US and British forces struck targets in Afghanistan early this morning Taiwan time on the second day of an effort to weaken the Taliban military and disrupt guerrilla training in that country, U.S. defense officials said.
"These [strikes] are similar to [yesterday]. We have said that this is a continuing operation," one official told Reuters several hours after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in television interviews that initial cruise missile and bombing raids on Sunday appeared to be successful.
The previous day the US and Britain attacked Taliban targets in Afghanistan with missiles and bombs, triggering an exodus of civilians from the capital Kabul and incensing Muslim radicals around the world.
PHOTO: AP
As frightened and shell-shocked residents of Kabul and other targeted cities counted their dead yesterday after the overnight raids, countries across the world tightened security in anticipation of reprisals.
Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 suicide hijack attacks and a target of the US-led raids, said in a pre-recorded message Islam was under attack and urged Muslims to rise up to defend their faith.
In Kabul, the Taliban vowed after an emergency Cabinet meeting yesterday to resist US-led military strikes, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.
A spokesman for the Taliban government said the meeting also decided to reinforce military positions against the attacks.
"We will resist America as we resisted the Russians," he said, referring to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.
But US President George W. Bush vowed no letup in the operation to flush out bin Laden and his Taliban protectors -- and told anxious Americans steps had been taken to prevent a repeat of the hijack attacks that killed around 5,500 people.
"I know many Americans feel fear today," Bush said on Sunday, after announcing the start of at least three waves of military strikes using Tomahawk and other missiles and high altitude bombers on Kabul and other cities.
"Our government is taking strong precautions," he added, referring to the risk of reprisals.
Bush, whose attacks were backed by British submarines firing cruise missiles, said the Taliban and their military were paying the price for supporting terrorism and sheltering bin Laden.
Apparently bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar both survived the attacks, which lasted nearly seven hours.
Bombs and food
Bush said operation "Enduring Freedom" was initially designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a base for terrorist operations and to attack the military capability of the Taliban.
In a stick-and-carrot strategy, US planes later dropped food for ordinary Afghans, already hungry from drought. They also dropped leaflets calling on the Taliban to end their resistance.
But the UN World Food Program yesterday halted food convoys into Afghanistan, where millions of people vitally depend on aid.
Pakistani President makes major reshuffle
Pakistani military president Pervez Musharraf reshuffled the top army brass, removing his spymaster and sidelining two generals who backed his coup.
The director-general of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Lieutenant-General Mahmood Ahmed, had been replaced by Lieutenant-General Ehsanul Haq, a military spokesman said.
No reason was given for the sudden change, which came as US-led military strikes pounded neighboring Afghanistan
But the spokesman said Ahmed, who made two unsuccessful trips to Afghanistan last month, had sought retirement after nearly two years' command of ISI, Pakistan's top intelligence outfit that played a key role in the guerrilla war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and later helped to create the Taliban.
Two other generals given largely ceremonial jobs in the shakeup, Mohammad Aziz Khan and Muzaffar Hussain Usmani, had played an important part in the success of the October 1999 coup that brought Musharraf to power.
The two men, who both sport beards, are regarded as Islamic hardliners with possible strong sympathies for Muslim militant groups fighting India's rule in the disputed Kashmir region and Afghanistan's radical Islamic Taliban movement.
Musharraf, who has thrown his weight behind the US campaign, but whose country is the sole nation to retain ties with the Taliban, said he was sure authorities in Pakistan could cope with the protests that swept his country yesterday.
`Only god knows'
Witnesses said the first US planes roared over Kabul at around 9:20pm on Sunday, soon after a nightly curfew took effect, and lit up the night sky with flashes of exploding bombs and missiles. Two waves followed.
"Only God knows what happened," said one terrified Kabul resident, emerging after dawn. "I am leaving. I will sleep under the sky rather than stay in the city another night."
Shortly after the air strikes began, Afghanistan's Northern Alliance opposition forces launched a heavy barrage of shelling on Taliban positions about 65km north of Kabul.
Ground troops?
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was coy about whether US ground troops were involved in the opening actions.
He denied on the CBS Early Show Taliban claims that civilians were killed.
Bin Laden, the man at the center of the whirlwind, urged Muslims to rise up if the US attacked Afghanistan.
He also said the US could not live in peace until the Palestinians did.
But a senior Palestinian official rejected that line.
"I heard what bin Laden said yesterday," Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Voice of Palestine radio.
"It is true that there is oppression, terrorism, killing in Palestine committed [by Israel] daily but this doesn't justify or give a cover for anybody to kill or terrorize civilians in Washington and New York or any other place."
Many Western governments quickly lined up behind the US. China offered indirect endorsement in a cautiously worded statement condemning "any form" of terrorism but calling for targeted strikes to avoid civilian casualties.
Condemnation
Condemnation came from Iraq, Iran and the Palestinian Hamas movement, which is responsible for a series of suicide bombings against Israeli civilians. Malaysia said the US-led strikes could result in a catastrophe.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei yesterday condemned US strikes saying the air and missile attacks would kill innocent civilians and turn thousands into refugees.
Bin Laden, 44, who is from a wealthy Saudi family, has been defying US efforts to capture or kill him for years. Since 1996, he has been living under the protection of the Taliban in Afghanistan in a remote mountain redoubt.
He has been indicted for the deadly 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, and was linked to last October's attack on the USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, which killed 17 American servicemen.
Plight of refugees
The UN says a quarter of Afghanistan's 24 million population are dependent on food aid and that more than 1 million people have fled their homes in a country ravaged by war and drought. It estimated that up to 1.5 million more may try to cross into neighboring countries.
The US food drops that followed the bombing by nine hours involved 37,500 packages sent to earth without parachutes into remote areas of Afghanistan.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the packages carried a full daily meal for the average adult.
Economic repercussions
On the markets, Asian and European shares fell and gold and oil prices rose yesterday as investors fretted that the US-led strikes might prove the opening shots of a drawn-out war with unfathomable consequences.
Unsettled traders waited for Wall Street's first reaction to the strikes.
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