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Pakistani fighters said abandoned, then massacred

Hundreds of pro-Taliban Pakistani fighters appear to have been systematically massacred in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif after being callously abandoned by retreating Taliban fighters, sources suggested Monday night.

The Taliban soldiers fled from Mazar five days ago but failed to inform a contingent of up to 1,200 Pakistani mujahidins (jihadis) that they were leaving. Opposition troops trapped the Pakistanis in a school on the outskirts of the city and then shot up to 200 of them, a commander confirmed Monday.

"We gave them warnings to surrender," Mohammed Muhahiq, a spokesman for the opposition Shia militia, Hizb-i-Wahdat, said. "They asked us to send representatives over several times, but unfortunately they shot them. Finally we gave the order to attack them. Some 200 of them [Pakistanis] have been killed."

It was not clear last night whether the Pakistani volunteers, many of whom had only just arrived in Afghanistan, were killed in battle or executed after surrendering. The Pakistanis, trapped in Sultan Reza school, continued to resist for at least 48 hours after Mazar fell, sources suggested.

"There are unconfirmed reports of incidents of violence and summary executions," Stephanie Bunker, the UN's spokeswoman in Islamabad, said last night.

Reports of a possible massacre by the Northern Alliance, who were last night closing in on Kabul, will alarm the international coalition, which fears further reprisals if opposition troops seize the Afghan capital. President Bush has asked the opposition to hold off from taking Kabul until a broad-based government is ready to assume power. But his strategy looks as if it will be swept away by events.

The UN confirmed that armed gangs in Mazar-i-Sharif looted UN and aid agency offices and raided food warehouses.
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