afghanistan (Page 3)

Colin Powell recently announced that we expect to have completed our mission and be out of Afghanistan before the winter. This may be a veiled threat to the Taliban that they should not try to wait us out, because if there is American military activity on the ground in Afghanistan in the winter, troops will run into the problem that has always plagued foreign armies there: the incredibly harsh winter weather. Even Afghanistan?s own civil war between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance usually shuts down between November and April.
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A geologist says he knows where Osama bin Laden is hiding because he recognizes the rocks behind him in the video he released after the September 11 attacks.

John Ford Shroder, who spent years living in Afghanistan, says that particular type of rock only exists in one region. The video must have been filmed in either Paktia or Paktika province in the south east near Pakistan. The region, which is filled with caves, is controlled by the Pashtuns, an ethnic group loyal to the Taliban.

Shroder, who is now a professor at the University of Nebraska, recognized the type of rock as soon as he saw the video on TV. ?I turned to my wife and told her ?I know where he is,?? says Shroder.
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A heavy strike on Kandahar has led to speculation from witnesses on the ground that US helicopters and ground forces may have been involved.

The Pentagon has responded that an AC-130 “Spectre” gunship was in use in the area, and the staccato pounding of its large cannons may have caused the reports of helicopters. The AC-130 was last used to destroy the house of a Somali warlord in 1993. It would be used against troop concentrations, fortified positions, or for the detailed destruction of buildings believed to house individuals the military was attempting to kill.

According to CNN, their sources in Khandahar reported hearing gunfire from small arms and automatic weapons on the ground.
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In the October 16 issue of the Los Angeles Times, Rone Tempest reports on the women who live in the Khaiwa Refugee Camp in Pakistan. Camps such as these, on the Pakistani-Afghan border, have long been breeding grounds for fundamentalist male militants in Afghanistan. But the Khaiwa camp is a center for militant feminism in the form of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).
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