US jets blitz Taliban front lines

US warplanes bombarded Taliban positions near a front line north of the capital of Kabul today, marking what could be the start of a more aggressive campaign on behalf of opposition forces fighting the Islamic regime.

In Kabul, meanwhile, grieving neighbours pulled dust-covered bodies of seven civilians , three women and four children, from the ruins of two homes destroyed by a US bomb earlier today. ‘‘This pilot was like he was blind,’’ sobbed one neighbour.

In Pakistan, the UN refugee agency renewed appeals for Afghanistan’s neighbours to open their borders to the refugees, including up to 15,000 trapped on the ‘‘no man’s land’’ near the Pakistani town of Chaman.

The attacks today marked the closest and most intense strikes so far against Taliban positions defending Kabul from north alliance forces, which have been stalled for years between 12 and 25 miles north of the city.

US jets streaked over the opposition-held Panjshir Valley and appeared to strike Taliban positions about one mile behind the front line, opposition officials in the area said.

‘‘We are hoping this will be a big help for the future of our forces,’’ Waisuddin Salik, an opposition spokesman, said.

Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban forces, an alliance mostly of minority ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, have been urging the US to provide close air support for their forces so they can advance on the capital.

However, the United States and Britain had been reluctant to help the northern alliance seize Kabul until a broad-based government had been formed to take over from the Taliban.

Opposition groups were widely discredited in Afghanistan because of the chaos and infighting which marked their four years in power.

Since the US-led air campaign began October 7, US attacks against Taliban front line positions were mostly limited to strikes near the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif.

US warplanes resumed attacks today in that area, striking targets in the provinces of Balkh, which includes Mazar-e-Sharif, and Samangan to the east of the city, according to the Afghan Islamic Press.

Taliban spokesman Mullah Amir Khan Muttaqi claimed Taliban forces drove back an opposition attack in the area despite the US airstrikes,

Afghan officials also reported more attacks near the western city of Herat and Kandahar in the south.

In Kabul, US jets struck at mid-morning in the Khair Khana section of the city. One bomb crashed into a residential neighbourhood, destroying two houses.

An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies of seven dead at the scene and later at a city hospital. All were said to be related.

At a nearby hospital, Dr Izetullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, wept as he pulled back bloodstained sheets to show the bodies of the four children all boys, ages eight to 13. Dr Izetullah said 13 dead had been brought to the hospital.

‘‘This pilot was like he was blind,’’ neighbour Haziz Ullah said. ‘‘There are no military bases here, only innocent people.’’

The neighbourhood holds no known Taliban military sites, although a Taliban army garrison and other installations are several miles away.

US President George Bush said the United States had been ‘‘as careful as we possibly could’’ to avoid killing civilians.

A senior US administration official said today that President Bush signed an order after the September 11 attacks directing the CIA to kill Osama bin Laden and destroy his communications, security apparatus and infrastructure.

In Islamabad, the Taliban’s deputy ambassador to Pakistan, Suhail Shaheen, said the order constituted a ‘‘terrorist act’’.

Faced with unrelenting attacks, the Taliban’s Cabinet met at a secret location today and appealed to fellow Islamic countries to donate humanitarian supplies and medicine to victims and survivors of the bombings.

The Taliban also announced plans to disperse air defence to villages, presumably to allow them to defend themselves against attack and to protect the material from US jets hunting for depots and troop concentrations.

With no letup in the air campaign, tens of thousands of Afghans are fleeing the cities. The UN refugee agency estimates that up to 15,000 of them are stranded on the Afghan side of the Pakistani border near Chaman because Pakistan will not open its frontier to refugees.

Earlier today, Pakistan border guards fired shots to drive back hundreds of stone-throwing Afghans pushing their way across the border. A 13-year-old boy was wounded.