Opposition demands Afghan massacre probe

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 8 (AFP) - The Afghan opposition called for a UN fact-finding mission to probe a massacre of 600 civilians in northeastern Afghanistan, in a letter to the UN chief released here Thursday. The letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and to the UN Security Council president, from Afghan deputy foreign minister A. Abdullah, detailed the ousted government's charges that 600 civilians had been killed by the Taliban last week. The "indiscriminate massacres" of villagers by retreating Taliban militia troops in Faryab province took place on January 1 and 2, Abdullah said. "Eyewitness reports from the province further unveil mass burials of civilian populations of the areas where the Taliban occupying mercenary forces have for weeks now been trying to crush a popular resistance movement," he said. He added that the killings had forced an exodus of up to 20,000 civilians in "bone-chilling winter." Abdullah called for a UN fact-finding mission to be set up "promptly." He also urged the Taliban "to turn those responsible in to the United Nations." A senior Taliban official in Kabul on Thursday denied the allegations that the Islamic militias were to blame. "If this massacre took place it was the work of (opposition warlord Abdul Rashid) Dostam, and the accusation is just propaganda to hide their own atrocities," Minister of Health Mullah Abbas asserted. No independent confirmation of the massacre allegation was immediately available, and aid workers operating close to the area said they had received no reports of the deaths. The Taliban control around two thirds of Afghanistan including the capital Kabul, and have vowed to impose a pure Islamic state and their strict interpretation of Shariat law. The United Nations continues to recognise the ousted government of president Burhanuddin Rabbani. Western diplomats who attended a Security Council briefing on Thursday by Annan's special representative for Afghanistan, Algerian diplomat Lakhar Brahimi, said that he described peace prospects for Afghanistan as bleak.