Jets Swoop, Taliban Head Says Death Nothing to Fear

Jets Swoop, Taliban Head Says Death Nothing to Fear
By Sayed Salahuddin

KABUL (Reuters) - Low-flying U.S. jets swooped over Afghan cities on Wednesday, attacking militia bases of the ruling Taliban and hitting a fuel dump that exploded in flame in Kabul, forcing fighters and their tanks to flee for safer cover.

The Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, told his men they were fighting a jihad (holy struggle), and that death was nothing to fear because they were certain to defeat the \'\'great infidel,\'\' the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.

``We will succeed whether we live or die,\'\' Omar said in a defiant speech apparently intended to show that he was still alive after 11 days of withering strikes on militia installations and cities across his war-ravaged country.

The Afghan capital, Kabul, was rocked all day by powerful explosions and the wounded were carried into hospitals already running short of supplies and without power for two days after the blistering attacks to flush out Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden and punish his Taliban protectors.

A Reuters reporter saw 10 people wounded in Wednesday\'s attacks in one hospital, including two children and a 42-year-old shopkeeper with a leg blown off.

Huge columns of smoke darkened the sky after a military fuel dump was hit and several Taliban tanks raced out of the base as firefighters struggled in vain to put out the flames.

Raids on the southern city of Kandahar, powerbase of Mullah Omar and famed for the graceful minarets of the Ahmad Shah Baba mausoleum, went on all day and into the night, and the Taliban reported at least 20 killed in the city and nearby districts.

After darkness fell, bombs and missiles landed near the city airport and soon after midnight the sky was lit by a series of powerful bomb blasts, CNN reported.

The attacks on Kandahar have cut electricity in the city, and sources close to the Taliban said leaders and officials were in hiding or moving rapidly from place to place to try to evade the strikes to hunt down bin Laden, blamed for the devastating September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A truck was hit while packed with residents of Chunai town who were fleeing the attacks, said Abdul Hanan Himat, an Information Ministry official in Kabul. ``We don\'t know whether it was a bomb or a missile, it killed all passengers,\'\' he said, but gave no death toll.

Jets bombed Brigade No. 81 outside the eastern city of Jalalabad, enveloping the area in clouds of choking dust, Pakistan-based AIP reported.

Kandahar came under intense bombardment, fire and smoke rising from the east of the city.

DON\'T FEAR DEATH

His air defenses in tatters, Mullah Omar tried to rally his troops. ``It is jihad against the infidel like the one we waged against the Soviets,\'\' AIP quoted him as saying in an address heard by his fighters on Wednesday morning when they all switched on their battlefield walkie-talkies.

``I am confident that, with the Grace of Allah, we will force to his knees and defeat the great infidel.\'\'

Troop commanders have been ordered to keep their walkie-talkies open at all times since the start of the attacks, Taliban officials said. The Taliban\'s Voice of Shariat radio was knocked off air by a U.S. strike soon after the attacks began.

The reclusive Mullah Omar, who rarely appears in public and has been seen by only two non-Muslim Westerners, urged his men not to fear death.

``Death will definitely come one day,\'\' he said. ``It does not matter whether we die today or tomorrow. The goal is martyrdom.\'\'

Mullah Omar, who is believed to have fled his power base in Kandahar, has already suffered personal losses in the war when an air strike killed his 10-year-old son and his stepfather.

``People are suffering but this is a test which we shall pass, God willing,\'\' said Mullah Omar, who lost one eye in the guerrilla war against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation.

``I am confident we will succeed. Keep your spirits up, be patient and steadfast,\'\' he said. Taliban officials confirmed the broadcast.

THE MISSING MAN

Sources close to the Taliban said all offices in Kandahar equipped with satellite phones had switched them off, fearing U.S. tracking equipment could home in on the signal and strike with a missile or bomb.

``People are using satphones now for only a few seconds,\'\' said one Taliban source. ``It\'s too dangerous, you could easily get pinpointed and become a target.\'\'

The lack of communications made it difficult to confirm widespread reports that Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, a moderate, had left Afghanistan for Pakistan.

Taliban embassy officials were dismissive of reports he had defected. ``If he is in some other country why don\'t they show him to the world?\'\' one embassy official said. ``He should have surfaced by now.\'\'

Pakistani officials have issued a series of denials.

But a very senior Gulf official said that while Muttawakil had not traveled to the Gulf, he was understood to have been in Pakistan.

A source close to Pakistan\'s Inter-Services Intelligence said Muttawakil had already been and gone, on a mission to suggest a formula by which the Taliban could hand over bin Laden and halt the U.S. bombing raids.

APPEAL FOR PAUSE

Aid groups also appealed for a pause as workers poked through the remains of an International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warehouse hit by bombs a day earlier -- the second time an aid group\'s facilities had been hit.

In Washington, a Pentagon statement said 1,000 lb (450 kg) bombs had inadvertently hit one or more ICRC warehouses.

In Islamabad, a group of aid agencies urged Washington to halt air strikes temporarily so that food supplies could be sent to thousands of needy people before winter sets in. The Taliban are reported to have seized thousands of tons of wheat from U.N. World Food Program warehouses in Kabul and Kandahar, making the problems of aid delivery worse.

The Taliban said it had repulsed an opposition offensive on the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and countered with an attack that sent Northern Alliance forces fleeing in disarray, AIP reported.

Opposition forces left behind 25 dead soldiers and several wounded, AIP said, quoting Taliban intelligence chief Qari Ahmadullah. There was no immediate confirmation of the claims