pound ‘Joint Direct Attack Munitions’ guided with Global
Positioning system references were used against radars and mili-
tary headquarters (Ricks and Loeb, 2001; Tyler 2001).
This was the first blast of a campaign which was to continue
through to the end of the year and into 2002, as remnants of the
Taliban and Al-Qaidain different parts of the country were system-
atically targeted. On 17 October, President Bush stated that the en-
emies’ air force and air defences were being demolished, ‘paving
the way for friendly troops on the ground to slowly but surely
tighten the net to bring them to justice’ (Gordon and Shanker,
2001). While Defense Secretary Rumsfeld had at first downplayed
the importance of airpower by suggesting that Afghanistan was not
a ‘target-rich environment’ (Gordon, 2001), airpower was to prove
devastating in its effects, not least because reactions by the Taliban
to an opening strike often assisted the USA to identify new targets.
The B-52 bombers could be tasked to strike particular targets by
Special Operations Forces on the ground attached to anti-Taliban
forces. Unpiloted drones (notably the RQ-1 Predator) were used to
good effect, as was the AC-130 gunship, an armoured and armed
aircraft which rained a blistering fire on Taliban targets. According
to one report, Taliban and Al-Qaidaprisoners confirmed that ‘the
precise bombing from planes they often could not hear or see broke
the will of battle-hardened troops’ (Schmitt and Dao, 2001).
Especially terrifying was the 15,000-pound BLU-82 bomb known
as the ‘Daisy Cutter’, used sparingly – on only four occasions, three
times against Taliban front lines, and on 9 December against a cave
in eastern Afghanistan – but with great effect given the force of the
pressure wave created by its detonation. Also effective, but deeply
worrying because of the long-term risk they posed for civilian
populations, were the CBU-103 ‘Combined-Effects Munitions’,
which scattered cluster bombs. By the time the Bonn Agreement
was signed, approximately 12,000 bombs had been dropped, 6700
of them precision-guided (Bender, Burger and Koch, 2001: 20).
Estimating the number of casualties from the attacks is virtually
impossible, but there is no doubt that on occasions bombs
struck targets for which they were not intended, either because of
The Fall of the Taliban 263