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Allied Forces Kill Hundreds of al-Qaida Foe in 'Body Slam'
Wednesday, March 6, 2002
By Kathy Gannon
Associated Press Writer

“They can't escape. They're surrounded. Slowly, slowly we are pushing in,” Front-line commander Abdul Matin Hasankhiel said.

GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- AP
Hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters were killed in fierce fighting Tuesday as U.S.-led coalition forces pressed their offensive in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan, the American commander said.

U.S. forces in the region said as many as 800 opposition fighters had been seen moving toward the battle since the American-led operation was launched Saturday.

“We caught several hundred of them with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades] and mortars heading toward the fight. We body slammed them today and killed hundreds of those guys,” said Maj. Gen. Frank L. Hagenbeck, the commander of the operation near Gardez, 75 miles south of Kabul, the capital.

In other developments:

* Six years before suicide hijackers attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the FBI was alerted that Middle Eastern pilots were training at U.S. flight schools and at least one had proposed dive-bombing a jetliner into a federal building, according to documents and interviews with Filipino and U.S. authorities.

* The passage of six months since the World Trade Center attack will be observed in New York with a bronze sculpture damaged on Sept. 11 and with twin columns of light beamed skyward from a spot near ground zero.

* Seven American servicemen killed fighting in Afghanistan were honored in Germany before their flag-draped caskets were flown back to the United States.

* A Pakistani court on Tuesday set aside a petition to prevent the handover of the key suspect in the slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl to the United States, the prosecutor said. The government promise appeared to leave the door open to handing over British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh through means in accordance with Pakistani law.
(More: The Chicago Sunday Times News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

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