Dozens of civilians were killed when anti-Taliban forces slammed two rockets into crowded residential areas of the Afghan capital Kabul yesterday, witnesses said.
One rocket devastated a two-storey building and damaged seven houses in the densely-populated Khair Khana district, killing 11 people and wounding 30 others, residents said.
Hours later another rocket landed in a crowded fruit market west of the city centre, leaving charred and mutilated bodies strewn across the road as rescuers dug through the rubble for survivors. A Taliban policeman said it was impossible to know the number of victims, but casualties could be "disastrous" as the market was crowded during the evening shopping hours.
Ambulances were seen carrying away bodies and human limbs. The rocket directly hit a biscuit shop along the main road in the Karte Pawan area of the city, flattening it to the ground. A third rocket landed harmlessly on waste ground near the city's airport.
Taliban spokesman Mr Abdul Hai Mutmain said around 180 people were killed or injured in the three rocket attacks. The figure could not be independently confirmed.
Mr Mutmain, speaking to the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), said at least 20 people were killed and 40 injured in Khair Khana and that more than 100 were killed or wounded in the market attack.
Taliban artillery responded to the attacks with a barrage of shells on positions north of the capital held by the forces of opposition leader Gen Ahmed Shah Masood, witnesses said.
While rescuers battled to help the wounded in the shattered market, grief-stricken residents screamed and frantically searched for relatives. A woman who lost her husband was beating her head and face in grief while the body of a young boy was lying in a ditch unnoticed by rescuers.
It was difficult to determine the exact number of fatalities as the city was under a night curfew. Residents said most of the victims were shopkeepers and fruit vendors. Two passengers also died in a taxi.
"It is a crime against humanity. I do not care who does it," a wailing resident was shouting.
In the earlier attack on the densely-populated Khair Khana area, six women from the same family were among the dead, residents said.
After several hours rescuers were able to pull two young girls from the rubble of one of the houses and were looking for a third girl who was still missing.
Seven houses were flattened and some 20 damaged by the blast. Panicked local residents were engaged in rescue work to remove bodies from the debris of a two-storeyed building which was flattened after it received a direct hit.
"We took the dead bodies of six women from one house," said Mr Mohammad Sharif, a local deputy. "It is possible a whole family might have been wiped out by this," said Mr Sharif, weeping, as people hastily dug with spades. Mr Sharif said most of the casualties were women and children as men mostly stay out during the day.
Residents and Taliban soldiers blamed the attack on Gen Masood's forces stationed 25 kilometres north of Kabul. They said the rockets were Russian made short-range Luna missiles, piles of which were left behind by the Soviet forces before ending their 10-year occupation of Afghanistan in 1989.
Forces of Gen Masood at the northern frontlines of Kabul are the only anti-Taliban group which has the Afghan capital within rocket range.
Yesterday's rocket attack was the second in a month against the Afghan capital, and one of the worst for several years. Gen Masood, the former government's military top-gun, has in the past insisted the target of his rocket attacks was the Taliban-controlled civilian-military airport.
The hardline Islamic militia last month inflicted a major blow to the opposition forces when it captured the city of Mazar-i-Sharif from the northern alliance.
The opposition suffered another setback when the militia flushed out the pro-Iran Shia Hezb-i-Wahdat from the central Afghan province of Bamiyan on September 13th.
The rocket attack on Kabul came on the eve of an international conference in New York convened by the United Nations to discuss the crisis in Afghanistan. The so called meeting of six plus two includes Afghanistan's neighbours, including Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and China plus the United States and Russia.