Intense US air raids have crippled Afghanistan's biggest hydro-electric dam complex, a Taliban minister said Thursday.
Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told AFP the Kajaki hydro-electric power station in the southern province of Helmand had been badly damaged by seven US air raids on Wednesday and Thursday.
He said power to the cities of Kandahar and Lashkarga had been completely cut but added that the giant Kajaki dam was safe.
"The dam is OK for now but the power station and other nearby installations have been badly damaged or destroyed," Muttaqi said.
"So far water has not started gushing out of the dam but any further bombing will destroy the dam. It may cause widespread flooding with a risk to thousands of people," the minister added.
Taliban spokesman Qari Fazal Rabi, chairman of the Bakhter information agency, said the raids had completely cut electricity supplies to Kandahar, the Taliban bastion in southern Afghanistan, and Lashkarga in neighbouring Helmand province.
There was no independent confirmation of the raids or damage at Kajaki, 90 kilometers (55 miles) northwest of Kandahar.
Muttaqi said the facility contained 2,700 million cubic metres of water and produced 150,000 kilowatts of electricity per hour.
It also irrigated land farmed by 75,000 families with more than 50,000 cattle in a desert area where water is a precious commodity, the minister said.
The dam was built when Afghanistan was still ruled by Mohammed Zahir Shah, who was ousted as king in 1973.
"America wants to destroy everything in Afghanistan. There are no military installations in Kajaki, not even in the district," the minister was quoted as saying by the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).
Kandahar has been blacked out for long periods since US bombing raids in Afghanistan started on October 7, to force the militia to hand over Osama bin Laden, the accused mastermind of the devastating attacks in New York and Washington on September 11.
About 80 percent of Kandahar's estimated population of 200,000 have left since the raids started. Lashkarga had a population of about 100,000 people before the raids.
Bakhter chairman Rabi told AFP the attacks on the power station were an attempt by the United States to cause hardship for the Afghan people.
"Winter is coming and the Americans want to deprive Afghans of all living facilities," Rabi said.
The Taliban also said that an important bridge north of Kabul had been destroyed in raids this week.
Rabi said the Bar Rekab bridge had been destroyed in US air raids on Taliban frontlines north of the capital. He said raids late on Wednesday had killed one Taliban fighter and injured two, including one who lost a leg -- KABUL, (AFP)
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