Afghanistan's Taliban rulers had said a U.S. and British airstrike Monday hit a hospital, killing more than 100 patients and medical workers. They did not say whether it was a civilian or military hospital.

Britain denied its planes took part in any raid against Herat, and the Pentagon said it had no specific information about the purported incident. There was no immediate reaction to the U.N. comment.

U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker, citing independent U.N. sources within Afghanistan, said Tuesday that a bomb hit a military hospital within a military compound on Harat's eastern edge.

U.N. officials did not know whether the hospital was being used at the time, or whether any civilians or military personnel may have been hurt, Bunker said in Islamabad.

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have expelled almost all foreign journalists, making it difficult for media to come up with independent assessments of civilian casualties in the more than two-week-old air campaign.

© Copyright 2001 The Associated Press

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