WASHINGTON - Emboldened by swift success in eliminating Afghan anti-aircraft positions, U.S. warplanes launched daylight bombing runs Tuesday, then added another round of nighttime raids on what American officials called "targets of opportunity."
The third day of bombing - and the near certainty of escalation ahead - triggered incendiary new threats against Americans from a spokesman for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network.
"America must know that the storm of (hijacked) airplanes will not stop, and there are thousands of young people who look forward to death like the Americans look forward to life," Sulaiman Abu Ghaith said in a videotape broadcast by al Jazeera, a satellite network in Qatar.
He repeated a call for holy war, or "jihad," praised the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks on America for their "good deed" and warned of more carnage to come - this time in retaliation for the U.S. response to the catastrophic terrorist assault.
"The American interests are everywhere all over the world," he said. "Every Muslim has to play his real and true role to uphold his religion and his nation in fighting, and jihad is a duty . . . Americans have opened a door that will never be closed."
As the first civilian deaths were reported in Afghanistan - four U.N. employees died during a U.S. attack on the capital of Kabul - some U.S. and British officials suggested that ground forces soon could join the battle against terrorism.
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Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the United States is "now able to carry out (air) strikes more or less around the clock, as we wish," and he refused to rule out the subsequent use of ground troops.
A few hours later, asked about the likelihood of such action, President Bush said: "I'm not going to tell you." A senior administration official who asked not to be identified said a ground campaign to secure bases and then search for bin Laden and his supporters could begin in a few days.
For now, though, bombing raids rocked Afghanistan as the U.S. air war evolved into a new phase: With nearly all planned targets destroyed, aircraft and missile-firing ships stood poised to seek and destroy fresh targets as they were spotted.
"Did you ever watch a hawk hunting?" one senior U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "They cruise around up high, and when they see something, they swoop down on it. Only in our case, some birds have the eyes and others have the claws."
Soaring high Tuesday, striking by light of day and in the darkness of night, at least 10 bombers thundered over Kabul, the northwestern city of Herat and the southern city of Kandahar, which is the home of the hard-line Taliban regime.
By Tuesday night, the Pentagon said, allied bombs and missiles had knocked out virtually all airfields, aircraft, air defenses and previously identified terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
About nine miles outside Kandahar, bombs reportedly struck a house belonging to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Earlier Tuesday, a Taliban spokesman said that Omar and bin Laden, the prime suspect behind the terrorist assault on America, remained alive and in hiding.
Despite the military pounding and wide condemnation by the world, the Taliban spokesman said his regime was willing to tolerate a mighty sacrifice - in the form of other people's lives - to retain power.
"We are determined to offer 2 million more martyrs for independence and sovereignty if need be," said Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.
No U.S. casualties were reported Tuesday or at any point thus far in the campaign, which has unfolded from the relative safety of ships at sea and planes flying above the range of anti-aircraft batteries.
But American troops - and possibly those of Britain and other close allies - soon could come much closer to danger.
"As far as any ground operations are concerned, clearly we are preparing plans to allow us to look at that as an option," British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon said. "We have only just started the very first part of the military campaign."
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, agreed.
"The next phase is likely to be the insertion and extraction of ground troops," he told CNN.
After a White House meeting with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Bush was asked if he intends to send ground troops into Afghanistan.
"As to whether or not we will put troops on the ground, I'm not going to tell you," he said. "It would be entirely unhelpful to spread this kind of information. It would only help the enemy that we're trying to bring down."
Knight Ridder Tribune
