Anti-Taliban forces appeared yesterday to be zeroing in on Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban's reclusive leader thought to be hiding in southern Afghanistan.
For an impoverished nation reeling from more than 20 years of war, a row over another US air attack marked a bitter start to the New Year.
Afghans said US planes killed more than 100 civilians in attacks on an eastern village on Sunday. A cameraman who went to Qalaye Niazi in Paktia district found pools of blood, scraps of flesh and clumps of human hair.
A US military spokesman said the strikes by two B-1B bombers and a B-52 destroyed a compound used by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda fighters and their Taliban allies.
Navy Lieutenant-Commander Matthew Klee said two surface-to-air missiles were fired at the planes during the raid. "You don't have a village launching surface-to-air missiles at aircraft," he said. "You have a known al-Qaeda-Taliban leadership compound."
This is the second time since the US began its bombing offensive in Afghanistan on Oct. 7 that it has apparently launched mistaken attacks on civilians.
In the first incident, witnesses said 60 civilians died when planes repeatedly attacked a convoy of tribal leaders heading to Kabul for the inauguration of the new interim government.
Most of the victims were reported to be women and children.
Local Afghan leaders and the country's interim defense minister, Mohammed Fahim, have called for an end to the US bombing campaign blamed for the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of Afghan civilians.
"The attacks must end. The Americans must stop bombing," said Haji Saifullah, head of a local tribal council.
Saifullah said 107 civilians were killed in the latest raid.
None belonged either to the ousted Taliban or to al-Qaeda, he said, adding that the village was attacked because of what he called "wrong information" passed to US forces by local rivals.
Fahim, urging an end to the bombing, said that bin Laden had probably fled to Pakistan and his fighters had scattered.
But Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said that he believes that the world's most wanted man was probably still in Afghanistan.
Both bin Laden and Mullah Omar have so far escaped the huge US-led effort to topple the Taliban and root out al-Qaeda. The one-eyed Omar is second only to bin Laden on the US' most wanted list.
US officials say Omar might be hiding near Baghran, in southern Helmand district, about 160km northwest of the Taliban's former stronghold of Kandahar.
The anti-Taliban intelligence chief in Kandahar said he had asked villagers in Helmand to hand Omar over.
"We have told them to give us Omar, but no ultimatum has been issued," Haji Gullalai said.
"We have two goals: to disarm irresponsible people and to get Omar, who is a criminal for the Afghan people and the whole world."
He said he and tribal allies had assembled a force of up to 2,000 fighters and they were ready to try to capture the fugitive if he was not handed over.
Mullah Omar is believed still to command widespread loyalty in southern, Pashtun-speaking areas of Afghanistan.
In the capital of Kabul, the new Afghan administration and Britain initialled an agreement on deployment of about 4,500 foreign peacekeeping troops, known as the International Security Assistance Force.
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