US disputes Taliban claim of 600 killed in attacks
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has dismissed Taliban claims that more than 600 people had been killed in the US-led air assault as false and self-serving.
Taliban spokesman Abel-Hai Motmain told Qatar-based Al-Jazeera satellite channel yesterday that the ‘‘wounded were in the thousands’’. Al-Jazeera, widely watched in the Middle East, said Motmain was interviewed via videophone from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.
‘‘The attacks resulted in the killings of between 600 and 900 persons and those under the rubble are considered dead. The wounded are in the thousands,’’ Motmain said.
Rumsfeld said the United States had little hard information from the ground in Afghanistan but strongly disputed the Taliban claim.
‘‘The numbers the Taliban has been floating out in the media are, we are certain, false,’’ Rumsfeld said.
‘‘We’ve got practically no hard information from the ground because we’ve been using the weapons in areas that are not controlled by friends. Therefore, the information from the ground tends to be self-serving,’’ the Defence Secretary said at a Pentagon briefing.
The United States has expressed regret for civilian casualties, insisting that US forces are targeting only Osama bin Laden and his Taliban allies. Washington holds bin Laden and his al Qaida terrorist network responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States.
The Taliban is being targeted for harbouring bin Laden and al Qaida.
