The US bombing campaign against Afghanistan, now in its fourth week, claimed more civilian casualties on Sunday as US officials promised that America's military machine would not bog down in a "quagmire" of endless carnage.
US fears of biological warfare were stoked by the confirmation of a fresh anthrax case in New Jersey -- the 13th since the Sept. 11 hijack attacks on New York and Washington -- and news that anthrax spores had contaminated an off-site mail facility serving the US Justice Department.
With Islamic anger crackling abroad and public anxiety cresting at home, administration officials took to the airwaves in an effort to show that America's war on terrorism was on track -- albeit with no quick or easy victory in sight.
PHOTO: AFP
"This is going to be a long process, so this is not one battle," White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told Fox News television. "This will be a series of efforts to make sure that Afghanistan is not a place where terrorists can be harbored."
That effort produced new civilian casualties on the ground on Sunday as US bombing raids killed 12 civilians in the Afghan capital, Kabul, including a man and his seven children who were eating breakfast.
"What shall I do now? Look at their savageness," wailed the wife of Gul Ahmad as the bodies of her seven children, wrapped in shrouds, were pulled from the wreckage of her home.
"They killed all of my children and husband," she said. "The whole world is responsible for this tragedy. Why are they not taking any decision to stop this?"
With Western military analysts predicting a campaign that could stretch into months, if not years, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised that Afghanistan would not turn into a quagmire for the world's sole remaining superpower.
"It's not a quagmire at all. It's been three weeks that we've been engaged in this," Rumsfeld said on ABC's This Week, speaking to a nation still smarting from its protracted and futile battle in Vietnam several decades ago.
Conceding that the Taliban still had some jet fighters, helicopters, surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft Stinger missiles, Rumsfeld said he foresaw a "long, long effort" that could include the use of more US ground troops.
On the Pakistani border, a huge crowd of Pakistanis and exiled Afghans were preparing to cross over to help the Taliban, carrying a dizzying array of arms from 19th-century muskets to machineguns.
Pakistan itself, the shaky linchpin of the US-led anti-Taliban coalition, saw fresh violence after masked gunmen on motorcycles shot and killed 15 Christians in a church in Bahawalpur after shouting, "Allah-u-Akbar[God is Greater]."
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, whose military government has come under sharp pressure from hard-line Islamic groups opposed to US strikes against Afghanistan, said the attack had clearly involved "trained terrorists."
US officials, seeking to bolster their most important ally in the region, said they believed Musharraf's government was stable.
"This really is good versus evil and the Pakistani government has joined the side of the good," Card said on Sunday.
Questions remained, not only about Pakistan's future but that of Afghanistan itself.
Afghanistan's deposed king, 87-year-old Mohammed Zahir Shah, held prayers for slain veteran mujahideen commander Abdul Haq on Sunday at his place of exile in Rome, while the UN special envoy for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, arrived in Pakistan to begin canvassing views on forming a broad-based government to replace the purist Islamic rulers.
US officials vowed to continue the air attacks on Afghanistan, waving away suggestions the bombardment might cease once the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan begins in mid-November.
The prospect of bombs dropping on Afghan civilians during a holy month has put new strains on the US-led coalition, with leaders, including Musharraf, warning that further bombing could inflame the anti-US sentiment already flaring across the Islamic world.
In Kabul, officials said 12 civilians were killed overnight, including the family of Gul Ahmed, when US bombs shattered their mud home.
US bombing also caused civilian casualties in territory controlled by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, killing two people in the hamlet of Ghanikhel.
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