Civilian area hit accidentally: U.S.

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, OCT. 13. Pentagon officials have acknowledged that an American warplane missed its target and struck a residential neighbourhood near Kabul. A 2,000-pound bomb went off target and hit a civilian complex but Washington disputed the Taliban accusation that about 300 civilians had been killed thus far in U.S.-British operations.

After a brief pause on Friday, American planes returned to the skies for the sixth day, pummelling targets in and around Kabul and Kandahar.

Reports reaching here spoke of the first strikes against Taliban forces in the northeast. The hits in this part of the country are considered significant.

The Foreign Minister of the Northern Alliance, Mr. Abdullah Abdullah, has been quoted as saying that the Taliban was not able to launch counter-offensives against them as a result of the U.S. strikes. He has also said that the casualties should be in the ``hundreds'' and that the bases of the ``foreign friends'' of the Taliban had also been hit.

The Republican administration has not formally responded to the Taliban rejection of the ``second chance'' to cough up Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. But Washington has made it known that the airstrikes and the subsequent operations would be intense and severe.

The White House said that the U.S. operations had

disrupted Osama's network. ``We have disrupted the terrorist network inside Afghanistan. American forces dominate the skies over Afghanistan and we will use that dominance to make sure terrorists can no longer freely use Afghanistan as a base of operations,'' the President, Mr. George Bush, said in his weekly radio address.

The Secretary of State, Gen. Colin Powell, said - ahead of a visit to South Asia - that the participation of India and Pakistan in the American-led coalition against terrorism could help the countries to look at new ways to bring about stability in the subcontinent. ``Pakistan and India, bitter rivals have both joined the coalition. This may present an opportunity for both countries to explore new ways of thinking about stability on the subcontinent,'' he said in a forthcoming article in Newsweek.

On Saturday, U.S. planes targeted their munitions on airports and military bases in Kabul and Kandahar. The objective is to substantially weaken the Taliban in the southern positions of Kandahar so as to give a window of opportunity to the Northern Alliance for its offensive.

Unnamed U.S. defence officials said that there were signs of discontent in the Taliban forces and that there were defections, the Taliban militia denial notwithstanding.

The U.S. is particularly targeting the Al-Qaeda training camps of Osama. There is suspicion that the Al Qaeda has been producing deadly nuclear and biological weapons.

``What we believe is that they have a crude chemical and possibly biological capability. And if there's nuclear capability, it is liable to be more radiological than fissile,'' an official said. Military planners and law enforcement officials are worried that while the Al-Qaeda's methods of delivery of these deadly weapons may be non-existent or crude at best, bizarre inventions may cause problems.

Politically, the Bush administration is watching how the anti- Taliban coalition is coming together. Getting rid of the Taliban is just the beginning as an array of groups and military warlords are waiting on the wings for their share of the cake. The Northern Alliance is merely one part of a complex equation that has to be cobbled together carefully if the ground situation is to sustain in a post-Taliban period.

The authorities are in a state of alert in the wake of anthrax exposures. On Friday, a fourth victim surfaced and there are increasing reports of people getting ``a white powdery substance'' in the mail.

``Our nation is still in danger. But the Government is doing everything in our power to protect our citizenry,'' Mr. Bush said on Friday. He urged people to go about their business, saying, ``We cannot let terrorists lock our country down. We can't let terrorists, a few evildoers, hold us hostage.''

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