada stands shoulder to shoulder with him and the American people," Chretien told a news conference about three hours after the U.S. and Britain initiated a promised attack on Afghanistan.

"I have made it clear from the beginning that Canada will be part of this coalition every step of the way."

Unlike Blair, Chretien refused to divulge what help Canada is giving the United States, saying that the release of operational information could "endanger lives."

But opposition leaders said the prime minister told them that Canada will provide communications and support, even ships and aircraft would could involved in the days ahead.

Although an undisclosed number of troops have been put on standby, it does not necessarily mean they will be dispatched, cautioned Rene Siliatrault, a spokeswoman for Defence Minister Art Eggleton.

A warning order, she explained, is a "standby for possible taskings."

In the U.S., the Republican and Democratic leadership of the Congress rallied behind Bush, promising to "work together to do what is necessary to bring justice to these terrorists and those who harbor them." Partisan politics have virtually evaporated in the U.S. capital since the traumatic events of Sept. 11.

Bush insisted fear of terrorist reprisals would not deter the United States and its allies from going after the "outlaws and killers of innocents" and the governments that sponsor or harbor them.

"We will not waiver, we will not tire," he said. "We will not falter and we will not fail."

He said the military action is designed to "clear the way for sustained, comprehensive and relentless operations" to drive the terrorists out of hiding and bring them to justice.

Within two hours of Bush’s address to the nation, a video tape featuring bin Laden was made public which provided a chilling reminder of his hatred of America over such issues as its support for Israel and the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, site of Islam’s holiest shrines, including the tomb of the prophet Mohammed.

"I swear to God that America will never dream of security or see it before we live it and see it in Palestine, and not before the infidel’s armies leave the land of Mohammed," bin Laden said in the tape released by Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite TV station.

The video appeared to be made in daylight, suggesting it was put together before the attacks began Sunday night Afghan time.

The attacks from carrier-based warplanes and 15 land-based bombers – including B-1s, B-52s and B-2s – were reportedly directed against major cities throughout Afghanistan.

Explosions were heard in the Afghan capital and electrical power was interrupted.

Cruise missiles also hit the airport in the southern Taliban centre of Kandahar.

Fifty Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired by U.S. warships and British submarines in the first three hours of the attack, according to Pentagon reports.

While Kabul and Kandahar were the main targets, reports also indicated attacks on Mazar-e Sharif in the north and Jalalabad in the east and on the northwestern city of Herat where an oil dump or depot at the airport was hit.

Rumsfeld and Richard Myers, the new chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, portrayed the military assault as carefully targeted strikes on military facilities and hardware that were reportedly delivered in waves from U.S. and British warplanes and sea-launched missiles.

Myers, sworn into his new job less than a week ago, told reporters at the Pentagon the initial strike involved 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from American and British ships, plus 15 B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers and 25 strike aircraft.

Rumsfeld indicated ground troops were not part of the initial military campaign but signaled they could be in the near future.

"I’m disinclined to talk about things that are in process," Rumsfeld said. In the next breath, however, he said. "If we had significant numbers of U.S. military on the ground, It would have been known by now."

U.S. and British officials said every effort was being made to avoid civilian casualties and that a major plank of the campaign involves providing humanitarian assistance for a population struggling against drought and famine.

Rumsfeld said two C-17 transport planes aimed to drop 37,500 portions of rations to Afghans in the first 24 hours and that those air-drops would continue on a regular basis.

Bush and his cabinet colleagues were at pains to paint the conflict as one between terrorists and the rest of the world and to highlight the humanitarian effort that will coincide with the military, political, economic and diplomatic attempt to "rout" and "starve" the terrorists and their supporters, as Rumsfeld put it.

"The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies," Bush said in his address. "As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men, women and children of Afghanistan."

The U.S. also is expected to drop leaflets and radios into Afghanistan in a bid to get its message out that the war is not against them, their religion or the Muslim and Arab world.

Rumsfeld said the attacks are designed to cripple the Taliban’s air defences and aircraft.

"We need the freedom to operate on the ground and in the air," he said. "The targets selected if successfully destroyed should permit an increasing degree of freedom over time."

Rumsfeld made clear the U.S. is eager to strengthen forces within Afghanistan seeking to oust the Taliban and bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network.

"Our interest is to strengthen those forces that are opposed to al Qaeda and opposed to the Taliban leadership that is so intimately connected to them, and to strengthen all of those forces so that they will have better opportunities to prevail," he said. "And to deal with what obviously is a regime that is enormously harmful to the Afghan people, and poses threats to people all across the globe, including the United States of America."

The Bush administration has spent a lot of political and economic capital since the Sept. 11 attacks building the international coalition against terrorism, snagging crucial support from such former Taliban allies as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan, which shares a long border with Afghanistan.

Secretary of State Colin Powell, one of the chief architects of the coalition, will travel to Pakistan and India in the coming days to shore up support for the military operation. The visit to India is seen as an attempt to calm Indian fears the U.S. will reward Pakistan for its solid support against the Taliban by favouring its claim to the long-disputed territory of Kashmir.