US warplanes continue to bomb the Taliban's last bastion in Afghanistan as sources forces are preparing to raid mountain complex believed to be Osama bin Laden’s hideout.
Air strikes centred on the Tora Bora mountain complex in the east today, where the US claim the bunker hideouts of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation are located. <
There are also reports British and US commandos are preparing to raid Tora Bora.
Meanwhile a US Marine task force stationed at an airstrip near Kandahar, backed by British, German and Australian liaison officers, could ``potentially'' join an attack on Kandahar, a US military spokesman in Kandahar said.
In the eastern city of Jalalabad, a local official said overnight US air strikes killed about 20 civilians in mountains where bin Laden is reputed to have a fortified underground lair.
The official, who asked not to be named, said 18 people were wounded in raids on the Tora Bora area, south of Jalalabad.
The Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), quoting Taliban sources, said 13 civilians had been killed today in bombing raids on Kandahar airport and the southern outskirts of the city, the Taliban's spiritual home. There was no independent confirmation.
AIP said 30 people had been killed in their vehicles during US air raids on the Spin Boldak border area on Saturday.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld today confirmed the United States has ``1,500 to 2,000'' troops on the ground in Afghanistan.
Waves of US warplanes roared north over the Pakistani border town of Chaman through the night and bombs crashed into targets around the Taliban-held town of Spin Boldak just across the desert frontier.
A tribal spokesman said the Taliban's Arab allies were "fighting to the death" as Pashtun tribesmen kept up an assault on Kandahar airport until shortly before dawn.
The level of street fighting rose as Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar urged his men to fight to the death.
A spokesman for former mujahideen Kandahar governor Mr Gul Agha Sherzai, Khalid Pashtoon, said Gul Agha's forces were now some 25 km south of Kandahar city.
He said roads to Kabul and the western city of Herat were also in opposition hands and that Gul Agha had thrown 2,000 fighters against the Kandahar airport's 700 to 800 defenders.
AFP and