PAUL LEWIS / WASHINGTON DC
Strategy in Afghanistan focuses on strikes against front-line Taliban and Al Qaeda troops
The US air offensive against Afghanistan has begun to switch its emphasis from air defence and infrastructure targeting to strikes against front-line Taliban units to provide better support for allied Northern Alliance forces. The US Department of Defense (DoD), meanwhile, is accelerating a number of Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) programmes which could be employed against hardened and deeply buried targets.
Around 80% of the latest US Air Force and US Navy missions have been directed against frontline Taliban and Al Qaeda forces in an effort to support the Northern Alliance's campaign to retake the capital Kabul and the strategically important northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. This has included putting forward air controllers on the ground in recent days to co-ordinate air strikes and using high level carpet bombing by Boeing B-52Hs.
The shift in the air war follows criticism from anti-Taliban forces that the US military was not doing enough to support its efforts and that time for action was running out with the onset of the Afghan winter. The US military has also begun to run short of clearly identifiable fixed targets to strike and the month-long air campaign has been marred recently by a series of inadvertent bombings of non-military buildings and anti-Taliban forces.
The DoD is trying to accelerate ACTDs funded in 2001-2, particularly in the precision engagement arena, according to Judith Daly, assistant deputy undersecretary of defence. The DoD wants to deploy so-called Counterproliferation Initiative ACTD weapons against hardened targets in Afghanistan, such as cave complexes.
These include the Advanced Unitary Penetrator (AUP) warhead and Hard Target Smart Fuse (HTSF), a limited number of which were used in Kosovo fitted to guided GBU-24 900kg (2,000lb) bombs. The AUP warhead, which is designed to destroy bunkers and other hardened targets, is also fitted to modified Boeing AGM-86D Block II Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missiles, initial deliveries of which are being accelerated. Another ACTD programme being accelerated is Hard Target Defeat, which employs high temperature incendiary material to destroy stored chemical and biological weapons.
Another new system now in development which could be used in Afghanistan is Raytheon's AGM-154C version of the Joint Standoff Weapon using a BAE System Broach penetrator warhead. There has also been speculation about development of a 9,000kg hard target weapon for use by B-52 or Northrop Grumman B-2 bombers, using HTSF and GPS guidance.
Source: Flight International
