US-led forces increased the pressure on the Taliban regime today with a three-pronged assault on its southern heartland, frontline positions in the north and targets in and around Kabul.
Taliban officials have claimed the latest phase of US air raids have killed 45 people near Afghanistan's capital of Kabul. The death tolls could not be independently verified.
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Taliban frontline positions south of the key northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif were under heavy assault from US fighter jets for the third straight day, both the Taliban and their Northern Alliance opponents said.
Mr Mohammad Atta, one of the top Northern Alliance commanders, said his forces accompanied by a small team of US reconnaissance men had tried to capitalise on the raids with an overnight ground attack on Keshendeh, 70 kilometres south of Mazari-Sharif.
Mr Atta said between 10 and 20 Taliban fighters were killed in the fighting.
Taliban frontlines north of Kabul were also bombed. The militia struck back by shelling the Northern Alliance-held town of Charikar, killing two people.
An AFP reporter in south-western Pakistan reported the heaviest volume of US fighter jets flying over the area towards the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar for several days.
There were also fresh daytime raids on Kabul, after two waves of overnight attacks.
The western city of Herat was bombed and the Taliban reported a mosque in the city had been hit, killing and injuring an unspecified number of men who were praying inside.
UK officials said the strikes were targeting Taliban troops protecting Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, the northern city that commands a strategic east-west highway and is a key supply link to Kabul.
The attacks have encouraged the Northern Alliance, which said it was preparing to move but that it would stop short of the capital.
Afghan tribal groups and Pakistan are concerned a move into Kabul would trigger a repeat of the violence when the Northern Alliance was last in the city. It was driven out by the Taliban in 1996.
AFP &