The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, October 24, 2001- 7 Taliban may be hiding in residential areas A WASHINGTON (AP) - Taliban forces in Afghanistan may be hiding in residential areas, aware of the U.S. military's hesitancy to bomb where civilians might be hit, a senior military officer said yesterday. Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem, deputy direc- tor of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he has seen anecdotal evidence of such a Taliban tactic, which he attributed to their real- ization that troops in the field or at military installations are vulnerable to punishing attacks by American warplanes. U.S. airstrikes continued yesterday with about the intensity as the previous day, in which about 60 carrier-based strike aircraft, 10 long-range bombers and 10 land-based strike aircraft hit 11 planned target areas, officials said. Air Force F-16G fighters entered the fray for the first time on Monday, a senior defense offi- cial said, speaking on condition of anonymity. A pair of F-16Gs, equipped with advanced navigation and targeting systems that enable precision strikes at night, flew missions from bases in the Persian Gulf. Stufflebeem said U.S. airstrikes have hit every known training camp of the al-Qaida ter- rorist ring that is the ultimate target of allied military, financial and diplomatic pressure, and that bombing has eliminated most of the ruling Taliban regime's air defenses and communica- tions. As a result, he said, the Taliban and al- Qaida are dispersing what's left of their forces "to save them." Stufflebeem also cast doubt on the possibili- ty of ending the air campaign before winter. "We don't think that's realistic," he said. US. officials have said repeatedly through 1V days of bombing in Afghanistan that care is taken to avoid striking targets that may result in inadvertent civilian casualties. But on yester- day the Pentagon acknowledged two instances over the weekend in which errant bombs appar- ently hit civilian areas. On Sunday morning Afghanistan time, a Navy F-14 Tomcat dropped two 500-pound bombs that mistakenly hit a residential area northwest of Kabul, the Afghan capital, Penta- gon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told a news conference. The intended targets were military vehicles parked about one-half mile away. She said she did not know how many people may have been hurt or killed. In the second instance late Sunday after- noon, a Navy F/A-18 Hornet dropped a 1,000- pound bomb in an open field near a senior citi- zens home outside the western city of Herat, Clarke said. The intended target was a vehicle storage building at an army barracks approxi- mately 300 feet from the facility. Preliminary indications are that the weapon's guidance sys- tem malfunctioned, she said. Clarke said she was not certain whether the second incident corresponded to one reported by the United Nations, which said U.S. bombs hit a military hospital near Herat. The Taliban had said a strike Monday hit a Herat hospital and killed at least 100 people. U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said it was not clear whether the mil- itary hospital was in use and she had no information on casualties. "As we always say, we regret any loss of civilian life," she said. "U.S. forces are inten- tionally striking only military and terrorist tar- gets. We take great care in our targeting process to avoid civilian casualties." The Pentagon also disclosed new details about a mishap during Saturday's commando raids into Afghanistan, in which an airfield was seized and documents taken from a Taliban compound that included a residence of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. An Army MH-47 special operations heli- copter struck an unknown barrier while it was taking off from Afghanistan after the raid, shearing off its front landing gear, Clarke said. It continued the flight without incident and returned safely to an undisclosed base. No one aboard was injured, she said. Taliban fires rockets into crowded .bazaar,.killing 2 Afghan merchants Los Angeles TimesM- CHARIKAR, Afghanistan - Unbowed by lim- ited U.S. airstrikes, Taliban troops fired rockets from their mountain hide-outs into the middle of a crowded noontime bazaar here yesterday, killing a. poor, legless tea seller and a prosperous shopkeep- er. The Afghan men died as the airstrikes set off new clashes between the opposition Northern Alliance and the Taliban regime, which is still a powerful enemy after more than two weeks of bombing. The recent airstrikes on the front line north of Kabul, the Afghan capital, are often described as intense and relentless outside the country, but to Afghans hardened by almost 23 years of war, they are intermittent pinpricks. Bombing raids that began along the front line closest to Kabul on Sunday usually last less than an hour and have occurred only twice a day, at most. That leaves the Taliban troops plenty of time to regroup and take out their revenge on Afghan civilians, said Bari Yali, a shop owner who survived the attack on Charikar. "As long as the Taliban are in these mountains, they will continue to attack us," Yali, 30, said as he stood next to a small crater that a rocket had dug in a narrow dirt alley. "They attacked Charikar because the Americans bombed them. If the American planes don't bomb constantly, the *Taliban will only fire at us more and more." Two U.S. warplanes returned around 3 p.m. yes- terday to strike the Taliban front line, but after a few bombing runs, they were gone again, and there was no letup in the sporadic firing across the front line. One of the jets fired off flares from the rear to confuse any heat-seeking missiles that the Taliban might fire. Opposition soldiers watching the AP PHOTO Relatives mourn over the body of Mohamed Rasul, 55, who was killed by a rocket launched by the Taliban which hit a market in Charikar, northern Afghanistan, 30 km (19 miles) north of the capita Kabul yesterday. 0 attacks from the village of Sinjit Dara, near the Bagram air base, said the Taliban still has surface- to-air missiles in the area. When warplanes came back around 6:40 p.m., they circled for several minutes, and as Taliban antiaircraft guns opened up, the jets left without counterattacking. They returned several times peller-driven spotter plane to search for targets. But the jets didn't drop any bombs. Northern Alliance soldiers confirmed that at least two of the bombs dropped by U.S. F-18 fighter jets Monday afternoon fell in its territory, not the Taliban's. Although no one was injured, several Northern Alliance troops were almost hit, re-wx Pre- usness?... re-Nothing before midnight, with what sounded like a pro- soldiers said in interviews. PI *SHEPARD Continued from Page 1 learned, but need to be learning, from these tragic stories so they won't be repeated again and again?" she asked. Shepard has been speaking to groups for more than two years. Her speeches have a slightly different focus following the Sept. 11 attacks because she lived in Saudi Arabia and still has many friends living in the Middle East. "It breaks my heart when I read about the hatred connected with the Arab commynity today," she said. "But we must remember it is an anomaly. It does not explain the cul- ture, the country, the people or the religion." Shepard urged gays and lesbians to be open with their friends, family and co-workers about their sexuality, because homosexuality "must become a non-issue." She also asked people to become politically involved because individual votes make an impact. "I don't talk about the election of 2000 anymore because it makes me just *a'little cranky, but it does show how important one vote can be," she said. Lindsay Gotelaene, an Eastern freshman, said she attended the lec- ture because she recently wrote a report about victims of hate crimes. "I chose to write about Matthew Shepard," she said. "Her speech was so powerful because it came from the perspective of a mother. It was so personal." SPEAK-OUT"When I reported Continued from Page 1 to police. "When I reported my my uncle for uncle for molesting me, the police acted like it was my fault," another mole ting e, the survivor named Stacey said. police alike i "When I was in court, the first acted thing the attorney asked me was what I was wearing when it hap- was my fault." pened," she said. - Stacey Hundreds of career ideas from successful Liberal Arts grads. Wednesday, October 24, 2001 MichiganLeague 6:30 0 PM (video, panel discussion, network with grads) CarVr 9 Audience members supported each of the speakers by providing a safe place to speak. "I came tonight to support a friend and I think it is great for people to be able to support themselves. This is all part of the healing process," said Engineering senior Scott Austin. The message of the evening for survivors and supporters alike was Rape survivor empowerment. "Even though it is difficult to talk about sexual assault, this is a tremendous and empowering experi- ence for everyone. The whole event is about social change," Rinaldi said. Sponsoredl by: Lo bAcadem Advising , LSA-Student Government Career Plannng & Placement ATTACKS Continued from Page 1 Mujahedeen. Citing sources inside the organization, the BBC said the bomb killed 22 members of the group which is linked to Osama bin Laden's al- Qaida terrorist ring. President Bush initiated the air campaign Oct. 7 after the Taliban repeatedly refused to surrender bin Laden, chief suspect in last month's terror attacks in the United States. British Secretary of Defense Geoff Hoon said yes- terday that the military strikes on Afghanistan have destroyed nine of bin Laden's terrorist training camps and severely damaged nine airfields and 24 military garrisons. In recent days,'U.S. forces increasingly have shift- ed the brunt of their attacks to Taliban positions on front lines outside Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif, hoping to break Taliban defenses around the key cities. Yes- terday, U.S. jets streaked in high over the front line at Kabul, then swooped in to drop their bombs while as villagers gawked and pointed. "There it is," residents of the opposition-held com- munity cried each time a white speck appeared in the sky. Nine blasts sounded, one after the other. Wit- nesses said at least five of those strikes hit the Tal- iban front line. "God willing, these bombs will let us move into Kabul," declared one opposition fighter, Saeed Rafik. Some of the bombs struck the village of Uzbashi, an al-Qaida encampment near Bagram, opposition spokesman Waisuddin Salik said. Arab fighters of bin Laden's network are believed to make up the core of Taliban forces at the front north of the capital. The bombing, however, seemed only to make the Taliban forces more aggressive. As U.S. jets thundered overhead, Taliban gunners opened up with mortars, rockets and artillery on alliance lines. One Taliban rocket slammed into the public mar- ket at Charikar, 30 miles north of Kabul, killing two people - including a 60-year-old vegetable vendor - and injuring 14 others. "We want the war to be finished, and an end to the rockets of the Taliban," said Mohammad Nabi, whose son was lightly injured. "Let America bomb them." Opposition commanders said the Taliban had reinforced their positions and moved them closer to alliance lines in hopes of making it more diffi- cult for U.S. pilots to tell which are the right tar- gets. On Monday, one bomb fell behind alliance lines but there were no reports of casualties. In the nearby village of Qalai Dasht, Taliban and northern alliance fighters face off against one another from roofs of mud huts barely 50 yards apart. ng antibi- pitalized in the Trenton area and was presumed to be suffering from the ment mail inhalation form of the disease. "She's n trailers, holding her own," said Dr. Eddy Bres- ted before nitz, the state epidemiologist. nior postal The woman, whose name was not king only released, works at a Trenton-area postal facility believed to have processed at 'or Antho- least three anthrax-laced letters - one aboratory to Daschle, the second to NBC News anthrax as anchorman Tom Brokaw and the third men who to the New York Post. 3rentwood Still later, officials in Montgomery s said two County, Md., said they were checking ispitalized three postal workers from Brentwood nthrax was for possible anthrax symptoms at a our cases. local hospital. And state officials in BUDGET Continued from Page 1 predicted that the economy will improve in the near future. "We're forecasting that things will pick up in the first quarter of 2002," he said. Other measures that legislators are looking at to deal with the crisis, other than unilateral action by Engler, include a temporary pause in the phase-out of the single business tax and the income tax. The state income tax, currently at 4.2 percent, is sched- uled to drop to 4.1 percent on Jan. 1, 2002. The single business tax, current- ANTHRAX Continued from Page 1 path of anthrax-contaminated letters. Koplan, appearing before a separate panel, said, "the public health system of the United States is severely chal- lenged at this moment." The latest evidence of that was in the Washington area and New Jersey, at postal facilities known to have processed one or more anthrax-tainted letters in the past few weeks. Both were closed after the presence of anthrax was detected. A government official said about half of 30 swabs taken at Brentwood in were undoing tests and taki otics. Large amounts of govern were being quarantined it waiting to be decontaminat delivery in Washington, a sei official said yesterday, spea on condition of anonymity. District of Columbia May ny Williams said final la results confirmed inhalation; the cause of death of two worked at the city's iain B postal facility. Other official more employees remain ho with the disease, and said an suspected in an additional f