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Us bombs killed 1500 Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011031/wl/attack_afghan_dc_242.htmlhttp://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20011031/wl/attack_afghan_dc_242.html
Wednesday October 31 7:54 AM ET
U.S. Bombs Kandahar, Taliban Say 1,500 Dead
By Tahir Khan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) - U.S. planes roared over the Taliban powerbase of Kandahar in southeast Afghanistan on Wednesday in a pre-dawn strike that killed 11 people at a Red Crescent clinic, a doctor said.
In Islamabad, the Taliban ambassador said 1,500 people had been killed since the United States launched its raids on Afghanistan 25 days ago. Washington says casualty figures have been exaggerated.
``The bombs fell at 4.30 this morning,'' Doctor Obaidullah told foreign reporters who were escorted by the ruling Taliban militia to the dispensary in the Dagh Pul suburb of Kandahar.
In the north, a B-52 bomber pounded Taliban positions overlooking Bagram airbase north of the capital Kabul. It was one of the heaviest raids of the campaign in the area where the Muslim fundamentalist movement is dug in facing the opposition Northern Alliance.
The silver eight-engine aircraft made two raids causing up to 100 explosions, witnesses said.
The intensified attacks follow opposition calls for the United States to hit the Taliban harder to clear the way for an opposition push toward Kabul.
Ahmad Ziah Masood, brother of assassinated northern leader Ahmad Shah Masood, said he hoped the offensive would start within five days.
``Every day the Americans are bombing the front line and now we should do something,'' he told Reuters.
He said he believed Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the September 11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, was hiding in mountains north of Kandahar.
In Kandahar, stronghold of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, foreign reporters were taken to the site of an attack.
Doctor Obaidullah, his head, right hand and left leg in bandages from wounds he said he had sustained in the raid, said 11 people -- including patients and staff at the clinic -- were
killed and six wounded in the raid.
Reporters heard U.S. planes dropping at least one bomb on the city at about 4.30 a.m.
The reports of casualties could not be independently verified.
Dozens of people gathered at the clinic in a city that has been the target of almost daily U.S bombing in Washington's war on terror aimed at punishing the Taliban and flushing out Saudi-born bin Laden.
``Down with Bush,'' ``Down with America,'' the crowd shouted.
BIG BOMBS
``It was huge, the whole building was shaking,'' said a Reuters reporter of the raid.
The blast rattled windows in the suburbs and shook the ground.
``They are targeting the civilian population,'' said resident Mohammad Hashim.
``Can someone tell us if they are targeting Arab positions,'' he said referring to the fearsome foreign fighters in bin Laden's al Qaeda network who man the front lines at many Taliban positions and who come not only from Arab countries but from Pakistan and Chechnya.
``Have they targeted Taliban positions so far?'' he asked.
In Islamabad, Taliban envoy Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said U.S. raids were targeting electricity plants and bridges in Kandahar.
He told a news conference the death toll from the U.S. campaign had risen to 1,500 but gave no breakdown. The numbers cannot be independently verified.
As the night curfew in Kandahar was lifted, residents emerged from their homes to go to bazaars, to open their businesses and to try to return a sense of normalcy to their lives.
SHOPPING FOR FRUIT
Many shops were open. Men with the long beards mandated by the Taliban who have imposed their interpretation of a Muslim system based on a 1,300-year-old Islamic Utopia were shopping, accompanying women who swept through the streets enveloped in the head-to-toe burqa veils.
Electronics stores and mechanics' workshops were doing business, and fruit stalls were laden with apples, pomegranates, grapes and bananas imported from neighboring Pakistan.
But the city still had an air of destruction.
Businessman Haji Abdul Qayuum said his house had been hit. He built it only last year at a cost of 200,000 Pakistani rupees ($3,500) to take advantage of the peace in the city. Qayuum traded in electronic goods from Dubai before the raids began.
``The Americans drop bombs, and we are helpless,'' he said. ''We want the Americans to send in their ground forces. Then we can do something.''
That defiance was echoed by fruit shop keeper Zai-ur-Rehman Faruqi.
``We approve of the policy of the Taliban on Osama bin Laden. He is our guest,'' he said. ``He is here for jihad (holy war).''
It was not clear how free the residents were to speak as reporters toured the city with Taliban officials.
But the presence of Taliban militia on the streets was minimal.
Only a dozen of the black-turbaned fighters could be seen, standing on street corners armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket grenades.
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