- ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - At
least 40 people were killed when U.S. jets bombed Afghanistan's eastern
Paktika province, sources in Pakistan's border tribal rim said on
Thursday.
-
- "The attack took place when the people were
asleep,"
said one source quoting witnesses from Naka village, which was among those
reportedly hit.
-
- At least five houses were destroyed in the bombardment,
including the house of one commander in the vanquished fundamentalist
Taliban,
Maulvi Taha, the private Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP).
-
- Witnesses said he was not in the house at the time and
was unharmed, AIP said.
-
- The source in the Waziristan tribal agency on the border
with Paktika said 40 people were killed, up to 60 wounded and 25 houses
destroyed in the raid.
-
- AIP put the death toll at 25 with four wounded and quoted
witnesses as saying the bombing was so severe that it was difficult to
identify some of the dead.
-
- The villagers said they did not understand why they had
been bombed, saying that no members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda militant
network were in the area.
-
- "Neither Osama nor any other foreigner is in our
village," the source quoted one villager as saying.
-
- The villagers said they supported the new U.N.-sponsored
interim government in Afghanistan, the source said.
-
- The report of the attack comes a week after U.S. planes
hit a convoy that Washington insists was carrying al Qaeda leaders and
their Taliban protectors in neighboring Paktia province.
-
- Local residents and survivors said the convoy was en
route to the inauguration of the new interim government of Hamid Karzai
at the weekend in Kabul when it came under attack. About 65 people were
killed.
-
- Abdul Hakim Munib, a local elder, on Thursday said Karzai
had promised he would ask the United States to halt aerial attacks on
Paktia.
He said Karzai had also appointed a team to investigate the
incident.
-
- U.S. officials have insisted the convoy had opened fire
on U.S. aircraft just before it was bombed and had been carrying leaders
of al Qaeda and the Taliban.
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