The Associated Press A group of Afghan refugees arrive at
a refugee camp set up by the Iranian Red Crescent Organization
where some 500 refugees live.
By Kathy Gannon and Amir
Shah
The Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan “”mdash; U.S. jets intensified attacks
Wednesday on Kabul and the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, striking
an oil depot in the capital and sending a huge plume of smoke into
the cloudless sky.
Taliban fighters and opposition forces were reportedly locked in
a seesaw battle for the strategic northern city of
Mazar-e-Sharif.
Meanwhile, international humanitarian organizations appealed for
a pause in the bombing campaign, now in its 11th day, so they could
rush in food for millions of Afghans before the harsh winter sets
in next month.
Throughout the day, warplanes pounded targets in northern Kabul,
including a fuel depot near the airport. A huge plume of black
smoke rose in the clear sky as the thud of detonations rattled the
city.
One bomb crashed through the roof of a boys’ school but
did not explode, according to a U.N. spokesman in Islamabad,
Pakistan, Hassan Fairdous.
There were no injuries, and demolition teams from a
U.N.-affiliated mine-clearing team rushed to the school to defuse
the bomb, Fairdous said.
In Kandahar, U.S. jets struck military targets throughout the
city, Taliban officials reported. Residents said by telephone that
Taliban fighters in the city were handing out weapons to
civilians.
The residents said about 150 men armed with rocket-propelled
grenades and Kalashnikov rifles were guarding the Kandahar compound
of the Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, which
has been attacked repeatedly during the air campaign.
Taliban officials claimed 47 civilians were killed in the
Kandahar area in the past two days. They included seven civilians
who died when U.S. jets attacked two trucks they were using to flee
the city, the Taliban said.
The reports could not be independently verified.
The U.S.-led airstrikes began Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused
to surrender Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11
terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
With the U.S. attacks intensifying, Omar, the Taliban leader,
radioed his field commanders Wednesday to assure them that God was
on their side, according to the Afghan Islamic Press in
Pakistan.
“God will defeat the great infidels,” Omar
reportedly said.
In other developments:
“¢bull; The Taliban’s foreign minister, Mullah Abdul Wakil
Muttawakil, has appealed for a slowdown in the bombardment to allow
Taliban moderates to reconsider Afghanistan’s refusal to hand
over bin Laden, a Western diplomatic source said.
“¢bull; Nearly 100 U.S. warplanes participated in
Tuesday’s strikes, including about 85 attack planes launched
from aircraft carriers, about five bombers and fewer than five
AC-130 gunships, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem said at a Pentagon news
conference Wednesday.
“¢bull; The U.N. World Food Program said the Taliban militia
have seized two warehouses in Kabul and Kandahar that contained
nearly 7,000 metric tons of donated wheat, more than half the
amount the WFP had in Afghanistan.