The September 11th attack
Front-line Taliban positions bombed in third day of strikes
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By Kathy Gannon and Amir Shah
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — War-planes dropped three bombs today near the airport in the southern city of Kandahar, Taliban sources said, in the second straight morning of daylight raids on the Taliban stronghold. Kabul was reported quiet.
Yesterday, American jets also pounded areas around Kandahar and the northwestern city of Herat. Planes screeched over the capital, drawing thunderous anti-aircraft fire and sending residents huddling back into whatever shelter they could find.
Gunners opened fire again after midnight with a series of salvos at high-flying jets.
"We just sit in the dark, watching the sky, waiting to die," said vegetable vendor Jamal Uddin, shutting down his shop as the lights went out last night. Power was cut in the city, and Taliban radio has been off the air since the second round of strikes wrecked transmitters.
There were no immediate strikes in or near Kabul yesterday. The planes may have been headed toward Rishkore, nine miles to the west, a known training camp of bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network.
U.S. jets bombed Taliban front-line positions in Shakardara last night, said a spokesman for the Northern Alliance opposition, contacted by telephone from Pakistan this morning. That district is about 15 miles north of Kabul. The strike in Shakardara was the first reported bombing of front-line positions by U.S. forces.
Planes flew nearly constant sorties over Kandahar during the day yesterday, Taliban sources said. A volley of strikes hit near the city in the morning.
Raids resumed last night, pounding the home of the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. He reportedly left his house outside Kandahar minutes before missiles struck it Sunday.
"We can hear the explosions," said a Taliban soldier at the Kandahar garrison contacted by telephone last night. "There is darkness all around us. Our anti-aircraft guns are trying to target them but they are flying at a very high altitude." He refused to give his name.
Mullah Omar was in radio contact with Taliban commanders to assure them he was alive and in command, Taliban sources said. Afghan sources, contacted from Pakistan, said communications and air defenses at the Kandahar airport had taken a beating in the air strikes.
In Herat, about 100 miles from the Iranian border, strikes blasted military sites around the city as well as a position at the airport that previous strikes had failed to hit, a Taliban official in the city said.
In Afghanistan's north, the rebel military alliance continued to confront Taliban troops. The fighting came close to the border with neighboring Tajikistan at several points, said Russian border guards.
A Northern Alliance spokes-man, Abdullah, told CNN that the rebels were stepping up the pressure.
"The Taliban are in a really hard situation at this moment in northern Afghanistan," said Abdullah, who uses one name.
Yesterday the U.N. World Food Program said it would resume aid shipments to Afghanistan, a day after it suspended them because of the military strikes. The first shipment — a five-truck convoy carrying 100 tons of food — left Mashhad, Iran, for Herat last night.
