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© St. Petersburg Times, published November 4, 2001
DEH MESKIN, Afghanistan -- U.S. jets blasted Taliban strongholds on Afghanistan's two main battle fronts Saturday, and the opposition Northern Alliance chose its representatives to negotiate with other Afghan factions to create a broad-based government to replace the Taliban.
The Pentagon, meanwhile, confirmed it lost an unarmed, unmanned Air Force RQ-1B Predator spy plane over Afghanistan -- but insisted it was because of bad weather, not Taliban fire. It denied Taliban claims that two U.S. aircraft were shot down.
Also, U.S. forces plucked a sick special operations serviceman from northern Afghanistan Saturday, a Pentagon official said, completing a mission that ended Friday with the crash of a helicopter.
And U.S. military teams plan to move into Tajikistan today to explore using three air bases in the Central Asian nation to house troops and launch raids into Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
Opposition leaders praised the U.S. airstrikes, saying they were weakening Taliban defenses -- after days of complaining that the attacks were too weak to dislodge the Islamic militia. U.S. planes began attacking targets along the Kabul front before dawn Saturday and continued into the day, hitting Taliban tanks and a Taliban hilltop headquarters overlooking the Shomali plain about 30 miles north of Kabul, according to the opposition.
Along Afghanistan's other main front -- Mazar-e-Sharif -- opposition spokesman Ashraf Nadeem said U.S. jets staged "continuous bombing" attacks Saturday against Taliban positions in Samangan province about 40 miles east of the strategic northern city.
Opposition forces claimed to have seized an outlying district along the Mazar-e-Sharif front in heavy fighting as they pressed toward the city itself. The claim could not be independently verified.
Despite the attacks, Taliban Information Minister Qadratullah Jamal insisted Taliban morale remains high. "Even if a Taliban dies, his friend is behind him running forward. He is not afraid to lose his life. He knows he will go to heaven," Jamal said.
In other developments:
A commander fighting with the Taliban defected Friday, bringing with him 1,350 fighters and control of several towns in northern Afghanistan, according to the commander and other rebel officers.
"I didn't want the fighting to destroy the country. I wanted to surrender in peace," the commander, Mohammed Hashim Habib Gorzovani, also known as Hasham Khan, said by telephone Saturday.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Mike Halbig denied Taliban claims that they had shot down two U.S. aircraft and killed dozens of Americans, blaming the crashes on weather.
"It's false. As many claims with the Taliban, it is simply not true," he said.
Another Pentagon official said the special forces operative rescued Saturday was suffering from an undetermined illness and he wasn't responding to medication that he had been taking prior to his rescue. He's being treated by a doctor.
The Tajikistan agreement being negotiated would allow the United States to base special forces and infantry at three Tajik bases and in return would guarantee "tens of millions of dollars" in aid to the impoverished former Soviet republic that borders Afghanistan to the south.
The bases, Kulob and Qurghonteppa in the south of the country and Khujand in the north, could accommodate U.S. helicopters, gunships and ground troops, a senior defense official told the New York Times.
CARACAS, Venezuela -- After angering the United States with criticism of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Saturday that his remarks were misinterpreted.
During his weekly radio show, Chavez insisted that he did not condemn the U.S.-led attacks and had no intention of marring relations with Venezuela's biggest trade partner. But he was calling for peace, he said.
"I want to be your friend," Chavez said in English. "It's not a condemnation, it's a reflection and call for peace, and that's the way it should be interpreted," he added in Spanish.
-- Information from the Washington Post and the New York Times was used in this report.