B52s pound Taliban lines

American heavy bombers began pounding Taliban lines north of Kabul early today in a major escalation by the US of the campaign in Afghanistan.

At least two B52 heavy bombers dropped sticks of up to 30 bombs at a time on Taliban positions near the air base at Bagram on the plain 20 miles north of Kabul.

The planes returned to continue the bombing for several hours. The offensive marks a major push by the Americans to help the rebel Northern Alliance take strategic bases and cities across the north of the country.

The huge, eight-engine B52s are based on the British-controlled island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Bombers also resumed attacks in the south on Kandahar, where the Taliban invited a party of international journalists to tour the area under heavy escort. Taliban officials claimed a Red Cross clinic was hit at dawn, killing 11 patients. A heavily bandaged doctor took some journalists round the site.

The Taliban's official spokesman in Pakistan has alleged that at least 1,500 civilians have died in the four weeks of American bombing, although the US says the claims are exaggerated.

American forces, meanwhile, stepped up the ground war with direct assistance for the Northern Alliance to grab several key cities from the Taliban in the next few weeks.

The Americans want the Northern Alliance to make a dash for cities such as Mazar-i-Sharif before snows arrive in two or three weeks. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has confirmed that several hundred US forces are working inside northern Afghanistan. According to some reports they have established a forward operating base in the country.

Mr Rumsfeld has also indicated that the US is planning a dramatically bigger ground operation in the spring - effectively a Desert Storm 2 - if the Taliban does not collapse over the winter. Close allies like Britain will be heavily involved. Mr Rumsfeld said the US had not ruled out increasing its ground forces in Afghanistan.

During talks with Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf in Islamabad yesterday, US operational commander General Tommy Franks said there would be no pause in US bombing for Ramadan, which begins on 17 November. He called for better intelligencesharing by the Pakistan Inter Service Intelligence, the ISI.

The ISI has intimate knowledge of the workings of the Taliban, but is largely credited with creating the organisation and the US thinks it is reluctant to fully disclose the its workings.