October 16th, 2001 Posted: 2104 GMT

Smoke rises from a Red Cross compound near Kabul that was hit by U.S. bombing Tuesday

A Kabul warehouse belonging to the International Red Cross was today bombed in fierce daylight raids on Afghanistan.
Massive explosions over the city could be heard in opposition held land 50 miles to the north. Huge clouds of smoke billowed on the capital's northern edge.

One security guard was injured in the attack on the Red Cross warehouse. A Red Cross spokesman in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the building's roof was marked with the Red Cross insignia.

The north of the Kabul - where the main daylight raids took place today - is home to four Taliban military bases and a government transport depot. Witnesses said they saw several military trucks near the bombed warehouse.

A second straight day of daylight activity and the first use of low-flying warplanes has marked an intensification of the air campaign.

It also signalled US confidence that more than a week of attacks by cruise missiles and high altitude jets had eliminated the threat from Taliban air defences.

The low-flying warplanes - AC-130 gunships - went in to action using air cannon against military and terrorist targets south of Kandahar.

Their primary missions are close air support and the protection of troops on the ground in hostile territory.

AC-130s are heavily armed and have sideways firing weapons that can saturate an area over extended periods, including at night and in bad weather. Heavy machine guns and cannons can be locked on a target by computers.

It is the first acknowledged use of special forces aircraft in the conflict.

A senior Pentagon official said: "We felt it was the appropriate weapon to be used."

There are also unconfirmed reports that special forces helicopter units are attacking the Taliban's elite brigades, which could indicate the first use of ground troops. The US television network Fox News has claimed bunkers south of Kandahar were targeted by the units.

Russian television is reporting that a special forces mission against Brigade 55 - a 500-strong unit of Arab volunteers that is at the heart of Osama bin Laden's terrorist forces - began on Monday night.

Today the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, in Pakistan to shore up support for the US-led campaign, said Afghanistan's Islamist regime was "under enormous pressure" but refused to say whether he thought it was near collapse.

The opposition alliance says it has advanced close to Mazar-e-Sharif, the largest city in the north, and that some 4,000 Taliban troops defected over the weekend. The Taliban have denied the defection claim.