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U.S. Blitzes Afghanistan with Heaviest Bombing Yet
KABUL, Oct 10 (News Agencies) - U.S.-led forces on Wednesday blitzed Kabul and Kandahar with the heaviest bombing since Washington launched its campaign to bring Afghanistan's Taliban regime to its knees.
A fourth night of airstrikes against targets across the country got underway with a huge onslaught on the capital Kabul, where residents reported four waves of attacks and at least 18 large bombs being dropped on or around the city.
The Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar also came under heavy attack with targets around the city being pounded.
"It's really scary. I've heard four or five very loud bombs and they seem very close. Everything is shaking but I have nowhere to hide," said a man living some 30 kilometers (19 miles) outside the city center.
The volume of anti-aircraft fire unleashed in Kabul in response to the latest attacks appeared to be less than on previous nights, suggesting that some batteries may have been taken out in previous raids.
The fresh onslaught followed a series of daytime raids on Kandahar and flyovers of Kabul that U.S. officials said had been designed to locate hidden targets.
Before the latest wave of attacks got underway, the Taliban said the bombing had already left at least 76 civilians dead and rubbished a claim from Washington that the U.S. and British forces had established air supremacy over the country.
The Islamic militia insisted that its air defenses remained intact. U.S. fighter jets continued to carry out their raids from very high altitudes, out of the range of anti-aircraft guns.
Two of the prime targets in the bombing - Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar - have both survived four days of bombing, Taliban ambassador to Pakistan Abdul Salam Zaeef said.
"The American claim that they have destroyed the defense capability of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan is not true," Zaeef told a press conference in Islamabad.
"Amir-ul-Momineen [Mullah Omar] is alive and in the protection of God. Osama is also safe and alive.
"The dreams of America will not come true," he added, calling on Muslims in the United States to take action against U.S. "atrocities".
The Taliban's defiance of the U.S.-led coalition was underlined by an announcement that French journalist Michel Peyrard, who entered the country disguised as a woman, would be put on trial for spying, a crime that carries the death penalty.
The United Nations reported that Afghan nationals working for one of its de-mining projects had been beaten up in Kabul, in Kandahar and in Jalalabad.
Spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said the Taliban had also ransacked and looted a U.N. office in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, breaking down the doors and taking communications equipment.
Taliban sources said 28 civilians had died in or around Kandahar, where U.S.-led forces have targeted the airport and suspected training camps.
Another 25 people died in Kabul, seven in the western province of Farah where the Shindand airport has been hit, two in the western city of Herat and eight in Mazar-i-Sharif.
Officials also told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that three men, one woman and two girls had been killed on Tuesday when an American bomb struck a village near Darunta, five kilometers (three miles) northwest of the eastern city of Jalalabad.
They said that three residential areas - two near Kabul and one close to the airport in Kandahar - had been directly hit in raids overnight on Tuesday/Wednesday.
The claims could not be verified, as the Taliban has not allowed Western journalists to visit areas where it says that U.S. bombs and missiles have struck buildings with no military role.
To date, the only civilian deaths Western news agencies are willing to confirm are four civilian security guards who were working at a de-mining agency in Kabul when it was struck by a cruise missile Tuesday.
U.S. and British forces and their allies are seeking to destroy the al-Qaeda network of bin Laden, the Saudi-born dissident wanted by the United States for the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York and Washington which left thousands dead.
Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, is hiding in a mountain retreat, according to Taliban officials.
The United States has been hitting targets across the country since Sunday with particular emphasis on Kandahar, the Taliban's heartland and home to the militia's reclusive leader Mullah Omar, who narrowly escaped a missile attack on his residence Tuesday morning.
Anti-Taliban forces grouped under the banner of the Northern Alliance have mounted a series of offensives this week in an attempt to capitalize on the U.S. attacks.
An opposition spokesman claimed 40 Taliban commanders and 800 troops had surrendered to them in northeastern Afghanistan, bringing to 2,000 the number of troops claimed to have switched sides this week.
But the Alliance denied Wednesday that it was planning a push to take Kabul from its positions just 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the capital.
Alliance spokesman Daoud Mir in Washington said the opposition wanted Kabul to be demilitarized, possibly through the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers.
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