(incorporates ATTACK-PENTAGON, adds details)

By Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON, Oct 7 (Reuters) - U.S. and British forces on Sunday launched heavy night strikes beginning with cruise missiles against a broad range of Taliban military targets and guerrilla training camps in Afghanistan, U.S. defense officials said.

The officials, who asked not to be identified, said the carefully selected targets included Taliban air defense and command-and-control sites in the capital of Kabul and at an airbase near the Taliban stronghold city of Kandahar in southern Afghanistan.

They said the initial military response to a devastating Sept. 11 attack on America included up to a half-dozen areas targeted by $1 million Tomahawk cruise missiles launched by U.S. and British surface ships and submarines.

Such weapons are also carried by heavy U.S. B-52 bombers, but there was no immediate indication that bombers were being used in the strikes, which began shortly after noon Washington time (1600 GMT) and shortly before 9 p.m. in Afghanistan.

"This is broad. Those explosions are not thunder," said one U.S. defense official, who added that the nighttime assault began with cruise missiles. Those initial strikes were expected to pave the way for additional raids using laser-guided bombs delivered by smaller attack jets.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, were scheduled to brief reporters.

Both U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair stressed in nationwide addresses on Sunday that their forces were being extremely careful to avoid hurting innocent Afghan people in the wake of last month's attack.

"It involved a number of targets," one defense official told Reuters, stressing that the raids were still ongoing more than two hours after they began.

Senior Bush administration officials have stressed as the U.S. and British militaries have built a major force around Afghanistan that any attacks would be designed to cripple the Taliban military and hit training bases for guerrillas loyal to Saudi-born fugitive Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden is accused by Washington and London of masterminding the September attacks using hijacked airliners which were smashed into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Center, killing about 5,600 people.