TWO anti-Taliban warplanes bombed Kabul yesterday injuring a teenage girl and destroying two houses.
The three bombs landed in a residential suburb of the capital. "There was only one casualty, thank God, a young girl who was hit by flying glass," said one bystander.
The bombs demolished one house in its entirety and badly damaged another. A third house, which was missed by 10 metres, was a mass of fractured concrete and twisted metal balconies.
Onlookers said they believed the bombs had been dropped by planes belonging to the northern leader, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum. He is part of the alliance loyal to the government ousted from Kabul by the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban movement in late September. The Taliban are fighting alliance forces on a frontline 20 to 25 km north of Kabul and in the remote provinces in the north west of the country.
Ground fighting has stagnated over recent weeks, with neither side managing to take a strategic advantage. Despite numerous attacks by alliance forces, they have not managed to take a band of hills that blocks the route to Kabul.
Gen Dostum's bombers have also fired at Kabul airport and a military base in north west Kabul. They dropped eight bombs on the base on Tuesday. Taliban fighters said the bombs caused no damage or casualties.
The only fatalities in the air raids so far have been three children killed when two bombs fell on a north western residential. Seven people were also wounded.
Onlookers at the site of yesterday's bombs were angry at both Gen Dostum and the West, whom they blamed for indifference to the continuing bloodshed in Afghanistan.
"Everyone knows where the front line is," said Mr Mohammed Kabir, a student who had been at college nearby when the bombs fell. "They need to bomb those areas instead of hitting cities and residential areas." He blamed foreign countries for much of the damage.
"During the fight against the Russians they supplied sophisticated missiles and other weapons. Now they should fulfil their moral obligation to finish the crisis in Afghanistan," he said.