U.S. officials assess Afghan bomb damage

AP Special CorrespondentWASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush is filling out the lineup of his anti-terrorism team as Pentagon officials assess the damage from the U.S. bombing over Afghanistan. The air assault, now into its third day, claimed the lives of four Afghan security guards for a U.N. mine-clearing program.

"The best defense against terror is a global offensive against terror whenever it might be found," President Bush declared Monday, juggling his roles as commander in chief and comforter in chief to a nervous nation.

"On all efforts, on all fronts, we're going to be ongoing and relentless as we tighten the net of justice," the president said.

Early Tuesday jets bombed the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, Taliban officials said. Taliban soldiers replied with heavy anti-aircraft fire. There was no immediate confirmation from the Pentagon that the attacks were from the U.S.-led coalition, although they likely were. Spokesman Navy Capt. Tim Taylor said officials would not comment on each individual strike because they are part of a "continuous operation."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., gave the bombing campaign a vote of support, telling "The Early Show" on CBS, "We've got the right tone. We've got the right understanding of the complexity and the seriousness of this challenge. We're going about it in a concerted and a very successful way."

As part of the administration's new "homeland defense" focus, Bush on Tuesday was announcing his choices to oversee cybersecurity and to coordinate anti-terror efforts with military and intelligence officials.

Richard Clarke, who heads the government's counterterrorism team, will direct efforts to protect the nation's information systems from attack and retired Army Gen. Wayne Downing was to work with military and intelligence resources, according to administration sources.

Bush also was meeting Tuesday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder for talks on bolstering the international alliance against terrorism. Leaving Berlin, Schroeder said he would talk to Bush about possible German military assistance "beyond AWACS aircraft and possibly ships in the Mediterranean."

A spokeswoman for the United Nations in Pakistan, Stephanie Bunker, said security guards for Afghan Technical Consultants, which had an office in a village two miles east of Kabul, were killed in Monday night's attacks. Their office was not far from a Taliban communications tower that may have been a target.

Bunker said that guards hadn't been warned or told to relocate. "It was assumed they were safe where they were. Otherwise, they would have been relocated for sure," she said, adding that the guards weren't affiliated with the Taliban.

"It's inevitable there will be mistakes that take place in a situation where the lines remain unclear," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., told ABC's "Good Morning America."

Pentagon officials said five long-range bombers and 10 sea-launched warplanes took part in Monday's strikes against military and terrorist targets at selected locations inside Afghanistan, and all returned safely. Although smaller than Sunday night's bombardment, the attack included the launch of 15 cruise missiles, launched from ships.

At least three bomb explosions reverberated through the Afghan capital of Kabul. Taliban gunners responded to the attack with a crackle of fire into the skies over the city.

Targets in Monday's raids included areas around the capital, the Taliban's home base of Kandahar, and Afghanistan's north, where an opposition northern alliance is battling the Taliban, the Islamic movement that controls most of Afghanistan.

In Islamabad, Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban envoy to Pakistan, told reporters the United States "is aiming firstly to hunt the sitting Islamic government in Afghanistan and then every committed Muslim, in the name of terrorism."

"We ask America to produce solid proof instead of allegations, but America is sending warplanes, bombs and cruise missiles in place of evidence," he said. "This is open terrorism."

Later, Zaeef said Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, survived the bombings. "He is alive, his health is very good and he is in Afghanistan," Zaeef told CNN.

U.S. officials said the strikes likely were to continue at least one more day as part of the effort to undermine the Taliban regime and rout bin Laden's al-Qaida network of terrorists.

Beyond that, British Prime Minister Tony Blair hinted the offensive would expand in time. Airstrikes "will be supported by other actions," he said. He did not elaborate, but the British defense ministry said ground operations were an option.

The targeting of any follow-up attacks would depend in part on the assessments made of the damage inflicted during the first two nights.

American officials have identified bin Laden as the leading force behind the Sept. 11 attacks that killed more than 5,000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a plane crash in the southwestern Pennsylvania countryside.

With U.S. warplanes en route to Monday's attacks, Bush presided over the swearing in of former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge as the new head of the Department of Homeland Security. "We will take strong actions aimed at preventing terrorist attacks and prepare to respond effectively if they do come again," the president said.

Officials warn daily of the possibility of further terrorist strikes -- "Every American should be vigilant," Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday -- and the FBI launched an investigation during the day into the exposure of a second Florida man to anthrax. One man died of the extremely rare disease last week, and health officials said they found the germ in the nasal passage of a co-worker as well as on a keyboard inside the building where both worked.

"We regard this as an investigation that could become a clear criminal investigation," Ashcroft said. "We don't have enough information to know whether this could be related to terrorism or not."

Health officials offered antibiotics to several hundred people as a precaution and the FBI sealed off the Boca Raton building housing several supermarket tabloids where both men worked. Agents donned protective gear before going inside.

There was another scare on Monday, when one of the travelers aboard an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles was subdued by co-pilots and other passengers after he tried to barge into the cockpit. The 30-year-old man was described as mentally ill -- not a terrorist -- but two military fighters escorted the plane to a safe landing in Chicago after the incident.

In Monday's action over Afghanistan, five long-range bombers -- a pair of B-2 stealth bombers flying from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., and three B-1Bs from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia -- joined 10 strike planes launched from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea. They targeted air defense and other military targets across Afghanistan.

The destroyers USS John Paul Jones and USS McFaul and one submarine launched a total of 15 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

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