KABUL, Nov. 9 (IslamOnline) - At least 76 people were killed and more than 100 others injured in U.S. airstrikes Thursday on the Taliban's frontlines in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the strategic town of Mazar-e-Sharif, sources told IslamOnline.
Sources said the U.S. raids destroyed the road linking Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif, hitting public transport vehicles, killing 43 travelers and wounding six others.
In Kabul, U.S. bombs struck a hospital, killing a number of people, including a newlywed couple.
The most recent attacks also cut electricity, plunging the Afghan capital into darkness.
In an interview with foreign journalists, Mullah Abdul Hanan Hemat, head of the Afghan Bakhtar Press, claimed U.S. military aircraft also hit a number of regions in the northeastern Konar district.
Hemat said that due to the lack of anti-aircraft weapons, Taliban forces were not able to down any of the U.S. fighter-planes that raided the north of Kabul. U.S. raids on the north of Kabul have continued since Wednesday.
He further condemned the U.S. and British denial that Taliban forces had downed an U.S. plane in the last two days in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan.
Hemat added that said hundreds of people witnessed the plane wreckage, but the Pakistani government prevented media people from visiting the site or taking photos of it. He insisted the 18-20 people aboard the allegedly downed U.S. plane had died.
The U.S. strikes intensified late Wednesday and early Thursday. The bombings are believed to be an attempt to assist the rebel Northern Alliance plans to capture Mazar-e-Sharif and pave the way for an assault on Kabul.
U.S. forces have started using the world's largest bombs, in their raids on war-torn Afghanistan. The huge bombs were first used in Vietnam in 1970 to clear landing zones for helicopters.
They became known as "daisy-cutters" because of their ability to remove all vegetation within a radius of almost 295 feet without leaving a crater. Some of these bombs weigh as much 15,000 pounds.
