Panicking shoppers flee attack in Kabul

By ALAN PERROTT and AGENCIES

Shoppers fled in panic from Kabul yesterday as the Afghan capital came under a daylight bombing assault from the United States.

The attack began at 5.30 pm local time as people were out shopping for their evening meals. Another attack followed four hours later.

Blasts from an exploding munitions dump in Kandahar were heard at the Pakistan border about 120km away, and a huge fire ball erupted over an area of the city thought to contain an al Qaeda training base.

The attacks were conducted by heavy bombers, carrier-based strike aircraft and Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The Taleban claimed yesterday that the raids had killed hundreds of civilians.

A spokesman said as many as 100 people died in one village and 15 more were killed when a stray bomb hit a mosque.

The Taleban-controlled Afghan Islamic Press reported more than 50 deaths in the village of Kouram, 20km from Jalalabad, but said the final toll, once the rubble was cleared, was expected to exceed 100.

No independent confirmation of the claims was available.

The daily attacks have so far avoided the Taleban forces gathered on the flat land north of Kabul.

Analysts suggest the Americans are wary of hitting them and allowing the opposition Northern Alliance to march into the capital before an acceptable political framework is in place.

Nine years ago, a mujahedin coalition with a similar tribal composition stormed Kabul when the flimsy Communist Government collapsed.

The tribal groups immediately turned their guns on one another.

When the smoke cleared, the city was in ruins and almost 50,000 civilians were dead.

In a press conference to mark the one-month anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, President George W. Bush said the US and other countries would be involved in establishing a new government.

"One of the things that we've got to make sure of is that all parties - all interested parties - have an opportunity to be part of a new government, that we don't play favourites between one group or another with Afghanistan."

Throughout the address, Mr Bush referred to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden as "the evil one".

Pakistan yesterday acknowledged for the first time the presence of US aircraft and personnel in the country.

But with anti-American sentiment threatening to divide the nation, the Government continued to deny that any of the units included military personnel and stressed that Pakistan would not become a staging post for military strikes on Afghanistan.

* New Zealand nurse Jacqui Tong is still in Afghanistan. The 39-year-old is working at the Northern Alliance stronghold of Faizabad and at remote border towns for the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Frontiers).

Map: Opposing forces in the war against terror

Afghanistan facts and links