Afghanistan, Washington | Friday
AT least 160 bodies have been recovered from a village in eastern Afghanistan that was bombed by US planes, the Taliban said on Friday.
”So far 160 bodies have been recovered, mostly women and children,” a representative for Afghanistan’s ruling militia told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press.
”This is not an exaggeration. More bodies are still being recovered.
”There are government relief teams are in the area and local people are involved in the rescue operation.”
Taliban officials more than 300 civilians had been killed since the strikes began on Sunday. It was not possible to check the Taliban claims as journalists’ movements are restricted.
Taliban officials said on Thursday that they feared more than 200 people had been killed when a bomb struck the village of Kadam in what was apparently an attack aimed at a training camp for militants loyal to Osama bin Laden in the area.
The village lies about 40 kilometres west of Jalalabad, which has been the target of repeated US attacks since the air strikes were launched on Sunday. Meanwhile, president George W Bush gave the Taliban regime a ”second chance” on Thursday, offering to call off airstrikes if Kabul surrendered terror suspect Osama bin Laden immediately.
Bush’s offer, made exactly a month after the devastating terror strikes on the United States, came as US officials warned new terrorist attacks could be days away and US warplanes pounded Afghanistan for a fifth day running.
In his first full-dress news conference since the September 11 disaster, Bush said his drive to bring bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network to justice ”will last as long as it takes” even if it goes on for ”a year or two.”
Bush has vowed to punish the Taliban severely for protecting bin Laden and al-Qaeda, blamed for the strikes that left more than 5 500 people dead or missing in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
But on Thursday he told the Islamic regime: ”If you cough him up and his people today … we will reconsider what we’re doing to your country. You still have a second chance.”
Bush said the Afghan operation was going according to plan. ”We have ruined terrorist training camps, disrupted their communications, weakened the Taliban military and destroyed most of their air defences,” he said.
”We’re mounting a sustained campaign to drive the terrorists out of their hidden caves and to bring them to justice.”
The prediction a terrorist attack on the United States may be imminent was made in a Federal Bureau of Investigation statement similar to the one issued last Sunday when the airstrikes were launched against Afghanistan.
”Certain information, while not specific as to target, gives the government reason to believe that there may be additional terrorist attacks within the United States and against US interests overseas over the next several days,” the statement said.
Law enforcement agencies across the country have been placed on the highest state of alert, the FBI said. It called on Americans ”to immediately notify the FBI and local law enforcement of any unusual or suspicious activity.”
Bush confirmed officials had received a ”general” threat, with no indication of a specific building, facility or city. ”While the threat is ongoing, we are taking every possible step to protect our country from danger,” he said.
In the meantime, US jets hammered at Afghanistan, roaring in over the Afghan capital of Kabul amid heavy anti-aircraft fire. The also hit the Taliban’s southern stronghold of Kandahar in a rolling series of day and night raids.
Witnesses said the overnight bombing of Kabul and Kandahar was the most intense of the five-day campaign. But the Taliban said their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and bin Laden survived.
US warplanes shifted their sights to military garrisons and troop concentrations, softening up Taliban resistance with heavy bombing, officials said, in what could be a prelude to the use of elite special forces.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld dismissed claims by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers that Washington was deliberately going after non-military targets.
He said civilian casualties were regrettable but inevitable in any conflict, adding that US precision bombs being used in Afghanistan were very good could not be ”100%.”
”There is no question that I and anyone else involved regrets this unintentional loss of life.” – Sapa-AFP