Taliban reject 'second chance' offer

A pre-dawn strike destroyed homes in a Kabul neighborhood near the airport, and the United States acknowledged a bomb had gone astray. Residents said one person was killed and four injured. A Pentagon statement said there were reports of four dead and eight injured - the same numbers reported by the Taliban - but said there was no way to verify the number of casualties.

The Taliban rebuff of an offer President George W. Bush made Thursday - hand bin Laden over, and the airstrikes could end - came amid a seventh straight day of air attacks on Afghanistan. Saturday's strikes hit the cities of Kabul, Kandahar and Herat as well as Taliban targets in the north of the country.

After nightfall, U.S. jets fired at targets in the north of Kabul, the capital, causing earthshaking detonations and sending up huge plumes of smoke. Several large but distant explosions could also be heard in Jalalabad, but it was unclear how far the detonations were from the northeastern city.

A military base in the northeastern part of Kandahar, the southern city where the Taliban have their headquarters, was also targeted in nighttime raids, the private Afghan Islamic Press reported in Islamabad, Pakistan.

The agency additionally reported strong strikes against the airport in the northwestern city of Herat, but darkness precluded any attempt to determine the extent of the damage.

The Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, issued a blistering statement late Saturday denouncing the American air campaign and saying there was no move to "hand over anyone."

Americans and their British allies are "making our children orphans and ... making our women widows," he said in a statement distributed by the Afghan Islamic Press. Appealing to Muslim nations, he said: "Does your faith allow you to remain silent spectators or to support America? We will not accept a life of slavery."

Omar, whose compound was repeatedly attacked by U.S. jets this week, rarely appears in public, and there is no generally accepted photograph of him. The last time anyone apart from his closest associates is known to have met with Omar was Sept. 28, when a delegation of Pakistani clerics and an intelligence general visited him in Kandahar.

The Taliban ambassador to neighboring Pakistan, Afghanistan's sole remaining envoy to the outside world, said Saturday he was heading back to Kandahar for consultations with Omar. The envoy, Abdul Salam Zaeef, did not give a reason.

Earlier Saturday, people living near Kabul's airport said one person was killed and four others hurt when their neighborhood of Qala Meer Abass was hit before dawn. Four destroyed houses could be seen in the neighborhood, about a mile from the airport.

"We have no way to rebuild our homes," said Mohammed Shoaib, whose house was one of those wrecked. "What will we do?"

In Washington, a Pentagon official acknowledged that a stray bomb had hit a civilian area one mile from the airport. The 2,000-pound, satellite-guided bomb had been aimed at a helicopter at the airport, it said, blaming a possible "targeting process error."

In addition to the pre-dawn raid on Kabul, Kandahar was targeted in a morning strike. Taliban Information Minister Kudarat Ullah Jamal said Kandahar's airport was hit, several houses were destroyed and "a lot of people" killed. The claim could not be independently verified.

The United States has said repeatedly that civilians are not being targeted, but ordinary Afghans say they feel afraid.

"Osama ... is not living in the mud houses of poor people," said Mohammed Wali, a Kabul moneychanger. "We should not be attacked."

In northern Afghanistan, a spokesman for the opposition military alliance said the rebels had captured an important district in Samanghan province, Gul Dera. The spokesman, Mohammed Ashraf Nadim, contacted by telephone from Islamabad, said opposition troops were closing in on other Taliban-controlled areas.

Another northern alliance spokesman, Abdullah, said Saturday that heavy U.S. strikes overnight had hit Taliban positions near Taloqan, a position in the north seized from the rebels last year.

The Afghan Islamic Press reported Saturday that U.S. warplanes attacked Taliban positions at Pul-e-Khomri, in northern Baghlan province, which has changed hands several times.

A senior rebel commander, Gen. Baba Jan, commander of opposition forces in the Bagram district, said Pakistan had pressured Washington not to hit Taliban positions on the front. Pakistan is supporting Washington against bin Laden, but has a hostile relationship with the northern alliance.

Pakistan has expressed the most concern over the possibility of an advance by opposition forces fighting close to Kabul to try to take the capital. The Taloqan area near the northern Tajik border, and Pul-e-Khomri, a little to the south, are both far from Kabul.

In Kabul, the lawyer for eight foreign aid workers accused of trying to preach Christianity in Afghanistan made a brief court appearance on Saturday, submitting a reply to the charges against them. He also met with the eight defendants - two Americans, two Australians and four Germans - and reported all were well. Another court session was set Sunday.

Humanitarian groups, meanwhile, were painting an increasingly grim picture of life inside Afghanistan. The United Nations reported that the markets of Kabul were still operating, but food prices were said to be creeping up.

U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said in Islamabad that in one children's hospital, fewer than half the doctors and one-third of the nurses were working. Kabul University was empty of students, teachers had not been paid in two months and the national airline, Ariana, has canceled all domestic flights, she said.

In Pakistan, a new confrontation was simmering between the government and anti-U.S., pro-Taliban demonstrators.

A radical Islamic leader, Abdullah Shah Mazar, was detained Saturday by authorities in the port city of Karachi, which has been hit by anti-U.S., pro-Taliban riots in recent days, and hundreds of his followers staged a sit-down strike in protest.

Pakistan, meanwhile, warned foreign journalists against visiting its prohibited border region or traveling to Afghanistan without proper documents.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Mohammed Khan's warning was made after two French and one British journalist were arrested slipping into Afghanistan.

Uploaded October 15, 2001