KABUL, 21 October — More than 100 US elite troops carried out the first ground-based strikes on Afghan soil ahead of air attacks on Taleban front-line positions yesterday. The United States also suffered its first deaths in the military campaign against the Taleban when a US helicopter crashed at a Pakistani airfield near the Afghan border hours after the ground raids killing two soldiers and injuring three, officials said. Two US soldiers were injured during the parachute drop for the military action.

The chairman of the US military Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers said in Washington, US special forces troops targeted leaders of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network and the Taleban in Afghanistan but did not find any senior leadership in the two lightning ground raids yesterday.

US special forces parachuted into southern Afghanistan and assaulted an airfield and a residence near Kandahar of Taleban supreme leader Mulla Muhammad Omar in a coordinated raid to seize intelligence material, the top US general said yesterday.

“They attacked and destroyed targets associated with terrorist activity and Taleban command and control,” Myers said. “

Showing dramatic film clips of night parachute drops, Gen. Myers told reporters that elite US troops entered Afghanistan to target “terrorist” and Taleban locations, including where Taleban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar lived.

He said one of the raids was on a command-and-control center near the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar and another was on an airfield, also in southern Afghanistan.

“One (of the) targets was one of the locations where Omar lives. It is a fairly large complex. It is a command and control compound for the Taleban leadership,” Gen. Myers said.

Two US soldiers were injured when parachuting into southern Afghanistan for ground operations, but were now doing “fine,” Gen. Myers said.

He also said there were a number of injuries on the other side. Gen. Myers said US special forces troops were preparing for future ground operations.

“US forces were able to deploy, maneuver and operate inside Afghanistan without significant interference from Taleban forces,” Myers said. “They are now refitting and repositioning for potential future operations against terrorist targets in other areas known to harbor terrorists.”

US warplanes yesterday also attacked Taleban front-line positions in the northern province of Samangan, an opposition spokesman said.

Meanwhile, Taleban officials said their fighters foiled a US commando raid near the city of Kandahar and shot down the US helicopter with anti-aircraft fire. But US defense sources said the helicopter which took part in the action crashed while landing inside Pakistan and there was no evidence to support Taleban claim that it was hit.

US officials said two service personnel were killed in the helicopter crash, but said it was an accident and happened in Pakistan.

“The helicopter was involved in a search and rescue operation as part of the logistical support Pakistan is providing (for the US campaign),” a Pakistani military official said.

A top provincial security official said the incident was an accident. “The pilot and co-pilot jumped to safety but two American servicemen were killed and one other soldier was injured,” the official told AFP.

Taleban Education Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told Reuters that several US helicopters had landed on Baba Sahib mountain, west of Kandahar, at around midnight (1930 GMT).

“Simultaneously, the Taleban approached there and forced them to flee back by firing at them,” he said. The claims and counterclaims could not be independently verified.

Muttaqi said the helicopter may have crashed after being crippled by Taleban fire. “We don’t rule out the possibility of shooting it down,” he said.

Sohail Shaheen, number two at the Taleban Embassy in Islamabad, was more specific.

“Our troops shot down a US helicopter with anti-aircraft gunfire from Kandahar,” he said disputing US reports that their forces have attained air supremacy over Afghanistan. “The casualties may be more than two,” he said.

US television stations reported that the troops were flown to Afghanistan on helicopter gunships from the USS Kitty Hawk in the Indian Ocean.

In Kabul, Taleban guns opened fire late yesterday at helicopter-type aircraft heard flying over the Afghan capital.

The slow moving aircraft were first heard over Kabul just after 8:00 p.m. (1530 GMT) and the Taleban’s anti-aircraft guns soon opened fire, said an AFP correspondent in the city.

US warplanes also carried out strikes on Kabul early yesterday. The Taleban said 29 people were killed in earlier raids in Kabul, Kandahar and the western city of Herat. US warplanes yesterday also hit Taleban front-line positions in the northern province of Samangan, opposition spokesman Muhammad Ashraf Nadeem told AFP from Samangan.

It was believed to be the first direct US attack on militia front-lines in the area and only the second confirmed raid on front-line positions in the country.

Afghan refugees who fled US air raids said in Pakistani city of Chaman yesterday the strikes destroyed shopping bazaars in the heart of the Taleban stronghold of Kandahar, killing and injuring shoppers and other civilians.

In another development, one of the Taleban’s most powerful ministers has discussed the previously unthinkable with Pakistan officials — the possible make-up of an Afghan government should the US-led coalition succeed in driving out the hard-line rulers.

Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesman Riaz Muhammad Khan told a news conference yesterday that Jalaluddin Haqqani, the man responsible for tribal affairs in a country divided along ethnic lines, had discussed a post-Taleban government during a visit to Islamabad this week.

“This is something that the international community and the United Nations has been trying to promote,” Khan said. “So these meetings and discussions are based on...the future and prospects of a broad-based government and how it might work.” “Commander Haqqani was affiliated...he is not Taleban, but is affiliated with the Taleban,” he said. Asked what Haqqani had discussed with Pakistan officials, Khan said: “Yes, many Afghans are in Pakistan...and they are meeting each other. Pakistan’s interest as a neighbor is to hear their assessment, their opinions and how they look in particular at a prospect of a broad-based government emerging in Afghanistan.”

But in interviews with local media, Haqqani gave no hint that the end of the Taleban might be near, breathing defiance instead in the face of continuing US air raids and the first sortie by ground troops. “We are eagerly awaiting the American troops to land on our soil, where we will deal with them in our own way...The Americans are creatures of comfort. They will not be able to sustain the harsh conditions that await them,” said Haqqani. Afghanistan will be the “graveyard of Americans,” he warned.

A Northern Alliance official told Reuters by satellite telephone from inside Afghanistan that Taleban fighters had gained ground in fighting against opposition troops. The Taleban troops launched an offensive early on Friday to push back opposition Northern Alliance soldiers aiming to capture the strategic town. “They have captured a small amount of territory, but we are still holding the Marmul area,” opposition spokesman Muhammad Habeel told Reuters, referring to a town and district some 30 km southeast of Mazar-e-Sharif.

In Tehran, Afghan diplomatic sources said a delegation of Afghan opposition Northern Alliance led by its Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah held a series of “very positive” talks on the future of Afghanistan. Muhammad Khairkhah, the Afghan government in exile’s ambassador in Tehran said what we want for the future is a political mechanism in which all parties, including former King Zahir Shah can play a part,” Khairkhah said. “The delegation, which was yesterday in (the northeastern city of) Mashhad, left for Dushanbe,” the Tajik capital, an opposition official in Mashhad said.