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By Contributing Writer from Indymedia Center

U.S. and British bombing of Afghanistan continues today. On Sunday, October 7, the U.S. and Britain began the military phase of their "war on terrorism." The attacks came at 12:30pm NYC time and 11:30pm Afghanistan time. Official military claims are that only "strategic targets" such as "command and control facilities" near the Afghani cities of Kabul and Kandahar were targeted. Maps released by the BBC and reports from Afghanistan indicate that airports and roads used by both military and civilians have been hit, as has a U.N. aid office (four aid workers were killed). In addition to Kabul and Kandahar being bombed, other Afgan cities such as Jalalabad (bombed the most extensively), Konar, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif were also bombed. Although U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield has denied it, official Afghanistan claims are that 20 Afghani civilians have already been reported dead.

U.S. President Bush says that in addition to the bombsthe U.S. will be dropping food and supplies. International aid organization Doctors Without Borders questions the purpose and effect of this aid. "The United States of America," says Bush, "is a friend to the Afghan people." Hundreds of thousands of those people have already fled their homes to avoid the impending bombing. More refugees are expected to try desperately to cross the closed Iranian and Pakistani borders, which were apparently closed in response to U.S. & British diplomatic pressure. Eyewitness reports have been coming in depicting what such scenes look like on the ground, as the British daily Guardian correspondent, Ian Traynor, reported that the following scene in Charikar, Afghanistan was a normal one: "A three-year-old girl was perched on the handlebars of a bike being pedalled north by her 14-year-old brother; and an old man pushed a wheelbarrow as fast as he could up the road away from the war . . . Women in flight were a ghost-like sight, shuffling in the pitch dark, cloaked in their all-covering burqas, carrying babies in their arms and ragged bundles on their heads." U.S. critics fear such frightening scenes could accumulate to a near "genocide" of Afghan refugees and political unrest in Pakistan.

Though Bush, in his national address on Sunday claimed that "[the United States and Britain] are supported by the collective will of the world," polls by Gallup International indicate that up to 80% of the people in many European and South American countries favor extradition of the terrorists to the bombing of Afghanistan and don't want their countries to aid the United States in its attacks. Nations in the U.N. also have expressed reluctance to support a unilateral U.S. attack, preferring instead to coordinate an international, UN-based response that would question the causes of political violence.

Emergency peace and justice demonstrations are occurring throughout the U.S. and around the world. Meanwhile, subsequent protests are being planned throughout the upcoming weeks, adding to the hundreds of global anti-war protests that have taken place in the days since the September 11 bombings. Stay tuned to the Indymedia newswires for public reaction to the bombings, both those on September 11 in the U.S. and those ongoing in Afghanistan.