M A I N   N E W S

US bomb kills 10 in Alliance village
Eight children among victims

Kabul, October 28
US warplanes pounded Taliban positions around Kabul on Sunday, but one bomb killed at least 10 civilians, including eight children, in a village controlled by Afghanistan’s opposition Northern Alliance, television reported.

Waves of bombers hit positions of the hardline Muslim militia in the north of the Capital overnight, witnesses said.

Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television said a stray bomb hit a village in the area but did not give its name. It quoted medical sources in the town of Jabal-us-Saraj as saying that the village was located a few kilometres from the frontline.

It showed footage of destroyed houses, apparently in the village.

Al-Jazeera said Italian medical staff operating in the area confirmed the attack, saying 16 persons were killed.

A source at the Northern Alliance Foreign Ministry also confirmed to Al-Jazeera that the village had been hit, but gave no details.

The Taliban say hundreds of Afghan civilians have been killed by stray US bombs or missiles.

The US raids — in retaliation to the Taliban’s sheltering of the suspected mastermind behind the September 11 attacks in the USA that killed around 5,000 — resumed at dawn today, witnesses said.

“They have dropped eight or nine bombs since early morning,” said a Kabul resident, adding the raids were less intense than those of the previous night.

US warplanes have been pounding the Taliban frontline positions near Kabul to help the Northern Alliance opposition forces.

They Alliance is battling many foreign fighters — including Arabs, Pakistanis and Chechens — who are among the fiercest and most determined soldiers in the Taliban militia.

Three explosions rocked Kabul today after an air raid by a US warplane, residents said.

The first blasts came within minutes of each other and at least one came close to residential areas. A third followed about an hour later.

Taliban anti-aircraft guns opened fire earlier at a single plane which flew over Kabul shortly after an explosion was heard coming from frontlines north of the Capital, residents said.

The raids followed a quiet night in the beleaguered capital after US planes launched their heaviest bombing assault on Kabul of the anti-Taliban military campaign on Friday night and last morning.

Two ambulance drivers who went to the village were hit by the stray bomb, which is 3 km from the Taliban frontlines northeast of Kabul, said 10 civilians were killed instantly and at least another six injured.

A foreign ministry official from the opposition Northern Alliance confirmed a US bomb hit the village of Khan Agaha at the mouth of the Kapisa valley yesterday, in the territory it controlled.

The official said two persons were killed in the village while a medical source at the hospital where some of the victims were taken said as many as 16 civilians may have died.

Khan Agaha is just 3 km from the Taliban frontlines and about 80 km northeast of Kabul.

The blunder, adding to a growing list since the US pounding of Afghanistan began on October 7, occurred as US planes dropped up to 35 bombs near the Kapisa valley and the other major frontline near Kabul, Bagram airbase, which is about 50 km north of Kabul, yesterday.

As the Pakistan authorities prepare for a showdown with pro-Taliban tribesmen in the country’s north, they also face confrontation with militants threatening to blow up any vehicle that tries to pass blockades on the “Silk Route” to China. AFP, Reuters

War going badly: US officials

Washington, October 28
The US war against terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden and the Taliban is currently going badly, US officials have said.

The USA had suffered a week of setbacks, followed by the capture and execution of powerful Afghan opposition leader Abdul Haq, which “tested US patience and its plan of attack,” The Washington Post quoted them as saying.

“Despite 20 days of punishing airstrikes, the US military has yet to really engage the Taliban,” it quoted administration officials as saying.

“As the campaign enters its fourth week, with the Muslim holy month of Ramzan and winter fast approaching, the Bush administration has begun to hunker down and admit to itself what it has repeatedly insisted in public — that the war against the Taliban and the terrorists it shelters will be neither short nor easy,” the report said.

“We are like wrestlers, with totally different styles,” said an official referring to the USA and the Taliban militia. “We are still trying to figure out whether leverage point is on these guys. We haven’t found it yet”

The Post said time might not be on the administration’s side, “especially as key Muslim allies in the anti-terrorism war, most notably Pakistan and Egypt, begin to demonstrate open impatience with the pace and results of the campaign.”

Analysts noted that the USA with its deep faith in Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf followed his advice and the CIA worked with the ISI to secure major defections. The plan flopped and the Pakistanis could not deliver.

The Washington Times, meanwhile, said US military forces turned down requests from Haq for air strike support against the Taliban.

However, Pentagon Deputy Director of Operations Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem told reporters he had no information about it. He also said he had no information on a news report that a US helicopter was in the area when Haq was captured. PTI

Taliban say they have 4 US agents

Abu Dhabi, October 28
The Taliban today claimed that they had arrested four persons who were working for the USA.

Three of them are of either Pakistani or Afghan origin, Russian news agency Novosti has said.

According to Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television channel, a US citizen of Pakistani origin, Mazkhar Ayub Khan, was arrested in Adish district, close to the Pakistani border.

Khan, who retired as a Major from the Pakistani Army, had entered Afghanistan posing as an associate of an international humanitarian refugee-helping organisation, according to the Taliban.

He has been handed over to authorities in Kabul.

The Taliban also said that they had arrested an American who had entered Afghanistan along with a detachment of warlord Abdul Haq, who was captured and executed last Friday.

The American had managed to break through the encirclement and get lost in Jalalabad. Taliban Information Minister Abdul Khannan Hamad named the American as Djumbar Djikhi.

Two Americans of Afghan or Pakistani origin, who were busy collecting intelligence close to Kabul, were also detained. UNI