US forces launched a new attack on Afghanistan at dawn Tuesday, the first in daylight, after another night of strikes against “strategic” targets left four dead, said reports.
Meanwhile, the US said it would target other countries harboring “terrorists,” saying in a letter addressed to the UN Security Council that this would be “an act of self defense,” in what Washington has warned will be a long campaign.
In the letter, the United States warned the UN Security Council it might "have to" launch strikes on countries other than Afghanistan.
"We may find that our self-defense requires further actions with respect to other organizations and other states," the letter said in part.
Taliban anti-aircraft guns swung into daylight action Tuesday morning, opening fire at several unidentified planes circling above the Islamic militia's southern stronghold of Kandahar.
"There are several planes passing over the city, but they haven't dropped any bombs as yet," Taliban spokesman Hamid Ullah told AFP by telephone.
Residents in the capital Kabul were also shaken after a relatively quiet night by explosions from what appeared to be a pre-dawn raid on targets outside the city at around 4:50am (0020 GMT).
"They were muffled explosions and must have been some distance away as we didn't hear any plane," one Kabul resident told the agency.
"Some of the Taliban anti-aircraft guns opened fire, but only those in the far northeast of the city," he added.
The renewed action came after missiles fired from the air and sea pounded the country late Monday in a second night of reprisals for the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Kabul residents told the agency they heard jets roaring overhead and Taliban gunners responding with long bursts of anti-aircraft fire.
Witnesses reported bombs hitting targets on the outskirts of the city and near the airport as Taliban anti-aircraft batteries opened up on fighter jets roaring across the night sky.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) agency said the strikes had targeted television towers just outside Kabul, while one bomb fell near the city's main 400-bed hospital.
US defense officials said 10 land-based B-1 and B-2 bombers and an equal number of tactical aircraft from US aircraft carriers had been involved, while US warships and a submarine fired 15 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
"They were fired at communications (sites)," a Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The attacks were of a lower intensity than those of Sunday night and involved only US forces with British logistical support.
AIP quoted a Taliban official as saying the airports in Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan and the Taliban southern stronghold of Kandahar were bombed.
"The attack targeted the airports but we have no details," the official said. There was no confirmation of any casualties.
The Taliban on Monday said the target of the strikes - wanted Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, named as the mastermind of last month's attacks in the US - had escaped injury.
But the US-led attacks have given the opposition Northern Alliance renewed vigour in their drawn-out campaign against the Taliban, which captured Kabul in 1996.
Opposition spokesman Mohammad Ashraf Nadeem told AFP via satellite phone that their forces were shelling Taliban positions in the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, which has changed hands several times in bloody confrontations.
"Military operations, the airport and other Taliban centres of power are being targeted," he said.
Elsewhere in the north, opposition foreign affairs spokesman Abdullah Abdullah said anti-Taliban forces had launched attacks in the provinces of Badghis, Ghor, Balkh and Samangan.
Abdullah claimed that 1,200 Taliban soldiers changed sides in northeastern Baghlan, along with 40 commanders.
But despite the overwhelming military power stacked against them the Taliban have remained defiant, vowing to wage a guerrilla war against Washington and its allies.
"We have decided to fight hard the attacks by the Americans and Britain," a Taliban spokesman reportedly said after Monday's emergency session of the militia cabinet.
"We will fight the Americans the way we fought the Russians," the spokesman said, referring to the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation.
Some 15,000 Soviet troops died in the decade-long occupation which ended with their withdrawal from the mountainous Afghan terrain.
The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef denounced Sunday's first wave of attacks, saying 20 people had been killed in Kabul, including women and children, and warned of severe consequences.
"This action is not only against the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, but this is a terrorist attack on the whole Muslim world," he told a press conference.
US officials said air drops of food and medicine also were continuing with C-17s scheduled to drop another 37,000 high protein food rations to refugees inside Afghanistan.
There are rising fears of a humanitarian disaster, and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) warned that after 22 years of war, Afghanistan ranks among the most destitute, war-weary countries in the world.
It said in a statement that 70 percent of the Afghan population was estimated to be undernourished, and only 13 percent had access to improved water sources.
Only seven other countries had a lower average life expectancy than Afghanistan, where most people are not expected to survive beyond their 40th birthday – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
