22 militants 'die in US strike on Kabul'

US bombers killed 22 Pakistani fighters from a hardline Muslim paramilitary group in Kabul in the deadliest strike yet against an outlawed organisation linked to Osama bin Laden, a spokesman for the group said today.

Meanwhile, the bombardment of the Afghan capital continued, as US jets attacked targets there as well as Taliban military installations to the north of the city.

The prime minister, Tony Blair, said that two and a half weeks of bombing had destroyed key Taliban installations, but added that the war would continue until Bin Laden was given up or killed.

In Pakistan, a senior official of Harkat ul-Mojahedin, a militant Islamic group listed on the US roll call of terrorist organisations, said that a US bomb hit a house where fighters were meeting yesterday. Twenty-two militants were killed, including several senior commanders, the spokesman, Muzamal Shah, said.

They had crossed into Afghanistan after the US bombing began on October 7 to help "devise a plan for fighting against America", Mr Shah said.

Harkat ul-Mojahedin, or the Movement of the Holy Warriors, is one of the largest groups fighting Indian soldiers in Kashmir.

It is among 27 groups and individuals whose assets were frozen by the US, Pakistan and other countries after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

The military reprisal for those attacks continued today, with US jets bombing targets in and around Kabul as well as at the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, southern Afghanistan.

Residents of the Afghan capital reported jets heading towards Taliban and al-Qaida positions facing Northern Alliance soldiers north of the city.

Mr Blair said that the offensive would continue until Bin Laden, the west's prime suspect for the attacks on New York and Washington, was caught.

"In respect of Bin Laden himself, we know that he is on the move inside Afghanistan," Mr Blair said.

"We have considerably destroyed a lot of the military installations of the regime in Afghanistan, the Taliban regime, and we have got to carry on until that regime is changed or yields Bin Laden up. We will get him in the end," he told GMTV.

The prime minister said that he was "considering now what troops Britain would want to put into the conflict in Afghanistan" in support of the US military.

Pakistan, now a key ally in the US-led war against the Taliban regime and its guest, Bin Laden, is worried that the war may allow Northern Alliance fighters to recapture Kabul and take control of the country.

Pakistan had close ties to the Taliban before last month's attacks. It also argues that the Northern Alliance, which is dominated by ethnic minority Tajiks and Uzbeks, would never be accepted by Afghanistan's Pashtun majority.

About 1,000 Afghans, including tribal leaders, clerics and supporters of the former Afghan king, Mohammad Zaher Shah, gathered in the Pakistani border city of Peshawar to discuss prospects for a post-Taliban government.