Thousands of Afghan refugees are expected to pour into Pakistan today with the decision to temporarily open the border between the two countries.
Aid agencies were last night preparing contingency plans to cope with the influx expected at Chaman in Southern Pakistan.
Up to 15,000 refugees fleeing US air attacks in southern Afghanistan were yesterday waiting to cross at the border, which has been closed for the last 3 weeks. Three thousand were let through yesterday on humanitarian grounds, despite the border closure by the authorities.
Oxfam and the UN High Commission for Refugees said last night that the decision to temporarily open the border would ease pressure at the Chaman crossing point. No decision to open the border in Torkham in northern Pakistan has been made.
An Oxfam spokesman said the agency was making plans to provide food and medical supplies for newly arrived refugees.
Meanwhile, the US began its third week of air strikes in Afghanistan yesterday by bombing Taliban positions north of Kabul for the first time, providing a major boost to the Northern Alliance.
The escalation of the bombing campaign came 24 hours after the start of the US ground campaign in Afghanistan.
A defiant Taliban declared that they would distribute heavy weaponry to people in towns and villages all over Afghanistan in response to the start of US ground missions. The move was agreed yesterday at a special meeting of the Taliban cabinet chaired by the deputy to the Afghan leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar.
"We will mobilise and equip people in all districts, villages and provinces against the commando attack of America," the Education Minister, Mullah Amir Khan Mirraqi, said. The decision to enlist civilians in the war against the US came as it was reported that the 10-year-old son of the Taliban leader was killed in the early days of the US strikes.
A doctor coming over the border at Chaman in Southern Pakistan yesterday told the BBC that the boy was taken badly injured to a hospital in Kandahar with injuries he sustained following a bomb attack. He said the Taliban leader accompanied his son and pleaded with staff to save his life. However the boy died hours later.
Yesterday's fierce bombing raids to the north of Kabul killed 18 people, including eight members of a single family, the Taliban claimed.
The Taliban say up to 900 have been killed in the attacks by the US-led forces on Afghanistan since October 7th.
Taliban fighters fired back, mostly with mobile truck-mounted anti-aircraft guns, in response to the early-morning raids by US planes. The Northern Alliance claimed US jets struck targets just behind Taliban front lines. At least two warplanes roared high over the Shomali Plain that separates the Taliban militia from the Northern Alliance opposition.
The opposition said a planned Taliban counter-offensive near the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif had not materialised, with neither side able to break the stand-off.
The Northern Alliance took up positions about four miles from the Taliban-held city about one week ago, but have not moved further since. The Taliban claimed yesterday they had made advances against other opposition positions and that they had killed 20 to 25 US commandos near the southern city of Kandahar.
US defence officials have confirmed that two service personnel were killed when their helicopter crashed in Pakistan.
While the US insisted the crash was a result of an accident, the Taliban is claiming it downed the helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.