Kabul | Sunday
US warplanes launched a second day of bombing Sunday against suspected al-Qaeda positions in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, but the ground assault has been blocked by heavy resistance, a witness said.
Gilani, the son of local warlord Padsha Khan, said five Afghan fighters have been killed in the fighting and that one US serviceman was killed and another wounded.
US military officials have confirmed the death of one American and of two Afghans.
Gilani said the US bombing was continuing in the Amra mountains, where more than 2 000 members of the al-Qaeda network or the ousted Taliban are believed holed up.
As he spoke by telephone, Gilani said he could see two US military helicopters and two B-52 jets bombarding the area.
Gilani said the Afghan fighters, who are assisted by some 30 US advisers, had come under heavy artillery attack by al-Qaeda forces.
”The ground advancement has been blocked and stopped,” Gilani said.
”The Arab and al-Qaeda fighters are resisting fiercely. At the beginning we didn’t think they would resist so much,” he said.
He said some Arab and Chechen members of al-Qaeda were believed to be living in the mountains with their families.
Gilani said the troop advancement was also hampered by about one metre of snow on the ground.
”But the Afghan fighters have been given very warm uniforms by the Americans so they don’t mind the cold weather,” he said.
The United States has said it has dropped a powerful thermobaric bomb on the suspected hideout area.
The bomb, never used before by the United States, produces rapidly expanding shock waves that can flatten anything near the epicentre of the aerosol fuel cloud.
The United States launched a military campaign in Afghanistan following the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which left some 3 000 people dead and were allegedly masterminded by al-Qaeda.
The Taliban regime was routed late last year, but Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden have eluded capture. – AFP
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