US-led coalition planes carried out more raids on suspected Taliban hideouts in Afghanistan today as a team of Afghan officials arrived to investigate reports of civilian deaths in earlier bombing.
Mr Haji Pir Mohammad, deputy governor of the southwestern province of Helmand, said he led a six-member team to the Baghran valley where local officials and villagers had reported the deaths of at least 17 people including women and children since the bombardment began on Sunday.
Mr Mohammad told Reuters he had seen dead bodies, but he could not say whether they were members of the Taliban or civilians.
US military officials have said there was no evidence of any civilian deaths and reiterated that there could up to 100 fighters linked with the Taliban hiding in caves in the Baghran valley where an ambush of US Special Forces this week triggered the latest bombing raids.
In a pre-dawn raid today, an AC-130 gunship, B-1 bomber and A-10 aircraft destroyed three caves in the Baghran valley where the militants were believed holed up.
US officials said there could be 30 to 100 suspected Taliban fighters in the area in what could be the biggest concentration since a group of rebels was attacked near the Spin Boldak mountains in neighbouring Kandahar province late last month.
The officials say a war on Iraq could trigger militant strikes in Afghanistan where thousands of international troops are hunting remnants of the Taliban and al Qaeda, blamed by Washington for the September 11th, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Earlier today suspected Taliban remnants fired two rockets into the southern Afghan town of Spin Boldak which is near the border with Pakistan, but there were no casualties. A third rocket landed near a Pakistani border post, an Afghan security official said.
Late last month, US-led coalition forces pursuing remnants of the fundamentalist Taliban regime and their allies from the al Qaeda network launched a major attack on a cave complex in a mountain area northeast of Spin Boldak.