<

Fifth Day of Strikes Brings Daylight Raid -- and Panic -- in Kabul; Pakistan Says U.S. Forces, Planes on the Ground
Friday, October 12, 2001
EDITOR'S NOTE:
Kathy Gannon contributed to this dispatch from Islamabad, Pakistan.

"When the Americans enter Afghanistan, here will start the real war -- not now," Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef said, referring to a ground conflict.

KABUL, Pakistan -- AP
The first daylight raid on the Afghan capital of a 5-day-old U.S.-led air campaign sent shoppers scattering in panic Thursday, jumping on donkey-drawn carts and bicycles to flee heavy explosions. In the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, a direct hit on a munitions dump set off a series of deafening blasts—and an exodus of civilians toward the Pakistani border.

One month after the terror attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Pakistani officials acknowledged for the first time that U.S. planes and personnel were on the ground as part of the American-led campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, and that the United States had been granted use of two key bases.

Pakistan stressed that its territory would not be a staging ground for military strikes against Afghanistan. Assistance to the United States is a political hot potato for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is coping with an angry backlash from homegrown militant Muslim parties.
(More: Redding.com News Source)
2001 © Record Searchlight.

Dan