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America Strikes Back: Day Three Developments

Striking a note of angry defiance, Al-Qaeda's spokesman Suleiman Abu Gheit, in a televised statement on Tuesday night on Qatar's Al-Jazeera television channel, warned that America had "opened a door that would never close" by attacking Afghanistan. (Full Story)

At exactly 7:20 pm (10:30 am EDT) Tuesday, US and British jets zoomed into the northern Afghan city of Herat and started bombing the airport and the nearby airbase. Almost immediately, another squadron of jets were bombarding the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar, and the capital city of Kabul in the third straight night of air raids.(Full Story)

Simultaneously, in a Pentagon briefing, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated that the US might go in for round-the-cloud air strikes. (Full Story)

Elsewhere, in a day of rapid developments, almost 24 hours after the Taleban announced their intention to release the arrested British scribe, reports said that Taleban border guards had arrested a Frenchman trying to sneak into Afghanistan disguised in a Burqa (Full Story)

Earlier in the day, an angry Taleban claimed that US strikes had killed 43 civilians, and injured others, which the US promptly dismissed as untrue. But, in the end the US had pie in the face, when United Nations confirmed that four civilians working for a UN-affiliated agency were killed in the pre-dawn raids. (Full Story). Following the confirmation, the UN indefinitely suspended sending aid convoys into Afghanistan.(Full Story)

Across the border, in Pakistan, General Musharraf's crackdown on extremist elements continued with the placing of three Muslim clerics under house arrest (Full Story), even as fresh anti-US protests all across Pakistan claimed six lives (Full Story).

Unveiling its new anti-Taleban stance, Pakistan seized three Taleban helicopter gun ships, when they landed in the Kurram area of North West Frontier Province. (Full Story) The Taleban, for its part, replied with an exchange of gunfire with Pakistan border guards (Full Story).

Beginning the day with a clear departure from the script, the coalition against terror mounted its first daytime raids after two nights of bomb and missile attacks against select targets in Afghanistan. Around 8.40 am on Tuesday (October 9), jets bombed the Taleban militia's stronghold in southern Kandahar. The first signal of the attacks was a lone jet streaking across Afghanistan, and dropping a bomb north of Kabul. Subsequently, jets zeroed in on targets in Kandahar. (Full Story)

Taleban officials confirmed the daylight raid, and said they responded with heavy anti-aircraft fire. Meanwhile, Pentagon officials said that the US-led operations are now continuous, and that the daylight raid was neither one of a kind, nor particularly surprising.

Reports also indicated that the Taleban have begun taking their first serious casualties. Word out of Afghanistan indicate that Akthar Mohammad Mansour, commander of the Taleban air force, was among two senior Taleban officials killed in course of the US strikes on the night of October 8. (Full Story).

And in what is the first use by the coalition of Pakistan ground space, US C-130 aircraft carrying equipment and personnel landed at Pakistan's Jaccobabad airport under heavy security. (Full Story)

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, meanwhile, endorsed the US-led strikes against the Taleban and Osama bin Laden, while calling on all nations to make a united front in the battle against global terrorism. (Full Story).

In New Delhi, Minister of State for External Affairs Omar Abdullah dismissed Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf's telephone call to Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. Referring to Musharraf's anti-India comments in course of a media conference on Tuesday as an attempt to play to the Pakistan gallery, the minister said Musharraf has been told by the PM that the time has come for action, not words. (Full Story).

In Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, much confusion was created when a lookalike of Al Qaeda leader and wanted terrorist Osama bin Laden was sighted in a moving vehicle. (Full Story)

Daily Developments Dossiers: October 7, October 8.

The War on Terrorism: The Complete Coverage
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