WASHINGTON, Nov 2: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded on Thursday night that intense fire by the Taliban had foiled an attempt by US special forces to land in Afghanistan a few days ago.

“The ground fire was simply too heavy to unload the folks. And so they went back, and they’ll try it again in a different landing area,” Rumsfeld said while talking to newsmen.

The secretary did not specify when the attempt was made, but he was probably alluding to the Oct 19 dispatch of commandos on a “search and rescue” mission. The Taliban had then claimed beating back the US soldiers, but Washington had dismissed the claim as lies.

Rumsfeld denied the shift in US tactics favouring the Northern Alliance was prompted by the failure of US efforts to put together a broad coalition to govern Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban.

Some analysts have suggested US forces held back air strikes on the Taliban frontline north of Kabul to keep the Northern Alliance from taking the Afghan capital before post-Taliban political arrangements were in place.

“It is absolutely false, unless there is something that I simply am totally unaware of, which I doubt,” Rumsfeld said.

The air campaign proceeds according to plan, Rumsfeld said, focused first on Taliban air defences, next on its broader military infrastructure and finally on its forces in the field, especially those arrayed against the Northern Alliance.

“The reason we did it in that sequence is because we did not have people on the ground who could help with the targeting,” he said. “And we do now have some. Nowhere near as many as we need, and not with all of the elements that are opposing Taliban and al-Qaeda.”

“And so the best work is being done where we do have those special forces on the ground, but it was not some master plan that we concocted, that we wanted Joe to reach Kabul instead of Mike. Those are, I’m sure, not Afghan names,” he added. Rumsfeld would not reveal how many US special forces are now on the ground with the opposition, but said he would like three or four times that number to go in.

Addressing persistent criticism the campaign has bogged down, Rumsfeld said the campaign had made “measurable progress,” comparing it to World War II.

Noting the smoke was still rising from the ruins of the World Trade Center in New York, he said the conflict was still in its “very, very early stages”.—AFP