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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Jets, Cannons Used To Blunt Offensive

Associated Press

Relentless cannon fire shook the ground and flares lit up the sky over this front-line village near Kabul in fighting Friday between Taliban forces and the opposition.

Jets belonging to the anti-Taliban alliance’s leader, northern warlord Rashid Dostum, pounded the villages in an attempt to blunt the Taliban’s weeklong offensive.

At least three civilians were killed in the bombardment of Sarajhoja, about 12 miles north of the capital, witnesses said.

At least two bombs exploded near the Kabul airport, but there were no reports of casualties there.

The Taliban, a band of religious students and clerics who control two-thirds of the country, has been locked in a fierce battle against a four-party alliance since taking Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Sept. 27.

The Taliban has imposed its strict version of Islamic law in areas it controls, forbidding women from working and forcing men to pray in mosques five times daily.

Using fighter jets and heavy artillery, the alliance, led by Dostum and ousted military chief Ahmed Shah Massood, were trying to regain territory lost during the week.

But Taliban soldiers held on to Sarajhoja and another village, Karakan.

Taliban soldiers on the front line said they were ready to continue their push northward. Their next goal, they say, is the strategic military base at Baghram, about 36 miles north of Kabul.