Cheers, Ken Hanly
Monday October 1, 5:20 AM
US rejects massive bombardment of Afghanistan: report
WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (AFP) - Washington has shelved plans for bombing raids on Afghanistan because of a shortage of viable targets, opting instead to deploy special forces, Newsweek said in its issue appearing Monday.
The weekly news magazine said President George W. Bush's administration concluded that Afghanistan, where prime terror suspect Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding out, has fewer good targets than Kosovo.
"The terrorist camps have emptied; the only good military targets, apart from a few TV and radar stations, militia headquarters and fuel dumps, are the Taliban's 'cavalry' of pickup trucks mounted with machine guns and rocket launchers," it said.
Going after such targets would be "more difficult than hitting the Pony Express," the magazine said, alluding to the 19th century US horse-borne mail service.
Officials, who had earlier leaned towards long-range bombing runs, have now decided to "aggressively" deploy special forces, possibly naval SEALs or green beret crack troops, to seek out bin Laden and his followers, Newsweek quoted sources as saying.
Special forces operatives have already received orders for Afghanistan, it said, but could also be deployed in such places as Sudan or Lebanon to seek out terrorists as part of Bush's war against terror.
The weekly also said the administration had last week secretly told Congress, as required under the 1973 War Powers Act, that both British and US special forces reconnaissance teams had already been in and out of Afghanistan.
US reports have already claimed that special forces units had entered Afghanistan to collect intelligence on Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaeda movement and on the Taliban regime who are sheltering him.
But, the magazine said, even as Washington stuck to a measured response to its September 11 terror strikes that have left more than 6,000 people dead or missing, Bush was considering air strikes on Afghanistan's opium warehouses.
The report came as Britain warned Sunday that stockpiles of raw opium from Afghanistan were being moved out of the region ahead of military strikes, but played down reports that the trade was one of its war targets.
Taliban-ruled Afghanistan is the world's biggest sources of heroin, and the reports of stockpiling of opium have raised fears of a glut of heroin on the market.
Newsweek added that the United States may drop shipments of food into Afghanistan before it drops any bombs, in a bid to undermine popular support in the starving country for the fundamentalist Taliban which Washington has indicated it wants out of power.