A mass grave of people believed to have been executed by Afghanistan's Taliban militia has been discovered near Herat in western Afghanistan, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported Friday.
These people were "either shot or dumped" into a small swimming pool behind a school at Shindand airbase near Herat, a BBC correspondent reported from the town bordering Iran. The news bulletin was monitored in Islamabad.
The bodies had their hands tied suggesting they were executed and had not died in a combat, the report noted.
When asked who could be behind the executions, he replied "there is no question, the Taliban."
Meanwhile, opposition Northern Alliance forces resumed pounding of the Taliban-held city of Kunduz in northern Afghanistan on Friday after US warplanes bombed Taliban positions overnight, the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) agency reported.
The report said Alliance forces launched attacks on the last stronghold of the Taliban in northern Afghanistan on Thursday amid claims by a member of the Alliance, General Rashid Dostum, that the Taliban had agreed to surrender the city.
Intense fighting was raging on the Khan Aabad, Pul-e-Bangi and Dasht-e-Archi fronts, the Pakistan-based news agency said.
Dostum was quoted by CNN as saying that he planned to lead a 5,000-men force to Kunduz yesterday to oversee the surrender set down for today.
Taliban sources said that a Taliban team held "promising" talks with Dostum in his stronghold of Mazar-e-Sharif but other elements in the Northern Alliance went on the offensive before the final outcome of the talks.
Also on Friday, the Taliban militia denied reports its reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar had gone into hiding and appointed a successor, AIP reported.
"This is wrong and baseless. Mullah Omar is still in Kandahar," Taliban spokesman Mohammad Tayyab Agha said.
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