Flood feared as bombing cripples Afghan dam
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan joined a chorus of world leaders seeking a swift end to the US-led military action, but appeals for a pause in hostilities during Ramazan brought mixed responses — including a strong rejection by Afghan opposition forces fighting the Taliban.
Afghan Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said seven US raids on Wednesday and Thursday had severely damaged the Kajaki hydroelectric complex in southern Helmand province, knocking out the power supplies of Kandahar and Lashkarga.
“So far water has not started gushing out of the dam but any further bombing will destroy (it)”, Muttaqi said. “It may cause widespread flooding, putting at risk the lives of thousands of people.”
Kajaki, 90 kilometres northwest of Kandahar, contains 2.7 billion cubic metres of water and irrigates land farmed by 75,000 families in a desert area where water is a precious commodity.
On Thursday, wave after wave of US bombers, including giant B-52s, carpet bombed frontlines in northern Afghanistan, dropping their thunderous payloads on Taliban positions close to the Tajik border.
The ground shook and windows shattered as far away as Khwaja Bahauddin, an opposition-held town 25 kilometres from Taliban forward positions, reporters in the region said.
The non-stop pounding of Taliban front lines, the day after B-52 bombers were first seen in action, brought a smile for the first time to opposition commanders long critical of the scope of US air raids.
“Today is a better day,” a delighted opposition commander Alu Zaqi commented on the relentless US battering of Taliban front lines. “If this keeps going, the Taliban will be weakened and the front lines will collapse.”
But another commander, General Hussein Anwari, head of a small faction and a member of the fractious Northern Alliance’s leadership council, said opposition forces were still not ready to attack Kabul.
In Geneva, Annan said he hoped for a swift end to the military action, but urged that the world pursue the anti-terror coalition, of which, he said, military action is only a “very small part.” —Agencies