US bombing enters fifth week, bombs fall in North

Kabul, Nov 4: In the Afghan capital, Kabul, residents tried on Sunday to resume normal life as US jets diverted their bombs to frontline positions, but camouflaged Taliban vehicles in the streets were a reminder of the conflict.

As the US campaign entered its fifth week on Sunday, Taliban officials reported major gains on the ground near Aq Kupruk, some 70 km south of the strategic northern city of Mazar-I-Sharif, near the border with Uzbekistan.

US jets pursued their raids pounding Taliban front lines in the North.
The morning was quiet around Kabul, a day after flights of B-52s bombed the front line facing the opposition Northern Alliance about 40 km to the North, sending up a wall of flame and smoke along entrenched positions in the lush Shomali plane.

In city streets, residents hurried out to the bazaars to stock up on fruit and vegetables amid a pause in bombing and children scampered out of the path of Taliban vehicles moving through the streets. A thick layer of mud had been slapped all over Taliban vehicles, covering the sides, roof and windows, leaving only a patch on the windscreen and the headlights free. The camouflage is to protect them from bombers as they shuttle between the city and the front line.

Late on Saturday evening, US jets bombed to the east of Kabul, near the roads that serve the front line positions.

In northern Takhar province near the border with the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan, fighter jets and B-52 bombers roared over the Northern Alliance military encampment of Khoja Bahauddin early on Sunday before dropping their bombs some 25 km to the South on the Taliban front lines, a Reuters reporter said.

But the Taliban said they had regained Aq Kupruk and more areas to the South after fierce fighting, just a day after the opposition said its fighters had killed 20 Taliban soldiers and captured 200 in a battle late on Friday. There was no independent confirmation of the report from the area where fighting has raged since the start of the US bombing, launched in retaliation for the Taliban’s sheltering of Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the United States. The Northern Alliance has been struggling to advance on Mazar-I-Sharif from positions to the south of the city.

— Reuters