|
US warplanes pounded Taliban frontline targets tonight as US President George W Bush rejected the ruling Afghan militia's conditional offer to hand over Osama bin Laden for trial in a neutral country.
With the US-led military attacks on Afghanistan entering its second week, the latest air strikes focused on troop positions along the Taliban frontline with opposition Northern Alliance forces.
Planes dropped at least three bombs on a Taliban army division and other military installations near Bagram, 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kabul, the Afghan Islamic Press said.
The Pakistan-based agency also reported air strikes on the airport and an army base in the Taliban southern stronghold of Kandahar.
The attacks were significant given recent Northern Alliance indications that the opposition was not prepared to launch a major offensive unless US forces softened up Taliban positions first.
In Washington, President Bush said there would be no negotiation with the Taliban after the militia said it might be willing to extradite Bin Laden for trial in a country outside US or Taliban influence.
"There's no need to negotiate," Bush said. "If they want us to stop our military operations, they just have to meet my conditions.
"All they've got to do is turn (Bin Laden) over, and his colleagues and the thugs he hides, as well as destroy his camps," he said.
The number three in the Taliban hierarchy, Maulani Abdul Kabir, today indicated for the first time that Bin Laden could be tried by a non-Islamic court if the US submitted sufficient evidence of his involvement in last month's terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.
"If proof is provided, a third country could be chosen, which is neither under the influence of the United States, nor the Taliban," Kabir, the governor of Jalalabad, told a group of visiting international journalists.
Kabul came under renewed bombardment this evening and the Afghan capital was fast taking on the air of a ghost town as the cumulative effect of seven days and nights of attacks took its toll on a normally stoic people.
The Taliban claims more than 300 civilians have been killed since the bombings began on October 7th, but the numbers have been virtually impossible to verify given severe restrictions on journalists moving around the country.
AFP
