Afghans wait for next attacks

Missiles and warplanes sliced through the night and rocked Afghanistan's main cities in a US-British attack on Osama bin Laden and his Taliban backers. Bin Laden and the Taliban's leader both survived, Taliban officials said.

Residents of the capital, Kabul, emerged this morning after a night spent huddled in basements and homes - and waited for the next wave of attacks.

While the city's markets opened as usual, many worried that the night's barrage was the first shot in a new conflict for a country already shattered by years of war.

A Taliban official said civilians were killed in the barrage, but did not say how many or where. The Pentagon said damage assessment was still going on and it was too early to say if there were civilian casualties.

A check of Kabul's four hospitals turned up no evidence of casualties.

The strike began after nightfall in Kabul with five blasts followed by the sounds of anti-aircraft fire. Electricity was shut off throughout the city.

Besides striking airports around the country, the attack also targeted the heart of the Taliban movement, hitting its military headquarters and the home of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in the southern city of Kandahar.

Strikes were also reported in Jalalabad, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif. Other sources said three loud explosions could be heard in Jalalabad, one of them from the area of Farmada, a bin Laden training camp about 12 miles south.

Pentagon officials said the United States and Britain launched 50 cruise missiles against targets inside Afghanistan in an assault that also involved the most sophisticated US warplanes.

A senior Pentagon official said targets included air defences, military communications sites and terrorist training camps inside Afghanistan.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said an initial goal of the strikes was to render air defences ineffective and to wipe out the Taliban's military aircraft.

During the raids, there was no sign of panic among Kabul's one million people, long inured to war after more than two decades of relentless fighting that has destroyed most of the city.

But this morning, some said they wanted to flee. Mirza Mohammed, who lives near the airport, said was preparing to leave with his family.

"All night I was with my four children. We were very afraid. We didn't sleep," Mohammed said Monday. "I don't understand why the people of Afghanistan are such unlucky people."

Hamid Jalil, 12, said shrapnel broke the windows of their house. "All the night we were in the basement with our neighbours," he said.

Malang Bacha, a Kandahar resident, reached the Pakistan border this morning with his wife and four children in a pick-up truck loaded with others fleeing. "Many people began to flee the city after the attacks began," he said. But border crossings into Pakistan did not see a large-scale movement of Afghans, something aid workers fear will result from US attacks.

The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan said today that civilians had been killed in the strikes. But the envoy, Abdul Salam Zaeef, would not say how many or where they occurred. "Civilians died. It was a very huge attack," he said.

In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel George Rhynedance said it was "too early to tell" if there were any civilian casualties. 'We're assessing the success of our missions right now," he said.

Dr Abdullah, the foreign minister of the opposition alliance fighting the Taliban in northern Afghanistan, told CNN there have "not been reports of any civilian casualties so far."

Zaeef said earlier that bin Laden, the main suspect for the terror attacks on the US, and Mullah Omar had survived. "By the grace of God, Mullah Omar and bin Laden are alive," he said, without saying whether either leader was near the scene of the attacks.

In the Taliban's first reaction as the missiles struck, Zaeef called the assault a terrorist attack. Taliban Deputy Defence Minister Mullah Noor Ali said "the people of Afghanistan will resist. They will never accept the rule of infidels."

President Bush gave a live televised address after the strikes began, saying US and British forces were taking "targeted actions" against Taliban military capabilities and al-Qaida.

In the days following the strikes at the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, the president had issued a series of demands for the Taliban to hand over bin Laden, a Saudi exile. The Taliban offered to negotiate but refused a hand over.

"Now the Taliban will pay a price," Bush vowed.

But the president of Pakistan, a key US ally in the region, insisted today that the military campaign must be short.

"I certainly think the operation is not over," President General Pervez Musharraf told a press conference in Islamabad. "It will carry on. I only hope it will be short."

Musharraf has promised the United States cooperation in the operation against bin Laden and allowed the use of Pakistani airspace for Sunday's attacks. But he faces bitter opposition to his policies from Pakistanis sympathetic with the Taliban.

He also warned the northern alliance battling the Taliban not to take advantage of the US-British strikes - after Washington said one goal of the initial strike was to weaken the Taliban's military defences to allow the rebels to advance.

In an offensive coordinated with US-British air strikes, the opposition northern alliance launched a rocket launcher attack on Taliban forces controlling the mountains north of Kabul. The Taliban returned fire using Soviet-made B<=1 rockets, some exploding 200 yards from where foreign journalists were observing the attack.

In Kandahar, the first wave of air strikes and missiles hit the airport, destroying radar facilities and the control tower, the Afghan sources said. The strike also targeted hundreds of housing units built for members of bin Laden's al-Qaida terror movement.

The second wave, which appeared to be more precisely targeted, struck the Taliban national headquarters in downtown Kandahar, the sources said. They said smoke was seen billowing from Mullah Omar's high-walled compound about nine miles outside the city.

Five people were reporteds to have died in an attack on an air base in Herat, near the Iranian border.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

Power went off throughout Kabul almost immediately after the first of the thunderous blasts, which appeared to have been in the southwest of the city. Early today, a lone aircraft dropped one bomb in the northern edge of Kabul, shaking the area with a powerful explosion.

Anti-aircraft fire rattled whenever a plane was heard. The Afghan Islamic Press agency quoted the Taliban as saying American planes had bombed areas near the Kabul airport in the northern part of the city. The agency said "huge smoke" was rising from the airport.

Electricity was briefly restored in Kabul but later went out again. It was unclear whether the blast had damaged transmission facilities or the Taliban were shutting off electricity to darken the city from attackers.

In a statement carried by Afghan Islamic Press, a Taliban spokesman in Kandahar said all provincial airports in the country appeared to have been targeted "but we have not suffered any major damage."

Abdullah, the opposition foreign minister, said "the feedback we have had so far is the targets have been hit accurately." Abdullah, who goes by only one name, spoke to CNN from Jabul Sarraj in northern Afghanistan.

Afghanistan's former King Mohammad Zaher Shah, who has lived in exile in Italy since his ouster in 1973, said he recognised the "legitimate right" of the United States to launch the attacks.

"Unfortunately, the unpatriotic position of the Taliban and their sponsors has again inflicted pain, sorrow and destruction on the people of Afghanistan," said Zaher Shah, who has been in contact with opposition forces on forming a new government if the Taliban are ousted.

Qatar's Al-Jazeera television carried a tape which showed bin Laden praising God for the September 11 attacks and saying the United States "was hit by God in one of its softest spots."

The tape - apparently filmed yesterday before the barrage - showed bin Laden dressed in fatigues and an Afghan headdress. "America is full of fear from its north to its south, from its west to its east. Thank God for that," bin Laden said on the tape.

"I swear to God that America will never dream of security or see it before we live it and see it in Palestine, and not before the infidel's armies leave the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him."

The Pakistani government said it regretted that diplomatic efforts did not succeed and called for the US action to remain "clearly targeted." Pakistan had been the Taliban's closest ally until the Sept. 11 attacks.

Not all in Pakistan were behind the strikes, however. The influential and Taliban-sympathetic Afghan Defence Council, based in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore, issued a call for jihad, or holy war. The council comprises more than 30 religious and militant groups.

"It is the duty of every Muslim to support their brothers in this critical hour," central leader Riaz Durana said.

The Taliban are estimated to have some 40,000 fighters - around a quarter of them from bin Laden's organization - and many of those are involved in fighting the alliance.

In neighbouring Uzbekistan, meanwhile, Uzbek troops along the Afghan border were put on alert Shile officials ordered a partial evacuation of civilian population from border areas. Shortly before the strikes began, the Taliban had said they had sent thousands of troops to the border with Uzbekistan, whose president has allowed US troops use of an air base for the anti-terrorism campaign.