US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said Taliban claims of high civilian casualties from US air strikes in Afghanistan were "false."
Rumsfeld acknowledged only four civilian deaths in the 12 day old air campaign - the victims of a misguided bomb that hit a house in Kabul - and several more injured in the mistaken bombing of warehouses used by the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Afghan capital.

"The numbers the Taliban has been floating out in the media are, we are certain, false in terms of larger numbers than that," he told reporters.

He suggested that civilian casualties may have been caused by Taliban anti-aircraft-artillery fire, falling back to the ground.
"We've got practically no hard information from the ground because we've been using the weapons in areas that are not controlled by friends," he admitted. Bureau Report