U.S. Broadening Military Campaign
Nov. 5 -- United States military forces are broadening the scope of their attacks on Taliban forces, while President Bush hopes to broaden support for the U.S. campaign with a busy week of diplomatic meetings.
U.S. bombers pounded Taliban troops along the frontlines north of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital today, while U.S. helicopter gunships attacked a hotel in Kabul that the Taliban has used as a military headquarters.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters today there are now four U.S. special operations units working with four different groups of oppostion forces in Afghanistan, and added that not all of the teams were in the north — the first indication that the United States is working with Taliban opponents besides the Northern Alliance rebel groups.
And U.S. military personnel are in Tajikistan studying three airfields to determine whether they could be used as bases of operation in Afghanistan, as bombing continued near the Afghan capital of Kabul.
"Certainly airfields closer to Afghanistan would give us an advantage in being able to generate sorties," said Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem at a Pentagon briefing today.
The U.S. assessment team in Tajikistan is examining bases at Kulyab, Khojand and Kurgan-Tyube, all of which are within 50 miles of the Afghan border. Rumsfeld met Saturday with Tajik President Emomali Rahmonov, but did not emerge with a deal to use airfields.
Busy Week for Bush
President Bush received a further endorsement of the U.S. military campaign today from President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria during a White House meeting.
"We share the same suffering," Bouteflika told reporters afterward, referring to his country's struggles with terrorists and Muslim fundamentalists.
President Bush has numerous diplomatic meetings planned for later in the week, including sessions with French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been by far the United States' most outspoken supporter since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed more than 4,600 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
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