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Fresh US attacks on Kabul
Taliban mocks at Bush's offer; claims 270 killed in attacks
*Red tape, security concerns keeping aid from refugees
*Pre-dawn raids may have targeted Taliban front line

ISLAMABAD, Oct 12: Continuing the military strikes against Afghanistan, US war planes launched a series of fresh attacks today over Kabul.

The US fighter jets launched the pre-dawn strikes in the north and east of Kabul shortly after President Bush addressed a press conference at the White House where he said "it may take a year or two" to track down bin Laden and his terrorist network Al Qaeda, but asserted that after the military operations, launched on Sunday night, "we have got them on the run."

Taliban’s anti-aircraft guns went into action as US jets dropped three bombs in rapid succession and within 20 minutes another fighter plane dropped two more bombs in the north and east of Kabul.

Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said Kandahar, the stronghold of militia, was also bombed this morning.

Pakistani guards dug trenches near the town of Chaman along the border with Afghanistan today and set up new lines of barbed wire.

A Pakistani official at the border said they (trenches and wire) were for protection but gave no details.

The fresh attacks against Afghanistan entered the sixth day today rocking the Afghan cpaital Kabul and adjoining areas. The ground trembled and windows rattled in the city from the force of the impact of explosions.

Late last night, a huge firball lit up the sky over eastern part of Kabul in the direction of a training base of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terrorist network.

In fresh attacks early today, two waves of US warplanes pounded positions north and east of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Anti-aircraft guns sprang into action and red tracer fire shot skyward.

The predawn attacks on Kabul ushered in a sixth day of US-led raids against Afghanistan. The air assault was launched after Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, key suspect in the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon a month ago.

In the early-morning sortie, US jets dropped three bombs in rapid succession, and within 20 minutes another jet streaked in high, dropping two more bombs. These fell north of the capital, in the vicinity of the front line where Taliban soldiers face off against troops of an opposition military alliance.

The ground trembled and windows rattled in Kabul from the force of the impact.

Pakistani officials have acknowledged that US planes and personnel are on the ground as part of the American-led campaign against the Taliban and bin Laden, and say the United States had been granted use of two key bases.

AFP adds: A Taliban official told AFP some of the bombs dropped on Kabul struck within four km of the city. At least four bombs landed around Kabul in an earlier wave of attacks yesterday.

The Taliban said the outskirts of the eastern city of Jalalabad was also attacked during the overnight raids.

Taliban official Mawlawi Allah Gul said three bombs were dropped in a desert just to the west of Jalalabad but did not have any reports of casualties or damage.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press also said the Taliban’s southern stronghold of Kandahar had been bombed early today. It did not report any casualties.

Taliban today made their biggest casualty claim to date, saying 270 people, including four close relatives of militia’s supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, have been killed in the US-led attack in Afghanistan.

Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef told reporters here that according to the information he received from Kabul, at least 270 people were killed — mostly women, children and elderly men.

He said hundreds of houses had been destroyed by bombings in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and other parts of Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the Taliban today rejected US President George Bush’s renewed demand to hand over Osama bin Laden and mocked at his offer to stop attacks in Afghanistan if the militia handed over the terrorist mastermind.

Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef laughed away Bush’s offer to reconsider military strikes against the regime, if it hands over bin Laden, saying Bush will make some ‘more offers’ after losing more in the war.

"We reject this offer. The world has seen that the Afghans cannot be dictated," Zaeef said.

Asked if the Taliban were ready to hold talks with the US or any other country, Zaeef said: "Anyone who wants to talk to the leadership or visit Afghanistan is welcome, but we haven’t invited anyone for a dialogue."

He said four close relatives of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Muhammad Omar were killed in the attacks. He, however, refused to identify Omar’s relative.

He reiterated that US plan was not to capture bin Laden but to take control of natural resources in Central Asia. "Their motive is not to capture Osama, but have access to Central Asia and China," he said.

"Even if we fulfill all the demands of Bush, he will not stop strikes because his motives are totally different... And to gain this first (control of Central Asia) they have killed their own people now they were killing Afghans."

He said bin Laden was not permitted to launch terrorist attacks against any country from Afghan soil and that he had no communications channel with outside world.

Zaeef said the ‘real war’ with Americans’ and their allied forces would be fought on ground as Afghan fighters were determined not to let a single enemy soldier return alive.

"The Americans should send as many coffins along with the soldiers if they want the bodies to be buried in their country," he said.

He said America was ‘deceiving’ the international community by claiming that the US-led forces were hitting only fixed targets while they were actually attacking and killing civilians, including women and children and destroying houses.

He said, according to the information he received from-their ministry in Kabul, at least 270 people have been killed — mostly women, children and elderly men. He said all young Afghans are in the battlefield waiting for ‘American soldiers to come’.

Zaeef said hundreds of houses had been destroyed by bombings in Kabul, Kandahar, Jalalabad and other parts of Afghanistan.

Curiously, Zaeef who is currently the centre of attraction to hundreds of foreign journalists, said that from now on he would address only live interviews on television as a number of international networks were using only few portions after editing his appearances.

Meanwhile, as thousands of Afghans stream toward Pakistan to flee American military strikes, "red tape and security concerns" are preventing aid workers from reaching border areas to help them, the United Nations complained today.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says it is trying urgently to build and supply fresh refugee camps along the 2,750-kilometer border that Pakistan shares with Afghanistan. But tight restrictions, broken promises and regional volatility are getting in the way.

On Wednesday, the United Nations expressed its "growing concern and frustration" to Pakistan.

"We are in a real race against time, and right now we are losing," UN High Commissioner Ruud Lubbers said today. "We are not receiving the support - in the region or internationally - that we need."

Pakistan - home to 2 million Afghan refugees, many already in long-term border settlements - is expecting a million more because of US strikes. It is trying to balance the UN operations with its wariness about accepting additional people.

Its suggestion to relief agencies: help them before they arrive.

"So far, we are trying to convince donor nations and agencies to provide relief to Afghans inside their own country," Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammad Khan said today.

Mohammed Naeem Khan, the Commissioner for Afghan refugees in the border-area city of Peshawar, said Pakistan was ready to accommodate additional refugees but was waiting until UN food supplies arrived to augment tents and supplies.

Pakistan says its border to Afghanistan is closed, though refugees and border-area businessmen continue to cross with little restriction at frontier posts like Chaman.

Khan, the Refugee Commissioner, also urged the world food program to supply adequate food supplies quickly "so that Pakistan can open the border" to those seeking shelter.

But the UNCHR says Pakistani authorities are restricting field teams from reaching border areas, monitoring refugee movement and offering help to new arrivals.

Government restrictions - including insistence that new camps be built in dry, remote and insecure tribal areas along the border - are making matters worse, the agency said. It said it was pressing for sites further inland.

In Quetta, where the UNHCR offices were set afire by militant Islamic protesters on Monday, staffers have been unable to fully resume work in their offices - and, they say, been restricted from visiting field locations and monitoring border crossings.

The problems have "virtually stalled" preparations to help refugees in that area, the United Nations said. Meanwhile, it is asking Afghanistan’s other neighbors to open their borders to refugees.

Some shipments into Afghanistan are getting through, though.

A UNICEF convoy of blankets, water and medicine sent from Iran arrived in Herat in western Afghanistan today, the agency said. Another convoy set out today from Quetta to deliver aid to southern and eastern Afghanistan.

And in Geneva, the International Red Cross said today it had flown medical supplies for 250,000 people into Pakistan for distribution across the border.

Another UN agency, the World Food Program, was facing trouble of a different sort Friday - from Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban. (Agencies)

Bush offers second chance to Taliban to surrender Laden

WASHINGTON, Oct 12: Offering a surprise "second chance" to Afghanistan’s Taliban regime to hand over terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, President George W Bush today said the Saudi fugitive has "hijacked a whole country and forced it to accept his radical thoughts."

Bush, addressing a White House conference one month after the 11 Sept terror attacks in the US, said that he did not know whether bin Laden is alive or dead but "I want him brought to justice."

Even now the Taliban has a second chance to comply with his demands to deliver bin Laden and those in his terrorist network in Afghanistan, Bush said.

"Just bring him in and bring his leaders and lieutenants and other thugs and criminals with him," he said, adding "bin Laden has hijacked a whole country and forced it to accept his radical thoughts."

The President said that it may take "one day, one month or a year or two to track down bin Laden and his terrorist network but after five days of aerial bombardment, "we have got them on the run."

Stating that the US-led coalition forces in Afghanistan are conducting their missions with "scale and suceess", he said "we will tighten the net on terrorists wherever they live".

Bush warned the Governments that if they "house and feed and harbour terrorists, there will be a price to pay" and said "this is a war against those who export terror and against those that support and shelter them"

The US President said he was prepared to accept from each member state of the anti-terrorism coalition whatever it can give - troops, as Britain has done, intelligence-sharing or seizure of the assets of the terrorist networks.

Bush, however, said he was not interested in diplomatic talk" but he was "more interested in action."

The President also urged the ‘Children of America’ to send a dollar each to the White House for a special relief effort through the red cross to save Afghanistan’s hungry and malnourished children.

Revealing for the first time his ideas about a post-Taliban Afghanistan, Bush said "after the military mission is over, we will participate in making sure that post-operations Afghanistan is one that is stable, one that does not become yet again a haven for terrorist criminals."

He said the UN could play a role in nation-building in Afghanistan.

On the Middle East problem, Bush supported the creation of a Palestinian state, but only if it recognizes Israel’s right to exist.

"I believe there ought to be a Palestinian state, the bounds of which will be negotiated by the parties, so long as the Palestinian state recognizes the right of Israel to exist, treats Israel with respect and lives peacefully on her borders", he said.

Bush said he hoped to bring up the question of missile defence when he meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin and described the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty, which bars the NMD, as "outdated, antiquated and useless." (PTI)