Clinical strike kills yet more civilians

KABUL, OCtOBER 18: US planes rained more death and destruction from the skies above Afghanistan on Thursday but a Taliban minister said Osama bin Laden and his hardline Islamic protectors were all alive and well.

However, according to a report by The Frontier Post released by Russian news agency Ria Novosti, Taliban Supreme Leader Mulla Mohammad Omar has lost connection with his commanders and troops. It said he was greatly dependent on bin Laden’s personal guards consisting of Arab mercenaries.

Throughout the day, fighter jets bombed Kabul, areas around Kandahar and Jalalabad, killing dozens across the country according to witnesses and Taliban officials. The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said five people were killed and many injured in the morning raids in Kandahar. Earlier officials had told Reuters that 12 civilians were killed and up to 30 wounded in overnight raids on the city.

In Kabul, a Reuters reporter watched a resident mourn over the bodies of his family, killed at around midday at their home in the eastern suburb of Qalaye Zaman Khan. A Taliban military base lies a few hundred yards away. A woman passing by was killed by a second bomb that created a huge crater in the street. Later in the day, eyewitnesses saw seven passers-by killed when US planes hit an ammunition dump in the capital.

But despite the tightening noose, with bombing from above and Opposition ground claiming advances to the north, the Taliban dismissed reports of divisions in their ranks. They also rebuffed rumours that Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil had left the country, saying he had not been heard due to the failure of communication links with Kandahar.

The Taliban also demonstrated its ability to move reinforcements quickly by halting the advance of the opposition Northern Alliance in the crucial city of Mazar-e-Sharif — strategically important because it would provide the Opposition an important supply route and the US a vital airstrip. But the Northern Alliance Commander said their forces were gearing up for a joint advance on Mazar-e-Sharif. Commander Ustad Attah told Reuters by satellite phone that they would soon join hands with General Dostum and Ustad Makhakek.

The US is also intensifying its operations. Hinting at use of ground troops, US defence officials said on Wednesday that elite troops were poised on an aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean for thrusts into Afghanistan, including men trained to fight in harsh conditions. Meanwhile, American pilots have increasingly set their sights in the past few days on blasting Taliban forces and militants with the Al Qaeda terrorist network and their vehicles, wherever they are found. An NBC TV report said today that the US intends to wrap up its bombing of Afghanistan in a month’s time — before Ramadan — and is already planning air campaign against terrorist camps outside the country, starting with Somalia.

Under the US pressure, there were signs of disarray everywhere in Afghanistan, and indications that some Taliban officials have begun to flee the country. In Quetta in southwestern Pakistan, the Taliban’s top morals enforcer, Mullah Ghulam Haider, was reported by residents to have returned quietly to a home he owns there. As leader of the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Haider was in charge of the religious police who patrol Taliban-controlled communities and punish women who fail to cover themselves completely or men whose beards are deemed too short. (Agencies)