Jets Bomb Kabul, Injuring 2

Kabul’s Taliban rulers traded bombing runs and rocket fire Wednesday with the allied army trying to oust them from the capital.

Jets belonging to northern warlord Rashid Dostum also bombed Taliban positions about 12 miles north of Kabul, where fighting has taken place for several weeks.

Taliban fighters fired salvos of rockets toward the north and the west, where they believed their enemies were. No casualty figures were available from the front line.

The Taliban religious army has taken roughly two-thirds of the country in its bid to impose strict Islamic rule over Afghanistan. The northern provinces remain in the control of their enemies, who have formed a military alliance against the Taliban.

The alliance’s attack on Kabul wounded two people, including the wife of Abdul Rahman, who is a deputy of deposed military chief Ahmed Shah Massood. It was not clear why she did not flee when the Taliban army seized the capital on Sept. 27.

Since taking Kabul, the Taliban forces have moved swiftly to impose a strict brand of Islam that calls for stoning adulterers, amputating the hands and feet of thieves and hanging murderers and drug dealers. Taliban leaders also have banned most women from working and closed schools for girls.