U.S. planes pound Kabul, Herat

KABUL, OCT. 9. Striking the Taliban on home ground, the U.S. warplanes pounded the area around the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Tuesday night for the second time in 12 hours. The remote northwestern city of Herat was also hard hit.

The raids ushered in a third straight night of air strikes by a U.S.-led coalition seeking to punish Afghanistan's rulers for sheltering Osama bin Laden, believed to have masterminded the devastating attacks four weeks ago on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Raids the previous night in Kabul killed four civilians working for a U.N.-affiliated mine-clearing agency - the first confirmed civilian deaths of the air campaign. The four civilians were working as guards at the mine-clearing agency under contract to the U.N. whose offices were only 400 yards from a transmission tower hit in the raids.

In Kabul, the Taliban gunners opened up on Tuesday night with heavy burst of anti-aircraft fire and the roar of jets could be heard overhead. However, there was no immediate indication of any bombing.

The Afghan sources, contacted from Pakistan, said communications and air defenses at the Kandahar airport had taken a beating. The sources said that the U.S. aircraft had been flying almost continual sorties over Kandahar during the day on Tuesday, presumably to determine which air defences remained intact.

A Taliban soldier, reached by telephone at the Kandahar garrison after nightfall, said the Taliban gunners were trying to hit the attacking aircraft, but could not do as they were flying too high.

Skirmish at Pak. border

PTI reports from Islamabad:

In the first skirmish since the U.S.-ledmilitary operations against Afghanistan, the Taliban troopstoday traded gunfire with the Pakistani border guards in the North-West Frontier Province, the Pakistan Home Minister, Mr. Moinuddin Haider, said. The stand-off lasted for sometime before the Taliban forces withdrew deeper into their own territories, Mr. Haider said. Four Pakistan personnel were injured.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Front Page
Next     : First daylight attacks