The Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan claimed yesterday that almost 20 civilians, including women, children and old people, had been killed in Sunday's air strikes against Afghanistan, although other Taliban officials later revised the death toll down to between six and eight.
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said the civilians had all died in the Kabul area. He refused to give details.
"Unfortunately rockets landed on several dwelling places." The US planes had made no attempt to distinguish between civilian and military targets, he said.
Speaking at a press conference in Islamabad in the Taliban's last remaining embassy, Mullah Zaeef said that Osama bin Laden had survived Sunday's bombardment unscathed. "He is still alive. He is still in Afghanistan," he said. "In the present circumstances we have not taken any talks with Osama." Reuters news agency carried an interview with a 16-year-old ice-cream vendor from Jalalabad who said he had lost his leg and two fingers in a missile strike on an airfield near his home.
"There was just a roaring sound, and then I opened my eyes and I was in a hospital," said the boy, called Assadullah, speaking in Peshawar after being taken across the border for medical help . "I lost my leg and two fingers. There were other people hurt. People were running all over the place." Earlier Mr Donald Rumsfeld, US Defence Secretary, and Mr Geoff Hoon, his British counterpart, said the raids had been entirely successful, striking with precision at enemy assets and avoiding civilian deaths.
Avoiding civilian casualties is crucial to maintaining international support for the US action, particularly among Muslim allies uneasy with the use of force.
Mr Rumsfeld said the opening sorties of Operation Enduring Freedom had been a success and only military targets had been hit. "Every single target which the coalition forces hit was a military target," he said. "There was an attack on the military airport near Kabul but certainly not on anything relating to other targets near the city." Mr Hoon moved to halt speculation that civilians had been killed by elaborating on the locations of some of the targets, emphasising that most of them were in isolated parts of the country away from the major population centres.
Despite the prospect of further American bombing, which began again last night, the Taliban yesterday continued to strike a defiant pose. At an emergency cabinet meeting in Kabul, Taliban ministers agreed to declare jihad against the US. Troops were reinforcing defensive positions, they said.
In an assertion immediately rejected by the Pentagon, the Taliban also claimed yesterday to have shot down an American plane in the remote western province of Farah.
"It was a night-time sky. It was dark. Rockets attacked the plane and one plane was shot down," Mullah Zaeef said. Asked if the wreckage would be displayed, officials said Farah was a long way away.