The Taliban militia claimed today that 1,500 civilians had been killed by US-led airtrikes over the past three weeks.
Suhail Shaheen, the deputy Taliban ambassador to Islamabad, also said the US was hiding cluster bombs in food supplies it was dropping in Afghanistan.
US jets today launched some of their heaviest attacks yet on frontline positions north of Kabul where the opposition Northern Alliance and the Taliban are facing off.
Earlier two waves of US warplanes carried out a heavy bombing raid on the Taliban bastion of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan, where there are unconfirmed reports US missiles hit a dispensary of the Red Crescent society, killing 13 people, including women and children.
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Plumes of smoke rise over Bagram airport after US jets bombed Taliban positions there yesterday
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A witness to the alleged bombing, Dr Obaidullah - whose head, right hand and left leg in bandages from wounds he said he had sustained in the raid - said 11 people including patients and staff had been killed and six wounded in the raid.
The reports of casualties could not be independently verified.
Kandahar residents said the latest raids started just before dawn and lasted several hours.
The Taliban has its headquarters in the city which has been heavily bombed since air strikes started on October 7th.
The Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar was based there and accused terrorist leader Osama bin Laden also has a house in the city, but their current whereabouts are unknown.
The US said air strikes on Monday in the region had targetted caves and tunnels that were part of the Taliban command complex.
A Taliban spokesman in Kabul said there was another US strike early this morning against the Mazar-i-Sharif with no known casualties, he added.
In Pakistan, the independent Afghan Islamic Press said US planes also attacked Taliban front lines in the provinces of Samangan and Balkh as well as targets in the Parwan province northwest of Kabul.
AP/AFP