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US-led Attacks on Afghanistan Enter Fourth Consecutive Night
US-led air forces bombed Taliban targets near the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday for a fourth consecutive night, news reports from Afghanistan said.
Four loud blasts were felt in areas around Kabul after planes roared over the city early evening Wednesday while a Taliban military base near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border was also attacked. All this came at the end of a day of raids on Kandahar -- the Taliban southern stronghold.
"We could see the flashes from two of the bombs, which seemed to have fallen in the north of the city," an eyewitness was quoted by reports as saying.
Shortly before the attacks, electricity supplies were cut, plunging Kabul into darkness.
The ruling Taliban of Afghanistan denied U.S. claims that it had established "air supremacy" over the country.
Two of the prime targets in the bombing -- Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar -- have both survived four days of bombing.
"The American claim that they have destroyed the defence capability of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is not true," Taliban chief representative to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef told a press conference here.
The Taliban officials said the first three days of bombing had left at least 76 civilians dead in the country. To date, only four civilian deaths have been confirmed. Four guards of a U.N.-funded demining office in Kabul were killed when the office was struck by a U.S. cruise missile on Tuesday.
The U.S.-led airstrikes began on Sunday over the Taliban's refusal to hand over alleged terrorist Osama bin Laden. Beginning Tuesday, the U.S.-led air forces launched daylight airstrikes that continued Wednesday.
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