http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=102015

Bombing errors prove major test for US resolve

By Andrew Buncombe in Washington, Richard Lloyd Parry in Islamabad and Phil Reeves in Jerusalem

29 October 2001

The US government insisted yesterday that its Afghan campaign was going according to plan, despite repeated bombing errors including the killing of seven children at theirhome in the capital, Kabul.

It was also a bloody Sunday in Pakistan, where 16 Christians and a policeman were murdered in an attack on a church service, and in Israel, where Palestinian gunmen killed five people in drive-by shootings.
With anxiety growing about the direction ? and accuracy ? of the American campaign, the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said yesterday: "It is going very much as expected, it is going very much as predicted ... it's not a quagmire."


After refusing to comment on reports of intensive raids around Kabul yesterday causing at least 13 civilian casualties, including the seven children and their father, Mr Rumsfeld said the US was receiving "better intelligence" and was closing in on specific targets.

Sixteen Christians were killed when five masked men sprayed St Dominic's church in Bahawalpur, central Pakistan, with gunfire as a service was ending. A police guard was also murdered in the attack, which was the worst act of violence in Pakistan since the assault on Afghanistan began three weeks ago.
Although no one claimed responsibility, it realised the worst fears of thePakistani Christian community that it would become a target for Islamist extremists.

Thousands of pro-Taliban volunteers are said to be on the Afghan border, ready to help Afghanistan against possible American ground attacks.

In Israel, five people died in two separate drive-by shootings in the north of the country. Two attackers were also killed. Despite the attacks, Israel began to withdraw its forces last night from the Palestinian administered towns of Bethlehem and Beit Jala, according to government officials and witnesses.
There have been four separate reports of accidental US strikes on civilian targets in Afghanistan in the past 48 hours, including the bombing of a village in the area controlled by the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance.

In one incident, a stray bomb hit mud houses outside Kabul yesterday, killing 13 people, including eight members of one family. The children's mother was quoted as saying: "They killed all of my children and husband. The whole world is responsible for this tragedy."

The Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, said yesterday that the Government was considering stopping the bombing during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, although he did not rule out continuing the campaign.