WASHINGTON/KABUL, 29 December — Afghanistan yesterday demanded a quick end to US bombing after at least 40 sleeping Afghans were killed early Thursday in a US raid on a village in Paktika province. The new Afghan government suggested the bombing was counterproductive when Osama Bin Laden had probably fled to Pakistan.

President George W. Bush said the United States had no idea of the whereabouts of Bin Laden, alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks on US cities, or even if he was still alive. But Bush told reporters in Texas that Bin Laden would not escape US clutches. "He is not escaping us. This is a guy who three months ago was in control of a country. Now he’s maybe in control of a cave."

Afghan Defense Minister Muhammad Fahim said Bin Laden was most likely across the Pakistan border in Peshawar. He added that he had agreed the terms for deploying some 3,000 delayed British-led peacekeeping troops.

Bin Laden, blamed for plotting the suicide hijack attacks that killed more than 3,200 people in New York and Washington, taunted his adversary by video. "The end of the United States is imminent," he said in the tape aired in full for the first time Thursday on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera television.

"Osama is out of our control. To a large extent, it depends on Pakistan. America can pursue him with the help of the Pakistani government," Fahim reporters.

Fahim said there would be no need for US bombing once a few remaining border areas had been cleared of final resistance. Earlier his spokesman said this would take no more than three days after which the bombing must stop.

The United States, though, said it had received no request to stop the bombing, and declined to make such a promise. "We have very seldom ruled out anything," a Pentagon spokeswoman said. "We will do what it takes to achieve what it is we’re trying to achieve."

Right on cue, another report cropped up in a US newspaper. "Osama is alive, healthy, and safe," said Qari Ahmadullah, the defeated Taleban’s chief of intelligence. He said the world’s most wanted man had been near the border with Pakistan and that he was in close contact with Taleban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar.

Pakistan said it is confident Bin Laden will be apprehended if he turns up in the tribal border region. "Tribal people and elders have actually apprehended a lot of non-Afghan fighters and handed them over to Pakistan. If at all he turns up, they will hand him over to us," said military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi in Islamabad.

Washington said Thursday that, in the first strike in three days, its planes had destroyed a compound used by members of the former ruling Taleban southwest of Kabul. A Pakistan-based news agency said 40 villagers were killed by bombs in the same vicinity. The bombing has becoming a sensitive issue now that the former Taleban rulers have been toppled and Al-Qaeda has been put to flight from Tora Bora. Many residents say the country’s sovereignty is being violated and innocent people are being killed.

Meanwhile, three Somali warlords called for international military intervention in Somalia, saying Al-Qaeda and another radical group, Al-Ittihad, had bases in the fractious Horn of Africa country. Somalia’s transitional government has strongly denied the presence of terrorist cells.