U.S. helicopters swooped into the mountains Sunday and plucked more than 400 American soldiers from snow-covered slopes and encampments as the largest ground offensive of the Afghan war appeared to ease after nine tough days.
“The major fighting of the battle is over,” Maj. Bryan Hilferty, spokesman for the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division, said at Bagram air base outside Kabul, where weary troops returned to cheers and high-fives from other soldiers.
In news shows on American television Sunday morning, however, U.S. commanders cautioned that Operation Anaconda is far from over. While the Pentagon acknowledged some American troops had pulled out, officials characterized the pullout as a rotation and said a fresh batch of fighters would likely return to the area near Gardez.
“I don’t know that I’d characterize it as winding down,” said Gen. Tommy Franks, head of the U.S. Central Command, speaking on ABC’s “This Week.”
“We have moved these forces in and out over the last week,” Franks said. “And I would expect that will continue until we have reduced each of the pockets in the area.”
Without giving specifics, the Pentagon believes that hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda supporters are in retreat or in hiding. Running low on ammunition and fighters, the militant Arab force has apparently dwindled and scattered, U.S. officials say.
“It seems like we now have the upper hand, and our troops are mopping up,” U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
Arab fighters captured
Pentagon officials said an unspecified number of Arab fighters were captured and taken into U.S. detention.
“In the last 72 hours, we haven’t had any sustained or accurate fire placed on our forces,” Hilferty said. “Hopefully, it means that we’ve wiped them out.”
Speaking on CNN’s “Late Edition,” Gen. Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said several hundred troops who returned to Operation Anaconda’s headquarters at Bagram would “rearm and refit themselves and perhaps go back into the area to finish the job.”
More than 600 Americans and up to 1,000 Afghan fighters remained at the high-altitude front line, searching for pockets of the enemy reportedly huddled in two caves.
U.S. soldiers returning Sunday from the front said that when the offensive began March 1, the Americans encountered stiff resistance. But after days of intense U.S. bombing, and bolstered by hundreds of reinforcements, the tide turned, the troops said.
As days of inclement weather gave way to crystal blue skies, heavy American bombing continued Sunday, but efforts to reach the caves on foot were hampered by land mines and steep terrain. One of the caves may have been destroyed Sunday by a giant AC-130 warplane, known as “Puff the Magic Dragon” because of its sweeping and potent firepower.
Eight Americans and several Afghans have been killed and more than a hundred soldiers wounded so far in the campaign. Officials said hundreds of Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters have been killed in the ground battle, believed to be the most aggressive since the Persian Gulf war. But the man targeted most heavily, terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, has eluded capture or death, military officials believe.
Myers said Sunday that U.S. officials believe bin Laden is alive and may be taking refuge in the eastern region of Afghanistan in a “very, very elaborate” system of caves and fortified hideouts. Or, Myers said, he might be traveling between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Afghan commanders at the front lines say they are encouraging the Taliban and Arab guerrillas in the area to give up. Leaflets urging surrender have been dropped in the mountains.
“We should first try negotiations and a peaceful solution,” said Gul Haider, an Afghan commander waiting on a road outside Gardez to lead troops into the mountains. “Our Afghan brothers should come down and surrender.”
Haider had not broached the idea with the Americans, who are against any talks with the militant Muslims and terrorists.
Leaders of pro-Taliban villages that border the mountainous front warn that the battles could continue indefinitely if Americans and Afghans do not try to achieve peace.
“It is very hard to surround anyone completely in those mountains,” said Hafiz Ullah, the administrator of Zarmal, where residents have a clear view of the mountains being bombed. “I can’t see how the Americans can do well in those mountains.”
Dozens of Taliban backers living in anonymity in the valley below the fighting have taken up arms and rushed into the hills to join the Arab militants, Ullah said.
On the main road from Gardez to Kabul on Sunday, dozens of Afghan government soldiers sat and waited for orders. They sprang to attention when American Chinook helicopters were spotted overhead and headed into the mountains.
Weary U.S. soldiers return
Weary and caked with mud, American soldiers jumped aboard the choppers. Later, at their base outside Kabul, they talked about their week of combat and how they tried to fight off the cold.
2nd Lt. Christopher Blaha, 24, of Great Neck, N.Y., dedicated his fighting to his best friend, Andrew Stergiopoulos, 23, who was killed Sept. 11 while working in the World Trade Center. Blaha scribbled Stergiopoulos’s name on the grenades he threw.
Sgt. Corey Daniel, a 23-year-old who commanded an eight-man forward observation unit, said resistance from Al Qaeda had waned over the last few days as they ran out of ammunition and wilted under non-stop bombing.
“They were in a panic at the end,” Daniel said.
There were conflicting reports from U.S commanders about how many American troops would redeploy and where they would go. But American military officials warned the enemy to be wary.
“If I were an Al Qaeda guy, I wouldn’t go out for a pizza,” Hilferty said. “Operation Anaconda is not over.”
