Taliban kills key US agent as US bombs slaughter more civilians.
Taliban execute opposition chief as US jets hit civilians, aid depots
The Taliban announced that it had captured and executed renowned opposition leader Abdul Haq
October 26, 2001, 03:12 PM
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - The US-led campaign against the Taliban movement hit trouble Friday as air-strikes destroyed two
aid depots and the Afghani government captured and executed an opposition
leader bidding to foment rebellion.
As US planes targeted Taliban
positions around Kabul,
misdirected bombs killed at
least two children and
demolished two Red Cross
warehouses, in a blow to the
credibility of Pentagon claims
their precision strikes spare
civilians.
Meanwhile the Taliban
announced that it had captured
and executed a renowned
former guerrilla leader who had
returned to Afghanistan to try
to persuade local leaders to
rebel against the movement.
The setbacks came as Britain
announced that 600
commandos were on standby for action inside Afghanistan if the US-led coalition launches new ground attacks to
destabilize the movement.
In Washington US officials revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia had become the
latest government building in which anthrax spores had been detected in the wake of a germ warfare attack.
US attack jets bombarded targets in and around Kabul through the night and again the early after noon, sending a
signal that US forces will keep up the pressure despite controversy over the campaign's mounting civilian death toll.
The strikes hit two Red Cross warehouses, destroying stocks of food and cooking oil which the agency said were
intended for widows and the disabled.
An AFP reporter at the scene found the two warehouses were totally destroyed and ablaze.
Neighbors said that the overnight strikes had killed two sisters aged six and 11 in their mud brick home in the village
of Wazir Abad, three kilometers (under two miles) west of the airport on the northeastern edge of Kabul.
Officials at a Kabul hospital told AFP a man was also killed when a bomb hit a communications center in the east of
the city on Friday.
In Quetta, near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, doctors told AFP they were treating between 60 and 70 injured
civilians every day as beleaguered Afghans streamed out of their cities to escape the US bombardment.
The Taliban said they had captured opposition leader Abdul Haq in eastern
Afghanistan, thwarting an attempt by US helicopters to rescue him, and
that he had been executed for spying for the Americans.
Abdul Hanan Hemat, head of the Taliban's information agency said that
Haq and two others were spreading US propaganda and "trying to
encourage people to rebel."
"Based on a ulema warrant which calls for the death penalty for anyone
spying for the United States, they were shot dead," the official told AFP.
Hemat and other Taliban officials said that Haq had been cornered in the
eastern town of Azro, in Logar province, and arrested after a two-day
standoff despite a bid by US forces to rescue him.
"After a while two helicopters and one American jet came into the area and
started firing rockets," Hemat said, "The helicopters tried to land and
rescue them but they failed."
Hemat said Haq had been carrying several satellite phones a large amount
of cash, in dollars, and documents containing the names of his supporters.
"We also seized some documents which showed which people were
working for him. These are very important and they will be very useful to
us."
In the Pakistani city of Peshawar, Abdul Haq's older brother Haji Din
Muhammad confirmed he had been captured.
A Taliban spokesman told the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) that another 50
of Haq's supporters -- including foreigners -- had also been surrounded.
"We have not arrested any foreigners but there is a possibility that there
may be some foreigners among the 50 people under siege," he told AIP.
US special forces and intelligence agents are known to be working with
some Afghan opposition leaders.
Abdul Haq was a legendary figure in the fight against the 1979-89
occupation by the Soviet Union.
He is not a member of the main opposition force, the Northern Alliance,
which is dominated by Afghanistan's Uzbek and Tajik minorities.
But he is a hero to Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group which
supplies the bulk of Taliban forces.
A foreign intelligence source told AFP he had returned to Logar province to
set up a tribal revolt against Taliban rule.
"If he has been captured, it is a huge setback to this idea of dividing the
Taliban," the source said. |
