KABUL (Islamweb & News Agencies) - U.S. planes pounded Taliban front line positions north of Kabul and near a strategic northern city on Tuesday for a third successive day as the Afghan opposition said they intend to surround Kabul but not roll into the capital.Witnesses said they could not see the exact targets but the U.S. bombs hit known concentrations of Taliban troops and anti-aircraft emplacements. Witnesses said planes could also be seen flying toward the front lines later on Tuesday morning.
U.S. defense officials said for the first time the air strikes were targeting Taliban troops protecting Kabul and also Mazar-i-Sharif, the northern city that commands a strategic east-west highway and is also the key supply link to Kabul.
Four or five loud explosions were heard north of Kabul in the morning after a jet flew over the capital, a witness said.
FIERCE BATTLES NEAR MAZAR-I-SHARIF
The strikes on Kabul resumed after the capital had enjoyed a day free of bombing as the U.S.-led military strikes -- aimed at flushing out Osama bin Laden and his followers and punishing the Taliban for protecting them -- entered their 17th day. (Read photo caption below)
While there was no sign that Northern Alliance forces, a few dozen kilometers north of Kabul, were preparing an advance, Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum told Reuters his forces were locked in fierce battles with the ruling Taliban near Mazar-i-Sharif, which straddles key highways in the country.
``Our forces launched an attack yesterday and the fighting has been fierce,'' he said by satellite phone from his position near the front line. ``They (the Taliban) left many dead on the battlefield,'' he said in a brief interview.
Those reports could not be independently verified.
The Northern Alliance, of which Dostum is a member, and the Taliban have faced off for several days south of Mazar-i-Sharif -- a prize that was once the stronghold of the Uzbek warlord and which he is eager to recapture.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday U.S. air strikes were meant to assist opposition forces on the ground.
PHOTO CAPTION:
Don Shepperd is a retired U.S. Air Force major general and a military analyst for CNN. He told CNN that It's important to pay attention to U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's remarks when he said the Northern Alliance will play a role but cannot be the major part of the coalition government in Afghanistan. The Northern Alliance has its own agenda and its own desire for power, but I think that their leaders clearly understand that U.S. support is contingent upon their cooperation in being part of a true coalition.