KABUL, Nov 5: At least 36 civilians were killed in new US bombing raids over Afghanistan, Taliban officials and the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said on Monday.

One raid targeted Keshendeh district, about 80 kilometres south of Mazar-i-Sharif, which has become a battleground between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban.

Afghan Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said 18 civilians were killed in an attack on a village near the frontlines in northern Balkh province.

He said another eight died when US jets pounded the Old Road near the battle lines north of Kabul.

The Afghan Islamic Press, quoting Taliban sources, said a US bomb hit a house in Keshendeh town, killing six people from the minority Hazara community.

It was not immediately clear whether the attacks described by Muttaqi and AIP were the same or whether they were separate incidents.

Abdul Hanan Hemat, the chief of the Taliban’s Bakhter news agency, said another five civilians were killed in Daman district, 15 kilometres southeast of Kandahar.

The AIP said US gunships also staged new raids on Kabul, killing three civilians and injuring six others. It said a Taliban base at Reshkhor to the south of the capital and another on the northern fringes of the city were targeted. The agency said aircraft also attacked the western city of Herat, pounding the Taliban 11th battalion’s base and other installations near the airport, and killing at least two civilians.—AFP