KABUL, Oct 30: US warplanes pounded the Taliban heartland again on Tuesday, with the 24th straight day of assaults on the stronghold of Kandahar.

Residents said US jets bombed military targets in the devastated city for up to five hours. Four people were killed in the strikes, the Afghan Islamic Press said.

Residents said the city, deprived of water or electricity for over two weeks, had been left a filthy mess with scavengers roaming around.

“They’re like dogs, creeping into what’s left of people’s houses at night, trying to find something to eat,” one resident said, adding that dangerous health conditions had been made worse by the weather, with winter conditions looming.

Overnight US attacks struck Kabul, the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and Taliban frontlines north of the capital and close to the Tajik border, where the opposition Northern Alliance is massed.

The Pentagon said warplanes used their firepower to support opposition forces in northern Afghanistan, targeting Taliban positions in an arc from Kabul to Mazar-i-Sharif.

Spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said the 95 sorties planned for the day were aimed at Taliban command and control facilities as well as so-called emerging targets, which tend to be mobile military assets like armour, artillery, vehicles and troops.

The US air forces “continue to support opposition groups pretty much in the same area — the Shomali plains, Mazar-i-Sharif, Kunduz and Bamian”, Clarke said. They “continue to go after the Taliban military focusing on armour and troop concentrations”, she said.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said late on Monday that three weeks of bombings had cleared the way for what he called “phase two” of the campaign — which is widely expected to involve the deployment of ground troops. A senior US defence official said plans for a commando base inside Afghanistan to support opposition forces fighting the Taliban were under consideration but that no decision had been taken.

A spokesman for former president Rabbani said no base had yet been proposed, but said it would be feasible if the opposition authorities agreed.—AFP