WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD, 26 October — The US military campaign in Afghanistan ran into a broadside of criticism yesterday after controversial cluster bombs killed civilians, and opposition forces repeated their claim that the air campaign has so far been ineffective.

US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld conceded yesterday that the United States might never catch or kill Osama Bin Laden, prime suspect in last month’s suicide attacks. The US administration conceded that complaints of mounting civilian casualties were damaging, but insisted they were based on lies propagated by Afghanistan’s ruling Taleban militia.

In diplomatic moves, Saudi Arabia threw its weight behind Pakistan and again made clear its support for the US-led international coalition against terrorism. And Americans were told to brace for a long, tough war that may not achieve one of its prime targets, the capture of Osama Bin Laden.

US warplanes hit a crowded bus and worshippers leaving a mosque in their latest raids, the ruling Taleban said yesterday. After darkness fell across the capital, Kabul, jets roared overhead, releasing their bombs in a string of huge explosions that shook the city, one witness said.

“The explosions came in a single sequence along with the roar of the planes. They just came boom, boom, boom. It was huge,” the witness said. “There was almost no sign of anti-aircraft fire from the Taleban.”

The explosions were among the largest for several nights, rattling windows and door frames in the heart of the war-ravaged city. The targets of the bombs and any damage could not be immediately known because a night curfew is in place.

Saudi Arabia voiced support for the coalition against terrorism. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal, speaking to reporters at a joint news conference with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, said the Kingdom was prepared to help its fellow Muslim country. “We will stand together. Whatever Saudi Arabia can do, it will do,” Prince Saud said after talks with Musharraf in Islamabad.

“I think it is the duty of every Muslim, particularly at this critical hour, especially since the policy of Pakistan followed by the President Musharraf has been decided by the Islamic Ummah nations at the last conference we had in Qatar,” he added.

Prince Saud told reporters Muslim states wanted to help “eradicate terrorism ... which harms the Islamic world and Islamic causes”. He said he had brought Pakistan messages of solidarity and friendship from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah deputy premier and commander of the National Guard.

Prince Saud said the letter was a message of friendship and solidarity with the leadership and people of Pakistan. Musharraf said both the countries maintained very strong relations and referred to an agreement that underscored the joint stand in all the issues of common concern.

Speaking after meeting later with Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer, the Pakistani leader said the war against his neighbor should be as brief as possible. “We strongly believe that the campaign in Afghanistan must be short and targeted and avoid the loss of civilian lives,” he told a news conference.

“There is no decision taken by the United Nations for the establishment of a peace force at this time,” added Sezer, whose country has supported the idea of a UN-led peace-keeping force from Islamic countries. “When any such decision is taken we will assess the situation accordingly.”

President George W. Bush said yesterday that the media reports about differences between the Kingdom and the United States were simply incorrect.

White House Spokesman Ari Fletcher said in a press statement in Washington yesterday that Bush stressed it in a telephone talk with Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard.

Fletcher said Bush thanked the Kingdom for its contribution in support for the international fight against terrorism.

The president stressed that the fight against the international terrorism has nothing to do with the Islam which calls for tolerance. Both sides also discussed the developments in Afghanistan, and the relations between Palestinians and Israel, the spokesman said.

Rumsfeld’s comments were an apparent reversal of Bush’s more confident statements of wanting Bin Laden “dead or alive,” but the defense secretary was more hopeful of toppling Afghanistan’s ruling Taleban, though his words underlined the long-term nature of the war on terrorism. In an interview with USA Today, Rumsfeld said it would be very difficult to capture or kill Bin Laden.

“It’s a big world. There are lots of countries. He’s got lots of money, he’s got lots of people who support him. and I just don’t know whether we’ll be successful,” he said. It was just five weeks ago to the day that Bush told a cheering joint session of Congress, with Bin Laden very much on everybody’s mind, “Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.”

But Bush also coupled Bin Laden with his Taleban protectors, and Rumsfeld was more optimistic on that score.

“Yes, I think there will be a post-Taleban Afghanistan,” he said. “That is easier than finding a single person.”

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said of Rumsfeld’s comments, “He is a remarkably realistic person. He has always said it (capturing Bin Laden) would be a very difficult task and that this whole thing is not about one man or one terrorist network anyway.”

Rumsfeld said the Taleban were proving to be a formidable foe.

“These are very tough people,” he said. “They’ve made careers out of fighting, and they’re not going to roll over.”

Rumsfeld later in the day distanced himself from his earlier remarks that the United States may not catch Bin Laden. Answering a reporter’s question at the Pentagon press briefing, Rumsfeld quipped: “You bet, we expect to get them.”

Explaining what he meant to the Pentagon briefing, Rumsfeld said: “From time to time I suppose things come out of my mouth not quite the right way.”

He said “we are doing everything humanly possible” to find Bin Laden but likened the hunt “looking for a needle in a haystack”.

On the warfront, witnesses said aircraft struck hide-outs believed to be used by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province bordering Pakistan.

“We have been hearing the roar of US planes and bombing of Gora Tangi area for the past four days,” a witness in the Kurram tribal area in northwestern Pakistan told Reuters.

Bin Laden is believed to have built a maze of tunnels in the Gora Tangi area during the US-backed war against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. On the front line between the Taleban and the opposition Northern Alliance just north of the capital Kabul, US aircraft launched waves of attacks on Taleban positions for the fifth straight day.

Three explosions boomed at a Taleban position called Que Tutakhan, located in the hills overlooking Bagram Airport some 29-40 km north of Kabul. Two plumes of black smoke rose from the hills, a strategic lookout for the Taleban to monitor activity at the airport.

Despite more strikes against front-line Taleban positions, opposition forces dismissed the US bombing as ineffective and Afghan leaders meeting to discuss replacing the hard-line regime called for the air war to be abandoned.

UN spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said that US cluster bombs had killed eight people outright when they hit a village in the west of the country on Monday night, and that another had been killed later after picking up a bomb. The controversial weapon scatters hundreds of fist-sized high-explosive bomblets over its target, some of which explode on impact and some of which lie on the ground like anti-personnel mines to explode if disturbed.

A Taleban spokesman said the bombs had been used again on front-line militia positions overnight.

Bunker said staff from the UN Mine Action Program had been to the village — which she identified as Shakar Qala — after Monday’s attack. “They reported that eight civilians were killed directly in the attack and that one civilian was killed — as happens in these cases — when he went to look at the object, touched it and it blew up,” she said.

“They have determined there were 45 homes in that village, 20 of the homes were partially or completely destroyed in the attack.”

She said the population had since been evacuated. A US defense official confirmed that American jets had used cluster bombs near the village, which is on the outskirts of the western city of Herat.

Some aid agencies and demining groups have called for the use of cluster bombs, which are designed for use against concentrations of troops and vehicles, to be banned because of the danger they pose to civilians.

US forces this week began using the weapon as they intensified their raids on Taleban positions in the hope of clearing the way for ground assaults by the opposition Northern Alliance.

How the small but potentially ferocious Northern Alliance will capitalize on the US bombardment remained unclear. Opposition forces plan to cut Taleban supply lines from Kabul to Mazar-e-Sharif, a senior commander said yesterday.

The alliance has threatened to advance on Kabul but not move into the city until a post-Taleban solution has been worked out.

Bush has warned of a long war to force the Taleban to surrender Osama Bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network of radicals, who are suspected of carrying out attacks on US targets — including the Sept. 11 kamikaze attacks in hijacked jets that killed more than 5,000 people and a spate of letters laced with anthrax which have killed three.

But after 18 days of airstrikes — and at least one commando raid — the most visible result of the US-led campaign has been a flood of refugees bringing harrowing tales of civilian casualties to Afghanistan’s borders.

The head of the International Committee for the Red Cross Jakob Kellenberger warned yesterday that civilian deaths were mounting.