US adds formidable air gunship to attack force

The southern Taleban stronghold of Kandahar has been under heavy attack this week from US forces.

Taleban officials say 130 US-led sorties caused an unknown number of casualties in the city on Monday and yesterday.

A senior US defence official said an Air Force Special Forces AC-130 gunship, one of the most devastating weapons in America's air arsenal, was used in attacks.

The official, who asked not to be identified, said it was the first time the four-engine turbo-prop aircraft had been used in the nine-day air campaign against Taleban military and guerrilla training camps in Afghanistan.

"It lays down withering fire."

He would not identify the targets.

The low-flying, slow-moving, heavily armed gunship packs some of the heaviest firepower of any US warplane, including a 105mm cannon and rapid-fire machine guns.

Used against Serb troops and armour in Kosovo in 1999, the AC-130 is the attack version of the C-130, a workhorse military cargo plane first used during the Vietnam War.

The AC-130 can carry a crew of 14, including five gunners, along with a 105mm howitzer, a 40mm gun and two rapid-fire 20mm Vulcan Gatling guns capable of firing 2500 bullets a minute at ground targets.

In the capital, Kabul, huge explosions could be heard throughout yesterday. The airstrikes sent terrified residents scurrying for shelter as US jets pounded suspected weapons storage sites in the city and in the countryside.

The attacks against Kabul started just before sunrise and continued through the day into the night. Taleban gunners fired in vain at the attacking planes, some so high they could not be heard from the ground.

The attacks in Kabul appeared to be directed at weapons and ammunition storage sites in the hills north of the city of one million people and around the airport.

In one night-time raid, 10 huge explosions in the direction of the airport shook buildings kilometres away.

The Taleban say the airstrikes have caused more civilian casualties.

Information Ministry official Abdul Hanan Himat told Reuters that four civilians were killed and eight others wounded in strikes on Lal Mohammad village, 30km to the northwest of Kandahar.

"Yesterday [Monday], around 130 sorties alone were carried out against Kandahar, so you can imagine the civilian casualties as the attacks, experience shows, miss their targets."

The Taleban said about 200 civilians were killed on Thursday when US jets attacked the village of Karam in eastern Afghanistan.

In Washington, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said some of the Taleban casualty claims were "ridiculous." But he acknowledged that some Afghan civilians had been killed unintentionally.

He said improved targeting information meant US airstrikes could start aiming for Taleban front-line positions facing Afghan opposition fighters in the northeast.

The Taleban have denied claims of a mass defection of 4000 of their troops.

- REUTERS

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