U.S. strike enters second week

The Associated Press Residents of Kabul, Afghanistan walk over
the rubble Saturday of four houses that were destroyed by alliance
bombing. People living near the scene of the Kabul strikes said at
least one civilian was killed.

By Kathy Gannon
The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan “”mdash; U.S. jets pounded targets in Kabul
and other cities Sunday as the U.S. air campaign to force the
handover of Osama bin Laden entered a second week. The White House
rebuffed yet another offer by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to
negotiate on the terror suspect’s fate.

In neighboring Pakistan, Islamic militants opposed to the
bombardment clashed with police while trying to storm an air base
reportedly used by the Americans to support the air campaign. One
person was killed and about 24 injured, police said.

Aboard the USS Enterprise, the launching pad for raids on
Afghanistan, U.S. officers described Sunday’s attacks as
“cleanup” missions to hit targets pilots had missed in
earlier raids.

“We’re sort of in a cleanup mode right now,”
the carrier commander told reporters without allowing his name to
be published as part of military rules.

In the latest raids, U.S. jets destroyed Kabul’s
Chinese-built international telephone exchange, severing one of the
last means of communication with the outside world. Residents also
said the capital’s historic Mogul-style Balahisar Fort, built
in the early 20th century, was in ruins. The report could not be
confirmed because security kept outsiders from the area.

Other targets included the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif, Kandahar,
Jalalabad and Herat, according to the Taliban Information Ministry.
Explosions were heard late Sunday well north of Kabul in the
direction of the front lines between opposition and Taliban
fighters.

One strong detonation about midnight triggered what appeared to
be a series of secondary explosions.

A nighttime attack on the Taliban headquarters in Kandahar
plunged the city into darkness and enveloped it in dust Sunday, the
private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said. The main target
appeared to be military headquarters, it said.

The U.S.-led barrage has left Afghan civilians with frayed
nerves since some of the targets are close to populated areas and
at least in one case homes have been struck by accident.

“There is no Osama in Kabul,” bank worker Mohammed
Arif said. “Osama and his people are not living in small mud
houses. Why do they attack us? We are not his supporters. We have
never seen his face.”

Washington says the raids do not target civilians, but the
Pentagon has acknowledged that one bomb went astray and hit a
residential neighborhood near Kabul.

The third most powerful figure in the Taliban, Deputy Prime
Minister Haji Abdul Kabir, said Sunday that the militia was willing
to hand bin Laden over to a third nation if the United States
offers evidence against him and halts the bombing. President Bush
quickly rejected the offer.

“There is nothing to negotiate about. They are harboring a
terrorist,” Bush told reporters.

The Bush administration has repeatedly refused any conditions on
its demands that the Taliban surrender bin Laden and his al-Qaeda
terror movement ““ suspected in the Sept. 11 terror attacks in
the United States. The United States launched the bombardment of
Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the Taliban refused for weeks to
comply.

Al-Qaeda has released three videotaped statements since the
start of the air campaign, the latest on Saturday, warning of new
terror attacks against the United States.

Kuwait decided Sunday to strip the citizenship of the spokesman
who appeared in the tapes, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a former Kuwaiti
teacher. Once Kuwait’s emir approves the government decision,
Abu Ghaith will share the same stateless status as bin Laden, who
was stripped of his Saudi citizenship.

Meanwhile, a commander in the coalition battling the Taliban
said opposition leaders have organized a 2,000-strong security
force to maintain law and order in Kabul if they capture the
city.

The lightly armed force would secure the city until a new
government can be established, Gen. Haji Almaz Khan said in
Charikar, an alliance stronghold 25 miles north of Kabul.

The United States and its partners have been urging the
opposition to avoid launching an all-out attack on Kabul until a
broad-based government can be formed to replace the Taliban. Most
of the Taliban are ethnic Pashtun; the alliance is dominated by
ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks.

Taliban intelligence chief Qari Ahmedullah appealed to
opposition fighters Sunday to join in the battle against America
for “our religion and country.”

“We will forget our past differences with those who join
us now,” he said in a statement distributed by the Afghan
Islamic Press.

Since last month, the Taliban have banned most foreign
journalists from entering the roughly 90 percent of Afghanistan
under the religious militia’s control. This weekend, however,
they allowed a group of international journalists to visit
Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan, where U.S. jets
allegedly destroyed a village last week.

When the journalists arrived under Taliban escort at the
village, Karam, angry residents pointed to ruined mud and stone
homes and freshly dug graves as evidence of the purported American
attack.

“What do I have left? Nothing,” said one villager,
Toray, in the roofless hut where he said his wife and five children
died. He waved a shard of jagged metal, which had the words
“fin-guided missile” printed in English on its
side.

Taliban officials insisted there were no military targets in the
area. Bin Laden, however, was believed to operate terrorist
training camps in the province.

Reports of civilian deaths have caused unease in Pakistan, where
small but vocal Islamic political parties that admire the Taliban
are already enraged by government support for campaign on
Afghanistan.

On Sunday, thousands of Muslim extremists converged on the city
of Jacobabad, site of one of two airfields that Pakistani officials
privately say the Americans have been allowed to use to support the
campaign, though not to launch attacks on Afghanistan.

The protesters tried to storm the base. Police and paramilitary
forces sealed off Jacobabad to outsiders and used tear gas to
disperse rioters in a series of running battles around the
city.

The riot occurred one day before Secretary of State Colin Powell
is to arrive in Pakistan for a visit aimed at reducing tensions
between the South Asian country and rival India.