- KABUL - US bombs destroyed
three Red Cross warehouses in the Afghan capital Friday, wiping out stocks
of food and cooking oil intended for widows and disabled people, Red Cross
officials told AFP.
An AFP reporter at the scene saw the warehouses ablaze, with trucks upturned
and sacks of humanitarian supplies such as wheat and peas scattered among
the debris. "I do not know how to explain my feelings. I'm very sorry
about it especially when I look at this fire and I imagine the widows and
disabled people who would have received this aid," one Red Cross official
at the scene said.
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesman Mario Musa said
at least two warehouses were directly hit by bombs or missiles, but three
were destroyed in the fire. He said there were no reports of casualties.
Taliban soldiers were seen attempting to bring the blaze under control.
Friday's attack is the second against ICRC warehouses in Kabul since the
airstrikes began on October 7.
An ICRC warehouse in the same area was hit in an accidental bombing on
October 16 in which an ICRC staff member was injured. The incident was
later confirmed by the Pentagon. "There are three warehouses on fire
now and we already lost one 10 days ago, so that's four out of five,"
Musa said, adding that the buildings stored thousands of tonnes of food
and assistance material such as tarpaulins, blankets and soap.
"Our colleagues are there trying to extinguish the fire but as you
can imagine they are extremely demoralised and they do not feel safe."
He said he could not understand how the US military's "precision"
bombs could have accidentally hit the same area of warehouses within two
weeks, and rejected any suggestion they presented legitimate targets. "We
are sure that the compound was only being used to store humanitarian assistance,"
he said. A huge cloud of black smoke rose over the area shortly after the
bombs struck around 0830 GMT Friday. More explosions were heard at the
same time near Kabul airport around two kilometres to the east.
"We had intended to distribute more of our humanitarian aid tomorrow
and the day after tomorrow. What was left we had intended to distribute
among widows and the civilian victims of the recent attacks," said
the ICRC official at the scene, who requested anonymity.
A UN-backed demining agency's office here was destroyed in a missile attack
in the first days of the airstrikes, killing four civilian guards. Small-arms
fire and rocket explosions were heard on the steets of the Afghan capital
late Friday night after a series of heavy US airstrikes rocked the city,
residents said.
An AFP reporter in the city said he heard several outbreaks of ground fire
from what sounded like Taliban weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles
and rockets. Eleven explosions rocked the Afghan capital of Kabul as US
jets launched a heavy overnight bombing raid on the ruling Taliban militia,
a resident said Friday.
The first series of raids started about 1730 GMT Thursday and lasted for
just over an hour, according to the resident. Three bombs were dropped
in the first five-minute raid, causing very large explosions inside the
city and prompting a heavy initial response of anti-aircraft fire, the
resident said.
The warplanes returned about 10:45 pm and dropped five more bombs during
a 20-minute raid over the city. Another explosion was heard about the same
time further north towards the airport.
After a respite of less than five hours, at least one warplane returned
and dropped two more bombs in the city about 04:30 am Friday, the resident
said. US warplanes dropped two bombs on the outskirts of Kabul in an afternoon
raid on Friday, residents said. Two large explosions were heard, one near
the airport on the northeastern side of the city and the other in the northwest,
close to the headquarters of the Taliban's 16th division.
Earlier Friday two young girls were killed when a US bomb destroyed their
house in a village near Kabul, a local resident said. The deaths came during
intense overnight US raids on the capital and a day after the UN confirmed
that nine people had been killed when a US cluster bomb landed near a village
in western Afghanistan on Monday.
Officials at a Kabul hospital told AFP a man was also killed when a bomb
hit a communications centre in the east of the city on Friday. The sisters,
aged six and 11, were in their mud-brick family home in the village of
Wazir Abad, three kilometres west of the airport on the northeastern edge
of the city, when it and two other houses were flattened by a bomb.
Neighbours pulled their parents from the debris but both girls were already
dead, a woman who lived in the house next door, told an AFP reporter who
visited the village. The woman, a widow who did not want to be identified
but gave her son's name as Abdul Samad, said she had been woken by the
noise of a first bomb landing somewhere between the village and the airport,
which has been repeatedly attacked by US warplanes.
Shortly afterwards a second bomb crashed into the street, partially destroying
her own house. "I had to force the door open to get out and then I
heard shouting and screaming from next door," she said.
"They managed to get the mother and father out but both the girls
were dead." "With one hand they are dropping food and with the
other they are dropping bombs -- are we supposed to be happy about that,"
said Mohammad Ismael, one of the villagers.
The girls' deaths bring to 27 the number of civilian casualties which AFP
has been able to confirm in the Kabul area since US airstrikes began on
October 7. The Taliban claims the real toll is far higher and that more
than 1,000 civilians have died nationwide.
There has also been intense bombing of the western city of Herat and Jalalabad
near the eastern border with Pakistan. The Wasir Akbar Khan hospital meanwhile
told AFP a civilian, Shafi Ahmad, 30, died there after being rushed from
a communications training centre in eastern Kabul that was bombed during
the night. A Taliban spokesman said a cruise missile hit the centre and
insisted it had no military role.
Taliban frontline positions have also come under heavy US strikes to the
north of Kabul where the movement faces fighters of the Northern Alliance.
Jets roared over Kabul on Thursday evening as well, releasing bombs in
a string of huge explosions that shook the city.
With the United States fearing a spreading anthrax outbreak in America
might be related to the September 11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney
vowed on Thursday there was much more to come for the Taliban and Osama
bin Laden. "The air campaign has cleared the way for further operations,"
Cheney told a reception of the Republican Governors Association.
"The conflict can only end with their complete and permanent destruction,"
Cheney declared, adding that the United States had already disrupted terrorists'
operations and "no doubt prevented some planned attacks."
In London, British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram on Friday said UK
would commit some 200 men of 40 Commando Royal Marines to support ground
operation in Afghanistan. The remaining 400 marines would remain ready
to join them if needed, he told reporters along with Chief of the Defence
Staff Admiral Sir Michael Boyce at the Ministry of Defence here.
To a question Admiral Sir Michael Boyce said the British forces, during
the operation in Afghanistan, could remain for a short time or for days.
He refused to divulge more details about the operation. -Agencies
US warplanes struck caves and camps in a day of air strikes that targeted
Taliban forces on the front lines north of Kabul and around Kandahar and
Mazar-i-Sharif, a senior US military official said Friday. Rear Admiral
John Stufflebeem said the targets struck Thursday included "terrorist
and Taliban command-and-control elements in caves and camp complexes"
as well as airfields and Taliban forces in the field and in garrisons.
"The caves that we believe are inhabited by either Taliban or al-Qaeda
forces... we will attack," Stufflebeem said. It was not known whether
leaders of the militia or of the al-Qaeda network were in the caves, he
said. "We know that they are being occupied and by forces opposed
to us and that is why we struck them," he said.
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