The USA Patriot

US Ground Troops Bolster Bin Laden Search
DEBUKA file summary

Coinciding with the fall of the northern Taliban garrison at Konduz to the Northern Alliance Monday morning, November 26, several hundred US Marines were ferried from Arabian Sea carriers to the Kandaharr air strip in south Afghanistan, the first American ground troops to appear openly in the war-torn country.

They had joined local anti-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen in seizing fresh territory near the last Taleban enclave. Heavy fighting was also reported in the southern town of Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border.

But expelling the Taliban was not the primary mission of the newly arrived US ground troops, whose number will be built up to close to 2000 in the next day or two. They hope to take advantage of the tribal forces’ local knowledge to “smoke out” Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar, using the captured air strip as their base for search and destroy missions against al Qaeda.

Lack of precise intelligence, poor results of high-tech sensors

This new drive follows weeks of frustration in their hunt for the terrorist.
Concentrating on the Marouf area 80 miles south of Kandahar and the southeastern Uruzgan province between Kandahar and Kabul, which is traditional Pashtun country, the hunters have been hobbled by lack of precise intelligence.

Even the high-tech sensors, in which much store is set, failed to deliver. Scanning for movement, heat, vibrations and other signals, these devices report to airplanes or satellites and are becoming increasingly important in intelligence gathering.

The special GBU GBU-28 bunker-buster bombs were also a disappointment, causing only superficial damage to targeted cave entrances. The unmanned Predator planes which fired Hellfire anti-tank missiles at suspect locations fared no better.

The poor results raised the possibility of the escape of the bulk of bin Laden’s al Qaeda army to the hills, outside any deals forged between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance.

One option still under consideration in the Pentagon is the use of tactical nuclear weapons as the only means of breaking out of the impasse.

bin Laden Escape?

According to one piece of information, bin Laden and his family and party made a low-altitude flight out to Pakistan aboard one or more helicopters he kept hidden in a cave in the mountains of Uruzgan, and landed at an airfield secretly prepared last year in the Punjab region. Waiting there was a private jet bin Laden purchased some years ago.

Special forces have been posted at most airports in East and West Europe to watch for suspicious passengers and flights, or any sign of bin Laden.

US and British warships in the Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf have been stopping ships with boarding container in the Arabian Sea.