Hunt for Mullah Omar

The US is deploying ground-attack planes

Reports from Washington and Kabul say a mission is planned in the next three or four days to capture the fugitive leader of the Taleban, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Meanwhile, a US soldier has been injured on the road between Kabul and Jalalabad.

The soldier was travelling in a military convoy, which came under attack by unidentified assailants.

The Pentagon believes that Mullah Omar is hiding near Baghran in a remote area about 170 km (100 miles) north-west of Kandahar.

However, they are playing down earlier reports that the operation to capture him is already under way.

The BBC correspondent in Kabul, Ian MacWilliam, says the search for the reclusive Taleban leader will be all the more difficult as he never allowed his photograph to be taken.

A US military official, Major Brad Lowell, confirmed that US marines had been on an intelligence-gathering mission in the Bagram area in the last 24 hours, but he denied they were looking for Mullah Omar specifically.

"To my knowledge the marines have not organised a specific effort to search for Omar," he said.

He said they had detained another 50 or so suspected Taleban leaders and al-Qaeda members in the last few days, bringing the number now being held to 210.

However, the Afghan intelligence chief in Kandahar province, Haji Gulalai, told the French news agency AFP that US marines were due to support a major local operation to flush out Mullah Omar.

Up to 5,000 Afghan government troops backed by marines will take part in the drive, hunting for the Taleban leader and searching for arms dumps in Helmand province.

Mullah Omar disappeared after the fall of Kandahar

Mr Gulalai said that the operation had been due to start on Tuesday but tribal leaders had requested a delay of three to four days to allow negotiations on surrendering arms.

Bombing defended

Meanwhile, the new government in Afghanistan has defended an American bombing raid in the east of the country which local people said killed about 100 civilians.

A member of the Afghan cabinet, Border Affairs Minister Amanullah Zadran, has said the US military had "no choice" but to bomb the locality of Niazi Qalaye.

The site just north of Gardez in Paktia province had contained Taleban and al-Qaeda weapons stores, he said.

"I'm not supporting the bombing [of innocent people] but there was no other choice," the minister said.

US military spokesman Matthew Klee insisted that the site was not a village, but an al-Qaeda hideout.

"If there were any innocent people that were killed there, the numbers being reported, I think, are unfounded," he told the BBC.

The bombing was conducted by B1 and B52 bombers.