KABUL (Islamweb & News Agencies) - U.S. warplanes saw fresh action over Afghanistan early on Thursday, targeting the ruling Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar which was rocked by a series of powerful explosions, witnesses said.(Read photo caption below) The overnight attacks followed another day of intense bombardment as low-flying U.S. jets swooped over Afghan cities, sending bombs thumping into Taliban militia bases and hitting a fuel dump that exploded in flames in the capital Kabul.
Sounding warnings of an unfolding humanitarian disaster, aid agencies appealed for a temporary halt in attacks to allow food to be shipped into the war and drought-ravaged country before the harsh winter sets in next month.
With the odds seemingly stacked against him, Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar told his men they were fighting a jihad, or holy struggle, and not to fear death.
``Death will definitely come one day,'' the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) quoted him as saying on Wednesday, the 11th day of a military campaign to punish the Taliban for not handing over Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden.
``It does not matter whether we die today or tomorrow. The goal is martyrdom.''
Taliban officials have said both Mullah Omar and bin Laden, the man Washington accuses of masterminding the September 11 suicide hijack attacks on the United States, are alive and well.
PHOTO CAPTION:
This photo released October 17, 2001 shows Taliban military buildings in Kabul after a bombing raid. A U.S. bombing campaign has battered the ruling Taliban's military so badly that it appears to be no longer firing missiles at American warplanes attacking at will over Afghanistan, the Pentagon said on October 17, 2001. (Dept. of Defense via Reuters)