BBC team reaches Kabul

Kabul is a city shattered by wars, isolation and poverty

Members of a BBC team have become the first Western broadcasters to enter the Afghan capital, Kabul, since the US began bombing last month. They were taken there under armed Taleban escort.

Throughout Thursday US jets kept up bombing raids around the city, as Rageh Omaar reports.

My journey began at the Towr Kham border post at the Khyber Pass in Pakistan, the starting point of the road to Kabul, capital of a country under attack.

It is a highly sensitive area and difficult to film, but the Taleban commanders who accompanied me were unfazed.

There were very few of them in the group and they exuded calm as we snaked our way through the desolate and almost impregnable landscape of Afghanistan.

Taleban mobile

My first chance to see Taleban fighters up close was in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

The Afghans are simply struggling to survive

Throughout our journey, it was clear that their small units were able to communicate and co-ordinate their movements.

They operate in small units and are highly mobile.

Around Nagarhar province they have been redeploying and shifting their supplies of ammunition to escape US air strikes.

But it is only here, on the ground in Afghanistan, that you begin to see how in many ways this is a war between entirely different worlds.

Trying to survive

The ordinary Afghans that we were able to meet were simply trying to survive.

The streets are empty and it is eerily silent as people take shelter and see what the night will bring

A parched, open plain just outside Jalalabad is home to nearly 10,000 people.

The authorities say they fled their homes in the past three weeks to escape the bombing.

They eke out an existence as best they can as the bitter winter winds close in.

There are no aid operations to speak of and they survive on handouts and by selling the few possessions they have brought with them.

Despite their harsh plight they gathered for an organised demonstration for us where they chanted "death to Britain".

Kabul shattered

Finally, on Thursday we reached Kabul, a city shattered by 23 years of war, poverty and isolation - and which now faces the military might of the United States.

The previous night's bombardment had been one of the heaviest around Kabul, the front lines just north of the city being pounded repeatedly.

Independent eyewitnesses I spoke to said they were convinced some of the raids on Kabul city itself involved helicopter gunships.

At night, the city's power is been turned off and is pitch black - an attempt to conceal targets from US warplanes.

The streets are empty and it is eerily silent as people take shelter and see what the night will bring.