Omar Samad,Afghan foreign ministry spokesman
The deaths of 52 civilians reportedly killed by US bombs in an eastern Afghan province were unfortunate by-products of war, a senior Afghan foreign ministry spokesman said today.
The United Nations said earlier this week that it had received unconfirmed reports that 52 civilians died during a US air raid on a village on 29 December. The UN spokeswoman in Kabul said that the village of 252 people had been hit by three separate attacks. She said that ten women and 25 children were among the dead.
However, Omar Samad, the Afghan foreign ministry spokesman, said that the attacks had apparently killed many Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters as well.
Meanwhile, an Afghan official has said that Afghan authorities know where Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has fled to. The official said that the authorities were confident he would not escape again after evading Afghan forces in Helmand province.
The Taliban leader had been surrounded by anti-Taliban forces in the province. A number of his supporters did surrender but the whereabouts of Mullah Omar is unknown.
In a separate development, a United States official said that the American military in Afghanistan had taken control of the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef.
The official said Mr Zaeef, who was deported by Pakistan to Afghanistan, had become the most senior official of the vanquished Taliban movement now among over 300 Taliban and Al-Qaeda "detainees" being held by the American military.
The bespectacled 34-year-old ethnic Pashtun became known as the Taliban's principle voice to the outside world following the 11 September attacks on America.
