US planes flew over Kabul Wednesday after dropping nine bombs on the city overnight, while the death toll from anthrax in the United States rose to three and the bacteria was detected at a facility that handles White House mail.
The US government admitted to collateral damage in its bombing campaign but said the attacks would likely continue through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan unless its objectives are met or Kabul hands over Islamist militant Osama bin Laden.
Traces of anthrax were found at a military base that handles all White House mail, although no contaminated letters had been detected at the mail center miles away from the presidential mansion, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.
The announcement came shortly after confirmation Tuesday that two postal workers here died of respiratory anthrax, bringing to three the number of fatalities stemming from the deadly bacteria since October 5. Ten other people have been infected by spores mailed to news media and political offices.
The State Department, meanwhile, renewed a "worldwide caution" to Americans abroad, warning of possible terrorist attacks including biological threats from anthrax.
US Vice President Dick Cheney said the United States is likely to suffer a bigger toll at home than among its forces deployed in the campaign against terror.
Since launching the airstrikes on Afghanistan on October 7, the US military has reported two combat deaths, when a helicopter crashed in Pakistan.
"For the first time in our history, we will probably suffer more casualties here at home than our forces will overseas," Cheney said in an address to the International Republican Institute.
"The direct attack on our nation has put us on notice that our enemy is resourceful and ruthless," he said in reference to the September 11 terrorist onslaught that killed more than 5,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
"We have to assume there will be more attacks."
In Kabul, witnesses said Taliban gunners opened fire Wednesday at four US military aircraft which flew overhead. US planes dropped at least nine bombs on the Afghan capital overnight.
The Pentagon acknowledged Tuesday that a residential zone outside Kabul had been inadvertently hit over the weekend, while the United Nations said a hospital was bombed in the western city of Herat.
The Taliban claim more than 1,000 civilians died in the US bombing campaign, a figure rejected by the Pentagon.
On Wednesday, Afghan refugees in Pakistan said at least 20 civilians, including nine children, were killed as they tried to flee the southern Afghan town of Tirin Kot as it came under attack by US warplanes.
A hard-line Muslim cleric said another strike on Kabul Monday killed 35 members of Pakistan's militant Harakat ul-Mujahedin group, which the United States has linked to terrorism.
US forces and their Afghan opposition allies on Tuesday pursued a three-way thrust on militia frontlines in the north, the ruling Taliban's power base of Kandahar in the south and targets in and around Kabul.
In northern Afghanistan, Taliban fighters repulsed a US-assisted offensive in heavy fighting around the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, according to Mohammad Atta, an opposition commander.
US jets struck in support of Afghan opposition troops accompanied by teams of special US forces but failed to make any ground despite three days of bombing, said Atta.
The US-led drive also ran into determined resistance on the frontline north of Kabul, where, after three days of US strikes, Taliban gunners are giving a bloody demonstration that their firepower is still to be reckoned with.
In Pakistan, which cautiously supports the US-led campaign, a US military helicopter came under hostile fire over the weekend while refueling at an air base.
Protests against the US strikes spread through key Arab countries that Washington has been courting for its antiterror coalition.
"The attacks against Afghanistan are unacceptable, and we have condemned them," Qatar's foreign minister, Sheikh Hamad bin-Jassem bin-Jabr al-Thani, said on a visit to Tehran.
In Pakistan, hard-line Islamists opposed to the US strikes attempted to besiege an air base used by US forces in Jacobabad. Police erected roadblocks and charged demonstrators who tried to approach the air base, arresting at least 60 protesters.
Tensions also ran high at the Chaman border crossing between the two countries, where a group of 250 Afghan refugees managed to force their way into Pakistan on the coattails of 200 people allowed in for medical treatment.
At least 10,000 Afghan refugees are trapped in a no-man's-land along the border in Chaman.
Despite the protests, US officials indicated that they would consider carrying on the campaign through the Muslim holy month of Ramadan if their objectives are not met by then.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the prime US concern was capturing or killing bin Laden and dismantling his al-Qaeda network, or having the Taliban turn him over.
"They can do that at any time they want to," Boucher said. "We're quite aware that Ramadan's coming up, and we'll consider the fact that it is coming if we approach that time and the Taliban has not yet turned over bin Laden and his leadership."
Calls have been growing in the Muslim and Arab world for the United States to halt the military operation in Afghanistan -- where bin Laden is now living -- during Ramadan, warning that failure to do so would provoke unrest.
Meanwhile, the UN special envoy to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said Tuesday he would visit the region in the next few days to promote "a genuinely home-grown" political settlement.
Brahimi said after briefing the Security Council and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that he wanted "the opportunity to talk directly to as many Afghan parties as possible" -- Washington, (AFP)
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