MSNBC is reporting that Thursday night’s bombing on a suspected Taliban leadership complex killed certain al-Qaeda leaders. Reports that Usama Bin Laden may have been among the dead or wounded can’t be confirmed until Special Forces can inspect the sight, though the attack was based on intelligence that Bin Laden had been spotted there:

The strikes, which witnesses said were very heavy and continued late into the night, were a sharp return to use of air power in the U.S. campaign against bin Laden’s organization, which is believed to have carried out the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States. [wait, believed to have carried out the attacks? NBC’s not yet convinced al-Qaeda was behind them? (our emphasis) — ed]

The attack came as the United States and other Western nations prepared for possible strikes in Somalia on a radical group with ties to bin Laden and al-Qaida, U.S. officials told NBC News.

In what officials described as a ferocious attack, four Navy FA-18s and four B-1 bombers pounded the al-Qaida base outside Khost, the area of caves and tunnels in Tora Bora that it had used as a hiding place.

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