The Daisy Cutter is like a nuclear weapon without fallout, write KIM SENGUPTA and JUSTIN HUGGLER.
LONDON - The United States has used the biggest conventional bomb in its armoury - the highly lethal 6800kg BLU-82 Daisy Cutter - for the first time in the Afghan air campaign.
The hypo-barometric fuel-air bomb, whose blast has been described as like a nuclear weapon without the fallout, was used twice on Taleban and al Qaeda fortifications in the last few days.
Its use is a significant escalation of airstrikes in the war and follows the receipt of intelligence from the Russians on underground fortifications they built during their war in Afghanistan that have been taken over by the Afghan regime, as well as caves used by Mujahideen forces.
A Pentagon spokesman said: "We have better knowledge now of where these caves are and who or what is inside them."
The Daisy Cutters are pushed out the back of C130 aircraft on pallets and detonate about a metre above the ground, covering a wide area with a mushroom cloud of aluminium powder that burns at 5537 deg C.
Such is the pressure generated by the blast that underground tunnels and structures are crushed and the people inside incinerated.
The pattern of the explosion is said to resemble a daisy-shaped biscuit cutter.
A 1.2m detonation rod, which emerges from the 5.2m-long bomb after it is dropped, releases a cloud of inflammable ammonium nitrate, aluminium dust and polystyrene slurry.
This is then ignited by a second detonator, scorching the surrounding area, consuming oxygen and creating a shockwave and vacuum pressure that destroy the internal organs of anyone within range.
The bomb can clear a 4.8km path through a minefield.
The use of the Daisy Cutter and its variations has always been controversial. American forces first used it in the last days of the Vietnam War and then in the Gulf War.
In response to worries about its destructive capabilities raised in Britain's Parliament during the Gulf War, then Minister for Defence Procurement Alan Clark said: "Fuel-air bombs were used by the US only to clear minefields."
This week, US General Peter Pace, the Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, described them as extremely useful weapons for the Afghan conflict that may be used again.
One of the uses for the bombs would be to decontaminate soil that had been infected with anthrax. But there is no suggestion that was the reason for its deployment in Afghanistan.
The US is also set to introduce the Global Hawk, the most advanced long-range unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, in the Afghan conflict.
The $104 million plane can stay airborne for 36 hours and cruise at 65,000 feet - far above the range of anti-aircraft weapons - taking photographs for controllers back at the base in the US.
The Hawks are expected to replace the Predators, which are cheaper but slower and fly at a lower altitude. The Taleban claim to have shot down one of them.
While US and British warplanes deliver the most sophisticated missiles and bombs from the air, their special forces are fighting a very basic undercover war on the ground.
Fifty commandos are now inside Afghanistan - their numbers have doubled in the past few days.
They spend their time liaising with opposition Northern Alliance forces and are constantly on the move, often on horseback to avoid Taleban forces on the lookout.
Facing treacherous conditions in the bitter Afghan winter, the small teams of between four to six troops will gain little advantage from the West's technical superiority in the Taleban's own terrain.
Their main tasks are to organise resistance to the regime, obtain logistical supplies for the Northern Alliance and identify targets for airstrikes.
But a continuing paucity of intelligence has forced the Allies to depend on information and expertise gained by the Russians in their decade-long Afghan war.
The first and only ground raid by US forces nearly ended in disaster because of faulty intelligence. According to defence sources, the situation is now only marginally better - thus the need for Russian assistance.
A Pentagon official said yesterday that the Russians had helped to identify underground command centres they had built, as well as caves and supply routes used by the Mujahideen.
"The Russians are being very helpful. There's a lot of stuff coming in," he said.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the special forces troops had also boosted the airstrikes.
"Clearly, the targeting is improving. When you're doing it without contact with forces on the ground, and you compare that with doing it with precision weapons and people on the ground who can give you coordinates, you have an enormous advantage."
Rumsfeld also disclosed that opposition leader Hamid Karzai, pursued by the Taleban after entering Afghanistan, had been plucked to safety by helicopter-borne US troops.
The Allies were desperate to save Karzai from the fate of fellow leader Abdul Haq, who was captured and killed by the Taleban when the Americans could not come to his aid.
- INDEPENDENT
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