------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the April 3, 2003 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
U.S. OFFENSIVE IN AFGHANISTAN
By G. Dunkel
Gen. Tommy Franks, the former top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has moved on to a higher-stakes war in Iraq. But he leaves behind an occupation that grows more bloody as spring makes travel in the Afghani mountains easier.
A few minutes after the bombs began falling on Baghdad, the U.S. with some Romanian mercenaries opened up the largest operation in a year against alleged Taliban supporters and their al-Qaeda allies. The U.S. brigade of the 82nd Airborne involved calls itself the "White Devils."
Why now? Perhaps for propaganda purposes, to create the impression that Iraq is somehow connected to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The operation was billed as a response to a Taliban attack on a border post that left three guards dead, and the fact that three U.S. bases in eastern Afghanistan came under missile attack earlier in the week.
According to the U.S. command, it was a success. Some poor Afghani farmers were arrested as Taliban sympathizers. The soldiers seized some of the weapons every Afghani village needs to defend itself.
But U.S. helicopters flying over Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, still use flares to foil heat-seeking missiles. CNN reported on March 23 that a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in eastern Afghanistan; six soldiers on it died.
The Afghan Islamic Press reported that a thousand people in the western province of Largham demonstrated on March 22 to protest the U.S. war on Iraq. n
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