Taliban missiles come closer

Associated Press

BAGRAM, Afghanistan — U.S. jets dive-bombed Taliban positions on the front line north of the Afghan capital on Thursday, eluding at least one missile and sending thick columns of black smoke climbing into the sky. Warplanes later pounded Kabul in the strongest attack on the city in days.

The warplanes repeatedly struck targets near Kabul’s airport, the city’s center, and to the north and west. The assault lasted past midnight and involved at least 10 waves of warplanes. Gunners for the ruling Taliban responded with heavy salvos of antiaircraft fire.

Bombing to the north of the capital was for control of the strategic Bagram airport — held by the opposition Northern Alliance but of no use because of Taliban fighters in the hills around it.

Driving the Taliban away from positions around the airport would enable the alliance to fly in troops, ammunition and supplies for an attack on Kabul, about 30 miles away.

U.S. jets were also in action Thursday in the skies near Taliban-held Mazar-e-Sharif, striking Taliban positions to the south and east of the strategic city, whose capture by the Northern Alliance would open crucial supply routes to Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Opposition officials in Uzbekistan said a Taliban commander, Mullah Yusuf, and 10 other Taliban fighters were killed in the bombing near Mazar-e-Sharif. The opposition also claimed its troops captured the village of Shurchi on the southern outskirts of Mazar-e-Sharif and took 180 Taliban prisoners. The reports could not be independently confirmed.

In other developments:

  • Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan was hurting the Taliban as well as No. 1 terror suspect Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network, but that efforts to get bin Laden himself were proving difficult.

  • Marine Corps commandant Gen. James Jones said the Marines’ top special operations unit is ready to deploy to Afghanistan on six hours notice. He spoke aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Arabian Sea.

  • The British Broadcasting Corp. said Britain would commit a marine commando group of about 1,000, to be moved to navy aircraft carriers ready to launch assaults on Taliban-held territory. The BBC report said it understood the troops would be on the ground "for rather longer" than the "very short, in-and-out raids" of the Americans.

    Associated Press

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