Striking back

WASHINGTON -- American and British forces unleashed a punishing air attack Sunday against military targets and Osama bin Laden's training camps inside Afghanistan, striking at terrorists blamed for the attacks that murdered thousands in New York and Washington. \n"We will not waver, we will not tire," said President Bush, speaking from the White House as Tomahawk cruise missiles and bombs found targets halfway around the globe. "We will not falter and we will not fail." \nOfficials said the strikes conducted under a campaign dubbed "Enduring Freedom" would last days or longer. \nBush ordered the strike less than four weeks after terrorists flew two hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center twin towers and a third into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside after an apparent struggle between passengers and the terrorists. \nBesides the Sept. 11 death toll, estimated at more than 5,000, the attacks dealt a shuddering blow to Americans' feeling of security. \n"I know many Americans feel fear today," Bush said in his nationally televised announcement from the White House Treaty Room. In a fresh reminder of the potential for renewed terrorist attacks, officials took Vice President Dick Cheney from his residence to an undisclosed secure location, stepped up security around the Capitol and placed government nuclear weapons labs on higher alert. \nThe initial strike involved 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles, launched from American and British ships. Gen. Richard Myers said 15 bombers and 25 strike aircraft, both sea and land-based, also were involved. The strike came at 12:30 p.m. EDT — nighttime in Afghanistan. \nMyers, sworn into office as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff less than a week ago, said the attacks included B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers as well as ships and submarines that have been deployed in the region in the days since Sept. 11. \nThe B-52s dropped dozens of 500-pound gravity bombs on al-Qaida terrorist training camps in eastern Afghanistan, one official said. \nDefense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said the strikes were designed to eliminate the Taliban's air defenses and destroy their military aircraft. \nAfghan sources in Pakistan said the attack had damaged the Taliban military headquarters and destroyed a radar installation and control tower at the airport in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar. \nBush said the military strike would be accompanied by the delivery of food, medicine and other supplies needed to sustain the people of Afghanistan. \n"We did not ask for this mission, but we will fulfill it," he said. \nBush said Canada, Australia, Germany and France have "pledged forces as the operation unfolds," and numerous other countries have granted air transit or landing rights.\n"We are supported by the collective will of the world." \nTo help sustain the coalition, officials said Bush was sending Secretary of State Colin Powell to Pakistan and India in the next few days. \nBritish Prime Minister Tony Blair offered strong support in a speech to his own nation. "They were given the choice of siding with justice or siding with terror. They chose to side with terror," he said of the Taliban.