Blasts in North of Afghan Capital

Explosions could be heard north of this Afghan capital near the airport early today, hours after devastating terror attacks in the United States.

In Washington, U.S. officials quickly denied any involvement in the violence in Afghanistan. “In no way is the United States government connected with those explosions,” Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters in Washington.

One U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the fighting in Kabul appeared to involve a rocket assault by guerrillas in response to an attack on their military leader over the weekend, which the rebels blame on the ruling Taliban.

The explosions began about 2:30 a.m. and came in rapid succession, seconds apart, causing buildings to shudder.

There were no sounds of airplanes or antiaircraft fire.

Officials could not be reached at the airport.

Taliban soldiers in the center of Kabul said the explosions seemed to begin with a low-flying helicopter that fired rockets into the area at the airport. There was some return fire by Taliban forces with antiaircraft weapons, the soldiers said.

The Taliban condemned Tuesday’s attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, and rejected suggestions that Saudi militant Osama bin Laden, currently being sheltered in Afghanistan, could be behind them.

The explosions were in the direction of the front line where Taliban soldiers face opposition forces. Fighting there has increased recently but this would be the first major assault by opposition forces so close to the capital.

Later Tuesday, the anti-Taliban Afghan opposition said it carried out the assault in retaliation against Taliban jet attacks on their forces.

“Two of our helicopter gunships took part in this operation,” said Bismillah Khan, a top commander of the anti-Taliban force.

He said opposition forces also fired medium-range Russian-built missiles at the airport.

“We had to do something to stop their attacks and that was the only way,” Khan told Reuters by satellite phone from a location north of Kabul, where the opposition forces have been dug in since being driven from the capital in 1996.

Travel in the streets is restricted by an 11 p.m.-to-4 a.m. curfew.

The Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic movement, controls about 95% of the nation.

Rebel groups have been driven into the remaining territory in the far north.

Conflicting reports persisted Tuesday over whether rebel Gen. Ahmed Shah Masoud, the leader of the opposition to the Taliban, survived a suicide bombing attack Sunday.

The bombing in northern Afghanistan killed Masoud’s aide as well as the bombers, two men posing as TV journalists.

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported that Masoud had died.

An opposition spokesman and Masoud’s brother in London have said he was gravely injured but alive.

The Taliban denied any role in the attack.

Masoud, 48, has led a fractured collection of groups who fought each other when they ruled much of Afghanistan for four years until the Taliban militia took control in 1996.