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No US plane lost in first day's attacks: Rumsfeld

T V Parasuram in Washington

The United States on Monday denied Taleban's claim of shooting down a coalition warplane saying none of its aircraft were downed or damaged in the first day's military operations against Afghanistan.

"No aircraft were hit, no aircraft were damaged," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told television networks.

The claim by the Taleban that they shot down a coalition aircraft is 'flat untrue', he said.

Rumsfeld said it was unclear that the Taleban was responsible for the downing of an unmanned spy plane several days ago.

"We have had unmanned aircraft that we have lost control of. Whether or not the Taleban had anything to do with that is an unanswered question," he said.

He said the US and British forces were very successful in raids on Afghanistan on Sunday striking military aircraft, runways, surface-to-air missile launchers and terrorist training camps.

The targets were carefully selected, they were in remote areas and were all very low collateral damage targets, he said.

Asked whether the bombing would continue for several days, Rumsfeld said, "I think it is safe to assume that the entire effort -- diplomatic, financial and military, and both overt and covert efforts -- will continue until we have been successful in rooting the targets out, not only the Taleban and Al Qaeda network, but the other networks as well."

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