US jets pound Jalalabad again

Jalalabad, Oct 14: US jets raided the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad early on Sunday, pounding the darkened and curfew-bound town with bombs, some aimed at military bases, witnesses and news agencies said.

However, by dawn the city was quiet and as the curfew was lifted with the call for morning prayers people began to emerge onto the streets.

Residents of the city, a key target for US fighters because of the guerrilla training camps that have surrounded it, went about their daily business, trying to ignore the nightly bombardment and unable to flee to nearby Pakistan because the border is closed.

The first strikes in the bombardment hit an army installation in the east of the city, injuring at least six people, the private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said. Two more bombs exploded on the outskirts of the city.

“The first one... made a very deafening sound,” said one witness.
“The second was less intense, it seemed further away.”

One Taliban fighter said the second bomb sounded as if it had landed in fields beyond the city but the first was much closer to the centre. “Our morale is very high,” said Taliban fighter Hafiz Ahmed Jan after the last bomb reverberated over the silent town.

“America has just wasted another $1,000,” laughed Jan as the last bomb fell. “All of Afghanistan is filled with mountains and rocks. There is nothing else. America will find nothing.”

“This is routine here,” said Taliban official Mufti Mohammad Yusuf.

— Reuters