WASHINGTON – As the U.S. military pursues its mission to hunt down Usama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network, the CIA has been given new powers and money to wage its own war against America's most wanted terrorist suspect.
Starting the third week of air strikes in Afghanistan, U.S. fighter and ground attack jets set out Monday from the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, centerpiece of one of four Navy battle groups in the Arabian Sea off Pakistan.
Warplanes on Sunday bombed Taliban positions near a front line north of the Afghan capital, Kabul, marking what could be the start of a more forceful campaign to help rebel forces fighting the regime that harbors bin Laden.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon released the names of two members of the Army's elite Ranger regiment killed over the weekend as part of the first publicly acknowledged covert mission in the anti-terrorism effort.
Asked Sunday whether U.S. forces would kill bin Laden on sight, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it depends on what happens when he's found.
``If it's a defensive situation, then bullets will fly, but if we can capture somebody, then we'll do that,'' he said on ABC's This Week.
President Bush signed an order last month directing the CIA to destroy bin Laden and his communications, security apparatus and infrastructure in retaliation for the Sept. 11 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, a senior administration official said Sunday.
Bush also added more than $1 billion to the spy agency's war on terrorism, most of it for the new covert action.
The CIA has been in southern Afghanistan, trying to win over ethnic Pashtun leaders not solidly behind the Taliban, officials have said.
It also has operated an unmanned Predator spy vehicle outfitted with missiles, defense officials indicated last week. It is the first time the United States has used the armed, remote-controlled drone in a military campaign, they said.
Besides the air strikes north of Kabul, Afghan officials reported air attacks Sunday around the western city of Herat, Kandahar in the south and the front line positions near the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
Officials of the northern alliance fighting the Taliban had been asking the United States to bomb the front line north of Kabul so that they could move on the capital, but until now bombing of front line positions has mostly been around Mazar-e-Sharif.
Powell said the United States was "very interested" in seeing rebel forces take Mazar-e-Sharif, but was still "continuing discussion" about whether a rebel march into Kabul would be "the best thing." The United States and Britain have been reluctant to help the alliance seize Kabul until a broad-based government is formed to replace the Taliban.
Bombing over Afghanistan began Oct. 7, and officials on Saturday released details of daring overnight assaults made by special forces troops starting the previous night to gain intelligence against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
In lightning strikes, some 100 airborne Rangers and other special forces hit a Taliban-controlled airfield and a residence of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar near Kandahar. Documents and other items taken during the assaults were being analyzed for intelligence value, defense officials said.
Officials said Sunday that hostile fire had been ruled out, but they were still investigating the helicopter crash in Pakistan that killed the Rangers. They identified the Rangers as Spc. Jonn J. Edmunds, 20 of Cheyenne, Wyo., and Pfc. Kristofor T. Stonesifer, 28, of Missoula, Mont. They served with the 75th Ranger Regiment, based at Fort Benning, Ga.
Officials would not disclose the role of the Black Hawk copter, although some believed it was preparing to swoop across the border into Afghanistan in case any Rangers had to be rescued.
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