The television tower lies toppled on its hill, felled by aerial bombing. Not that it matters much to people in Kabul. Their Taliban rulers long ago banned television as part of their rigid Islamic program.
Tanker trucks are spread throughout the city, apparently to disperse the Taliban's oil supplies away from the fuel depots that are on the list of bombing targets.
The Foreign Ministry, in the center of Kabul, is untouched by the US-led bombing. Some of its staff have left for Pakistan, while others are taking exams to become diplomats. The successful ones will represent a regime recognized by only one government -- Pakistan.
Most of the Taliban ministers remain. The Taliban Cabinet has continued to meet every week, but in an undisclosed location since the bombing began. The presidential palace, once its home, was damaged by fighting years earlier.
After nearly five weeks of bombing, the damage done by the planes seems slight. Only a small portion of the city has been directly hit. The government continues to function. The Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who has only rarely visited Kabul, is said to still be in Kandahar, the Taliban's stronghold, 459km to the southwest. However, his headquarters and home in Kandahar have been bombed, and it's not known from where he operates.
After 20 years of Soviet occupation, civil war -- and now the US and British air campaign -- life for ordinary people in Kabul could be described simply as more of the dreadful same: night after night of explosions, shaking buildings, fear and death.
The Taliban regime and the Pentagon dispute each other's casualty figures. The US government insists it's trying to avoid harming civilians, but this is a city where military targets are woven into residential neighborhoods.
Among the dead since the offensive began Oct. 7 are two families, each of eight people; three children killed when a bomb landed near their home; four UN mine-clearing employees. The Red Cross compound has been hit twice. The children's hospital says it has admitted 29 children.
On the streets and in the few restaurants still open, Afghans readily express their sympathy for the thousands killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, but are bewildered to find themselves caught up in the US war against Osama bin Laden, the suspected terrorist mastermind, and his al-Qaeda network. The US launched the air assault after the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden.
Although the buildings tremble throughout Kabul when the bombs fall, only a small portion of the city has been directly hit.
Near the Ariana Chowk neighborhood, which has suffered no damage, is the centuries-old presidential palace where the Taliban used to hold Cabinet meetings. It is badly damaged -- not by air raids, however, but by the bitter civil war between Islamic factions that preceded the Taliban's rise to power in 1996.
Last weekend, B-52 bombers pummeled the mountains that ring Kabul. The earth shook, windows rattled and residents trembled.
The rocket-rutted road to Kabul International Airport is lined with rickety wooden shops and mud houses nearby. They shuddered for several nights running as 450kg bombs hit the airport.
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