TUESDAY, MARCH 5.2002
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5A
Death toll up in Afghan offensive
The Associated Press
SURMAD, Afghanistan — U.S. warplanes pounded al-Qaida and Taliban mountain strongholds yesterday for a fourth day while coalition ground troops searched for pockets of enemy fighters in the rugged, snow-covered terrain. The heavily armed defenders responded with mortars, grenades and machine gun fire.
At least nine Americans have been killed in the offensive — code-named Operation Anaconda — including those killed yesterday when two helicopters took enemy fire. The attack marked the first time U.S. conventional ground troops have been used in an offensive operation.
Taliban holed up in the region.
The code name Anaconda apparently was chosen because the giant South American snake of that name crushes its victims encircled in the muscular coils of its body. The operation was said to be designed to cut off all means of escape for al-Qaida and
In Paris, the French Defense Ministry said French Mirage 2000 and Super- Etendard fighters joined in launch air strikes, attacking al-Qaida targets near Gardez, about 75 miles south of Kabul, the capital.
"In one minute, I counted 15 bombs," Rehmahe Shah, a security guard at the intelligence unit in the provincial capital Gardez, said yesterday.
The offensive, which includes about 2,000 Afghanis, Americans and special operations forces from six allied nations, is the largest U.S.-led ground operation of the five-month Afghan war.
Seven Americans died after a Chinook helicopter, a transport aircraft normally used to ferry special forces troops and supplies, was shot at and crash-landed yesterday.
In a second incident, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, one American was killed when a helicopter was fired on by a rocket-propelled grenade. He said the chopper made a hard landing and then managed to take off again. The crewman who died apparently fell from the aircraft. A ninth U.S. soldier was killed by mortar fire Saturday.
Roseuddin, an Afghan civilian who was in the village of Shah-e-Kot shortly before the attacks began, estimated the al-Qaida and Taliban force at about 600, commanded by a former Taliban officer, Saif Rahman.
Roseuddin said the al-Qaida and Taliban fighters had been storing provisions for months in anticipation of a bloody siege.
"They told people. 'If you want to leave or stay, it is up to you.' Rosebuddin said.
Neither the former Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar nor al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden was believed to be in the area.
JAMMU, India — Separatist violence in India's region of Kashmir has left at least 17 people dead, Indian security officials said yesterday.
The Associated Press
Indian soldiers killed eight Islamic militants trying to sneak in from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir along the remote frontier, an army spokesman said.
Elsewhere, snipers of Kashmir's largest Islamic militant group killed four policemen in an ambush in Gool, 110 miles from Jammu, the winter capital of India's Jammu-Kashmir state, police said.
Saleem Hashmi, a spokesman for the Pakistan-based Hezb-ul Mujahedeen the largest militant group in Kashmir said in a telephone call to The Associated Press that his group had carried out the attack.
In fighting elsewhere, three militants
were killed in a gunbattle in the Punch area and two in Rajauri, police said.
Islamic militant groups have been fighting since 1989 to separate Kashmir from India. The rebels want all of Kashmir to be independent or to merge Kashmir with Pakistan.
Plainclothes police were fired upon as they patrolled behind a college, said officers in Baramulla, 30 miles northwest of Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu-Kashmir.
The officers said they had heard from the scene that two policemen and two civilians were shot, but could not confirm the reports.
India accused Pakistan of aiding at least a dozen Islamic militant groups fighting in Kashmir. Pakistan said it only supported their cause politically.
The nations have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir. India controls two-thirds of it and Kashmir the rest.
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When: March 4-8
Where: Kansas Union, 4th Floor
Also at Mrs. E's Oliver
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from 5-7 pm
ECM Veggie Lunch March 7
Look at the displays in the Union to learn about Women's History!