Wayward bombs kill 13 civilians

Rumsfeld says the war is proceeding as expected, and U.S. planes defend a Northern Alliance supply line.

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 29, 2001

KABUL, Afghanistan -- American airstrikes meant to punish the Taliban spilled over Sunday into residential neighborhoods of the Afghan capital, killing 13 civilians -- the second time in as many days that missiles have accidentally hit homes and killed residents.

Later Sunday, U.S. jets were back over the skies of the beleaguered Afghan capital, and strong explosions could be heard in the direction of the main road from Kabul to the opposition-controlled Bagram air base.

Also Sunday:

U.S. warplanes trained their weapons on Taliban artillery threatening a Northern Alliance supply line.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld brushed aside criticism that the air campaign against the Taliban and terrorist targets had stalled.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair expressed confidence the allies would prevail. However, his foreign secretary told the British Broadcasting Corp. that the war could drag on "indefinitely" and that the coalition was considering a pause during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which begins around Nov. 17.

In neighboring Pakistan, where the government has had to work to keep a lid on pro-Taliban unrest, there was growing concern over civilian casualties.

Stray bombs

In Kabul, weeping families buried their dead hours after the morning bombardment, apparently aimed at Taliban targets to the north and east of Kabul.

The Associated Press saw the bodies of four children and two men in the neighborhood of Qali Hotair. Neighbors said the dead were eight members of one family and two of another, and that several others were hurt.

In one mud house, a father hugged the dead body of his young son, who looked barely 2 years old. He wailed and cried, rocking the body of the son.

Nearby were the bodies of three other small children, their sweaters covered in dust. Their mother's pale-blue burqa, or long veil, was draped over them.

In another room, a man's body was covered with a white cloth. His neighbors and family were preparing to wash the corpse, in keeping with Islamic tradition.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesmen had no comment on the latest strikes and civilian casualties involved.

The strikes that hit Kabul came only 12 hours after stray bombs landed Saturday evening behind the rebel military alliance's battle lines north of the capital. Eight or nine civilians were killed -- most of them in alliance-held areas, according to witnesses.

War on target

Rumsfeld said the war, now entering its fourth week, was proceeding as military planners had anticipated -- although he cautioned that rooting out terrorism was a difficult task that would take time and patience.

Coordination between American airstrikes and the battlefield needs of Northern Alliance fighters in the north was improving, Rumsfeld said, a comment echoed by rebel commanders who said American warplanes helped guarantee their survival by pounding Taliban targets near the Tajikistan border.

In daylight and evening raids, U.S. aircraft dropped more than 10 bombs on Taliban positions, mostly near the Kokcha River, according to the Northern Alliance, the loosely knit group of militias opposing the Taliban. The raids hit targets pinpointed by the alliance, and were carried out for the first time in that area, a senior opposition leader told the New York Times. The goal was to disable Taliban artillery capable of striking a river crossing that is a crucial supply route.

In appearances on the Sunday television talk shows, Rumsfeld acknowledged that the Taliban soldiers were tenacious, but he said American planners had been expecting nothing less from fighters who had driven out the Soviet military and had continued to season themselves through years of civil war.

"It's going very much the way we expected when it began," Rumsfeld said on ABC's This Week. "Three weeks is not a very long time if one thinks about it. And the progress has been measurable. We feel that the air campaign has been effective."

From the war zone Sunday, the Northern Alliance's deputy defense minister, Atiqullah Baryalai, said U.S. aircraft bombed Taliban positions near the border with Tajikistan, striking an area that opposition commanders described as the base for several hundred foreign soldiers.

The Ramadan dilemma

A pause in military strikes for the holy month of Ramadan is possible though past wars among Islamic countries have not had such cease-fires, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Sunday.

A halt to military action "is being considered, but I have to say that if you look at the history of warfare in Islamic countries . . . there have not been pauses during Ramadan." He cited the 1980-88 war between Iraq and Iran and the 1979-89 Soviet war in Afghanistan.

"There was a Middle East war during Ramadan. There is nothing in that religion that suggests that conflicts have to stop during Ramadan," Rumsfeld said on CNN's Late Edition.

A delay would cost the Allies considerable momentum at a critical time. By the end of the holy month, the harsh Afghan winter will have set in, limiting air and ground operations.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Blair sought to assure the nation the U.S.-led war was morally defensible.

"Whatever our faults, Britain is a very moral nation with a strong sense of right and wrong, and that moral fiber will defeat the fanaticism of the terrorists and their supporters," he said.

Avoiding civilian deaths

In Pakistan, concern over civilian casualties increased.

"We feel the military action should possibly be short and targeted in order to avoid civilian casualties," Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, said after meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Rumsfeld said that while the United States has been "very careful" about avoiding civilian casualties when possible, the Taliban is making it increasingly difficult not to hit civilians.

"They are systematically using mosques and schools and hospitals for command-and-control centers (and) for ammunition storage," Rumsfeld said.

He defended the casualty figures as minimal and said some of the victims might have been killed by Taliban or opposition Northern Alliance fire.

"Are people going to be killed in a war? You bet," he said. "And there is plenty of ordnance flying around."

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