The Associated Press Afghan refugee children at a
makeshift home in Khwaja Bahauddin, an anti-Taliban stronghold in
Takhar province.
By Kathy Gannon and Amir
Shah
The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan “”mdash; American jets bombarded the center of
the Afghan capital Thursday, and residents said a strike that hit
homes killed at least five civilians, including a 16-year-old girl
and four in one family who lived near a Taliban tank unit.
In southern Afghanistan, the Taliban headquarters of Kandahar
came under attack dozens of times, residents said. And planes
struck a small town outside the southern city where the
Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, had preached
two days before.
With the air campaign in its 12th day came the first report that
the bombing had killed a veteran figure in Osama bin Laden’s
al-Qaeda network. A London-based Islamic group said an Egyptian who
was a veteran al-Qaeda fighter died in a U.S. strike on Sunday.
Alongside missiles and bombs, U.S. forces have been bombarding
Afghanistan with radio broadcasts and leaflets urging surrender.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon that
those operations had borne some fruit, with some Taliban defecting
to the opposition.
In London, Prime Minister Tony Blair suggested coalition ground
operations may be on the horizon, and that the international effort
was entering “the most testing time.”
Speaking at his Downing Street office, Blair offer no timeframe
or details, but he said, “I don’t think we have ever
contemplated this being done by air power alone.”
“I believe that the next few weeks will be the most
testing time, but we are on track to achieve the goals we set
out,” Blair said. “There will be further action that we
are considering taking, again targeted.”
Strikes on the capital Thursday appeared targeted against a
Taliban tank unit and other military installations near the city
center Thursday. However, one bomb devastated two homes in the
Quilazaman Khan neighborhood, killing the four family members,
according to neighbors.
A 16-year-old girl was also killed when another bomb exploded in
the Microryan housing complex about a half mile away, residents
said. Late Thursday, two strong detonations shook buildings in the
once-fashionable Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood.
There was no immediate confirmation of the number of deaths. The
United States has expressed regret for civilian casualties,
insisting that it only targets bin Laden and his Taliban
allies.
Taliban officials said at least 12 people were killed and 20
injured during the day of strikes on Kandahar ““ a claim that
could not be independently verified. Planes also targeted
Arghandab, a small town about 12 miles to the northwest, witnesses
said. Taliban sources claimed there were no military targets there,
but Mullah Omar preached there Tuesday.
President Bush ordered the attacks beginning Oct. 7 to uproot
bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network ““ blamed for the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks in the United States ““ and punish
Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, who have harbored him.
In other developments:
“¢bull; Afghan opposition fighters pushing toward the northern
city of Mazar-e-Sharif battled Taliban forces at the airport, said
Ibrahim Ghafoori, an opposition alliance official in Uzbekistan.
The Iranian news agency reported the northern alliance foreign
minister met with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran to talk about
Afghanistan and aid to civilians caught in the fighting.
“¢bull; American special operations troops are in position
aboard the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean,
ready for helicopter-borne missions in Afghanistan, military
officials say.
“¢bull; Defense officials said an unmanned American spy plane
armed with missiles, the low-flying RQ-1 Predator, has been used
for the first time in combat missions over Afghanistan.
“¢bull; Four Osama bin Laden followers convicted in the 1998
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa were sentenced to life
without parole by a New York City court.
“¢bull; CNN reported an office used by its contract workers in
Kandahar was damaged in a U.S. attack late Thursday. The network
said two CNN employees took cover in the building and were not
injured during the attack on a vehicle on a nearby road.
The death of the veteran al-Qaeda fighter, known as Abu Baseer
al-Masri, was reported by the London-based Islamic Observation
Center. The report said a U.S. strike near Jalalabad on Sunday
killed al-Masri and injured two of his colleagues.
Afghan sources in Islamabad, Pakistan, said al-Masri had been in
Afghanistan for about 10 years and was close to bin Laden’s
chief lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahri.