Explosions Rock Afghan Capital as U.S. Denies Strike
KABUL, Sept 12 (News Agencies) - Explosions and anti-aircraft fire rocked Afghanistan's capital Kabul early Wednesday morning but U.S. officials swiftly denied they were retaliatory strikes for attacks in the United States.
An Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter in the city said seven or eight large explosions were followed by what sounded like anti-aircraft fire and Taliban militia jets taking off from the main airport.
Flames could be seen over the low-rise skyline as multiple explosions and gunfire echoed around the war-ravaged city.
Taliban officials could not immediately explain the source of the attack or whether the target was the airport or a nearby ammunition dump and military area.
Overnight, the Taliban denied that Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who lives in Afghanistan as a "guest" of the militia, had been involved in the devastating attacks in New York and Washington.
Taliban sources initially feared the blasts were the result of U.S. missile strikes in retaliation for its support for bin Laden.
But U.S. officials said the explosions here were not part of a retaliatory strike similar to the cruise missile attacks on bin Laden's camps here in 1998.
"We have no knowledge of who is responsible for the attacks in Afghanistan, but the United States is not," said Scott McClellan, spokesman for U.S. President George W. Bush.
Anti-Taliban forces sent rockets into Kabul's outskirts during independence day celebrations last month and have been blamed for several minor bomb explosions here over the past year.
Opposition commander Ahmad Shah Masood was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt in opposition-controlled territory of northern Afghanistan on Sunday.
But Masood spokesman Mohammad Habeel denied reports that the opposition, based mainly in the northeast of the country, had carried out a revenge attack in the capital.
"We have not done anything. It is very likely the explosions were a result of the Taliban's internal differences," he said.
An opposition commander known only as Besmillah speaking from the nearest frontlines north of Kabul, also said he had no knowledge of the attack and his troops were not responsible.
The Pakistan-based private news agency Afghan Islamic Press said the attack might have been carried out by a helicopter, but residents around the airport said it sounded like rockets commonly used in the Afghan conflict.
Taliban forces on Tuesday assaulted Besmilla's positions along the Old Shomali Road some 25 kilometers (15 miles) north of capital, heading toward the Parwan provincial capital Charikar, as well as around Mahmud-i-Raqi, the capital of neighboring Kapisa province.
Charikar and Mahmud-i-Raqi sit near the southern mouth of the Panjshir valley, Masood's traditional stronghold and military headquarters that he has controlled for decades.
The Taliban seized Kabul in 1996 and ousted then-defense minister Masood and president Burhanuddin Rabbani from the capital.
