US disputes Taliban claim of 600 killed in attacks

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has dismissed Taliban claims that more than 600 people had been killed in the US-led air assault as false and self-serving.

Taliban spokesman Abel-Hai Motmain told Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel yesterday that the ‘‘wounded were in the thousands’’. Al-Jazeera, widely watched in the Middle East, said Motmain was interviewed via videophone from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.