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Taliban Denies Kabul Rocket Attack
KABUL, Aug 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Taliban officials denied that a barrage of rockets slammed into the Afghan capital Sunday as the ruling Taliban held a military parade to mark the 82nd anniversary of Afghanistan's independence from Great Britain, news agencies reported.
According to the Pakistan-based news agency, Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), at least seven rockets hit the capital north of Kabul, Agence France-Presse (AFP), reported.
No casualties or damage were reported.
AIP claimed the rockets were fired by anti-Taliban opposition forces, based some 60 kilometers (35 miles) north of Kabul, in a bid to disrupt the celebrations.
But Taliban officials and residents near the airport denied there had been a rocket attack. "It was firing in jubilation by the Taliban soldiers in the area," a Taliban official told AFP.
Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and currently holds most of the country.
Afghan opposition forces, led by former defense minister Ahmad Shah Masood, control small pockets of territory in northern and northeastern Afghanistan.
Masood's spokesman, Waisuddin Salik, could not confirm the rocket attack reported by AIP. "I cannot confirm whether some rockets were fired towards Kabul or not," he said.
Taliban supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, marked Independence Day with an appeal to the Muslim world to support his Islamic government.
"The defense of the basics of Islam and the defense of Afghanistan is the responsibility of the entire Muslim world," he said in a message read out by a senior Taliban official, Mullah Mohammad Hussain Mustansaed.
Omar said the Muslim world should "establish relations with the Islamic Emirate, which wants to have bilateral relations with all countries."
Only three countries recognize the Taliban regime: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Wearing fresh, spruce uniforms, Taliban soldiers paraded Sunday in front of a mosque in Kabul where former Afghan king Amanullah declared independence from Britain in 1919.
Thousands of people turned out to watch columns of artillery, tanks and surface-to-surface and ground-to-air missiles mounted on trucks paraded through the capital.
Taliban jets also whizzed overhead in an air show, witnesses said.
Weaponry on display included two British-made cannons captured from British forces during the war for independence.
Taliban fighters sang nationalist songs without musical accompaniment, which the regime has banned.
The Taliban originally emerged from a group of Islamic scholars drawn from the Pashtun majority in Pakistan.
They are opposed by an alliance of factions drawn mainly from Afghanistan's minority communities and based in the north.
Taliban seized Kabul in 1996, and currently control about 95% of the country.
The U.N. has imposed tough sanctions on Taliban for its refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, who is wanted in Washington for allegedly masterminding the bombings of two American embassies in Africa in 1998.
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