- PESHAWAR - The Taliban claimed
shooting down a US fighter jet in Mazar-i-Sharif on Thursday and repulsing
two attacks launched by the opposition amidst heavy bombing of the militia's
frontlines in the north of the country.
"A US fighter jet has been shot down in Charbolak district of Mazar-i-Sharif
this evening and soldiers have been sent to the site to know more about
the make of the plane," a Taliban official said while quoting the
head of the Taliban administration of Northern Zone. "We have no clue
of the pilot or the crew of the plane so far. The plane was hit with an
anti-aircraft gun because it was a flying at a low altitude", the
Taliban official said.
If true, this will be the second US plane to have been shot down by Taliban
in northern Afghanistan. Taliban marksmen were able to shoot down an American
spy plane, known as drone, in Sumangan province of Afghanistan in the beginning
of the crisis, which was later confirmed by the US government. So far no
confirmation about the downing of the jet has been made from US government.
"Our forces repulsed two attacks launched by the opposition in Dara-i-Sauf.
The attacks were backed by heavy bombardment of the US planes, but the
attackers were beaten back, leaving their dead and injured behind,"
said a Taliban official in Jalalabad.
The US planes heavily bombed our frontlines not only in Dara-i-Sauf, but
several sorties were made by the planes north of Kabul, targeting the frontlines
situated on the Old and New Road areas, Herat, Kandahar and Helmand provinces,
the official said.
In Jalalabad, seven houses have been completely levelled due to heavy bombing
of the Baluch village, west of the city while scores of civilians are reported
dead in the Lashkar Gah area of Helmand due to the fresh air strikes.
Taliban sources claimed that US planes also bombed the opposition frontlines
in the Khwaja Ghar area, but no details of the loss to lives and property
were immediately available. "Several planes were flying over Kunar
all the day long, but no bombs were dropped," said a Taliban official
from Jalalabad, adding that the flying over Kunar province might be aimed
at monitoring movement of the thousands of the Pakistani tribesmen, waiting
for entering Afghanistan for the last one week.
Agencies add: The US bombers in their heaviest battering yet of Taliban
positions, ruined the country's biggest hydroelectric complex, putting
thousands of lives at risk, the Taliban said. Taliban Education Minister
Amir Khan Muttaqi said seven US raids on Wednesday and Thursday severely
damaged the Kajaki dam and hydroelectricity plant in the southern province
of Helmand, completely knocking out the power supplies of Kandahar and
Lashkarga. "The dam is OK for now but the power station and other
nearby installations have been badly damaged or destroyed," Muttaqi
told AFP. "So far water has not started gushing out of the dam but
any further bombing will destroy the dam. It may cause widespread flooding
with a risk to thousands of people," the minister added.
Kajaki, 90 kilometres north-west of Kandahar, contains 2.7 billion cubic
metres of water. It normally produces 150,000 kilowatts of electricity
per hour and irrigates land farmed by 75,000 families in a desert area
where water is a precious commodity. Another Taliban spokesman, Qari Fazal
Rabi, said in Kabul: "Winter is coming and the Americans want to deprive
Afghans of all living facilities."
A delighted opposition commander Alu Zaqi commented on the relentless US
battering of Taliban front lines: "If this keeps going, the Taliban
will be weakened and the front lines will collapse."
But another commander, General Hussein Anwari, head of a small Shia faction
and a member of the fractious Northern Alliance's leadership council, said
opposition forces were still not ready to attack Kabul. "The American
raids are not sufficient, and are not sufficiently concentrated,"
he complained. "And we need ammunition and other equipment."
Wave after wave of US bombers, including giant B-52s, carpet-bombed frontlines
in northern Afghanistan for more than four hours on Thursday, dropping
their thunderous payloads on Taliban positions close to the Tajik border.
The ground shook and windows shattered as far away as Khwaja Bahauddin,
an opposition-held town 25 kilometres from Taliban forward positions, reporters
in the region said. "That (carpet bombing) is part of our campaign,
it is part of our capability," Rear Admiral John Stufflebeem, the
deputy director of operations of the Joint Staff, told a Washington news
conference. "We do use it, we have used it and will use it when we
need to."
A huge explosion rocked the Afghan capital Kabul late Thursday as US planes
launched new air raids within the city limits, residents said. There was
no response from Taliban anti-aircraft guns, which have been severely damaged
by repeated US attacks since air strikes were launched on October 7. On
Thursday, the White House said The United States "can't afford"
to halt air and missile strikes on the Taliban during Ramazan. "We
can't afford to have a pause," White House National Security Adviser
Condoleezza Rice told reporters.
The US Defence Department, meanwhile, denied the claim by Taliban that
they had shot down an American aircraft near the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
"That is simply not true. We have not lost any aircraft," Pentagon
spokesman Bryan Whitman.
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