Large U.S. Force Battles Al Qaeda Fighters
American Ground Assault Is Called Biggest of War; Afghan Allies Describe Setback at Start of Offensive 
 _____ Update _____

Battles Rage Again Today 

By Peter Baker and Steve Vogel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 4, 2002; Page A01 


ETMANAI, Afghanistan, March 3 -- Backed by American bombing, hundreds of U.S. ground troops and their Afghan allies battled al Qaeda fighters in the rugged mountains near here today, Pentagon officials said. Afghan leaders and soldiers said the offensive suffered a setback on Saturday when an opening ground assault was stalled by heavy resistance. 

Pentagon officials described the battle as the largest U.S. ground assault of the war, for the first time involving conventional American troops. U.S. officials said "intense ground fighting" involving U.S. soldiers occurred tonight. But they offered few details of the battle, and no current reports of American, allied or enemy casualties.

However, several key Afghan commanders and local authorities gave grim accounts of the launch of the offensive at dawn on Saturday outside the village of Shahikot, where U.S. Special Forces had organized an assault by Afghan fighters. Before the attack could begin, they said, a preemptive al Qaeda mortar and machine gun barrage killed an American soldier and wounded dozens of Afghan and American troops. (A senior Defense Department official said that of the 34 wounded Americans, 14 had already returned to the battlefield.)

After the attack, U.S. officers redeployed Afghan troops under their command to attempt to seal off any al Qaeda escape rather than take on enemy fighters directly, Afghan leaders said. Today, it appeared that U.S. and Afghan troops were moving to encircle the area while escalating bombing by U.S. warplanes pounded al Qaeda positions.

"They made a big mistake," Said Mohammed Isshaq, the Afghan security chief in the provincial capital of Gardez, said of the American commanders at Shahikot. "They went ahead without making trenches, without reinforcing their positions. And then they were cut off. They retreated really badly."

The assessment was shared by Afghan soldiers on the battlefield. "Our command was really bad. The American command was really bad," said Khial Mohammed, a 22-year-old soldier who was wounded. "We didn't think about all the aspects of the battle before we attacked."

U.S. officers said their forces came under withering fire as soon as they arrived in Shahikot, but said that since the initial battle they had regained the initiative.

"There were many bad people shooting very big caliber weapons at them," Maj. Bryan Hilferty, a spokesman for the Army's 10th Mountain Division, said from Bagram air base. "Now we have them isolated -- and we have put some heavy casualties on them."

U.S. officials said there had been no withdrawal of American troops and that any retreat would have been a tactical move by a small number of forces. "Initially, one of the Afghan commanders decided, 'Let me go back and regroup and try to go back in' -- and he is on his way back in right now. In fact he may be back," said an officer at the U.S. Central Command.

Hilferty said that Army Maj. Gen. Franklin L. "Buster" Hagenbeck, commander of the U.S.-led forces at Gardez, "is reviewing the fight and making sure the commanders on the ground have the resources they need to win."

According to Pentagon officials, U.S. forces accelerated strikes by Air Force B-52 and F-15E bombers and Navy carrier-based strike aircraft, along with fusillades fired by AC-130 gunships. U.S. aircraft dropped 190 bombs today, more than twice as many as Saturday. Army AH-64 Apache attack helicopters were hit by enemy fire, although no U.S. aircraft have been shot down, officials said.

U.S. troops in the battle are drawn from the Army's 101st Airborne Division and 10th Mountain Division. In addition, the Pentagon said that forces from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and Norway were participating. A Pentagon official said that 1,000 U.S. troops, including aircrews, were participating in the offensive. U.S. officials said early today that 34 Americans had been wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.

Afghan officials said today that Afghan units commanded by U.S. Special Forces have formed a "security belt" around Shahikot, about 12 miles south of this village. About 850 troops led by Afghan Gen. Zia are stationed outside Gardez blocking roads to the north of Shahikot, while another 250 under Gen. Zakim Khan are guarding the route south to Paktika province. At least 200 more under Gen. Kamal Khan Zadran have been posted to the east on the road to Khost, according to Isshaq.

Referring to al Qaeda, Taj Mohammed Wardak, the governor of Paktia province, where Gardez is located, said this afternoon, "They're surrounded and little by little the circle is getting smaller." But he added that "the ground forces are only blocking the ways of escaping" while U.S. bombers pounded away.

It was unclear how many al Qaeda troops and sympathizers remained in the mountains around Shahikot. Wardak estimated as few as 450, while Isshaq suggested the number was closer to 3,000 or 4,000. The area contains warrens of man-made caves carved from the mountains by Afghan fighters during more than two decades of war against the Soviets or Afghan rivals.

The failed ground assault on Shahikot on Saturday morning underscored the difficulties and risks as U.S. forces pursue pockets of al Qaeda and Taliban resistance. While the Taliban government has fallen and Osama bin Laden's network has been damaged inside Afghanistan, anti-American guerrillas have been trying to regroup, officials said.

A group of al Qaeda fighters seeking refuge arrived about a week ago in Shahikot, a tiny village that is home to just a few impoverished families, according to local Afghan officials. Many of the new arrivals had fled Kabul last November when the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance captured the capital. Others had escaped from the mountains of Tora Bora, where al Qaeda units were attacked by U.S. and Afghan forces in December.

Wardak, the governor, said the al Qaeda fighters paid villagers to abandon Shahikot. Wardak, who heard about the situation from contacts nearby, said the al Qaeda members told the villagers, "We are on the road to escaping this country."

U.S. commanders, who have set up a base outside Gardez to intercept enemy troops before they can reach the border with Pakistan, oversaw the training by U.S. Special Forces of 1,000 Afghans before the offensive, according to local officials. Soldiers said they received two days of training in such subjects as how to run with a gun, how to drop to the ground to avoid enemy fire and how to evacuate casualties from the battlefield.

Before dawn on Saturday, Afghan officials said, trucks carrying hundreds of Afghan troops, accompanied by several dozen Special Forces commandos, snaked up mountain roads to Shahikot with their headlights off. The troops assembled outside the village, only to find themselves under attack before they could launch their operation, soldiers said today.

A mortar fired from inside Shahikot hit a U.S. vehicle, killing an American soldier and injuring two others. The wounded Americans were flown by helicopter to a hospital in Kabul. But the al Qaeda shelling kept the U.S.-led forces off balance and they eventually retreated about six miles down the road.

Gul Mohammed, 30, an Afghan soldier, criticized the Americans for massing the troops for instructions and presenting an easy target. "Why did they do that?" he asked. "They're intelligent. They're trained. They're not idiots. . . . There was no need to gather near the enemy's place and start giving directions."

Al Qaeda shelling soon forced the troops to move back again. Khial Mohammed, the soldier wounded in the retreat, said he saw a friend killed by a mortar while trying to flee. "We were coming down from the hilltops," he said from his hospital bed in Gardez. "Then one mortar shell hit us and we fell down. We got back up to run and a second one fell and hit his head."

Following his American training, Mohammed retrieved the body of his friend, one of five Afghans reported killed during the fighting. Mohammed was hurt in a car accident during the retreat. As for his friend, he said, "I put him in a coffin myself."

After another three miles, al Qaeda forces ambushed the Afghans and Americans, Mohammed said. U.S. attack helicopters arrived to beat back the al Qaeda fighters, but came under fire themselves. Finally, he said, it took the firepower of U.S. jets to provide enough protection for the ground troops to escape.

The seriousness of the situation in Shahikot apparently has persuaded U.S. military commanders to work with a local warlord who has been ostracized by the U.S.-supported interim government in Kabul. 

Bacha Khan, who tried to seize the governorship of Paktia province by force, said in an interview today that he is participating in the siege against al Qaeda positions. Interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai last month removed Khan as governor, indicating that he believed the warlord had tricked U.S. commanders into bombing a convoy of tribal leaders traveling to his inauguration in December by telling the Americans that the vehicles carried Taliban leaders.

Khan said he was commanding 1,000 troops involved in the "security belt" around Shahikot and had just returned to Etmanai from a meeting with U.S. commanders.

Khan said he did not care what the Americans wanted and was fighting only to rid his country of al Qaeda. But he acknowledged that the battle has not gone well so far.

"They have enough men, enough weapons," he said, "so we decided to surround them and bomb them. When they're really weak, we can attack them."

Vogel reported from Washington. Staff writer Vernon Loeb in Washington contributed to this report. 


© 2002 The Washington Post Company 

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