U.S. Bomb Hit Kabul Neighborhood in Error -U.S.

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Navy (news - web sites) F/A-18 jet missed a Taliban military target at Kabul airport on Saturday and the 2,000-pound "smart'' bomb blasted a residential neighborhood a mile away in the Afghan capital, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said

"We regret the loss of any civilian life,'' the Defense Department said in a statement issued after the big bomb missed a military helicopter and went awry as U.S. warplanes conducted a seventh day of strikes against Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s ruling Taliban for harboring Osama bin Laden (news - web sites), blamed by Washington for last month's devastating attacks in the United States.

The statement stressed after the latest incident of apparent civilian casualties on the ground in Afghanistan that U.S. forces "take great care in their targeting process to avoid civilian casualties.''

The Navy F/A-18 flying from a U.S. aircraft carrier dropped the bomb at about 3 a.m. Afghan time (6:30 p.m. EDT Friday), the Pentagon said.

"Preliminary indications are that the accident occurred from a targeting process error,'' the statement said. But it did not indicate how such a smart weapon -- guided to targets by laser beams or satellites -- went astray.

In a poor neighborhood near the airport on the outskirts of Kabul, residents dug through the rubble of a damaged row of houses.

Although the Pentagon cited reports of as many as four dead and eight injured, a Reuters report from the capital said at least one man was killed and four injured.

The Taliban have charged that U.S. and British military strikes on the country have killed up to 300 or more civilians, including four workers who died earlier in the week when an errant cruise missile was believed to have hit a building used by the United Nations (news - web sites) for mine-clearing operations in Afghanistan.

DENIES TARGETING CIVILIANS

Responding to reports of growing civilian casualties in the Kabul and the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded at a news conference on Thursday that satellite- and laser-guided smart bombs did not always work perfectly.

But he bitterly attacked the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan for accusing the Pentagon of intentionally targeting Afghan civilians.

"It comes with ill grace for the Taliban to be suggesting that we are doing what they have made a practice and a livelihood out of,'' the secretary said.

Defense officials, meanwhile, confirmed on Saturday that U.S. warplanes had in recent days struck key Taliban military positions north of Kabul and had again bombed targets near Kabul and the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar overnight on Friday and on Saturday.

Up to 5,000 or more Taliban troops are dug in against opposition Northern Alliance forces north of Afghanistan's capital.

But the U.S. defense officials cautioned against speculation that Washington had began actively moving to open a path for the Northern Alliance to move on Kabul. Washington is now working to unite groups opposed to the Taliban.

President Bush (news - web sites) has declared a war on terrorism, including bin Laden's al Qaeda international network and countries that support anti-Western guerrilla attacks. Bin Laden is accused of being behind the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We have disrupted the terrorist network inside Afghanistan,'' Bush said in his regular radio address to Americans on Saturday.

"American forces dominate the skies over Afghanistan and we will use that dominance to make sure terrorists can no longer freely use Afghanistan as a base of operations.''

As U.S. fighter jets resumed bombing Afghanistan after a brief respite for Friday's Muslim sabbath, the ruling Islamic purist Taliban flatly rejected Bush's offer to halt the strikes if they handed over the Saudi-born militant.

But Northern Alliance Foreign Minister Abdullah Adbullah told a news conference on Saturday that growing direct strikes against Taliban military forces had robbed Taliban fighters of the ability to launch counter-offensives. He said the number of Taliban military casualties could be "hundreds, not dozens.''