Associated Press Two Kabul residents repair their house after an earthquake struck the area, in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday. A strong quake shook a wide area of South and Central Asia on Sunday, killing at least one person, injuring several more, damaging buildings in the Afghan capital and sending people scrambling into the streets in five countries.

SURMAD, Afghanistan - U.S. jets carpet-bombed the mountains of eastern Afghanistan yesterday as coalition forces on the ground tried to block al-Qaida and Taliban escape routes. As many as nine Americans have died in the operation, including those killed when two helicopters took enemy fire.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference that "enemy forces have sustained much larger numbers of killed and wounded" and that the assault, which began Friday, would continue during the days ahead.

At least 40 American troops also were wounded in the ongoing operation against suspected al-Qaida and Taliban believed to be regrouping near Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. Rumsfeld said half of the wounded were already back in the fight and the others were evacuated from the region.

Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of the war in Afghanistan, said eight or nine Americans have died in Operation Anaconda. Earlier, the Pentagon said nine Americans died, and Franks acknowledged the numbers were unclear - part of what he called "the fog of war."

Fighting remained intense after enemy fire took down American aircraft for the first time since the war began Oct. 7.

A Chinook helicopter, a heavy-lift transport aircraft normally used to ferry special forces troops and supplies, was shot at and crashed early yesterday. Seven died in the crash or an ensuing firefight on the ground, said a senior defense official on condition of anonymity.

In the second incident, Rumsfeld said, one American was killed when a helicopter was fired on by a rocket-propelled grenade, made a hard landing and then managed to take off again. The grenade apparently bounced off the helicopter and did not explode, Rumsfeld said. The soldier who died may have been knocked out of the helicopter by the force, he said.

The ninth U.S. soldier was killed Saturday.

Franks did not say which figures were in question.

President Bush "mourns the loss of any American life," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters yesterday afternoon as Bush flew to Minneapolis. "The president has said to our country that we need to be prepared for casualties."

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said several hundred al-Qaida fighters were in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, well dug-in, well-fortified and with "lots of weapons."

Neither the former Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammed Omar nor al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden is believed to be in the area.

Word of the shoot-down came after U.S. officials late Sunday reported intense firefights with several hundred fighters on the ground around the mountains of Paktia province.

Coalition ground operations were accompanied by a fierce bombardment over the Shah-e-Kot and Kharwar mountain ranges surrounding Surmad that continued yesterday as U.S. bombers tried to soften al-Qaida and Taliban positions in the snowcapped hills.

"In one minute, I counted 15 bombs," Rehmahe Shah, a security guard at the intelligence unit in the provincial capital Gardez, said yesterday.

U.S. Chinook helicopters had ferried in supplies to American and other troops in the hills following the start of the coalition ground attack in the area on Saturday. In addition to at least 1,000 allied Afghan fighters and at least 1,000 U.S. troops, forces from Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany and Norway were participating.

The assault was believed to be the largest joint U.S.-Afghan military operation of the 5-month-old terrorism war. Pro-U.S. Afghan troops approached the hide-outs from three directions to isolate the fighters and prevent them from escaping.

Safi Ullah, a member of the Gardez town council, or shura, said the first stage of the offensive was designed to cut the road from Shah-e-Kot to trap al-Qaida and Taliban forces in the mountains. He said the plan also involved setting up checkpoints in the area to prevent them from getting out.

Pakistan has closed its border with eastern Afghanistan and deployed extra army units and members of the Khasadar tribal militia to catch any who try to cross the frontier and filter into its Northwest Frontier Province.

Afghan officials say as many as 5,000 al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are regrouping in various parts of eastern Afghanistan and just over the border in Pakistan, urging the faithful to wage holy war against U.S. forces.

In the eastern Afghan town of Khost near the border, troops at the American-controlled air base called in air support early yesterday after the base came under small arms fire, said Maj. Brad Lowell, another spokesman at the U.S. Central Command.

No one was injured and the firing stopped, he said.

"These folks fight to the death, and it's no different here," Maj. Ralph Mills, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said of the al-Qaida and Taliban fighters.

Sunday's airstrikes repeatedly pounded targets in the Shah-e-Kot mountains 20 miles east of Surmad and the Kharwar range to the west in Logar province.

Mills said that as of Sunday night, U.S. jets had dropped more than 270 bombs since the start of the offensive. He said targets included troop concentrations, vehicles, mortar positions, caves and anti-aircraft sites.

The bombardments sent thick, black plumes of smoke above the snowcapped peaks and shook the ground in Surmad, where a constant stream of bombers streaked overhead.

Mills said some Army Apache attack helicopters had sustained damage from ground fire.

Saturday's ground attack, carried out in snow-covered mountains ranging from 8,300 to 11,600 feet above sea level, appeared to have made little headway in dislodging Taliban and al-Qaida fighters.

The Afghan allies made up the bulk of the force and approached the front from three different directions, some of them using pickup trucks rented for $200 from the Gardez bazaar, Afghans said.

About 600 fighters accompanied by at least 40 U.S. soldiers approached from Gardez, north of Surmad, said Safi Ullah of Gardez. Another 400 Afghans came in from Khost to the east, and an undisclosed number came from Paktika province to the south.

After the ground attack stalled, late Saturday U.S. planes dropped a newly developed bomb designed to send suffocating blasts through cave complexes, military officials said. The "thermobaric" bombs were tested in December and officials said in January that they would be rushed to the region for the war.