US resumes attacks on Kabul
The United States has resumed its attacks on the Afghan capital of Kabul today, with huge explosions reported around Taliban military sites on the outskirts of the city.
The US also attacked other targets around Kabul and the southern city of Kandahar, according to a Taliban spokesman.
For the past three days, the US has been concentrating its attacks on Taliban frontlines in the north of the country and reports indicate that those attacks are also continuing today.
The opposition Northern Alliance has said the Taliban is reinforcing its positions in the north with thousands of fresh troops.
A deputy brigade commander on the frontline north of Kabul complained that the US attacks are insufficient to dislodge the Taliban and said the Alliance’s own attacks have been much more successful.
He also said that Alliance fighters are retreating from their positions to keep at a safe distance from the US attacks. On Monday, three US bombs landed behind Alliance lines but nobody was killed.
Elsewhere today, a Pakistani militant group said that 22 of its fighters were killed yesterday in a US attack on Kabul.
Muzamal Shah, a senior official in the Harkat ul-Mujahideen (Movement of the Holy Warriors), said a US bomb struck a house in the Afghan capital while his group were holding a meeting there.
Those who died included several commanders, he said. Some of the group had crossed into Afghanistan since the US attacks began to help "devise a plan for fighting against America".
