The Associated Press As gunfire erupts, Afghans run into
Pakistan through an open field adjacent to the Chaman border
crossing Sunday. Afghan refugees and traders who had been kept from
entering Pakistan rushed past the border post. Thousands have
crossed into Pakistan at this border post fleeing U.S.-led bombing
in Afghanistan.
By Steven Gutkin
The Associated Press
QALAI DASHT, Afghanistan “”mdash; U.S. warplanes bombarded
Taliban positions Sunday near a front line north of the capital,
Kabul, marking what could be the start of a more aggressive
campaign on behalf of opposition forces fighting the Islamic
regime.
In Kabul, meanwhile, grieving neighbors pulled dust-covered
bodies of seven civilians ““ three women and four children
““ from the ruins of two homes destroyed Sunday by a U.S.
bomb. “This pilot was like he was blind!” sobbed one
neighbor.
In Pakistan, the U.N. refugee agency renewed appeals Sunday for
Afghanistan’s neighbors to open their borders to the refugees
““ including up to 15,000 trapped on the “no man’s
land” near the Pakistani town of Chaman.
The attacks Sunday marked the closest and most intense U.S.
strikes so far against Taliban positions defending Kabul from
northern alliance forces, which have been stalled for years 12 to
25 miles north of the city.
U.S. jets streaked over the opposition-held Panjshir Valley, and
opposition officials told an Associated Press reporter in the area
that they appeared to strike Taliban positions about one mile
behind the front line.
Several eyewitnesses, including journalists and residents, also
reported Taliban positions bombed in the area.
“We are hoping this will be a big help for the future of
our forces,” Waisuddin Salik, an opposition spokesman,
said.
Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban forces, an alliance mostly of
minority ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, have been urging the United
States to provide close air support for their forces so they can
advance on the capital.
However, the United States and Britain had been reluctant to
help the northern alliance seize Kabul until a broad-based
government had been formed to take over from the Taliban.
Opposition groups were widely discredited in Afghanistan because
of the chaos and infighting that marked their four years in power.
Fighting between rival groups now part of the alliance destroyed
large sections of Kabul and killed an estimated 50,000 people, most
of them civilians.
Since the U.S.-led air campaign began Oct. 7, U.S. attacks
against Taliban front line positions were mostly limited to strikes
near the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.
U.S. warplanes resumed attacks Sunday in that area, striking
targets in the provinces of Balkh, which includes Mazar-e-Sharif,
and Samangan to the east of the city, according to the Afghan
Islamic Press.
Taliban spokesman Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi claimed Taliban
forces drove back an opposition attack in the area despite the U.S.
airstrikes.
Afghan officials also reported more attacks Sunday near the
western city of Herat and Kandahar in the south.
In Kabul, U.S. jets struck at midmorning in the Khair Khana
section of the city. One bomb crashed into a residential
neighborhood, destroying two houses. An Associated Press reporter
saw the bodies of seven dead at the scene and later at a city
hospital. All were said to be related.
At a nearby hospital, Dr. Izetullah, who like many Afghans uses
only one name, wept as he pulled back bloodstained sheets to show
the bodies of the four children ““ all boys, ages 8 to 13.
Izetullah said 13 dead had been brought to the hospital.
“This pilot was like he was blind,” neighbor Haziz
Ullah said. “There are no military bases here ““ only
innocent people.”
The neighborhood holds no known Taliban military sites, although
a Taliban army garrison and other installations are several miles
away.
Attending an economic summit in Shanghai, China, President Bush
said the United States had been “as careful as we possibly
could” to avoid killing civilians.
Bush ordered the attacks after the Taliban repeatedly refused
demands to surrender Osama bin Laden, the chief suspect in last
month’s terror attacks in the United States, and his
lieutenants.
A senior administration official said Sunday that Bush signed an
order after the Sept. 11 attacks directing the CIA to kill bin
Laden and destroy his communications, security apparatus and
infrastructure.
In Islamabad, the Taliban’s deputy ambassador to Pakistan,
Suhail Shaheen, said the order constituted a “terrorist
act.”
Faced with unrelenting attacks, the Taliban’s Cabinet met
at a secret location Sunday and appealed to fellow Islamic
countries to donate humanitarian supplies and medicine to victims
and survivors of the U.S.-led bombings.
The Taliban also announced plans to disperse air defense and
other weapons to villages, presumably to allow them to defend
themselves against attack and to protect the materiel from U.S.
jets hunting for depots and troop concentrations.
The U.N. refugee agency estimates that up to 15,000 refuges are
stranded on the Afghan side of the Pakistani border near
Chaman.
On Sunday, Pakistan border guards fired shots to drive back
hundreds of stone-throwing Afghans pushing their way across the
border. A 13-year-old boy was wounded.