A number of Taliban fighters were killed on Monday when US missiles slammed into a hotel used as a Taliban base in Kabul.
Reuters quoted witnesses as saying that the rockets hit Baghibala hotel, a downtown Taliban base, and the main road leading to it.
The wreckage of a Taliban four-wheel-drive vehicle and scraps of flesh were scattered on the road. “We don't know about deaths, but some Taliban have been wounded and one part of the hotel has been damaged,' said Abdul Hananhimat, an information ministry spokesman.
Meanwhile, AFP reported that US warplanes struck Taliban positions in northern Afghanistan on Monday, hoping to pave the way for a renewed push by opposition forces toward the key city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
Opposition officials and the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported strikes in Balkh and Samangan provinces not far from where the Taliban and rebel Northern Alliance troops were locked in battle for a strategic district, the agency said.
Little movement was reported around Aq-Kupruk district, 70 kilometers (45 miles) south of Mazar-i-Sharif, which the opposition claimed to have taken on Saturday only to have the Taliban later reclaim a portion.
If the opposition can hold Aq-Kupruk, AFP continued, it would mark their first significant advance towards Mazar-i-Sharif -- potentially a crucial supply and staging point -- since US forces began bombing Afghanistan nearly a month ago.
The northern area is one of three targeted by the Americans in their drive to topple the Taliban for harboring Islamic militant Osama bin Laden, wanted for the Sept. 11 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
US B-52 bombers and strike aircraft have been pounding Taliban positions in northeastern Afghanistan where the Northern Alliance are fighting for control of supply routes into neighboring Takijistan ahead of winter, according to the report.
American planes have also hit at Taliban forces dug in about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kabul while opposition forces continue preparations for a threatened move on the shattered capital.
A B-52 made four runs Monday over the Taliban entrenched on a hill that dominates the western skyline of the Shomali valley, dropping bombs that sent shockwaves across the valley and sent dust and smoke mushrooming hundreds of meters into the sky.
But with the harsh Afghan winter due in a few weeks, diplomats and US officials warned the Taliban troops could increasingly pull back to the cities and would be impossible to dislodge without tough house-to-house combat.
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a tour of the region, said Sunday the campaign was making "measurable progress." But it continued to be dogged by reports of civilian casualties from the bombings.
Taliban officials and the Pakistani-based AIP said 20 civilians were killed early Monday. The AIP said six people were killed in one house in Keshendeh town near Aq-Kupruk.
It said the six dead were all from the same Hazara community, Shiite Muslims who oppose the Taliban, which is dominated by the mainly Sunni Pashtun tribes.
The agency said US gunships staged new raids on Kabul, targeting a Taliban base at Reshkhor south of the capital and another on the northern fringes of the city.
Four explosions rocked Kabul around dawn as US planes and helicopters took advantage of the Islamic militia's enfeebled anti-air defences.
AIP said aircraft also attacked the western city of Herat and Kandahar, the Taliban bastion, in the south. A Taliban official in Kabul however denied there had been any raids over Herat.
Kabul had recently been spared the worst of US air raids which were concentrated on Taliban front lines north of the capital and in northeast Afghanistan.
On Sunday, B-52 bombers unleashed their heaviest payloads on Taliban front line positions near the border with Tajikistan, with at least 100 bombs dropped.
The Northern Alliance controls about 10 percent of Afghanistan in the north and has said it is preparing a major offensive against Taliban positions and eventually Kabul.
But there was no sign of a pending assault Sunday although hundreds of extra troops have been mobilized and the Northern Alliance were bringing out their heavy armor from storage in the Panjshir Valley.
The opposition remains desperately short of fuel, cash and ammunition, seen as three critical ingredients for launching an attack on the Afghan capital.
Its campaign has been boosted, however, by the opening of a new airstrip in its territory closer to Kabul. The first plane landed Sunday at the Sherkat airstrip close to Gulbohar about 80 kilometers (50 miles) to the north.
The airstrip, built with the help of US military advisers in a strategic location near the mouth of the Panjshir Valley, could provide key support for any opposition ground offensive.
The United States, which has increased its special forces presence on the ground in recent days, is hoping for significant movement before the winter sets in and makes large-scale ground operations difficult. It is also under some pressure to halt the bombings before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan starts in mid-November, said the agency.
Rumsfeld acknowledged the feelings of Pakistan and other Muslim supporters over the issue of Ramadan, but said Washington could not afford a lull in the bombing.
"The reality is that the threat of additional terrorist acts are there," the US defense chief said in Islamabad on Sunday.
"Our task is certainly to be sensitive to the views of the region but also to see that we aggressively deal with the terrorist networks that exist." – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
