Aaron Bosley plays with his son, Ethan, 2, during send-off ceremonies at the Ohio National Guard, Monday, Oct. 8, 2001, in Canton, Ohio. Co D 1-148th Infantry Company will be leaving Tuesday morning for Kentucky. (AP Photo/The Repository, Joy Newcomb)
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- After a second night of air attacks, a lone jet woke up Kabul early Tuesday with a single bomb dropped near the airport. Missiles streaked into the eastern edge of the capital minutes later.
The fresh assault at 4:50 a.m. rattled windows in the capital, ending a quiet few hours after the second wave of U.S. strikes Monday night. There was no immediate indication of damage or casualties in Tuesday's assault.
Taliban anti-aircraft guns responded again Tuesday as they had during Monday's raid when at least three bombs exploded -- one each in the eastern, western and northern sections of the city.
Doctors at Wazir Akbar Khan Hospital said four people were killed on Monday night when three bombs were dropped on the capital from a high-flying jet.
The Taliban denied an Iranian News Agency report that Afghan Aviation Minister Akhtar Mohammed Mansour was killed during the air raids by U.S. and British forces Sunday night.
"It is absolutely false. Mansour is fine," said Abdul Hai Muttmain, a Taliban spokesman contacted by telephone in the southern city of Kandahar.
He also said Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar were unhurt in the attacks. Bin Laden is the suspected terrorist mastermind held responsible by the United States for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Omar is the Taliban leader.
Muttmain said Monday's assault was less severe than the first wave of attacks by the U.S.-British coalition Sunday night.
"They were not as strong as the first night. They didn't hit any military targets," he said. "The people's morale is high."
Targets in Monday's raids included areas around the capital, the Taliban's home base of Kandahar, and Afghanistan's north, where an opposition northern alliance is battling the Taliban, the Islamic movement that controls nearly all of Afghanistan.
The military campaign is aimed at punishing the Taliban for harboring bin Laden, the man accused of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington that left more than 5,500 people dead or missing.
The Afghan Islamic Press agency in Islamabad, Pakistan, said the airport in Kabul and a hill where a TV transmission tower is located were both targets.
The agency, which has close ties to the Taliban, said one bomb landed near a 400-bed women's hospital in Kabul but made no mention of any damage. The reports could not be independently confirmed because a curfew is in effect in the Afghan capital.
Lights went out in Kabul soon after the attack began, and Taliban radio ordered people to close their blinds, shut off lights and stay indoors.
Taliban positions around the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif were also under attack Monday, the Afghan press agency reported. Ashraf Nadim, a spokesman for the opposition northern alliance, said by telephone that his forces were tipped off by the United States a half hour before Monday's attacks.
Nadim, speaking from Samangan province, about 30 miles from Mazar-e-Sharif, said U.S. aircraft and missiles were launched against Taliban positions there.
The Afghan press agency said the northern alliance launched a major attack Monday evening on the Taliban position near Dara-e-Suf, in northern Samangan.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld suggested there was much left to do after the first night's aerial assault. "We believe we've made progress toward eliminating the air defense sites," he said. "We believe we've made an impact on military airfields. ... We cannot yet state with certainty that we destroyed the dozens of military command and control and leadership targets we selected," Rumsfeld said.
Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the fresh bombardment Monday night was accompanied by a renewed air drop of humanitarian assistance.
Five long-range bombers -- a pair of B-2 stealth bombers flying from Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo., and three B-1B's from the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia -- joined 10 strike planes launched from aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea. They targeted air defense and other military targets across Afghanistan.
Two U.S. Navy ships, the destroyers USS John Paul Jones and USS McFaul, and one submarine launched a total of 15 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
Britain, which participated in the first wave of assaults on Sunday, did not take part in Monday's follow-up, Prime Minister Tony Blair said from London.
Before Monday's attacks began, President Bush vowed to be "relentless" in fighting terrorism "on all fronts."
In an indication the United States might want to some day expand the military operation, Washington formally notified the U.N. Security Council on Monday that counterterrorism attacks may be extended beyond Afghanistan.
The first night of strikes Sunday targeted Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad, a city along the Pakistani border. The compound of Omar in Kandahar, as well as training bases of bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network, were also hit.
Taliban radio on Monday derided the previous night's strikes as a failure. "The American bombardment and rocket attacks didn't hit their targets," it said.
Shortly after the first attacks Sunday, bin Laden vowed in an apparently pre-taped message that America will "never dream of security." He praised God for the Sept. 11 attacks and said the United States "was hit by God in one of its softest spots."
Taliban officials said both he and Omar survived the first night's assault. There was no word from the Taliban on MondayOs second strike.
Before the night assault Monday, the Taliban released a British journalist and handed her over to Pakistani authorities, border officials said. Yvonne Ridley, a reporter for a London tabloid, had been arrested in Afghanistan 10 days earlier, after all foreigners were ordered out of the country. The militia is still holding eight foreign aid workers -- including two Americans -- accused of trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Washington called the airstrikes that began Sunday night a success, saying military installations and terrorist training camps were prime targets.
Meanwhile, neighboring Pakistan on Monday carried out its second government reshuffle in as many days, replacing its secret service chief, who had failed to convince the Taliban to hand over bin Laden.
Most of Pakistan was calm before Monday's new assault, but fierce protests broke out in a pair of border cities where pro-Taliban sentiment runs high. One person was reported killed and more than two dozen hurt in unrest in the southwest Pakistani city of Quetta.
Mobs stoned the Quetta office of the U.N. refugee agency and torched the U.N. children's agency office in the same compound, but no staffers were hurt. Pakistan's government, which supports the mission against the Taliban, expressed regret over the destruction and said security around U.N. installations would be tightened.
Pakistani authorities also closed six civilian airports, including Quetta's, citing security threats.
Across the Mideast, there was anger at the U.S. counterattack and some support for bin Laden.
In the Gaza Strip, anti-American demonstrations ended with a gunbattle between Palestinian police and student protesters that left two Palestinian bystanders dead and 50 wounded.
A trickle of Afghan witnesses arriving in Pakistan provided accounts of Sunday night's airstrikes, which targeted Kabul, along with the cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar.
"I was standing on my roof when I heard planes overhead, and the next thing I knew there were explosions and panic everywhere," said a Kandahar man named Nematollah, who like many Afghans uses one name.
The Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef, called the U.S.-led attacks indiscriminate terror against civilians, and said 20 women, children and elderly were killed in Kabul in Sunday's assault.
"The brave people of Afghanistan will never be intimidated by these fears," he told journalists in Islamabad. "By sacrificing their lives, they will defend the faith, Islam."
Many humanitarian officials fear the military assault on the Taliban and bin Laden will worsen already widespread hunger and privation in Afghanistan. The U.N. food agency said Monday it had halted all deliveries of aid inside Afghanistan following the U.S.-led attacks.
The United States hoped to make up some of the shortfall with airdrops from C-17 cargo planes. The first such flights Sunday were termed a success, dropping 37,500 food packages that were designed to flutter to the ground rather than plummeting straight down, to minimize the possibility of injury.
--EDITOR'S NOTE: Gannon contributed to this dispatch from Islamabad, Pakistan.
