Word: commandoes
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...That's the kind of slit-throat warfare the Pentagon tried to prepare the public for early in the conflict. But so far there hasn't been much of it. Some planned commando infiltrations have been sabotaged by sandstorms, sleet and Taliban resistance. Bad weather caused the crash last Friday of an MH-53 Pave Low helicopter in northern Afghanistan, injuring four crewmen. U.S. F-14s blew up the wreckage of the downed helicopter to prevent its secret equipment from falling into hostile hands. Pentagon officials dismissed Taliban claims that it had shot down the helicopter and killed...
...Rule 1: Dig in--This Is Going to Take Some Time American air power can do plenty of damage, but Afghan experts say the Taliban's morale won't crack until it suffers heavy battlefield losses. So long as the U.S. limits its ground operations to commando raids, the job of inflicting those casualties lies with the Northern Alliance. Alliance commanders have provided their strategy for toppling the regime to anyone who will listen: once American bombs softened Taliban forces, the Alliance planned to make its move into the key northern outposts of Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz and Taliqan, cutting...
...America began the week with the news that a successful commando raid at Kandahar had opened a new phase of the war. More Special Forces operations were expected to strike at the Taliban's command capability, while the Northern Alliance was encouraged to recapture the northern city of Mazari al-Sharif and lay siege to Kabul. By week's end, however, U.S. officials were considerably more downbeat, trying to lower public expectations and prepare Americans for a long and potentially messy war. The Taliban was proving more tenacious than expected, U.S. commanders said. And what they didn...
...Rear-Admiral John Stufflebeem told a midweek briefing, "I'm a bit surprised at how doggedly (the Taliban) are hanging on to power? They have proven to be tough warriors." At the same time, British chief of staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce warned that hit-and-run commando operations would not be enough to get bin Laden, suggesting that raids behind enemy lines would have to last days or even weeks. But when Defense Secretary Rumsfeld told USA Today that while the Taliban would surely fall, he could not be sure the effort to get bin Laden would succeed...
...Taliban heartland: Hedging its bets The U.S. game plan until now has involved a combination of air strikes and commando raids and an offensive by the Northern Alliance to provoke an internal collapse of the Taliban regime. It had been hoped that seeing the writing on the wall, many Pashtun militias around the country that may once have sided with the Taliban would switch sides. While there are continual reports of Taliban allies sounding out the possibility of switching sides, the Taliban does not appear to be anywhere near collapse. Delegates assembled by Pakistan for an anti-Taliban confab this...