Byline: KATHY GANNON and JONATHAN EWING Associated Press
GARDEZ, Afghanistan -- Hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters were killed Tuesday in the fiercest fighting of the U.S.-led campaign in the rugged mountains of eastern Afghanistan.
In brutal cold, coalition forces battled to reach hideouts still believed to contain hundreds more al-Qaida and Taliban fighters. Some forces entered at least one cave complex, uncovering weapons caches.
U.S. forces said as many as 800 opposition fighters had been seen moving toward the battle since the American-led operation, Operation Anaconda, was launched on Saturday.
``We caught several hundred of them with RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and mortars heading toward the fight. We body slammed them today and killed hundreds of those guys,'' said Maj. Gen. Franklin Hagenbeck, the commander of the operation near Gardez, 75 miles south of Kabul, the capital.
Five Marine Corps attack helicopters entered the fight in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, supplementing an aerial assault force depleted by damage to Army Apache attack helicopters, Pentagon officials said.
Allied jets flew high over Paktia province, dropping bombs as well as decoy flares to ward off heat-seeking missiles -- defensive measures after two U.S. helicopters were hit Monday, killing seven U.S. soldiers dead in the bloodiest day of combat in the war.
Those killed in Afghanistan since Operation Anaconda began Friday, including one who died Saturday, were honored in Germany before their flag-draped caskets were flown back to the United States. A C-17 transport jet brought the men's remains to Ramstein Air Base and was met on the tarmac by a U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force honor guard for the somber ceremony under cloudy skies in the wooded hills of western Germany.
The American deaths Monday occurred during two operations involving MH-47 Chinook helicopters, officials said. In the first, a helicopter inserting special forces was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, forcing it down. As it tried to lift off, one American fell out, Rosa said. Another helicopter retrieved the rest of the crew.
The missing serviceman, Navy SEAL Neil C. Roberts, 32, of Woodland, Calif., was captured and killed by al-Qaida. ``We saw him on the Predator being dragged off by three al-Qaida men,'' said Hagenbeck, referring to an unmanned reconnaissance plane mounted with a real-time video camera.
Three hours later, a Chinook was trying to land forces in the same area when it was hit by machine-gun fire and a rocket-propelled grenade. The helicopter was forced down, and a gunbattle took place in which six U.S. soldiers were killed. When members of that helicopter were evacuated, the body of the soldier who fell from the first was found.
Trapped by intense hostile fire and unable to evacuate their wounded for 12 hours, a detachment of American special forces troops fought off an al-Qaida ambush in some of the most grueling and gruesome combat of the five-month-old war in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.
When it was over on Monday, the bodies of seven American servicemen and 11 wounded comrades were lifted off the battlefield under guard of AC-130 gunships.
In these other developments in the war on terror:
Six years before suicide hijackers attacked the World Trade Center and Pentagon, the FBI was alerted that Middle Eastern pilots were training at U.S. flight schools and at least one had proposed dive-bombing a jetliner into a federal building, according to documents and interviews with Filipino and U.S. authorities.
The information came from police interrogations of Abdul Hakim Murad and a computer seized from Ramzi Yousef, two men arrested after a chemical fire at a Manila apartment tipped authorities to a terrorist plot linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. Murad and Yousef were convicted in the United States and sentenced to life in prison for a plot to blow up 12 U.S.-bound airliners flying out of Asia.
The United States is investigating a plot to bomb government locations in the Afghan capital of Kabul. The plot is believed connected to al-Qaida supporters.
According to The New York Times, newly detected Internet traffic among al-Qaida followers, including intercepted e-mail messages, indicates that elements of the terror network may be trying to regroup in remote sanctuaries in Pakistan near the Afghan border, government officials say.
The White House briefed top members of Congress about a ``shadow government'' set up in the wake of the September terrorist attacks, seeking to quell criticism it had ignored lawmakers in planning for a catastrophic attack on Washington.
Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who attended the White House meeting with Republican leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., said he was ready to call a ``cease-fire'' in the dispute over who should have been informed of the White House contingency plans.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said Tuesday the law covering collection of DNA should be expanded to permit the indexing of samples taken from people now in custody in the war against terrorism.
FACTS:SOLDIERS KILLED IN ACTION Names of U.S. soldiers killed during fighting in Afghanistan on Monday, released Tuesday by the Pentagon:
Army: Sgt. Bradley S. Crose, 27, of Orange Park, Fla. Sgt. Philip J. Svitak, 31, of Joplin, Mo. Spc. Marc A. Anderson, 30, of Brandon, Fla. Pfc. Matthew A. Commons, 21, of Boulder City, Nev. Navy: Aviation Boatswain's Mate-Handling Petty Officer 1st Class Neil C. Roberts, 32, of Woodland, Calif. Air Force:
Tech. Sgt. John A. Chapman, 36, of Waco, Texas. Senior Airman Jason D. Cunningham, 26, of Camarillo, Calif. -- Associated Press
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