From: Rick Rozoff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Kabul: More Civilian Targets Hit, At Least 8 Dead [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------- 10/21/2001 5:23 am ET U.S. bombs hit Kabul homes, killing at least eight, residents say The Associated Press KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) U.S.-led bombardment flattened two homes in a residential neighborhood of Kabul on Sunday, killing at least eight civilians, including four children, neighbors said. An Associated Press reporter at the scene in the Khair Khana residential district and at a hospital later saw the bodies of seven of the dead three women and four children, all boys. At the hospital where all the victims were taken, a doctor wept as he showed the dust-covered bodies of the children, who appeared between 8 and 13 years old. He said there were 13 dead all apparently of the same family who were brought to the Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital. There were also 10 wounded, eight of them children. "This pilot was like he was blind. There are no military bases here only innocent people," said Haziz Ullah, one of a crowd of distraught, edgy residents at the scene. "We don't care about military targets, if they want to hit military targets, let them,' said Bacha Gul, the brother of one of the dead. "But these are not terrorists." The United States previously has expressed regret for any civilian deaths in its now two-week old military campaign in Afghanistan, saying terror suspect Osama bin Laden and his Taliban allies are its true targets. This particular section of the Khair Khana neighborhood holds no known Taliban military sites, although a Taliban army garrison and other installations are housed several kilometers away in the same direction. Other bombs hit hard Sunday in the southern city of Kandahar, which serves as the headquarters for the Taliban. On the ground in the north, opposition forces were reportedly keeping up their own offensive against the strategic, Taliban-held city of Mazar-e-Sharif. An opposition spokesman said the Taliban and opposition forces were battling "face-to-face" at one front near Mazar-e-Sharif. Taliban Information Ministry confirmed heavy fighting near Mazar-e-Sharif, but claimed to have pushed the opposition back. Afghanistan's opposition a northern-based alliance mainly of ethnic minority Uzbeks and Tajiks is waging its first major battle since the U.S.-led military campaign started trying to move forward on Mazar-e-Sharif after U.S. airstrikes helped clear the way. The U.S. bombardment of the Afghan capital opened at dawn Sunday, as jets roared in for bombing runs to the east. Four bombs hit Kabul's eastern edge, home to a Taliban military academy and several Taliban army installations. Jets returned for strikes on the city's northern edge, hitting the homes at Khair Khana. Last week as a U.S. bomb struck a Red Cross compound in the same neighborhood. The Pentagon had said that it thought the Taliban militia was using warehouses there for storage. Sunday's raids left bulldozers scraping through the rubble of the demolished homes, as residents searched for more victims. Another U.S. jet screamed high overhead as the search crews worked, sending people scrambling for cover and an ambulance at the scene screeching away. The aircraft left without attacking. Whirring U.S. helicopters had patrolled over Kabul throughout the night Sunday, making their first sustained appearance over the capital. They drew only slight Taliban anti-aircraft fire. President Bush launched the air campaign Oct. 7 after the Taliban repeatedly refused to hand over bin Laden, the main suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. On Sunday, the Taliban claimed to have killed 20-25 U.S. soldiers in the first ground attacks of the campaign, Saturday at and around Kandahar. Taliban spokesman Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi said Taliban firing killed the U.S. soldiers during hours of battling there, but gave no details. In Washington, a Pentagon spokesman dismissed the claim as baseless propaganda. "It's clearly another attempt at false information," Capt. Riccoh Player said. Meanwhile, at the United Nations, an opposition diplomat gave a rare suggestion that some Taliban might have a role in any post-Taliban government. Opposition forces hope the U.S.-led military campaign will lead to routing of the Taliban fundamentalist regime, which seized the capital in 1996 and now holds about 90 percent of the country. The international community is trying to help a multiethnic, coalition government take shape one that would be acceptable to Afghanistan's Pashtun majority. On Saturday, U.N. ambassador Ravan Farhadi of the Afghan opposition government in exile said a post-Taliban government could include so-called moderates of the Taliban. They would only be those found innocent of crimes against Afghan civilians, however, Farhadi said. Opposition foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah has vehemently dismissed that same suggestion when it comes from outside, saying there is no such thing as a "moderate" Taliban. As fighting continues, a refugee crisis built on Afghanistan's borders. At least 5,000 crossed into Pakistan Saturday in what was the single largest one-day exodus in the U.S.-led military campaign. Another 10,000 were barred from entering and are believed stranded at a border no man's land. The U.N. refugee agency says thousands of Afghan civilians are in flight from Kandahar and other cities, with most seeking refugee in the mountains and countryside. EDITOR'S NOTE Kathy Gannon contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan. _________________________________________________ KOMINFORM P.O. Box 66 00841 Helsinki Phone +358-40-7177941 Fax +358-9-7591081 http://www.kominf.pp.fi General class struggle news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Geopolitical news: [EMAIL PROTECTED] subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] __________________________________________________
