B-52 bombers resumed pounding suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda positions in east Afghanistan overnight after a day of ground attacks by US-led forces.
Having claimed to have killed 500 in their ground offensive yesterday, US military officials today revised the figures back to around 100.
With hundreds of US and allied troops now on the ground in the snow-covered mountains, their resupply is crucial, US military spokesman Maj Bryan Hilferty said at Bagram, on the outskirts of Kabul.
"We are sending in by helicopter fuel, food, ammunition and other equipment," he told a news conference. "In fighting on Wednesday we estimate we killed 100 Taliban".
The US military today ordered up to 300 extra soldiers, 17 attack helicopters and several A-10 aircraft with rapid-fire cannon and rockets to the battlefield to counter a flow of new fighters.
In Gardez, about 20 miles from the fighting in Paktia Province, there was greater air activity over the frontline than Wednesday. B-52s were back in force along with F-16 jets and attack helicopters.
Afghan commanders said the battle twisted along a six-mile frontline of bunkers and caves up to the top of 10,000 foot peaks around the village of Shahi Kot.
At least eight US soldiers and seven Afghan soldiers have died in the operation and about 40 US and 30 Afghan troops have been wounded.
- Two German and three Danish peacekeepers died in Kabul yesterday in an accident at a munitions site when two Soviet-era surface-to-air missiles exploded while they were preparing to destroy the bombs.