Kabul sees heaviest daytime raids

Afghans have been fleeing to the Pakistani border

The United States has unleashed the heaviest daylight strikes against Afghanistan since the air raids started on 7 October.

The bombs continued to descend on Kabul after darkness fell, with reports of at least two explosions rocking the Afghan capital, prompting residents to flee for their lives.

At a press briefing at the Pentagon, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted that civilian casualties in Afghanistan were an inevitable product of Washington's war.

This leaflet gives the schedule for American broadcasts

"I don't think there is any way to avoid that," he said. "It is practically impossible to know with certainty who is on the ground in any given location."

He nonetheless dismissed as "ridiculous" Taleban claims that hundreds of civilians had been killed during the strikes.

Bombs, then pamphlets

Mr Rumsfeld also said that on Sunday warplanes started to drop leaflets, which the US hopes will convince the Afghan people that they are not the targets of the ongoing strikes.

One of the leaflets shows a western soldier shaking hands with a man in traditional Afghan garb, while another gives the frequencies and times of American broadcasts.

On Monday, warplanes kicked off the ninth day of the campaign with another attack on the already battered Kabul airport.

The Taleban responded to the attacks, but their fire was said to be weak and sporadic, suggesting defences have been severely damaged.

Independent sources in Kabul said other targets included a house where some foreign Islamic militants used to live, and a military base in the north of the city housing one of the Taleban's battalions

Click here for a map of recent air strikes

Qatar-based al-Jazeera television said two residential areas in the capital had also been hit.

Elsewhere, a jet bombed the outskirts of the eastern city of Jalalabad, reportedly hitting a former training camp of Osama Bin Laden. An airport in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif was also targeted.

The Taleban say over 200 people have been killed

And the Taleban said 12 people were killed and 32 injured when the northern city of Qala-i-nau was attacked. The statement could not be independently verified.

Afghans fleeing to neighbouring Pakistan to escape the strikes spoke of horrors in their home towns.

"I've seen the bodies of women and children pulled out of the rubble of their homes," Abdul Wali, a shopkeeper from Kandahar, told the Reuters news agency as he arrived in Quetta.

Deserted streets

Shops were shutting early in Kabul and the streets were often deserted. Petrol is expensive and in short supply.

Bush dismissed the Taleban offer within an hour

But other prices are generally down. The staple food, flour, is now about half the price it was just after the attacks on New York and Washington.

Our correspondent says that is because the Afghan currency has surged against the dollar, an indication that despite the Afghans' current fear, many still hope for a positive outcome to the crisis.

The Taleban's third most powerful leader, Maulvi Abdul Kabir, had said Bin Laden - suspected of masterminding last month's terror attacks on the US - could be sent to a neutral country if the US halted air strikes.

He repeated a demand to be shown evidence of Bin Laden's connection to the attacks, but President George W Bush again ruled out any negotiation.

On Sunday the Taleban took a group of international journalists to a village 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Jalalabad, where they say nearly 200 residents were killed by US bombing last week.

The BBC's Rahim Ullah Yusuf Zai said the village, which stank of rotting corpses, had been completely destroyed and that journalists had been shown shrapnel and an unexploded bomb.

Our reporter, who was met with furious protests by distraught locals, says he is in no doubt that the devastation was caused by a US strike.

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