American warplanes resumed bombing runs early yesterday on several Taliban positions in an effort to clear the way for advances by forces opposed to Afghanistan's ruling movement.
The US forces targeted Taliban lines around the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif in the hope of making it easier for the opposition northern alliance to move on the city.
US jets dropped bombs on the city overnight, but there were no casualties, according to the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In the capital Kabul, American bombs also exploded near the Intercontinental Hotel, set on a hill in the southwestern part of the city. Nine people were injured, the agency said.
Capturing Mazar-e-Sharif would cut Taliban supply lines to the west of Afghanistan and enable the northern alliance to bring in weapons and equipment from neighboring Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
US jets also struck near Taloqan in the north, and at the frontline near Kabul, Atiqullah Baryalai, deputy defense minister of the northern alliance, told reporters by telephone.
Nadeem Ashraf, an opposition spokesman, said the bombing was "very intense" from night until yesterday morning and that the opposition planned to launch an offensive toward Mazar-e-Sharif soon. He acknowledged, however, that Taliban forces were holding and even reinforcing their lines.
North of Kabul, opposition tanks and soldiers conducted military exercises ahead of a possible offensive in that area.
As the bombing entered its fifth week, attempts to craft an alternative political leadership that could replace the Taliban were underway. The northern alliance planned to send delegates to Turkey in the coming days for preliminary talks with other Afghan factions on how to create a broad-based government.
The process is likely to be lengthy and prone to the kind of disputes, based on ethnic, political and religious differences, that have for years prevented a unified, central government from controlling all of the country.
Also yesterday, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in Uzbekistan for talks on military cooperation in the US-led campaign against terrorism. Some 1,000 US soldiers are based in the former Soviet republic, with borders Afghanistan to the north.
Rumsfeld planned to travel later in the day to Pakistan for consultations with President Pervez Musharraf, who chose to support US efforts to unseat the Taliban despite Pakistan's earlier backing of the movement. Some street protests by Taliban supporters in Pakistani cities have turned violent.
US President George W. Bush launched the air assault Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which killed about 4,500 people.
A US helicopter plucked a sick soldier from Afghanistan under the cover of darkness early Saturday after bad weather caused the crash of the first rescue helicopter, a Pentagon official said.
When the first helicopter crashed, four soldiers on board were injured. The second helicopter picked up the sick soldier and the four who were hurt in the crash.
The Pentagon also confirmed the loss of an unmanned Predator spy plane over Afghanistan -- but insisted it was due to bad weather. It denied Taliban claims to have shot down two US aircraft.
Pakistan and others in the US-led coalition doubt whether the northern alliance -- dominated by Afghanistan's minority ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks -- can win broad approval among the country's dominant Pashtun ethnic group.
The US and its partners hope that Afghan dissidents can agree on a formula under which the former king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, could convene a grand council to establish a broad-based government
The alliance, however, had been balking at that option. The alliance's titular leader, former Afghan president Burhanuddin Rabbani, had insisted on calling a council only after his government-in-exile has returned to power and ruled for a few years.
Rabbani's government was toppled by the Taliban in 1996 after four chaotic years of infighting among his coalition partners. An estimated 50,000 people were killed and Kabul was heavily damaged.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique