More precision bombing

American forces began a large-scale airborne assault against suspected Taliban and other antigovernment forces...the first big sweep by the American military against fighters in the remote mountains of the Hindu Kush...

(Maybe that's what those warplanes were about.)

Maulavi Ghulam Rabbani, 60, a religious leader and commander allied with the government, said American planes bombed and fired on his home on the night of Oct. 30, killing six people, including two of his children. He said he was not there at the time but was given a detailed report from his nephew.

"Three planes came," Mr. Rabbani said. "First they bombed the mosque. My 18-year-old son was sleeping in the mosque and he was killed. When they started bombing, the people in the village started fleeing and my 21-year-old daughter was shot down by a plane as she was running in the street." A 75-year-old woman was trying to take three of Mr. Rabbani's young cousins — ages 15, 7 and 5 — to shelter when they were all killed by gunfire from a plane or helicopter, he said. The children's father, carrying his blind mother on his back, escaped, he said.

Colonel Davis, the spokesman, said by e-mail that he was unable to confirm whether Americans had attacked the village. A United Nations official in Kabul said the Americans had bombed the village by mistake, trying to hit the house of one of Mr. Hekmatyar's commanders.