First American service member killed in Afghanistan

AP Military WriterWASHINGTON (AP) -- A U.S. Army Special Forces soldier was killed by small-arms fire in eastern Afghanistan Friday, the first member of the American military to die in the three-month-old campaign.

Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command, announced the death at a news conference in Tampa, Fla. He said the soldier's name was being withheld until family members were notified.

Franks said the soldier was part of a U.S. military team that was working with "local tribal elements" near the town of Khost. He offered no specific details of the incident.

The four-star general said the death underscored the dangers faced by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, where there are pockets of resistance from al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

On Nov. 25, CIA operative Johnny "Mike" Spann was killed during a prison uprising in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

The only other U.S. military members killed inside Afghanistan were three U.S. special operations troops mistakenly hit by a U.S. airstrike near Kandahar on Dec. 5.

Pentagon officials have stressed frequently that although the large-scale fighting in Afghanistan is over, the country remains dangerous for U.S. troops, who now number about 4,000 on the ground.

Afghanistan "is still an extraordinarily dangerous place and this is an extraordinarily dangerous mission," Victoria Clarke, chief spokeswoman for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, told reporters Friday before the combat casualty was disclosed by other officials.

U.S. warplanes bombed a suspected al-Qaida base in eastern Afghanistan for the second time in as many days Friday after coalition observers detected some of Osama bin Laden's forces trying to regroup there, military officials said.

The second strike on the Zawar Kili camp near Khost took place in late morning, after coalition forces detected some activity at the base in the hours following the first strike, Clarke said.

To improve the coalition's ability to conduct strikes, a U.S. team of about 180 people is preparing an air base in Kyrgyzstan for use by fighter-bombers and air tankers, said a defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Within a few weeks, the base will be ready for F-15E Strike Eagles, fighter-bombers that can carry "bunker-buster" penetrating bombs, the official said.

Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic that borders China, is not adjacent to Afghanistan. But the air base will give coalition forces a northern base from which to fly missions in Afghanistan.

The search for bin Laden, whom the United States holds responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, continues by land, sea and air.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the Pentagon will continue pursuing bin Laden and his top lieutenants, as well as Mullah Mohammed Omar and other Taliban leaders. The military campaign in Afghanistan will not be over until they are found, Rumsfeld said.

"We intend to find them and we intend to capture or kill them," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference Thursday.

"Our real goal is to see that people are not committing terrorist acts," he added later.

Rumsfeld repeatedly said the U.S. military campaign against al-Qaida has been effective, even while acknowledging that it has not met President Bush's stated goal of bringing top terrorist leaders to justice.

"We've disrupted any number of training camps, and it does take training to become a polished, successful murderer or mass murderer," Rumsfeld said. "You just don't walk out of grade school with that kind of knowledge; you need to practice and be taught by experts."

Details of the twin strikes -- the first since Dec. 28 -- were sketchy. In the first strike, defense officials said fighters and bombers dropped about 100 bombs on the compound, which included a training facility and a cave complex. An AC-130 gunship also took part.

An official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the undetermined number of al-Qaida fighters at the compound appeared to be regrouping either to resume fighting or to slip across the nearby border into Pakistan.

U.S. cruise missiles struck the same compound in August 1998 in response to terrorist attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, Myers said. It also was struck in November.

"It has been a place where the al-Qaida goes to regroup," said Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was not clear how many al-Qaida members may have been killed in the attack.

On Dec. 28, U.S. planes struck a compound near the city of Gardez, not far from Thursday's and Friday's strikes.

In other developments:

--Afghan officials said they were trying to get tribal leaders to surrender their weapons as they continued to search the mountains for Omar. U.S. officials were insistent that no deal be offered that would lead to freedom for Omar, the second most wanted man after bin Laden.

--Prime Minister Hamid Karzai has agreed to visit President Bush next month in what will be the first visit to Washington by an Afghan leader in almost 40 years, the White House said.

--Pakistan arrested the former Taliban ambassador in Islamabad, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, said Zaeef's nephew, Hamid Ullah. He said he did not know the reason for the arrest of Zaeef, who was the most prominent Taliban spokesman during the U.S. campaign against the militia.

--Clarke said the United States is currently holding 273 Taliban or al-Qaida members from Afghanistan either at U.S. bases in the country or on ships. Rumsfeld said an undetermined number of prisoners would be moved to the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as the base is readied.