Special bombs will go after Taliban 'leadership targets'

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon is adding 5,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs to the mix of weapons aimed at shaking up the Taliban and laying ground for commando raids in Afghanistan, officials said Wednesday.

A fourth day of aerial raids, including attacks on the outskirts of Kabul, the Afghan capital, moved the U.S.-led campaign closer to the expected start of ground operations against the al-Qaida terrorist network and the Taliban government.

Publicly, the Pentagon offered no information about Wednesday's attacks, although officials speaking on condition of anonymity said "leadership targets," such as command-and-control facilities in underground bunkers near Kandahar were to be hit with 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs. Taliban's headquarters are in that southern Afghanistan city.

The officials said they could not verify immediately that the attacks were conducted as planned.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has hinted that more attacks would be aimed at such targets.

"The command and control and leadership structure may still be intact," he told CBS News on Tuesday.

A U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity said Wednesday that two adult male relatives of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar were killed in bombing strikes on the leader's home in Kandahar.

Officials said U.S. warplanes also would begin dropping cluster munitions, anti-personnel bombs that dispense smaller bomblets, for use against moving and stationary land targets such as armored vehicles and troop convoys.

The Pentagon released a brief statement with minimal details about Tuesday's bombing raids, the smallest since attacks began on Sunday. U.S. forces struck six military targets in Afghanistan, using between five and eight bombers and eight to 10 carrier-based Navy strike aircraft, it said.

Tuesday's targets were airfields near Kabul in the east and Herat in the west; surface-to-air missile emplacements near Kabul and Jalalabad and an al-Qaida training camp near Kandahar, the Pentagon said. Also, a maintenance facility at a Taliban army garrison near Mazar-e-Sharif was struck for a second time.

Unlike the first two days of attacks, Tomahawk cruise missiles were not fired Tuesday, and none were planned for Wednesday.

Two Air Force C-17 cargo planes on Tuesday dropped 35,000 packets of humanitarian food rations in north-central Afghanistan, and another airdrop was planned for Wednesday, officials said.

The Pentagon also announced that 495 additional Army reservists were called to active duty for transportation and military police work, and 75 Marine Corps reservists had been called up. It also said Rumsfeld will preside over a memorial service Thursday for the 189 people killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the Pentagon. President Bush is to deliver the principal address.

The focus of the air campaign over Afghanistan is turning to more difficult targets, after opening salvos neutralized the Taliban's meager air defenses. Among priority targets now are deeply buried command-and-control facilities associated with Taliban leaders' compounds, including those near Kandahar, officials said.

Air war planners selected the 5,000-pound "bunker-buster" bombs for use against those targets, three senior defense officials said.

During the Gulf War, the Pentagon developed the GBU-28, whose inventory and performance characteristics are classified secret, for striking deeply buried targets. It was used on Feb. 27, 1991, against a bunker complex in Iraq; two years ago a version with an improved guidance system was put into production.

The B-2 stealth bomber is capable of dropping the improved version of the bomb, known as the EGBU-28. B-2s have flown missions over Afghanistan and dropped 2,000-pound satellite-guided bombs known as the Joint Direct Attack Munition.

At Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Brig. Gen. Tony Przybyslawski, commander of the 509th Bomb Wing, told reporters Wednesday that six B-2s flew from Whiteman to their targets in Afghanistan, then continued to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, where fresh crews took over for the return flights to Whiteman. The 44-hour combat missions were the longest in history, he said.

The next phase of the U.S.-led military campaign probably will include secret raids by small groups of Army special operations forces -- perhaps Rangers or Green Berets -- ferried into Afghanistan by low-flying helicopters to rout out al-Qaida or Taliban leaders, military analysts said.

Small teams of British and U.S. special reconnaissance teams already were inside Afghanistan before this week's airstrikes began. The next deployment is expected to be much larger now that the strikes have made freer movement of troops possible.