US says warplanes hit Taleban convoy

AC-130 gunships took part in the attack

The US says it is certain that a convoy of vehicles attacked by its warplanes in eastern Afghanistan was carrying leaders of the Taleban, and not tribal elders as some reports had suggested.

There is no doubt in their (US military's Central Command) mind that they hit what they wanted to hit and that it was the bad guys

Pentagon spokesman

Major Brad Lowell, a spokesman for US Central Command, said officials looked into the claims and were sure the targeted convoy was composed of Taleban leaders.

"We've checked all means possible and confirmed this was a military convoy," he said.

Major Lowell said the convoy heading for the capital, Kabul, for Saturday's inauguration of the new interim administration, was far north of the air attack.

Training camp area

The strikes destroyed a convoy of 10 to 12 vehicles near the town of Khost southwest of the mountainous Tora Bora region, and the compound from which they left, said Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington.

Taleban training camps and two al-Qaeda camps were known to be located in Khost, in eastern Paktia province.

In 1998 the US tried to destroy the al-Qaeda camps there with Tomahawk cruise missiles in an attempt to kill Osama Bin Laden, who they blame for the twin bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

The Pentagon says AC-130 gunships and fighter jets launched from US aircraft carriers carried out the attack on Friday.

In other developments:

• The US-led coalition says it is holding an estimated 7,000 members of the Taleban and the al-Qaeda terror network are being held in Afghanistan
• Uniformed British troops are on the streets of Afghanistan after the go-ahead is given for a UK-led multi-national security force
• Refugees are pouring back into Afghanistan as the new interim government prepares to take power
• Afghanistan needs $9bn in reconstruction aid over the next five years, the United Nations says
• US President George W Bush freezes the assets of two South Asian groups he accuses of supporting terrorism
• Britain and Russia agree to co-operate more closely in the fight against international terrorism, saying the ties between them have never been stronger
• At least five foreigners suspected of involvement in international terrorism are arrested in Somalia.

The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), which is generally sympathetic to the Taleban, had earlier reported that 65 people were killed in the attack.

The agency quoted Sayed Yaqeen, an official of the Paktia tribal council, as saying several Afghan elders, tribal chiefs and commanders were among the victims.

Cave-busting bomb

It is also being reported that more than 20 civilians were killed when US aircraft bombed the village of Sarkando in the same province.

A number of others were reportedly wounded in the attack in which the village was said to have been destroyed.

Mr Rumsfeld has said that significant numbers of coalition troops will be sent into the Tora Bora cave complex as the search for Bin Laden, the man suspected of masterminding the 11 September terror attacks on the US, continues.

Anti-Taleban Afghan forces took the complex last week and have so far taken the lead in neutralising pockets of resistance and hunting for evidence.

Meanwhile, the US is sending a new bomb to Afghanistan that uses a delayed, high-pressure explosion to suck the air out of caves and tunnels.

Under Secretary of Defence Edward Aldridge said the laser-guided "thermobaric" bomb, recently tested in Nevada, "is something we clearly have a need for in Afghanistan and they're on their way over there".