Rumsfeld: Taliban Crippled by Airstrikes

Nov. 4, 2001 -- During a whirlwind tour of five countries backing U.S.-led military action against Afghanistan, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said the ruling Taliban is not "functioning as a government."

"There is really not a government to speak of in Afghanistan today," he said, during a stop in Pakistan.

"As a military force, they have concentrations of power that exist, they have capabilities that remain," Rumsfeld said. "They have weapons and they are using their power in enclaves throughout the country to impose their will on the Afghan people. They are not making major military moves, if that is the import of your question. They are pretty much in static positions."

Rumsfeld arrived in New Delhi, India late today. He is scheduled to meet with India's Defense Minister, George Fernandes on Monday.

As U.S.-led airstrikes entered their fifth week, U.S. warplanes again bombed Taliban positions near the Afghan cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul as the Taliban's Afghan opposition said it continued to battle on the ground.

On Saturday, Northern Alliance officials said they defeated the Taliban in an area called Aq-Kubruk, 43 miles south of Mazar-e-Sharif, after American air attacks in the area. In claims that could not be independently confirmed, they said their forces killed 80 Taliban soldiers and as many as 800 Taliban troops defected to their side, including the local Taliban leaders.

American forces also are operating on the ground inside Afghanistan. Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said today the number of U.S. special forces troops is increasing.

"Just last night, the night before, we put in a couple moreteams," Myers told NBC's Meet the Press program. "And themore teams we get on the ground, the more effectively we willbring air power to bear on the Taliban's lines."

The air attacks were heavy today. U.S. bombs falling on Taliban positions north of Kabul were so powerful, witnesses heard deafening explosions twenty-five miles away. Lingering smoke attested to the increasingly swift and punishing strikes that President Bush says are tightening the noose on the enemy.

Bin Laden Speaks

Meanwhile, some observers wondered whether bin Laden might have misstepped in the propaganda war in taped remarks broadcast on Arab television Saturday.

As U.S. forces hunted for his suspected cave hideouts, Bin Laden appeared on tape, denouncing the United Nations, the U.S.-led attacks in Afghanistan, and Muslims who support either one.

"As long as he kept the focus on America, he could get a kind of broad support from people who didn't like America," said Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, appearing today on ABCNEWS' This Week. "By widening the conflict so explicitly to include all Arab regimes, to include virtually every Muslim leader, as far as I could figure out, to include the United Nations, he like many megalomaniacs in the past, is miscalculating.

"Now, what I hope we will do is go to those Arab regimes and say, 'You see, you thought you could stay moderately neutral on this; you're target number two if we're target number one,'" Zakaria added. "The Egyptians, the Saudis, the Jordanians, will, I hope, now recognize that, whether they like it or not, Osama bin Laden is their mortal enemy."

After bin Laden's taped comments were aired, according to the Reuters news service, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa said binLaden did not speak for the world's Arabs and Muslims when he called for a holy war against the United States.

An official from Egypt, the Arab world's most populous country, also dismissed bin Laden's plea.

"There is a war between bin Laden and the whole world,"Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Maher told reporters ahead of ameeting of Arab foreign ministers in Syria.

Soon after Bin Laden's comments were aired, White House spokeswoman Anne Womack told the Associated Press, "This is more propaganda that shows how isolated he is from the world."

Bin Laden Denounces U.N., U.S.-led ‘Crusade’

It could not be determined when or where bin Laden recorded the taped remarks, in which he accused the United Nations of historically undermining Muslims.

Bin Laden also accused the U.S. media and government of conducting a western "crusade" against Islam, and claimed those who participate in the U.S.-led military action cannot be true Muslims.

"Bush has carried the cross, and lifted the banner of the cross high, and stood at the front of the line," bin Laden said, according to a translation by ABCNEWS. "Everyone who stands behind Bush in this campaign has broken one of the 10 cardinal sins of Islam, as all scholars agree when they said that pledging allegiance to unbelievers in a fight against believers annuls your status as a Muslim."

Some more moderate Muslims likewise have questioned bin Laden's apparently violent version of Islam.

The United States has named bin Laden the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States that killed more than 4,600 people, and says it has evidence of his involvement.

The hard-line Taliban regime has sheltered bin Laden in Afghanistan and refused to give him up. On Oct. 7, the United States launched its military campaign against Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan, with assent from nations around the world — including predominantly Muslim nations.

In his taped remarks, Bin Laden continued to denounce the military campaign.

"With no proof or evidence, the whole western world is supporting these unfair and severe attacks against the Afghan people, who had nothing to do with this incident," Bin Laden said.

Where is Bin Laden?

The United States apparently has narrowed its search for bin Laden to a few complexes of caves and tunnels. But Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Friday he did not want to characterize locating bin Laden as "imminent."

It's been difficult for the U.S. to get fast, accurate intelligence pinpointing bin Laden's whereabouts in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld said. Speaking on his way to Moscow Saturday, he said bin Laden and the senior lieutenants of his al Qaeda organization have been moving around a lot.

"They've been spending a lot of time in caves and tunnels and moving frequently," Rumsfeld said. "I think that the reports are probably as much wrong as right from time to time, but they're always late."

Rumsfeld Deal With Tajikistan

In other developments:

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld — on weekend trip with stops in Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and India — made a deal with officials in Tajikistan on the possible use of air bases in that country for military action in neighboring Afghanistan. It was announced that U.S. military teams would come to Tajikistan as early as today to assess how U.S. aircraft and troops could use the bases, particularly one in the southern part of the country close to the Afghan border. Rumsfeld then headed to Uzbekistan, where some U.S. forces already are based.

Pentagon officials say humanitarian aid to Afghan citizens continues. Two C-17 planes dropped another 34,000 food rations Saturday in northern Afghanistan, bringing the total to date to 1,135,000 rations.

In Washington Friday, President Bush said the U.S. bombing in Afghanistan would continue during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month that begins in mid-November. "The enemy won't rest during Ramadan and neither will we," Bush said. "We're going to pursue this war until we achieve ourobjectives."

The latest numbers of victims from the attacks on the World Trade Center, according to New York City officials are: 3,897 are missing and 499 identified.