M A I N   N E W S

US bombs kill 30 in Afghan village

Islamabad, November 18
At least 30 persons were killed in US-led bombing of a village today in an eastern Afghan province under the rule of local mujahideen commanders, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said.

US planes bombed the village of Shamshad in Nangarhar province near the Pakistani border, AIP quoted Qari Abdul Salam, in charge of the new provincial administration, as saying. Most casualties occurred in a second wave of bombing, after people from a nearby village had come to help those injured in the first raid. Most of the casualties were young men.

The report could not immediately be independently verified.

KABUL: The anti-Taliban Northern Alliance said today it saw no need for additional foreign troops in Afghanistan, as tensions simmered over Britain’s deployment of 100 Royal Marines north of Kabul.

“We do not expect any more foreign troops. We see no need for that,” the Alliance’s acting interior minister Younis Qanooni told AFP.

Around 100 Royal Marine commandos flew into the Bagram airbase on Thursday to pave the way for several thousand more troops to be sent to Afghanistan to help safeguard aid supplies.

LONDON: Osama bin Laden’s elite Al-Qaida guard have slaughtered Taliban troops to prevent them surrendering to the Northern Alliance army besieging their northern stronghold of Kunduz, a British daily reported today.

Civilians escaping the city told the Sunday Telegraph that a foreign Al-Qaida commander had ordered the massacre of 150 Afghan Taliban who wanted to defect. Agencies