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US-led
Forces Repeat Bombing Afghanistan, US Commando Killed
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| Brahimi
concerned about continued US bombing on Afghanistan
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KABUL, Jan. 4 (News Agencies)
- U.S.-led forces ignored concerns over Afghanistan's rising civilian death toll
and bombed a suspected al-Qaeda base Friday, as the Pentagon acknowledged the
death of a U.S. special forces commando, news agencies reported.
A Pentagon official, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said that the commando was killed Friday in a
firefight in eastern Afghanistan, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"There was a special
forces [commando] killed, near Khost," the official said
Details about the incident
were not immediately clear, but the official said the firefight did not take
place near the compound attacked by U.S. forces earlier in the day, where al-Qaeda
leaders were believed to be regrouping.
In the earlier attack,
Pentagon officials said that U.S. strike jets returned to hit a base used by
Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda group for the second day running, despite a warning
from the United Nations that previous raids had killed innocent bystanders.
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria
Clarke said that U.S. bombers and F/A-18 fighter jets had returned to the skies
above Khost province in eastern Afghanistan to hit the Zawar Kili compound near
the Pakistani border for a second day.
"There was some activity
observed and they decided to go in and re-strike it," she said.
The compound was first hit by
U.S. missiles in 1998 in a failed bid to kill bin Laden following the bomb
attacks on U.S. embassies in East Africa, and it has again become the focus of
attempts to knock out his al-Qaeda force.
"Al-Qaeda leadership
have used this area in recent weeks as a regrouping and sanctuary area,"
said Major Bill Harrison, a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command in Tampa,
Florida.
U.S. forces "had good
reason to believe there was leadership there," Harrison said, adding he had
no information on which leaders were believed to be there.
The well-connected news
agency, Afghan Islamic Press (AIP), said that 32 civilians had died in villages
near the base in Thursday's strikes, fuelling growing controversy over the U.S.
bombing campaign.
"The bombing is very
intense and very heavy. Many people have died. The United States should stop
bombing. They are all civilians in this area," Tani tribe elder Ghazi Nawaz
Tani told AIP.
The United Nations also
expressed concern at the civilian toll of the U.S. bombing campaign, and on
Friday confirmed that they had "credible" reports that 52 civilians
had been killed in a previous attack on Saturday.
U.N. special envoy to
Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, will raise the attack with the United States and
Hamid Karzai, leader of the country's new interim government, Eric Falt,
director of the U.N. information center in Islamabad said.
"Mr. Brahimi is very
concerned and intends to take the first opportunity to discuss this with the
interim administration... and also with American diplomats at the first
available opportunity," he said.
So far, Afghanistan's new
U.N.-backed interim government has given the U.S. raids qualified support, but
on Friday it was trying to secure the capture of Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad
Omar - another key U.S. target - without bloodshed.
In Helmand province west of
Kandahar, a group of tribal leaders met with a former Taliban warlord to try and
persuade him to hand over Omar and demobilize 1,500 fighters, an Afghan
intelligence official said.
"We can't wait longer
than one or two days, otherwise of course we will attack them," Nasratullah
Nasrat, a Kandahar intelligence official, told AFP by telephone.
Karzai said he was being kept
abreast of the discussions in Helmand province and denied reports Omar had
already been arrested.
The moves to bring a swift
end to the fighting in the south of the country came as officials in Kabul
signed a formal agreement on the British-led International Security and
Assistance Force (ISAF) which is deploying in and around the capital.
The deal on the force, which
had previously been initialed, was formally signed by Afghan Interior Minister
Yunis Qanooni and ISAF commander Major-General John McColl.
The international
peacekeeping force, which is expected to number 4,500, will be led by Britain
for the first three months of its six-month deployment, after which Turkey is
widely expected to take command.
An advance party comprising
British and French troops and 24 reconnaissance officers from 12 countries have
already arrived in Afghanistan and are preparing five bases for the remainder of
the troops, the bulk of whom are to arrive in the middle of the month.
McColl told reporters
afterwards the six-month mission of the U.N.-mandated force could be extended.
"It may well be that at
the end of six months, with the agreement of the interim administration and the
international community, the mission may be extended," said McColl, who
heads the ISAF.
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