ISLAMABAD, Oct 27: Taliban forces on Saturday repulsed an opposition offensive backed by the heaviest US airstrikes so far on Kabul and on Taliban positions defending Mazar-i-Sharif.
Taliban officials described the ferocious US bombardment as a failed attempt to support an offensive by the Northern Alliance.
“The US jets bombed continuously and the opposition launched a heavy offensive, but the morale of our forces is very high because they are fighting for God,” said Abdul Hanan Hemat, the head of the Taliban information agency.
Hemat said up to nine people were killed in the assault on Kabul.
An Alliance spokesman near the northern front in Samangan province confirmed by telephone that the offensive had been turned back.
The blitz on Kabul saw more than 20 bombs hit the city over 11 hours of night raids and about 35 on frontlines to the north of the city.
The onslaught coincided with bombardment on Friday night and Saturday morning of the southern city of Kandahar, the eastern city of Jalalabad, the western city of Herat and frontlines in the north.
Residents said the bombing was the heaviest they had seen since US-led air strikes started on Oct 7. The Taliban responded throughout the night with sporadic anti-aircraft fire.
The Taliban have so far weathered the airstrikes without cracking and continue to hold back opposition forces on the frontlines north of Kabul, although their positions have taken a battering.
US planes also dropped 35 bombs near Bagram airbase, 50kms north of Kabul, and at the mouth of the Kapisa valley, some 30kms further northeast.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) reported that five opposition commanders were captured during the fighting and then hanged, but Afghan Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi dismissed the report as false.
BLOW TO US: A report that Pakhtoon tribesmen were rallying to the Taliban was another blow to US-backed attempts by Afghan exiles to set up a government to replace the Taliban.
The capture and execution on Friday of Pakhtoon guerilla leader Abdul Haq was already being seen as a severe setback to the plan.
Afghanistan’s exiled king Mohammed Zahir Shah had hoped Abdul Haq, whose role in the fight against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation made him a hero to Pakhtoons, could persuade tribal chiefs to support a new government.
But his mission in Afghanistan ended in disaster when he was cornered in the eastern town of Agro by Taliban forces, captured and executed with two supporters.—AFP
