KABUL, Oct 17: US-led forces pounded Taliban frontline positions for the first time on Wednesday in apparent preparation for ground attacks, as the bombing campaign came under the critical spotlight and aid agencies called for a pause.

Kabul, Jalalabad and Kandahar were all subjected to sustained day and night strafing.

But the Northern Alliance dismissed the attacks as symbolic. “The bombs hit a Taliban base, and a convoy of at least three cars were also completely destroyed,” the opposition’s General Baba Jan told reporters at the frontlines.

“But do you think three bombs will make much of a difference?”

The alliance has complained that it cannot do anything on the ground until the Taliban’s frontline positions are softened.

In Kandahar, where the onslaught was described as particularly ferocious, Taliban officials said 20 civilians had been killed, including an entire family who were wiped out as they tried to leave the southern city in a truck.

The Taliban also claimed two clinics in the city, the militia’s main base, had been hit, a day after the United States admitted mistakenly bombing a Red Cross warehouse in Kabul.

A UN spokesman in Islamabad said a US bomb scored a “direct hit” on a boys school in Kabul on Wednesday, but failed to explode.

“It was, however, fused and could explode,” spokesman Hasan Ferdous said.

A group of six international aid agencies called for a pause in the air strikes to allow food supplies to be delivered before the severe Afghan winter begins.

“It is evident now that we cannot, in reasonable safety, get food to hungry people,” Oxfam director Barbara Stocking said.— AFP