The Pentagon had no comment today on US media reports of civilians killed in US bombing raids near Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan.
Citing witnesses and local officials, CNN reported that raids early Saturday on two villages, Talkhel and Balut, killed 50 civilians and injured five others.
Those villages are near caves and tunnels where US officials believe top terror suspect Osama bin Laden may be hiding.
Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ken McFarlane said the report would be passed on to US Central Command in Tampa, Florida, which is directing the military operation in Afghanistan.
Mr McFarlane denied other reports that said US raids killed people near the village of Kama Ado, 50 kilometers south of Jalalabad.
"Yes, there were strikes near Jalalabad against caves, but not on villages. The US Central Command has reviewed their imagery of the air strikes and the closest they were from the particular village was 20 kilometers (12 miles) away," he said.
"Today we had a never-ending string of rumors," he added.
He cited a Taliban claim that the militia had shot down a US warplane in southern Afghanistan, and the reported destruction of a bus and cars on the road from Kandahar to Spin Boldak, near the frontier with Pakistan.
Those raids killed at least 30 civilians, according the Afghan Islamic Press news agency.
AFP