Posted on: Friday, October 12, 2001
The September 11th attack
Taliban claims U.S. air strikes killed 200
By Kathy Gannon and Amir Shah
Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban today claimed that at least 200 people had been killed two days earlier in an airstrike on a village outside the eastern city of Jalalabad. It was the largest casualty claim to date by Afghanistan's ruling Islamic militia, and could not immediately be independently verified.
As the campaign of U.S.-led airstrikes moved into its sixth day, angry demonstrations broke out in neighboring Pakistan on the first Muslim Sabbath since the start of the air assault. In Kabul, the Afghan capital, the preacher at a central mosque prayed that the United States would suffer the same fate as Afghanistan.
The air campaign was launched after the Taliban repeatedly refused to hand over Osama bin Laden, chief suspect in the terror strikes a month ago on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The report of the airstrike on the Afghan village of Karam came from Zadra Azam, the deputy governor of Taliban-controlled Nangarhar province.
"We're still digging bodies out of the rubble," Azam said, adding that villagers from nearby had rushed to help with the rescue and recovery effort.
The village is very close to the town of Darunta, about 80 miles east of the capital, Kabul, in an area where Osama bin Laden is believed to train fighters for his Al-Qaida network.
In addition, the Taliban's official news agency said at least 10 people were killed and several homes were destroyed in Argandab, north of the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. Bombs also destroyed homes in Karaga, north of Kabul, the news agency said.
The United States has said repeatedly that the raids are not targeting civilians. There was no immediate Pentagon comment on the Taliban claim, but military officials have noted they do not intend to comment on every such report.
Casualty claims are almost impossible to verify because foreign journalists, like other non-Afghans, are barred from entering Afghanistan.
At the Pakistani border, panicky arriving Afghan refugees reported fleeing airstrikes that hit close to populated areas.
"I have never seen such a sight. Bombs were dropping in and around the village, and there was fire and smoke everywhere," said Agha Jan Agha, a farmer from Kalamtar, near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar. "I grabbed my family and some clothes — we must have walked about 10 kilometers (six miles) in the night before we found a car that would bring us to the border."
The first of what was expected to be a day of anti-U.S. unrest erupted in Pakistan's port city of Karachi, where hundreds of demonstrators stoned police, torched cars and burned down a KFC, a restaurant licensed by the American fast-food chain.
Spurred by protest calls from leaders of Muslim extremist Pakistani parties, demonstrators took to the streets elsewhere in Pakistan as well. Today is the main prayer day of the Muslim week, and this Friday was the first since the start of the air assaults.
In Kabul, worshippers at the central Haji Yaqoub mosque heard fiery calls of revenge from the imam, or preacher.
"Cruel America has killed scores of our people. God must destroy those who are committing atrocities against us," he told several hundred worshippers. "We pray to God that the United States should meet a fate similar to that we are suffering."
Earlier today, Kabul was hit by a pre-dawn strike in which U.S. jets dropped three bombs in rapid succession. Within 20 minutes another jet streaked in high, dropping two more bombs.
These fell north of the capital, in the vicinity of the front line where Taliban soldierline where Taliban soldiers face off against troops of an opposition military alliance.
The ground trembled and windows rattled in Kabul from the force of the impact.
Late yesterday, a huge fireball lit up the sky over the eastern part of the city in the direction of a training base of bin Laden's al-Qaida terror network. Huge detonations could be heard from miles away.
Pakistani officials have acknowledged that U.S. planes and personnel are on the ground as part of the American-led campaign against the Taliban and bin Laden, and say the United States had been granted use of two key bases.
But the air campaign is so controversial in Muslim Pakistan that the government publicly denied there were any American military personnel in the country.
Pakistani officials who confirmed the American presence were careful not to categorize them as military personnel, and Pakistan stressed that its territory would not be a staging ground for military strikes against neighboring Afghanistan.
Even so, assistance to the United States has stirred up a backlash against Gen. Pervez Musharraf from militant Muslim parties. A spokesman for Musharraf said Friday that the government was determined to keep order.
"There are only a few extremist elements who tried to disrupt law and order, but we have given instructions to the law-enforcement agencies not to allow anybody to take law in their hands," said the president's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Rashid Quereshi.
In Peshawar, armored personnel carriers were parked at key intersections and barbed wire cordoned off an ancient mosque in the old city that has been a focal point for demonstrations in past weeks.
More than 1,000 heavily armed police and paramilitary troops backed by tanks and armored personnel carriers enforced an uneasy calm in Quetta, where pro-Taliban sentiment runs high.
Border tensions grew as well. Near the Pakistani town of Chaman, border militia dug trenches along the frontier with Afghanistan on Friday and set up new lines of barbed wire.
More than 15 U.S. military aircraft, including C-130 transport planes, arrived over the past two days at a Pakistani base at Jacobabad, 300 miles northeast of Karachi and about 150 miles from the Afghan border, said Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity.
