First daylight airstrikes in Kabul; U.S. granted use of Pakistani bases

By Kathy Gannon and Amir Shah

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan – Heavy explosions rocked the Kabul airport Thursday afternoon in the first daylight raids on the capital, and bursts of Taliban anti-aircraft fire rang out during the fifth day of U.S. airstrikes on Afghanistan.

In neighboring Pakistan, government officials acknowledged for the first time that U.S. personnel were on the ground, military planes were arriving and the Americans had been granted use of two key air bases.

In the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, raids earlier Thursday targeted a compound where followers of Osama bin Laden had lived. Also hit was a munitions dump, and the resulting huge explosions sent many of the city’s residents racing for the Pakistani border.

“People ran without looking back,” said Abdul Gharrar, arriving at the Chaman border crossing.

Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban militia said at least 115 people had been killed nationwide in overnight strikes late Wednesday and early Thursday, including 100 who died around Jalalabad and another 15 who were killed when a missile struck a mosque in that northeastern city.

The claims could not be independently confirmed.

In London, the head of the British armed forces, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, said U.S.-led military action in Afghanistan could go on as long as until next summer, unless the Taliban surrenders bin Laden to face trial in connection with the terror attacks on the United States one month ago. If the Taliban hand over bin Laden and stop sheltering terror networks, the offensive could end quickly, he said.

“It could be a very short haul … (or) we must expect to go through the winter and into next summer at the very least,” Boyce said.

The Kabul strike Thursday afternoon caught many by surprise. In the previous four nights of bombing, people had become accustomed to raids that began well after dark.

When the bombing began about 5:30 p.m., people were in the streets, going about their daily routines under a cloudless sky, many of them shopping for their evening meal. Once the attack began, panicked civilians fled by any means of transport they could find, some jumping onto the backs of bicycles of people riding away.

International aid workers in Afghanistan once again ran into trouble with the Taliban. The World Food Program said in Islamabad that a convoy of relief supplies from Pakistan to the western Afghan city Herat, near the Iranian border, was stopped on the road by Taliban demanding a large “road tax.”

“We refused,” spokesman Francesco Luna said. The standoff remained unresolved Thursday afternoon.

A day earlier, the United Nations reported that some Afghan nationals working for U.N. agencies had been beaten up in recent days by Taliban loyalists in several cities.

Pakistani government officials said U.S. military personnel have arrived in the country and the Americans have been granted use of several Pakistani air bases. More than 15 U.S. military aircraft, including C-130 transport planes, arrived over the past two days at a base at Jacobabad, 300 miles northeast of the port city of Karachi and about 150 miles from the Afghan border.

Government spokesman Anwar Mehmood said the personnel were not combat forces and would not use Pakistani territory for launching any attack on Afghanistan. A Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said U.S. forces would be allowed to use air bases – including Jacobabad and a base at Pasani, west of Karachi – to carry out recovery operations.

The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, when asked about the reports of arriving U.S. personnel, replied: “When the Americans enter Afghanistan, here will start the real war – not now.” Zaeef reported the Taliban’s latest casualty claims.

Meanwhile, the rebels fighting to topple the Taliban claimed Thursday they had taken the key central province of Gur after heavy fighting with Taliban forces during the night.

Mohammed Abil, a spokesman for the northern alliance of opposition groups, said by telephone from Pakistan that the province and its capital, Chaghcharan, fell shortly after midnight Thursday. Heavy fighting continued into the morning in several areas, Abil said.

The claim could not be independently verified. Gur borders four provinces that the opposition considers crucial to efforts to unseat the Taliban.

The morning attacks on Kandahar, the Taliban’s home base, appeared to target the airport and its surrounding area, where a sprawling two-story housing complex was built in 1996 by bin Laden’s followers. However, it is believed that most of the people living there fled soon after the Sept. 11 assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Wednesday night saw the heaviest bombardment yet of Kabul. U.S. jets pounded the capital late Wednesday and early Thursday, and explosions thundered around a Taliban military academy, artillery units and suspected terrorist training camps.

At the border crossing into Pakistan closest to Kandahar, refugees reported the strikes were escalating. Ekhtiar Mohammed, a brickworker who arrived in the border town of Chaman on Thursday, said he had seen at least 10 people killed and 30 injured in Kandahar over the past four days.

Another arriving refugee said some bombs in recent days had been hitting populated areas, despite U.S. promises that civilians wouldn’t be targeted.

“It’s not true that the Americans have only been bombing military targets. Many of the bombs are dropping on residential neighborhoods,” said Naseebullah Khan, who works at a factory near Kandahar’s airport, a repeated U.S. target.

British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon claimed that some Taliban supporters have deserted since the offensive began, but gave few details. “Some are clearly defecting,” he told a press briefing in London, though he cautioned that there was not yet “a clear indication of the collapse of the regime.”

Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban supreme leader, appealed to Muslims worldwide to back Afghanistan’s fight against the United States, according to reports carried Wednesday on the Web sites of the British Broadcasting Corp. and the Voice of America.

“Every Muslim, having a strong faith, should resolutely act against the egoistic power,” Omar said in a statement published on the BBC Web site.

Pentagon officials in Washington refused comment Thursday on the topic of U.S. personnel in Pakistan. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said earlier he was considering more airstrikes, use of special forces commando raids and coordinated missions with rebel forces already fighting the Taliban.

Pakistan’s support to the United States is an extremely delicate issue politically for Pakistan’s president. In recent weeks, at least five people have died in anti-American, pro-Taliban protests in Pakistan. Pakistan is providing logistical and intelligence help to the Americans, spokesman Mehmood said.

Militant Islamic political leaders have called for holy war on the United States and condemned President Gen. Pervez Musharraf for his support of the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism.

In other developments:

– British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Thursday that Britain and the United States agree there are no immediate plans for a wider war outside of Afghanistan.

– An Air Force sergeant, Evander Earl Andrews, was killed in a heavy equipment accident in the northern Arabian Peninsula, becoming the first death in Operation Enduring Freedom, military officials said. Also, an unidentified U.S. Army soldier stationed in Turkey suffered critical injuries after becoming trapped between two trucks.

– Officials said U.S. warplanes would begin dropping cluster munitions – anti-personnel bombs that dispense smaller bomblets – on mobile targets such as armored vehicles and troop convoys.

– The head of the Afghan government opposed to the Taliban said his small forces remain the key to defeating the Afghan rulers. Burhanuddin Rabbani, whom most foreign governments recognize as Afghanistan’s legitimate president, said that U.S.-led airstrikes had not changed his forces’ fundamental strategy in fighting the Taliban.

– Afghanistan’s former king is pushing ahead with plans for a gathering of tribal leaders to select a new head of state and now wants to hold the meeting in a demilitarized Kabul, a senior aide said. No date has been set for the meeting, or loya jirga, but former King Mohammad Zaher Shah is working to convene the assembly in the Afghan capital if a cease-fire is secured, Yusuf Nuristani said.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE: Kathy Gannon contributed to this dispatch from Islamabad, Pakistan.