By Brian Williams and Sayed SalahuddinWASHINGTON/KABUL (Reuters) -The United States has claimed an intelligence coup from its first use of ground troops in Afghanistan, including a clandestine night raid on a home of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.
The raid by about 100 elite U.S. Rangers and special forces was on Afghanistan's second largest city of Kandahar, once stronghold of the fundamentalist Taliban who are accused of sheltering Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, chief suspects in the September 11 suicide attacks on New York and Washington.
There was no let up in an anthrax scare sweeping the United States with a mail worker in Washington hospitalised with possible symptoms of the bacteria and traces of the potential germ warfare agent found in the U.S. House of Representatives.
U.S. President George W. Bush, attending the APEC summit in Shanghai, called the anthrax mailings "an act of terror" and sought to enlist Pacific Rim leaders in a global campaign to protect people from bioterrorism.
Under attack from both air and ground, the Taliban moved troops through the darkened streets of the capital Kabul on Saturday night as an aircraft flew low overhead.
The Taliban remained defiant, saying they had successfully repulsed the U.S. raid and they might as well give up their Muslim faith as give up the world's most wanted man, who they say is a "guest" in their country.
Giving details of the U.S. raid, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, showed dramatic near-real time film of night parachute drops in the Kandahar area in southern Afghanistan.
The film included strings of paratroopers dropping from MC-130 "Combat Talon" special forces aircraft and then destroying Taliban equipment on the ground.
One raid was on a command-and-control centre near Kandahar and another was on an airfield, also in southern Afghanistan. More than 100 troops were involved, officials said.
AIR BLITZ
The raid came nearly two weeks after Washington began an air blitz on Afghanistan, dropping tonnes of bombs and missiles in pursuit of bin Laden and to bring down the Taliban.
The Pentagon said two service personnel had been killed and three injured when a helicopter supporting the commando raid crashed on landing in Pakistan. They dismissed Taliban statements that they had shot down the aircraft.
Defence officials said the Black Hawk helicopter may have crashed due to a problem called "brownout," when the rotor blades stirred up dust and other debris around the aircraft as it descended.
Two soldiers were lightly injured in the parachute drop and the troops ran into "light" resistance.
There were reports the raid included a 30-minute exchange of fire between U.S. troops and Taliban soldiers.
"We met resistance at both objectives -- the airfield and the other objective. I guess you could characterise it as light. There were casualties on the other side, the number of which we do not know yet," Myers said, adding that no Taliban or al Qaeda leaders were captured.
"U.S. forces were able to deploy, manoeuvre and operate inside Afghanistan without significant interference from Taliban forces," he told reporters. "They are now refitting and repositioning for potential future operations against terrorist targets in other areas known to harbour terrorists."
U.S. troops penetrated buildings of a large complex where Omar has lived using it as a command and control centre.
POTENTIAL STASH OF INTELLIGENCE
While other Taliban command posts were bombed during U.S. strikes on Afghanistan that began on October 7, this one was untouched by the bombardment and viewed by the U.S. military as a potential stash of intelligence.
"I'll characterise the one target as one of the locations where Omar lives. It's a fairly large complex. It's a command and control compound for the Taliban leadership," Myers said.
"We gathered up some intelligence, some items, and we're going to evaluate that," he said.
Another U.S. defence official, without commenting on what intelligence was seized in the raid, said the troops probably searched for items such as maps, documents, correspondence, ledgers, arms, computer disks and communications equipment.
Photos, letters, and even medication that would indicate whether Omar or any top officials had physical health problems, would be helpful, the official said.
It was not clear where the troops took off for the raid, but several countries in the region have provided bases for such attacks. U.S. Special Operations troops are also based with their assault helicopters on the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk in the Indian Ocean south of Afghanistan.
In anthrax developments, a swab from a U.S. House of Representatives mail room proved positive for the bacteria and a Washington postal worker was in the hospital in nearby Virginia being tested adding to alarm about anthrax findings.
Close to 40 people in the United States, including 28 who work at the nearby U.S. Senate, have been exposed to anthrax bacteria in the past month. Eight people have been infected with the disease and one man has died.
Along with the real cases, the United States and other countries have seen a spate of false alarms and hoaxes with envelopes containing white powder.
In his weekly radio speech, this time from Shanghai, Bush addressed the nation's fears, saying there was no hard evidence linking the letters containing anthrax spores to bin Laden.
"We do not yet know who sent anthrax to the United States Capitol or several different media organisations," Bush said. "We do know that anyone who deliberately delivers anthrax is engaged in a crime and an act of terror."
Bush said the American people should expect "moments of sacrifice" in the campaign against global terrorism, which began on Oct. 7 with air strikes to soften up the Taliban.
TALIBAN UNDER INCREASING PRESSURE
As the vise tightened around the Taliban, one of its most powerful ministers discussed the previously unthinkable with Pakistan officials -- the possible make-up of an Afghan government should the U.S.-led coalition succeed.
Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said that Jalaluddin Haqqani, the man responsible for tribal affairs in a country divided along ethnic lines, discussed a post-Taliban government on a visit to Islamabad this week.
In local media interviews, Haqqani gave no hint that the end of the Taliban might be near and breathed defiance.
"We are eagerly awaiting the American troops to land on our soil, where we will deal with them in our own way," said Haqqani, a veteran mujahideen, or holy warrior.
His visit to Pakistan came amid rumours of splits inside the Taliban, but Haqqani said the movement, which has been intent on creating the world's purest Islamic state, had lost no leaders, either through U.S. bombing or from defections.
"There is absolutely no truth in such claims," said Haqqani, who arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday and is believed to have left Saturday. He said bin Laden was alive and well.
In the latest and clearest sign of pressure on the Taliban, Muttaqi earlier appealed to their civil war foes, the Northern Alliance, to join forces against U.S. attacks. "It is time to bury the hatchet and form one front against the attacks," he said.
An Alliance official said Taliban fighters had gained ground in fighting against opposition troops battling for days to advance on the key northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Taliban troops launched an offensive early on Friday.
"They have captured a small amount of territory, but we are still holding the Marmul area," opposition spokesman Mohammad Habeel told Reuters by satellite telephone, referring to a town and district some 20 miles (32 km) southeast of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Eight U.S. intelligence or reconnaissance personnel were on the ground with the Alliance in the north.
The raids have worsened an already perilous humanitarian situation, with aid agencies reporting hundreds of thousands of Afghans on the move inside the country and thousands trying to cross into neighbouring Pakistan or Iran.