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Taliban claims to hold Americans

Taliban militiamen posted at the Afghan Red Crescent Society check buildings and homes hit by an American missile in Kandhar yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers said yesterday they have arrested several US citizens but the announcement shed no light on who they were or what they were doing.

"We have a few American citizens with us. They have been arrested," Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef said.

"Their identities are not known so far. The investigation is going on," he told a news conference in Islamabad.

In Kabul, the hardline Muslim militia said they repulsed the first joint air and ground attack by US and opposition forces in the north but lost a hydropower plant to US bombing in the south.

The air raids blacked out Afghanistan's second city, Kandahar, which is the powerbase of Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

The envoy, the isolated Taliban's sole foreign ambassador, said he had no information on how or when the US citizens were detained.

The US has been bombing Afghanistan since Oct. 7 in retaliation for attacks on New York and Washington blamed on Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be sheltering in the Muslim fundamentalist-ruled country.

Two Afghans display shrapnel from an exploded bomb dropped by US warplanes in Kandahar, yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Some media reported that Americans had been captured when Afghan mujahidin commander Abdul Haq, who crossed secretly into Afghanistan to raise a rebellion, was seized by Taliban forces and summarily executed last week.

There was no independent confirmation of these reports. Haq, a Pashtun warlord and veteran anti-Soviet guerrilla, called on his satellite phone for US air support when he was cornered.

The Taliban said on Saturday they were searching for a man believed to be an American, who had been travelling with Haq.

"He was spotted with Abdul Haq and as far as we know his name is Jamber Jihi," Information Ministry spokesman Abdul Hanan Himat told reporters last week.

In Kabul, a Taliban Information Ministry official said the Northern Alliance opposition launched three attacks with US air cover overnight, but they were repulsed.

Senior opposition leaders could not be reached for comment. One alliance source said an attack had taken place but a spokesman sought to play down its importance.

"I reject the [reports of the] launch of our infantry attack. We will stage it within two or three days," Mohammad Ashraf Nadeem said by telephone from the front. "Last night it was only an exchange of artillery and heavy fire."

But the Taliban were proclaiming a victory.

"Last night the opposition staged three massive offensives on Bazari Baluch around Dara-i-Suf in coordination with US bombing," Taliban Information Ministry official Qari Fazil Rabi said.

"They achieved nothing and there is no change in our positions," he said.

Rabi said the joint attack was the first since the start of the US military campaign 26 days ago.

The opposition in Dara-i-Suf in the Samangan province is led by ethnic Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who wants to recapture the strategic northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif that was his stronghold until a Taliban victory in 1997.

Rabi said the Northern Alliance left casualties on the battlefield, but was unable to give details.

Such battlefield reports from remote areas of war-ravaged Afghanistan cannot be easily verified.

There were no reports of overnight bombings in Kabul or along the Taliban front lines north of the capital that were carpet-bombed for the first time on Wednesday by a giant B-52 bomber.
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