Strategic northern city hit in US blitz

Explosions jolted the strategic northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif early today as United States warplanes targeted areas near the front lines in strikes coordinated with anti-Taliban fighters, Afghans on both sides said.

US planes also struck Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold, before dawn, targeting the airport and military installations, said the independent Afghan Islamic Press.

The heavy bombing around Mazar-e-Sharif early today was reported by the ruling Taliban’s official Bakhtar news agency.

There were no immediate reports of casualties but the bombing was on the edge of the city toward front-line positions.

In Pakistan, the independent Afghan Islamic Press said US planes also attacked Taliban front lines defending Mazar-e-Sharif in the provinces of Samangan and Balkh, and Taliban targets in Parwan province, northwest of Kabul.

At least eight bombs fell in separate bombing north of Kabula, the capital, early today, sending black smoke into the air.

Witnesses in nearby Deh Meskin said it was some of the heaviest bombing of that front line yet.

The Bakhtar news agency said that in western Herat province, residents in Jabraheel, west of Herat city and the site of several UN refugee camps, had found small explosives the Taliban say were dropped two nights ago when the US-led coalition used cluster bombs.

One person died after picking up a small bomb, the agency said.

Planes flew low over Kabul today but dropped no bombs.

Afghanistan’s opposition northern alliance is preparing for a march on Kabul and is deploying hundreds of crack troops near Taliban front lines north of Kabul. Those positions were hit by US bombs yesterday.

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged the United States had uniformed military personnel in Afghanistan, co-ordinating air strikes with the opposition.

A senior opposition official said such coordination would increase in coming days and that alliance forces were planning a major offensive to take Mazar-e-Sharif.

Abdullah, the foreign minister of the Afghan opposition’s government-in-exile, said: ‘‘There is coordination in all aspects. There will be much better coordination in the coming days.’’

The alliance hopes that taking Mazar-e-Sharif and other northern regions will open up supply routes from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to the north.

Saeed Hussain Anwari, chief of a Shi’ite Muslim faction in the northern alliance, said a few days ago that seven or eight US soldiers in civilian dress were in Kapisa and Parwan provinces north of Kabul for meetings with opposition commanders.

Anwari described them as ‘‘special forces’’ with ‘‘special experience’’.

Meanwhile, the opposition said seven or eight US soldiers in civilian dress had been circulating north of Kabul in Kapisa and Parwan provinces.

Saeed Hussain Anwari, a senior commander in the northern alliance, refused to say when they were there.

‘‘I don’t know whether they are still in the country or whether they have left,’’ he said. He also refused to identify their exact location but said they were meeting opposition commanders.

‘‘They were special forces,’’ Anwari said. ‘‘They were the soldiers with special experience.’’

Rumsfeld said yesterday that a ‘‘very modest’’ number of uniformed military personnel were on the ground in the north, coordinating with the opposition.

Opposition leaders have complained about what they called a lack of coordination with the US military in fighting the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist network, which is accused of having carried out the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

Rumsfeld said American forces were ‘‘very aggressively’’ going after Taliban defences facing the opposition and that 80% of Tuesday’s strikes were slated to target front lines.

Afghanistan’s opposition says it is deploying hundreds of elite fighters near the front north of Kabul for a push on the capital.

‘‘We don’t feel fear. Our position is now positive,’’ one of the fighters, Ghulam Rabbani, said today in the town of Jabal Saraj.

‘‘We see that the Taliban have been weakened by the American strikes, and we now have stronger morale than they do. So we are ready.’’

Despite the bravado, opposition forces are believed to be out-manned on the Kabul front. They face thousands of Taliban fighters and Arab allies of bin Laden’s al-Qaida network who are believed to be dug in across the hillsides and valley they face.

Taliban defences have shown no sign of breaking under a week of steady US bombing at the Kabul front.