---------- From: Barry Stoller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [R-G] WWIII update - more civilians dead Reuters. 13 October 2001. U.S. Raids Resume as Afghans Still Dig for Bodies. KABUL -- Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Saturday rejected an offer by President Bush to halt air strikes if they handed over Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden, saying they would fight until their last breath. The defiance was voiced as the country counted the cost as bombings resumed after a brief respite for the Friday Muslim holy day and enraged authorities searched for more bodies in the rubble of a remote village flattened by a direct strike. "We once again want to say that their (the U.S.) intention is a war against Muslims and Afghans," Taliban Information Minister Mullah Qudratullah Jamal told Reuters. On Thursday, Bush said he would halt air strikes if the Taliban "cough up" bin Laden, an offer he described as a second chance. "Osama is not the issue and people have realized this by the crimes they are committing," Mullah Jamal said. "Our stance regarding the situation is as before. "Our jihad (holy struggle) ... will continue until the last breath for the defense of our homeland and Islam." U.S. warplanes bombed Kabul's airport early on Saturday and CNN reported the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar was under attack after a lull of nearly 24 hours out of what Washington said was deference to the Muslim holy day. At least one civilian was killed and four injured near Kabul airport when a bomb landed near a poor residential area. Six houses near the strike site were flattened by the blast. Exhausted residents of the capital were woken on Saturday by at least eight huge explosions, with one strike apparently hitting the airport, which has been the main target. "From my house I could see a bomb land on the airport, I saw a fireball, debris flying up into the sky and the initial big fire then dimming," one witness said. "The shockwaves of the bombs were quite severe but there was less anti-aircraft fire seen in the sky compared to other nights," one said. On Friday, angry Muslim clerics vented their rage against the air onslaught during prayers, urging Afghans to fight to the last breath and decreeing death to anyone who aided the United States. "America can destroy our country but not our faith and our principles, we will fight till the last breath," the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted another cleric as saying in a sermon in the southern city of Kandahar. Much of the rage had been fueled by the deadly strike on the hillside village of Khorum near the eastern city of Jalalabad, where at least 160 bodies have already been pulled from the rubble of flattened houses. "Some 160 bodies have been recovered from the debris so far. Most of them are women and children," Jamal told Reuters. "We believe more are to be dug out. The burial process has already began and each victim will be buried in a separate tomb," he said. Dozens more people were killed or injured and military bases hit in raids on southern Kandahar province, officials said. Despite the ferocity of the raids, there was no sign the U.S. was any closer to getting bin Laden -- who Bush has said is wanted "dead or alive" -- or the Taliban's reclusive spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. The death toll pushed past the 300 mark -- with more than half from a single village near Jalalabad -- on the sixth day of the U.S.-led assaults and was set to rise, the Taliban said. "Such acts of the Americans and their supporters are outrageous and show that their enmity is with Afghans and Muslims," Jamal said. "If their claim is getting rid of the people who they call terrorists then why they have not succeeded. They're boasting their attacks are precise, so why have they failed?" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews with continuing coverage of WWIII _________________________________________________ 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] __________________________________________________ ----------
