U.S. Says Anti-Taliban Mounted Forces Attack Tanks
By Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Anti-Taliban forces on horseback attacked tanks in northern Afghanistan (news - web sites) as U.S. airstrikes hit caves and vehicles and fighting raged near the key crossroads city of Mazar-i-Sharif, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Wednesday.
The month-old U.S.-led bombing campaign was focused on that patch of rugged terrain, where mounted cavalry charges by the Northern Alliance were reported, according to Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff.
``This is opposition forces riding horseback into combat against tanks and armored personnel carriers,'' Pace said at a Pentagon briefing. ``So these folks are aggressive. They're taking the war to their enemy and ours.''
Asked about military activity near Mazar-i-Sharif, an essential point on the supply line to the capital Kabul, Pace said, ``It is fluid. They are fighting.''
Pace did not elaborate on the use of horses in the campaign, but a U.S. defense official said in such rocky areas as northern Afghanistan, with winter setting in and roads tenuous at best, traveling and fighting on horseback had advantages.
``The Northern Alliance can be characterized as a very light infantry force,'' the official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``It's one of their strengths that they're accustomed to fighting with low food supplies, low ammunition, with horses aiding their mobility.''
``If you had a force relying on trucks, you'd need gas and spare parts and that requires a more complicated logistics trail,'' the official said.
The official stressed that some tribes in the alliance have trucks and tanks, but most operate on horseback: ``Given the terrain, horses are an excellent way for moving around.''
LIKE WORLD WAR ONE
The United States has said for several days that airdrops to the alliance, a loose organization of tribes who oppose Afghanistan's ruling Taliban, have included not just food and ammunition but fodder for the horses, which the official said was probably bags of barley, a more compact food than baled hay.
As to whether a cavalry charge might be effective against a tank, the official said that most tanks in northern Afghanistan were mostly buried and used as artillery, and likened this to cavalry charges used in World War One against trench warfare.
The official estimated that Northern Alliance forces had several hundred horses, and said it was a logical assumption to conclude that U.S. special forces teams inside Afghanistan in this area could be on horseback as well.
Of 80 air missions made on Tuesday, Pace said two-thirds were specifically to support the Northern Alliance. The rest of the U.S. sorties were against caves and tunnels used by al Qaeda, the guerrilla network of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites).
Pace declined to estimate losses or casualties among the Taliban after more than 2,000 sorties since the air campaign began Oct. 7. The Taliban are sheltering bin Laden and al Qaeda guerrillas, whom Washington holds responsible for deadly Sept. 11 attacks on America.
Later on Wednesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on public television's ``The Newshour with Jim Lehrer'' that he would give no numbers for enemy casualties in Afghanistan.
However, he noted that in a month of air strikes, ``a lot of Taliban people have been killed and a lot of al Qaeda people have been killed.''
In gun camera footage shown at the briefing, U.S. precision munitions homed in on two Taliban vehicles as a human figure was seen walking between them. The vehicles were shown being destroyed.
In addition to the air campaign, the United States is working to get more special forces troops into Afghanistan to help target the Taliban. Last week, the Defense Department acknowledged there were fewer than 100 such forces in the country; that number had more than doubled by Tuesday.