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US ground troops strike at Taliban

A citizen of Kabul cycles off with a bag of flour donated by the World Food Program in Kabul yesterday as US-led bombing continued to pound the Afghan capital. PHOTO: AP

US forces launched their first ground attack on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban yesterday and suffered their first war dead when a helicopter associated with the lightning raid went down across the border in Pakistan.

US President George W. Bush, in China for a weekend APEC summit, said that the two soldiers did not die in vain and that the American people should expect "moments of sacrifice" in the war on terrorism.

US officials said more than 100 special forces personnel took part in an in-and-out raid on targets inside Afghanistan as the campaign to capture or kill Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden and topple his Taliban protectors moved into a new phase.

The US and Britain accuse bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network of masterminding the Sept. 11 suicide hijack attacks which killed more than 5,000 people in the US.

The military campaign began on Oct. 7 with air and missile strikes to soften up the Taliban.

Yesterday's raid was the first of its kind.

One US official said a group of special forces, including Army Rangers, went in overnight in a mission lasting a few hours. "As of right now, they are clear of Afghan air space," he added, refusing to define the nature of the mission.

"This is the first in what is expected to be an ongoing operations activity," another official said.

Taliban Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said several US helicopters landed on Baba Sahib mountain, west of their stronghold of Kandahar, at around midnight.

"Simultaneously, the Taliban approached there and forced them to flee back by firing at them," he said.

The Pentagon said the two US soldiers were killed when a rescue helicopter on standby for the raid crashed in neighboring Pakistan. It gave no details.

Muttaqi, however, said the helicopter may have crashed after being crippled by Taliban fire. "We don't rule out the possibility of shooting it down," he said.

In Pakistan, a pivotal Taliban minister who holds the tribal affairs portfolio met Pakistani Foreign Ministry officials and talks touched on a future broad-based government for Afghanistan.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan told a news conference that Jalaluddin Haqqani was on an unannounced visit. "The meetings were looking at the prospect of how a broad-based government could work in Afghanistan," he said.

Khan declined further details and said he could not confirm reports that Haqqani had met representatives of Afghanistan's ex-King Zahir Shah while in Pakistan.

US State department officials would not comment on why they had not asked Pakistan -- which has promised full cooperation in the global war on terrorism -- to detain so senior an official of the Taliban that Washington is bent on crushing.
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