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U.N. Says U.S. Uses Cluster Bombs on Civilians, Opposition Pushes Back Taliban Frontline
ISLAMABAD, Oct 24 (News Agencies) - The United Nations said Wednesday that U.S. cluster bombs had hit a mosque in a military camp, a military hospital and a nearby civilian village during attacks on the western Afghan city of Herat on Monday night as Afghan civilian casualties mounted and opposition forces backed by U.S. air cover pushed back the Taliban's northern frontline.
U.N. spokeswoman Stephanie Bunker said that independent reports indicated that civilians "were injured or killed" in cluster bomb attacks and that villagers had requested help from de-mining agencies to clear the deadly cluster bomblets scattered throughout the area.
The air attacks launched on October 7th have taken a toll on the civilian population, as refugees told harrowing tales.
Abdul Maroof, 28, was one of a group of refugees who reported that U.S. jets had killed at least 20 civilians in a refugee convoy fleeing the southern Afghan town of Tirin Kot on Sunday.
"When the bombing started the people panicked and were running here and there for shelter," he said. "After the bombing there was just dust because the walls and roofs of our mud houses had collapsed and many were trapped."
After the initial bombing, 25 people decided to flee and climbed on to a trailer hitched to the back of a tractor, only for it to be hit in a second U.S. strike, killing 20 people including at least four children.
The refugees attempted to seek help in the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, but found it devastated by bombing.
Bunker said that more than 70% of the population of the main cities of Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar had fled.
Foreign aid workers have set up a screening camp to hold 4,000 people at Killi Faizo near the Chaman border crossing point into Pakistan, allowing the injured and most needy to cross from Afghanistan on their way to three more camps further away.
Some 60,000 refugees have managed to get past border guards and into Pakistan since the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States.
The Taliban claims that more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in the bombardments, but Washington dismissed such claims as lies, acknowledging, however that some bombs had gone astray.
And as relief officials warned that the Afghan civilian toll was certain to rise dramatically amid continued fighting and dwindling food stocks, the Pentagon said the Taliban could be planning to poison food aid and blame the United States.
At the same time, U.S. President George W. Bush made it clear the military campaign would continue as long as chief terror suspect Osama bin Laden roams free.
"We're resolved. We are strong. We're determined. We're patient. And this nation is going to do whatever it takes," Bush said.
In northern Afghanistan, Commander Mohammad Atta said his opposition forces south of Mazar-i-Sharif, had mounted an offensive towards the district of Keshendeh during the night.
He said U.S. air attacks on enemy lines had enabled his men to win control of four villages in fighting which left between 70 and 80 Taliban troops dead and 150 captured.
But opposition commanders at the front north of Kabul were less upbeat, saying U.S. bombing was insufficient to help their outnumbered and under-equipped fighters advance.
The opposition Northern Alliance, which says it has teams of U.S. special forces among its ranks, has been fighting the Taliban for years and hopes to take Mazar-i-Sharif to free supply routes leading to Kabul.
The Taliban has concentrated an estimated 6,000 troops in hills about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Kabul.
Bush said U.S. forces were getting closer to their goal.
The US military, he said "is slowly but surely encircling the terrorists so that we'll bring them to justice."
Meanwhile, some 1,000 Afghan tribal and religious leaders met in Pakistan with supporters of their exiled king to discuss an interim government to take over if the militia is ousted.
Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, the royalist head of the National Islamic Front of Afghanistan (NIFA), said 87-year-old King Mohammed Zahir Shah favored the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers from Muslim countries after the fighting.
Gailani said there should be a "broad-based" government based on Islamic beliefs.
He said that moderate Taliban leaders could join the administration if they abandoned the regime, an idea likely to be opposed by many Northern Alliance commanders and their Indian and Russian backers.
The Taliban have stood defiant in the face of U.S. demands they hand over bin Laden, a Saudi-born dissident blamed for the September 11th attacks in the United States that left nealry 5,000 people dead.
"I gave the Afghan government, the Taliban government plenty of time to respond to the demands of the United States. I said you must hand over the al-Qaeda leadership which hides in your country," Bush said Wednesday.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, for his part, said the United States does not see the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan as a deadline for halting or curtailing military operations in Afghanistan.
"We're sensitive to Ramadan, but we can't let that be the sole determinant of whether we continue our military action," he said.
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