Rebels delighted as US jets bombard Kabul frontline

US jets have pounded the front north of Kabul night and day, elating opposition commanders.

They said the bombardment was doing just what it should - weakening Taliban defences of the capital.

The latest in days of powerful strikes at the front started at dark and kept up into the day.

They hit Taliban tanks and what opposition forces said was a Taliban headquarters village on a hillside overlooking the embattled Panjshir Valley.

At Afghanistan's other key front, at the strategic Taliban-held northern stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif, opposition forces claimed to have seized an outlying district in heavy fighting on their push towards the city itself.

The opposition claim - the latest in seesaw battles for Mazar-e-Sharif - could not be independently verified.

At both fronts, opposition force leaders had praise for the US air strikes - after weeks of criticising what had been more selective US bombing as weak.

"We are happy. It is very effective," said Bismillah Khan, an opposition commander co-ordinating anti-Taliban forces at two provinces in the area of the Kabul front.