KABUL, Afghanistan?U.S. strikes set Red Cross warehouses afire near Afghanistan?s capital Tuesday, sending workers scrambling to salvage desperately needed relief goods during a bombardment that could be heard 30 miles away.

To the south, a U.S. special forces gunship entered the air war for the first time, raking the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar with cannon and heavy machine gun fire in a pre-dawn raid.

Heavy, round-the-clock attacks and the first use of the lumbering, low-flying AC 130 gunship signaled U.S. confidence that 10 days of attacks by cruise missiles and high-flying jets have crippled the air defenses of the Taliban.

Tuesday?s strikes were mostly against military installations and airports around Kabul, Kandahar and the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif, on which the Afghan opposition claims its forces are closing in.