KABUL, Afghanistan -- American warplanes raided Kabul on Thursday for the first time in four days, striking targets in the northern edge of the capital. The strikes came after U.S. jets pounded Taliban front lines and other strongholds. \nThree loud explosions, which appeared to be in the Khair Khana district, could be heard before midnight Thursday. Taliban gunners responded with bursts of anti-aircraft fire. \nThe targets under attack could not be determined because of a nighttime curfew, but Khair Khana includes a number of air defense and weapons storage sites. \nIt was unclear why the United States was resuming the strikes on Kabul. The last attack on the capital occurred Sunday morning and was apparently aimed at Taliban targets to the north and east of the city. \nEarlier Thursday, American planes carried out airstrikes around the Kala Kata garrison in northern Takhar province. Kala Kata is a Taliban garrison blocking the road to Taloqan, which the opposition northern alliance lost in September 2000. If the alliance retakes Taloqan, it would be easier for them to get supplies from neighboring Uzbekistan. \nThe raids came as Turkey, a NATO member, became the first Muslim nation to commit troops to U.S.-led coalition. The Turkish government announced it would send a 90-member special forces unit to train the troops of the northern alliance. \nAt a Pentagon news conference, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reported strikes Wednesday on a cave complex near Kabul. The Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network, he said, use these caves as secure locations for personnel and equipment. \nHe said a large secondary explosion shown in a video clip "seems to indicate we may have hit ammunition or fuel in that cave." \nIn Afghanistan, opposition spokesman Waisuddin Salik said U.S. jets struck a Taliban fuel and ammunition dump near the opposition-controlled Bagram air base on the Kabul front overnight, destroying three fuel tanks and two trucks. \nIt was not immediately clear whether he and Myers were referring to the same strike. \nIn other developments: \n• A statement attributed to bin Laden and broadcast Thursday on the Qatari-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel criticized the government of Muslim Pakistan for standing "under the banner of the cross" and called on Pakistanis to "make Islam victorious." \n• In southern Afghanistan, foreign journalists were taken to Kili Chokar, a village where their Taliban escorts said 92 people died in a U.S. air raid. But at the cemetery, reporters counted only about 15 graves.
\nGolbar Khan, a resident brought forward by the Taliban, said several bodies had been buried in a single grave. The report that it was a U.S. airstrike that hit the village 10 days ago could not be confirmed independently. The United States has accused the Taliban of inflating casualty counts. \nDespite stepped-up U.S. fire power, there were no changes Thursday in the front lines between the northern alliance and the Taliban, who are accused of harboring the terrorists responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. \nTaliban officials said their forces repulsed a three-pronged opposition assault Wednesday after air attacks against Taliban positions defending Mazar-e-Sharif, another key northern city. \nAbdullah, the foreign minister of the opposition's government-in-exile, said the opposition would soon be able to begin breaking the Taliban's front lines if the United States maintains intense bombardments. \nHe told reporters in the opposition-held town of Jabal Saraj that his troops would reach their "highest level of preparation" and be ready to break the Taliban front lines "within a few days." \nDespite such optimism, and the reinforcement of alliance troops and weaponry near the front lines, the opposition still appears outmanned and outgunned in much of the country. \nThe United States and its allies in the coalition against terrorism are hoping the alliance can make gains before the harsh Afghan winter takes hold. \nPresident Bush launched the air campaign after the Taliban repeatedly refused to surrender bin Laden, chief suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. \nTaliban officials claim 1,500 people have been killed in the air assault, which began Oct. 7. The Pentagon denies targeting civilians, insists the Taliban claims are exaggerated, and says civilians could have been killed by falling anti-aircraft fire. \nOn Thursday, Rumsfeld accused the Taliban of seeking to cause civilian casualties so that they can parade them in front of television cameras. \n"We know of certain knowledge they are putting anti-aircraft batteries on top of buildings in residential areas for the purpose of attracting bombs so that in fact they can then show the press that civilians have been killed," Rumsfeld said. \nMeanwhile, the Taliban's official Bakhtar news agency reported U.S. planes damaged a hydroelectric dam at Lashkar-Gah, which supplies power to the Islamic militia's southern stronghold of Kandahar and neighboring Helmand province. \nThursday's strikes throughout the country followed a day of intensified bombing near Bagram, 30 miles north of Kabul, where B-52s joined the battle to dislodge the Taliban from positions blocking the way to the Afghan capital. \nMyers said the United States used about 55 strike aircraft on Wednesday, including about 40 tactical jets off U.S. carriers, four to six land-based tactical aircraft, and about eight to 10 long-range bombers. Two C-17s delivered about 34,000 food rations in the north, for a total of approximately 1,062,000 to date.
