Terrorists reported killed in U.S. attack on Kabul

A Pakistani militant group said today that 22 of its fighters were killed in a U.S. attack on Kabul--the deadliest known strike against a group linked to Osama bin Laden since the air campaign began Oct. 7, the Associated Press reported.

U.S. jets kept up heavy night-and-day pounding of the Afghan capital today, with huge explosions in the direction of Taliban military sites on the outskirts. The bombardment marked a return of U.S. warplanes in large numbers to Kabul after three days of attacks concentrated on Taliban front lines to the north.

In Karachi, Pakistan, Muzamal Shah, a senior official of the banned Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, said a U.S. bomb struck a house in Kabul Tuesday while fighters from his group were meeting there. Twenty-two of the militants died, including several senior commanders, Shah said.

Some of the band had crossed into Afghanistan since the U.S. bombing began to help "devise a plan for fighting against America," Shah said. Harakat ul-Mujahedeen, or "Movement of the Holy Warriors," is one of the largest militant organizations fighting Indian soldiers in the disputed Kashmir region and was declared a terrorist organization by United States years ago.

On Tuesday, a group of men brought the bodies of 11 of the dead Pakistani fighters to Afghanistan's border with Pakistan, hoping to bury them in their homeland. The Pakistani border guards refused to let them cross, according to the Taliban's local security chief, Noor Mohammed Hanifi.

"They said, 'You wanted to fight with the Taliban, then you can bury your dead in Afghanistan,' " Hanifi said. Today about 1,000 Afghans, including tribal leaders, clerics and supporters of the former king Mohammad Zaher Shah, gathered in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar to discuss prospects for a new government.