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Sunday, 21 October, 2001, 20:03 GMT 21:03 UK
US attacks Taleban front line
![]() Several civilians were reported killed in Kabul
US aircraft have bombed Taleban front-line positions north of the Afghan capital Kabul, in the first verified strike of its kind.
The strikes went ahead despite concern voiced by some members of the anti-terror coalition about the possible entry into Kabul of the opposition Northern Alliance.
Click here to see a map of the latest strikes But US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Fox TV that it would be in the best interest of the US and its allies to "resolve" the military conflict in Afghanistan before winter.
Al-Qaeda 'crippled'
The head of the US military, Joint Chiefs Chairman Richard Myers, said his forces had crippled the al-Qaeda network of Saudi-born militant Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan.
He told the US television channel ABC that tanks, artillery, vehicle support facilities and troop concentrations had been hit.
Two Western news agencies with reporters on the ground said there had been civilian casualties as a result of the bombing of residential areas. The bombing came on a 15th night of US air strikes, a day after elite troops clashed with Taleban fighters on the ground for the first time since the campaign began. Earlier, the Washington Post revealed that President Bush has authorised the CIA to use lethal force to eliminate Bin Laden and key members of al-Qaeda.
American intelligence has detected "new and important" weaknesses in Bin Laden's organisation which will it will attack in lethal, secret operations, the paper quoted US sources as saying. However a Taleban official released a statement on Sunday saying that Bin Laden and his companions were "living in complete safety". In other developments:
New bombing raids Low-flying US jets reportedly dropped at least four bombs on Kabul overnight, drawing less anti-aircraft fire than usual.
Most of them were from the same family living in a two-storey house which was half demolished by the bomb. "This pilot was like he was blind," said neighbour Haziz Ullah. "There are no military bases here - only innocent people." The US planes were thought to be targeting a Taleban base several kilometres away. Commando raid More than 100 US special forces attacked an airfield and a command and control facility near where the Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar lived in Kandahar in the early hours of Saturday. US defence chiefs said the squad of Army Rangers did not meet significant resistance from Taleban fighters and withdrew safely after several hours. The US suffered its first casualties of the conflict when two servicemen died after a helicopter supporting the mission crashed in Pakistan. |
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