ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: Helicopters shuttled in and out through the night, soldiers patrolled the streets and locals peeked from their windows.
The Balochistan town of Dalbandin, 60kms from the Afghan border, had a grandstand view of some sort of action on the first night of US special force strikes on Afghanistan.
“People were scared about all the military activity,” said a local journalist. “They thought they were being attacked.”
“There has been helicopter activity at Dalbandin airport throughout the night. It started at 10.30 p.m. and continued until 6 a.m.”
All the activity coincided with a raid by more than 100 elite US special forces, including Army Rangers, who penetrated Afghanistan for a few hours in the first ground strike of the campaign and then were flown out of the country.
Dalbandin, a town of just 5,000 people in the heart of the Balochistan desert, is 270kms southwest of Quetta.
Given its proximity to Afghanistan and to Kandahar, Dalbandin is an obvious candidate to serve as a major logistical support centre for US forces.
The Pentagon said earlier that two American soldiers were killed when a rescue helicopter on standby for the overnight raid crashed in Pakistan.
A local official said a US helicopter had come down near Dalbandin. “It has fallen in the Dalbandin area,” said the official.
RESIDENTS BARRED FROM ROOFTOPS: Residents, barred from going onto their rooftops for a better view of the overnight military activity, said they had still been able to see dozens of helicopters shuttling back and forth from the airfield.
One resident said he had also seen a plane that appeared to have slid off the runway and got stuck in desert sands at the edge of the air strip.
Residents said they had seen a large amount of unusual military activity at the small airport for the past several days, but could not see any American planes or troops.
“We have not seen Americans but there is a lot of activity in the airport, lot of army, Pakistani army,” said one resident.
One local said he had been able to see cruise missiles flying overhead from US warships in the Arabian sea to targets in Afghanistan for many nights.
Commercial flights were halted to Dalbandin airport a year ago.—Reuters
