US Warplanes Touch down in Afghan Airport: Hezb-i-Wahdat Source |
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A representative of an anti-Taliban Afghan Shiite Muslim faction in northeast Iran said US warplanes touched down for the first time in Afghanistan's Begram airport north of Kabul late Wednesday.
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A representative of an anti-Taliban Afghan Shiite Muslim faction in northeast Iran said US warplanes touched down for the first time in Afghanistan's Begram airport north of Kabul late Wednesday.
"On Wednesday, for the first time since the start of US and British air raids on Afghanistan, a number of US war planes landed in Begram," said Mohammad Mohaqeq, a member of the Hezb-i-Wahdat faction in the town of Mashhad, cited by the state IRNA news agency late Wednesday.
"These planes have used this airport, which has been taken by Islamic Unity Front, several times," he said without giving further details on the number or type of US warplanes.
Meanwhile, US President George W. Bush said Wednesday that defenses of Afghanistan's ruling Taliban militia were crumbling "slowly but surely."
"Slowly by surely the Taliban defense is crumbling," Bush told a join press conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Washington.
Bush also added: "We are making great progress" in the military campaign launched by the US-led anti-terror coalition in Afghanistan.
He reminded that this campaign "will take a while" because the coalition was involved in "a different kind of war."
Earlier, Bush met at the White House with Blair, his closest ally in the anti-terrorism campaign, and discussed strengthening the coalition.
According to diplomats posted in London, Blair was going to ask Bush to lobby for a greater European participation in the military campaign against the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden believed to be responsible for the September 11 terrorist attacks.
In the meantime, it was reported that US warplanes resumed air raids early Thursday on Taliban targets near the front lines north of the Afghan capital of Kabul, dropping dozens of bombs which caused huge explosions.
US warplanes also carried out heavy bombings on Taliban positions southeast of the key northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif, which the Northern Alliance troops of Afghanistan are trying to capture from the Taliban control.
Also, the German government formally decided on Wednesday to mobilise up to 3,900 troops to support the US-led Afghan campaign at a cost of up to 550 million marks ($253 million).
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