The United States military command has said that two American troops have been killed in so-called friendly fire in Afghanistan. Twenty other American troops were injured along with an unknown number of anti-Taliban forces in a mistaken B-52 bombing raid north of Kandahar.
Fighting today is concentrated around Kandahar in the south of the country and on isolated cave complexes in the east. United States marines are helping anti-Taliban forces seal off possible escape routes from the Taliban stronghold but are not expected to join any attack on the city.
In the east of the country, some 2,000 Afghan fighters are poised to attack the Tora Bora cave complex near Jalalabad where it is believed the Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden may be in hiding.
A senior Northern Alliance commander in Jalalabad said that American air strikes have killed or injured several Al Qaeda members in or around Tora Bora but could not confirm reports that bin Laden's second-in-command, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman Zawahri, was among the casualties.
However, American officials have indicated that some of his immediate family may have been killed. Meanwhile, an American soldier was wounded in combat in Afghanistan yesterday but his condition is said to be not life threatening.
