Bin Laden, Mullah Omar Still Alive

ISLAMABAD, Tuesday - An unbowed Taliban ambassador said on Tuesday his supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden were both alive and the hardline organisation expected a long war with the United States. Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef told a news conference the civilian death toll from U.S. attacks on Afghanistan had passed 1,000 and accused the United States of terrorism, repeating the Taliban charges that Washington has turned to chemical weapons. The United States, which maintains it is targeting only military sites to minimise civilian casualties, has flatly denied any use of chemical weapons and said the Taliban casualty figures were wildly inflated. The United States has vowed to punish the Taliban for protecting bin Laden, who is the chief suspect in the September 11 attacks on Washington and New York. Asked at the news conference if bin Laden and Mullah Omar were both all right despite the round-the-clock U.S. bombing, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan replied simply: “Yes”. Zaeef said Taliban morale was high and they were prepared for a long struggle. He said the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance forces outside the key northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif were not in a position to attack. “It is a long war and we don’t use our ammunition uselessly,” Zaeef said when asked about the low level of Taliban anti-aircraft resistance to the continuing U.S. air assaults across Afghanistan. But Zaeef dismissed reports that the Taliban were depending on large numbers of Arabs and other foreign Islamic militants to strengthen their lines. “There is not a great number of foreign mujahideen in Afghanistan and we have not invited anyone to come to Afghanistan for jihad (holy war),” Zaeef said. “Maybe some people have gone but it is not a great number of people.” Zaeef did not repeat the allegation first made on Monday that U.S. or British planes had hit a hospital in the western city of Herat, killing at least 100 people. But at another press conference in Islamabad, the United Nations said it had learnt that a military hospital had been destroyed in Herat. It had no information on casualties. And in Washington on Tuesday, the Pentagon said it had received information indicating U.S. warplanes might have accidentally bombed a home for senior citizens near Herat. Previously, the United States has said it could find nothing to substantiate the Taliban allegation. At his press conference, Zaeef did repeat that the United States was using chemical weapons, a charge Washington denied immediately after it was made on Monday. “I don’t have all the details, but according to the information that reached there, (among) those who were taken to the hospitals and those who were injured in the air attacks there were symptoms of chemicals on their bodies,” Zaeef said. He accused the US, which is attacking Afghanistan under its war on terrorism, of itself terrorising civilians. “The Bush administration verbally condemns terrorism but practically commits terrorism in Afghanistan,” he said in a formal statement. “Every day civilians fall victim to American air raids.” He also said the Taliban were falling victim to a conspiracy in which India and Russia were backing the Northern Alliance. “However, in this conspiratorial vortex by devilish powers, the Afghan Muslim people are determined to defend their independence and faith.” Ends