Explosions shake Kabul with raids on weapons sites
Explosions have shaken the Afghan capital overnight with two more jets reported attacking the northern part of the city in the early hours.
The air strikes sent residents scurrying for shelter, as US jets pounded suspected weapons storage sites in Kabul and across the country.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, speaking at the Pentagon, suggested US airstrikes could start targeting Taliban front-line positions facing Afghan opposition fighters in the north-east of the country.
The opposition alliance says it has advanced close to Mazar-e-Sharif, the largest city in the north, and that some 4,000 Taliban troops defected over the weekend. The Taliban has denied the defection claim.
The latest attacks against Kabul started just before sunrise and continued through the day into the night. Taliban gunners fired in vain at the attacking planes, some so high they could not be heard from the ground.
The attacks in Kabul appeared to be directed at weapons and ammunition storage sites in the hills north of the city of one million people and around the airport.
In one night-time raid, 10 huge explosions in the direction of the airport shook buildings miles away.
One bomb exploded near a UN World Food Programme warehouse on the northern edge of Kabul, slightly injuring one Afghan employee, UN spokesman Khaled Mansour said in Pakistan.
In the Jalalabad area of eastern Afghanistan, US jets struck the regional military headquarters near the airport and Tora-Bora, a suspected terrorist training camp of Osama bin Laden.
