US jets launch strongest daylight attacks in Afghan

Kabul, Oct 15: In the biggest daylight raids so far, US jets pounded targets around Kabul on Monday and attacked military headquarters and a suspected terrorist training camp near the eastern city of Jalalabad.

The stepped-up attacks came a day after US President George W Bush rebuffed the Taliban’s latest offer to negotiate terrorist suspect Osama bin Laden’s surrender - if Bush would call off the bombing.

In Pakistan, Muslim militants launched a nationwide strike to protest President Pervez Musharraf’s support for the US-led campaign in Afghanistan. The strike call, which drew only a limited response, came as US Secretary of State Colin Powell flew to Islamabad for talks with Pakistan on the air campaign.

The ninth day of raids opened with jets streaking across the dawn sky over Kabul, striking in the area of the airport and a military base.
Throughout the day, wave after wave of bombers, some too high to be heard in the streets below, pounded suspected military targets in the northwest of the capital.

In Afghanistan’s east, a lone jet bombed the western outskirts of Jalalabad as shoppers went about their errands at an open market in the city centre.

US warplanes returned hours later, striking a military headquarters near the airport, the bin Laden training camp at Tora-Bora and a third target near the village of Karam, where the Taliban say up to 200 people were killed when US jets devastated the hamlet last
week.

Taliban soldiers patrolled Jalalabad with rocket launchers and assault rifles as the raids were underway. “The Taliban just laugh at these bombs,” said Muftiusuf, a Taliban envoy accompanying international journalists to Jalalabad.

— Reuters